Learning to look: A case for cineliteracy in the classroom

~ Dr Pritha Chakrabarti

Some of the most joyous moments of my school life were those rare days when the
class was huddled into the school parlour (a room attached to the principal’s office for
receiving guests) for a screening. The musty red carpet, the pitch-dark curtains, and
the giant old television—it meant looking forward to a couple of hours of silence from
the children for our teachers as we sat engrossed watching BBC productions of
literary texts taught in class. From Pride and Prejudice to Oliver Twist, from Julius
Caesar to Macbeth, the texts magically came alive on screen, revealing new ways of
looking at them. We have come a long way from those days of rented VCR to
classrooms dominated by audiovisual content, where parents and teachers are
constantly being challenged to try to control children’s “screentime”. Meanwhile,
policy-level focus on use of ICT has increased pressure of using more and more
audiovisual content in the classroom as teachers struggle to find suitable teaching-
learning materials to support their syllabus content. On the other hand, the pandemic
driven world has further seen a deep dive into the digital space, even among primary
school children, raising concerns about “digital fatigue”. As the little rectangle of our
smart phones capture and captivate the attention of our children more and more, the
collective sigh about the “end of reading” gets stronger by the day in the teachers’
community and beyond. The shift from the written text to the audiovisual has not been
easy to accept, as teachers in schools across the country, with little infrastructural
support, struggle to keep up with the changing technology. But what has been even
more of a challenge, is our mindset that audio-visual materials can be “fun

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interruptions” or at best supporting materials but could never be an alternative to
traditional reading and writing.
Now what if I told you that a film can be taught as a text in itself? That it has the
potential to be unpacked and read closely, the same way you would treat a written
text? That it has its own layers of meaning, its own grammar, and its own function in
society the same way a literary text does? You probably know that already, but we
have always assumed that it is something to be taught in colleges and universities.
What if I said that they are meant as much for school children in the preparatory or
middle level? That films would not be ‘enjoyment’ at best and ‘distraction’ at its
worst. A leading literacy teacher from Peterborough responded to a film literacy
campaign run by the British Film Institute as follows:
I found that the children were motivated, engaged and exceedingly attentive
right from the beginning. Their descriptive, inferential and predictive skills
were extended, and they found that they were better at this than they thought
because this form of media was familiar to them. The biggest difference in
participation and quality of work was from the boys who are not usually
enthused by literacy. By the end of the two weeks, the children had extended
their vocabulary and were able to write for a variety of purposes and in
different styles with greater confidence. (Reframing Literacy, 3)
In other words, as a medium that children are more “familiar” to, films have already
captured their attention well enough to help them learn better. Beyond the expected
language learning that films have been aiding in ESL classrooms, there are three
specific skills sets that the instructor mentions: descriptive, inferential and predictive.
We can see exactly how films can help improve these skills with concrete examples in
the supporting lesson plan, but before that let us take a quick look into the potential
that film holds in preparatory and middle level classrooms.
Let us begin by challenging the binary between a film text and written texts,
where it is assumed that the first can be easily glossed over while the latter
automatically involves deeper reading. In an article examining the way our brain
function is changing in the digital age, Nicholas Carr observes:
Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My
mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument,
and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s
rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after
two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for
something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain
back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has
become a struggle.”

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If this is a ‘struggle’ for Carr, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, imagine the ordeal faced
by our school children, especially when their formative years are largely spent
immersed in smart phones and videos! This is probably where the function of Same
Language Subtitling (SLS) comes in, which has now, through multiple pilot projects
undertaken by different governmental and non-governmental organizations across the
country, proven highly effective in improving grassroot level literacy. Following the
words being spoken on screen simultaneously in writing has been comparatively much
easier than reading a standalone written text, especially when combined with
culturally familiar audio-visual content like Bollywood movies and TV serials. This
could be thought of as an extension to the traditional Reading-Listening model of
language learning, where the elements of reading and listening are combined to aid the
learning process, albeit through culturally familiar materials.
But can we think about using film text as something more than a supporting text or a
language learning tool? To go back to the literacy teacher from Peterborough and her
experience in the class, how does one use films to inculcate ‘descriptive,’ ‘inferential’
and ‘predictive’ skills in children? How can films be used to develop creative and
critical thinking in school children? I would claim that developing film literacy as part
of our primary school curriculum can aid in making our children language literate,
culturally conscious, critically aware, and creatively oriented all at the same time.
Screen a film with suitable content for a five-year old child and pause a frame. Ask
them to describe what they see in the frame, and you will be struck by the
observational and descriptive skills that they display. Zoom into the face of a
particular character and ask them to infer what the character might be feeling, and you
will be surprised to see the empathy a child displays. Ask them to imagine what is
happening outside of the frame, to what the character inside the frame is responding,
and you will have the children bringing a wealth of perspectives to the table! Pause a
film and ask the children to guess what happens next and their predictive skills will
leave you spellbound. You may have to aid them over time with some basic
vocabulary related to cinema like shots, angles, genre, lighting, etc., and you will see
how the children adapt to their familiar world of moving images in a brand-new way.
Exposing them to a range of film texts from across the world would also make them
culturally aware as you open discussions about why a character acts, dresses, or eats in
a certain way in one film text vis a vis another. Bringing their attention to how a low
angle shot makes a character appear bigger and often scarier will help them
understand how images can be read closely to create new meaning. Playing a film
without sound or playing a soundtrack without images will help students understand
the function that sound plays in a film and in their lives too, making them appreciative
of their gift of hearing as well as empathetic to those who don’t have it. In other
words, making them better human beings. As they grow older, many of them will
process this knowledge to create their own audiovisual content, since access to
technology is becoming increasingly easy, thereby churning out filmmakers of
tomorrow.

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At a time when videos are the first gateways for our children to the outside world,
when “Wheel on the Bus” replaces grandparents’ tales in an increasingly alienated
world, it is easy to sit and lament about the good old days. Or alternatively, we can use
this to our advantage through a properly developed visual arts curriculum right from
the primary school level. We tend to underestimate the power of a child’s imagination,
or their ability to understand characters, stories, and genre. Even before a child learns
to read a text, the first thing they learn to read is the expression on their parents’
faces—if they are angry, sad, or happy. They learn to anticipate how their parents or
those around them will react to their actions, and they know how to describe and
express their emotions to them, whether it is one of hunger or anger. It is only as they
grow older that they forget some of these key skills. Learning to watch a film closely
can help them hold on to these life skills as they learn to describe, express, infer and
predict the stories of the characters. In the process, they might also realize that their
life is a story, and it is up to them to emerge as an interesting character in it.
Here are some useful links that will help you start off in your journey to teaching
films:
Look Again!
Teaching Using Films: Statistical Evidence
Screening Literacy
Framework for Film Education
Opening Our Eyes
Reframing Literacy

Pritha Chakrabarti is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Media and

Communication, Dr Vishwanath Karad MIT World Peace University, Pune. Prior to
this, she has taught courses in writing, research methods, literature, culture and
communication, journalism and film studies at the Centre for Writing & Pedagogy,
Krea University, and various institutes of Symbiosis International. She has also
conducted several workshops on academic writing for students and teachers at
school, college and universities across the country. Her current research interest lies
in the study of films, digital media, and critical pedagogy.

Are you already using similar approaches in your

classroom? What kind of interactions do you include?
Tell us some of the roadblocks that you face in
implementing them. Write to us at
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