Adam Woelders | Using Film to Conduct Historical Inquiry with Middle School Students | The History Teacher, 40.3

Using Film to Conduct Historical Inquiry with Middle School Students

Adam Woelders
University of British Columbia, Canada

FILMS WITH HISTORICAL THEMES have always been my favourite genre of cinema. Films I saw in my youth like Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Dances With Wolves (1990), inspired my imagination and fostered my love of history. They played no small part in the screenplay of my life, landing me in the role of a middle school humanities teacher. This was probably because they influenced my historical understanding, and motivated me to read about and study the past. Consequently, I have always tried to use films when appropriate in my classroom. Admittedly, however, I never used film for much more than to help students visualize or get a sense of the past, and I never considered how film representations pervasively influence students' ideas about what the past was like.

Because of the media-dominated culture in which we live, many educators recognize that many of our students' ideas about the past are constructed through the historically-themed film and television programs that they watch.¹ Arguably, a filmmaker such as Spielberg has educated more people about the experience of the Holocaust or the D-Day invasion than history teachers or textbook publishers could possibly dream of reaching.² Seixas explains the impact of film on students' historical understanding:

Its narrative forms convey moral messages of great power, more so because of their implicit or explicit claims to be rooted in "real" historical events and people. Films drive to create dramatic story lines, their compelling auditory and visual imagery and their mass distribution through theatres, videotape and DVD provide the basis – for better or for worse – for a common cultural literacy in contemporary life.³

Considering this, I agree with Marcus who states: "teachers have an obligation to contemplate the influence of Hollywood film on students' historical understanding and to consider the use of film in their teaching practices."⁴

Investigating My Practices:
Teaching Middle School History Using Film

Challenged to re-consider my teaching practices, I conducted a classroom research study designed to investigate and improve how I use film to teach middle school students about history. I conducted this study in collaboration with my class of twenty-nine grade eight social studies students, who represented a range of ethnic backgrounds and academic abilities in my suburban independent school near Vancouver, British Columbia. My findings, derived from recurrent themes and observations that emerged from my students' work samples, from focus-group discussions, and from surveys and classroom observations, address how film might be used to scaffold historical inquiry. This study also adds the voice, currently missing from the research literature, of middle school students' experiences learning about history using feature films, docudramas⁵ and documentaries. The new understandings and conclusions emerging from my study have led to the suggested activities listed in Figure 2 and to a framework for the design of lesson plans using film noted in Figure 7. I believe that my findings show that film should be an integral component of a curriculum that engages middle school students in learning about history through historical inquiry.

The Importance of Film for Teaching About History

Middle school students are often exposed to Social Studies courses where historical content is transmitted through a combination of notes, worksheets, textbook reading, written questions, and occasional research projects.⁶ When films are used in classes of this type, they are often used to provide a break from regular classroom routine, and thus in ways that do not differ from typical fact-finding exercises that students do with their textbooks.⁷ About this Walker observes, "teachers who use film solely to teach historical facts or to test students ability to stay awake miss an important opportunity to aid in the development of students' real historical understanding."⁸ This approach, which might be identified as teaching history from and/or through film, does not recognize that historically-themed films, like other instructional material (textbooks, encyclopaedia, Web sites, news media, magazine articles, and primary sources) are socially constructed and interpretive representations of what the past might have been like. No feature film, docudrama or documentary can possibly offer students a completely authentic experience of past worlds.⁹ Therefore, Marcus states that using film to transmit facts about the past, instead of using it as a tool for inquiry, "deprives us of the wonder and reality of historical discovery."¹⁰ Cunningham similarly urges teachers to consider that history "is the creation of an individual's efforts to make sense of, and cast an interpretation on, certain events and decisions."¹¹Additionally, Barton and Levstik's research shows how requiring students to record, memorize and retell historical details is not likely to have an impact on students' historical understanding, engagement or skill development.¹² All too often, our practices with film encourage students to be passive consumers of media in either of two problematic ways: either students view film accounts for entertainment; or they unquestioningly accept the claims and interpretations in the material they view.¹³ Neither of these viewing habits is desirable if teachers are preparing students to be active, responsible and knowledgeable participants in democratic societies.

I argue that teaching about history with film is fundamentally different. This distinction recognizes that film should be used to conduct historical inquiry where students question, evaluate, and compare different interpretations. Historical inquiry challenges students to construct their own historical knowledge based on inferences, speculations, and conclusions drawn from evidence, not solely from any authoritative source such as the teacher, the textbook, or the information and images they see in a film. Moreover, this distinction requires that teachers use film to create opportunities for students to learn about how historians, filmmakers, publishers, and authors construct our common understandings of the past. Using film within an inquiry approach for teaching about history encourages the student to develop and practice:

• authentic application of historical knowledge
• evaluative and analytical thinking
• critical ability necessary to interpret a range of different kinds of media
• persuasive communication skills using a variety of presentation formats

In their out-of-school lives, film and television are arguably the places where students would most likely be exposed to the authentic application of historical knowledge. Filmmakers often carefully research a historical theme, or employ historians as advisors, in order to create a sense of authenticity for the audience. Scriptwriters might also adapt works of historically-themed biography or fiction for the screen. Using film to conduct inquiry about history is especially important at the middle school level where so many teachers are challenged to help their students engage in and understand how historical knowledge is used in real life contexts. Therefore, using film provides authentic access points, or as Weinstein puts it, "a gateway,"¹⁴ for middle school students to investigate the content, perspective and impact of historically-themed films, and to use them as one source of information for guiding their inquiries and constructing their own understanding of the past.

