Course Syllabus

Cinema History
Course Guidelines – Quarter Three – 2009-10

In this course, participants will explore, analyze, and discuss film history, movie technology, and the cultural context of cinema by the decades from the late 1800s to WWII. As a group, we will travel through moving picture history to get brief glimpses into the development of this popular media form. This class is not intended to cover all cinema history in depth. It is a survey and discovery class intended to allow students and staff to find areas of interest in film which may lead to further application and research outside of the course.

Course Goals:
• Students will increase their understanding of the cinema industry’s contributions to cultural history in the United States.
• Student will increase their understanding of visual texts in areas of persuasion, metaphorical imagery, and the connection of text to historical and social context.
• Students will increase research, discussion, and writing skills.
• Students will increase academic organization and study skills.

Assessment:
To earn credit in the course, students must:

1. maintain a positive attendance record in the class;

2. pro-actively participate in class discussions on a consistent basis;

Attendance and Participation Check-ins will be completed on a regular basis.

3. respect the film viewing process; (Students discovered sleeping, talking, listening to music, or playing with phone or game devices during film viewing will automatically be marked absent for the class period. Consider this your warning!)

4. complete short assignments in a timely manner according to established guidelines; (Short assignments may take the form of notetaking, short jigsawed reading and sharing sessions, journal entries, discussion questions, observation cards, online resource exploration notes, etc.)

5. complete an independent research project and presentation on a chosen aspect of film history in a timely manner according to established guidelines. (Full Project guidelines will be distributed by Week 4 of the quarter.) Student should expect to do research project homework.

6. follow guidelines for academic integrity. All resources used for research projects or other assignments must be clearly cited and credited. (See note below on plagiarism.)

Plagiarism:
• When a student uses information (words, paper organization, and/or central ideas) from another source without proper citation it is called plagiarism. “You are therefore cautioned (1) against using, word for word, without acknowledgment, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, etc., from the printed [or online material] of others; (2) against using with only slight changes the materials of another; and (3) against using the general plan, the main headings, or a rewritten form of someone else's material. These cautions apply to the work of other students as well as to the published work of professional writers [either in print or online].” If it is discovered that students “borrow” text from other book reviews, essays, papers, or classmates, it will be considered direct plagiarism and intellectual theft. Such action is in violation of the MMSD Student Code of Conduct and basic guidelines of this course. Students who choose to take such inappropriate action will be required to conference with Denise (and possibly with Aric and parents) and may receive a No Credit grade/evaluation in the course. Policy Source: Weiser, Irwin. “Academic Honesty Statement.” Purdue OWL: Avoiding Plagiarism. Online. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource

Course Organization:

Week One: Pre-10s -- Intro to Class; Scorsese’s Film Retrospective; Historical Outline; Birth of the Industry

Week Two: 1910s -- Early Film Technology; Edison, Lumiere, Melies, Porter, various clips

Week Three: 1920s -- New Technologies; The Silent Film Era; 1920s Historical Context;
Murnau’s Nosferatu, Chaplin’s The Kid, Frank Lloyd’s The Freshman

Week Four: 1920s -- Project Brainstorming; Lang's Metropolis; Sound and Color; Development of the Industry

Week Five: 1930s – Project Questions Due, 1920s/30s Culture Activity, Parent Confs., SWEIO

Week Six: 1930s – Hollywood & the Production Code, Capra film (TBA), Academy Awards, Project Resource #1 due

Week Seven: early 1940s -- World Context and Influence on Style, Academy Awards, Wells’s Citizen Kane, Project Resource #2 due

Week Eight: Project Work (Resources 3&4 + Outline + Final Product) and Presentations

Week Nine: Finish Presentations, Evals, Course Closure

Basic Class Stuff
Work Completion:
• Students must complete ALL assignments within the task guidelines to earn credit, unless otherwise noted by Denise. Due dates are firm in this class. If a grace period is needed, a student must confer with Denise before the due date to work out a strategic plan for assignment completion. Due date extension agreements are made on a case by case basis. (Students with documented special education writing concerns must have a dialogue with Denise about those concerns in the first week of the course. Permission for extensions must be in line with a student’s IEP.)

Attendance Requirements:
• It is each student’s responsibility to ask for any assignments or responsibilities missed due to absences. Please do this on the day you return to class.

• The Shabazz attendance policy will be strictly enforced in all classes. Remember that all tardies are accounted for (3 tardies = 1 absence). Students arriving more than 15 minutes late will be marked absent. Students accruing more than 6 absences will no longer be eligible for credit in the class. Because this course is discussion, participation, and limited-film-viewing-based, DELAYED CREDIT IS NOT POSSIBLE.

COMING SOON . . .

New course guidelines and expectations for the Cinema History class to be offered Q3 -- 5th hour.

Course Closure

Thank you to all participants of this class. It has been a fun quarter. Although we only got through the 1950s with our exploration of cinema history, I believed we learned a tremendous amount about culture, socio-political influences on the media, and movie technology. Next year, I will split the course into two quarters (birth - 1950s & 1950s-today). That shift should allow for a slower pace in viewing, analysis, and research for individual curiosity projects.

Snaps to all who presented their final projects this week. I enjoyed them and learned quite a bit from them, as well.

Final Project Deadline Changes

Due to limitations in resources available to students, I will be extending the due date of the projects to the last Monday of the quarter -- Monday, March 23.

You do still need to get clips to me for preview by Friday, March 20th -- if not before.

Presentations will still being on Monday, March 23. All need to be ready to go at that time.

Projects

Final Project Resource Selections

Third Resource is due on Wednesday, March 11, 2009.

Work time for projects available on Wednesday and Thursday this week.

Outlines / draft plans for presentations/papers due on Friday this week.

Think about: How is the film High Noon representative of the historical context of 1952 (year of its theatre release)?

Final Project Resource Selections

Choose (and obtain) your first resource (min. 3 for project). Write down the citation information on your orange sheet for Denise to check in.

Due Friday, March 6 at start of class.

Second Resource selection is due on Monday, March 9.

Elia Kazan Accepting Life-Time Achievement Oscar

Please take a look at this short clip of Elia Kazan accepting the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 1999 71st Academy Awards. Still controversial more than 40 years after acting as a "friendly informant" to the HUAC, audience members chose to be silent in censure.