History Through Film

History Through Film (Grade 9-12) 1/2 Credit

Prerequisite: None

This course will examine history oriented, non-traditional sources in the form of motion pictures. The content of each selected movie, as with all written sources, will be critically analyzed for its perspective, bias, and reliability. This will include an examination of its success or failure in portraying past events, as well as how current events, culture, tradition, and general attitudes shape our view of the past. Each movie will present an opportunity to guide students toward higher-level thinking and analysis, promote student inquiry, and develop a more powerful sense of history and the complexity of the past. This will be accomplished by going beyond the analysis of more traditional primary and secondary sources (historical documents, articles, photographs, etc).