This week in the American Experience class I have been going to, the students have been learning about puritans in the history portion of the class. In the English half Ms.Usenia has been having the students compare actual puritan life to the Disney version of Pocahontas. It was interesting to see which students were really into the lesson. She started off with a lesson that had the students comparing portraits of the actual John Smith and Pocahontas with the Disney version of both characters. Many of the students that do not always seem so engaged were fully participating in this worksheet. I noticed that one of the boys, who never seems interested in class, took out an extra sheet of paper because he didn't have room to write his full answers on the paper we had given.
The students were making connections between the actual portraits and things they had learned in history about the puritans ( which is another reason I love the American Experience class). They were also bringing up things we had talked about the previous week regarding Christopher Columbus being a hero or villain and how that applied to John Smith.
On Friday the students viewed the Disney movie Pocahontas. Every twenty minutes or so Ms.Usenia would stop the movie and ask the students questions regarding the historical accuracy and why Disney may have decided to change it. Ms.Usenia had also given the students handouts to fill out while watching the film. I found that even though many of the students had said they had scene the movie they were engaged. They were watching it from a new perspective. Pausing the movie periodically gave them the opportunity to catch up with writing and to talk about the effect of certain scenes. I think because they had never watched the movie and thought about the historical accuracy or the effects of not having an accurately told story geared toward children, the students wanted to share thoughts with the class.
We are going to also be watching Pocahontas 2 next week because according to Disney this newer version is historically accurate. I am interested to see what the students have to say about the next movie because they were able to point out so many inaccuracies within the first movie.
Kaitlin, I like your description of what is going on here, and your analysis of student engagement. This class is using critical analysis of media to lead to historical analysis, which is very cool. What do you see as your role here? Is student engagement usually an issue?
ReplyDeleteKaitlin, this sounds like an engaging class that is scaffolding towards historical analysis through the movie Pocahontas. I wonder why your CT chose this route oppossed to a different one. I think that using media through this movie is a great way to engage students, since they could find enjoyment in watching the movie yet discover and uncover historical elements with the guidance of the teacher. Approaching historical analysis through a popular childhood movie is a great way to gain students attention from the start(to serve as that "hook"), and to make sure that they do not immediately shut down for the remainder of the lesson.
ReplyDeleteAmerican Experience- that's social studies and English together, right? Such an interesting combination, but it seems to be super effective. Lends itself perfectly to critical lenses!
ReplyDeleteHow does that work? Is it an elective type of thing?
Will you be expanding on Pocahontas too?