I wanted to teach film in its own native element, visual storytelling. To that end, I created a lesson sequence that is accessible and easy to learn. I integrated this sequence into a course of my own design that helps students learn how to extract clips and stills from a movie and blend them into a visual essay that, through critical awareness and the skills of exposition, maps out a unique story of the contact of a thoughtful viewer with a complex production of art.

We live in a culture of media. Every form of digital media we encounter is an argument. I want students to be savvy about the arguments they confront, by bringing to bear their hands-on experience crafting their own pieces of visual rhetoric.

I hope students become as comfortable with this form of essay as they are with the written essay. I want them to develop fluency in this software in a critical context, and give them a forum to engage with compelling arguments, and consider all sides of an issue.

For my own purposes, I tailored the assignments to a course offering in my home Program. College Writing 108: Advanced Composition in New Media. More generally, I want to continue to more fully build out concrete guidance for other educators who wish to adapt the video essay component for their own courses.