Concerns About Teachers' Uses of Film in Classrooms

In order to inform myself about current understandings and trends concerning the use of film in classrooms, I conducted a review of research articles on the subject of teaching middle school history with film. Several articles present very convincing arguments for the inclusion of film in history instruction.¹⁵ Doherty for instance, states that "film communicates the felt emotion of a moment in time with a power and a precision that personal memoirs and history textbooks would be lucky to match."¹⁶ Unfortunately, few articles describe detailed teaching strategies for middle school history instruction and tend instead to focus on college and high school level studies. Nor do many reports describe how middle school students experience learning about history with film. There are, however, warnings about bad practices citing examples. These stress that teachers should not use film as a tool for exercises that solely require comprehension, fact-finding, and concept retention. Hobbs calls such practices "educationally problematic" uses of media in classrooms.¹⁷ They are problematic because they do not engage students in inquiry-based learning, but instead encourage uncritical acceptance of others' historical interpretations and passive viewing of media – often called edutainment. The following list (Figure 1) outlines some of the practices that should be avoided when designing history lessons using film.

Figure 1 – Misuses of Film For Teaching About History

Showing age and content inappropriate scenes.¹⁸
Disallowing opportunities for students to discuss, question, pause film, or re-view film sequences.¹⁹
Using film to reward students.²⁰
Using film to maintain order or to keep students quietly seated.²¹
Using film solely to give students a sense of the past or legitimizing a film as historically accurate.²²
Demanding students passively record facts from a film without challenging their authenticity or accuracy by comparing them to other sources.²³
Showing a film to provide a break from direct teaching, or to make time for marking and other classroom duties.²⁴
Using film as a time filler or as easy work for a T.O.C.²⁵
Using "read the book-now watch the film" approaches.²⁶
Showing films in their entirety when students could focus their viewing on shorter, more relevant clips & excerpts.²⁷
Showing films without previewing the film, or thoroughly researching the film's content and alternative perspectives.

Additionally, even docudramas and documentaries must be used carefully because they often contain actual footage and feature 'experts' explaining a historical episode, thereby giving students the impression of objectivity and authority. While teachers and students generally recognize that dramatic license and motivation for profit drive the content of Hollywood films, they often fail to recognize that docudramas and documentaries are also creative and interpretive perspectives of the past that must be examined carefully.²⁸ What is different about feature films is that they often contain powerful emotions and images that can potentially be much more powerful than other sources of information in influencing constructions of students' understandings of history. Moreover, middle school teachers should be wary because their inclusion and endorsement of any film in the classroom often validates it in the minds of students as an authoritative source of historical information.²⁹

Teachers must realise that even adults, much less middle school students, do not naturally see historically-themed films and other texts as creative, interpretive representations of the past. Few middle school students possess the necessary research and thinking skills to do historical inquiry. For middle school students, inquiring about the past requires teachers to deliberately model critical thinking skills and to carefully scaffold learning activities using a variety of strategies.³⁰ Teachers must provide opportunities for students to tease out, investigate, and discuss the content, perspective, messages, and claims of films they expose students to; or put another way – to help students develop what Marcus calls, their "historical film literacy."³¹ Once acquired, however, these skills and critical viewing habits will hopefully transfer into students' out-of-school lives and enable them to participate more fully as active, thoughtful citizens. There are many educational research reports that illustrate excellent, educationally sound practices for the use of use film to teach historical inquiry. I have selected what I consider the best of these reports and adapted them for the middle school use. I have generated an illustrative list of inquiry-based activities and have used them in my own lesson planning:

Figure 2 – Inquiry-Based Activities Using Film to Teach About History³²

Evaluate a scene from a historically-themed film for accuracy – consider the chronology, setting, details, costumes, and behaviours depicted in the film. Compare it to other sources of information. Encourage students to make judgments about reliability, bias and authenticity.

i.e. Are social classes portrayed correctly? Was the technology shown in a film available in that time and place?

Compare film accounts to primary sources or historians' ideas about the same subject to create reasonably believable, detailed accounts of past people and places.

i.e. Compare King Arthur (2004) to other stories, primary sources and theories. Was King Arthur a mythological person, or did he really exist? If he did exist, who was he?

Identify the messages that are implicitly/explicitly imbedded within a film. Why are they there? What do they reveal about the filmmaker's ideas about the past/present?

i.e. What does Kingdom of Heaven (2005) tell us about modern ideas about religion. How does this film attempt to explain why people fight in the Middle East today?

Compare two different film accounts of a particular historical era, person or event. How are they different – why? Which is more authentic?

i.e. Compare the film Robin Hood (Irvin, 1991) to other versions of the film.

Discuss solutions to open-ended questions that encourage students to interpret, evaluate, and make their own conclusions about the film and other texts they read.

i.e. Considering the opinions expressed in the A&E Biography of Julius Caesar, and the descriptions we read in various primary sources, do you think he was a tyrant or a heroic figure to the Roman people?

Compare how two films produced in different cultures or countries deal with a historical subject.

i.e. How are American films about Islam different from and/or similar to Arabic films?

Explain how a particular film representation was created. What sources of information were used? How was the available evidence used to make speculations about the past? Are they believable?

i.e. What sources of information were used to create the documentary on Ghenghis Khan? How were they used? Use these sources to create your own short biographical film.

Evaluate what a film reveals about the time and place that it was created for. Historical content is not always as important as the audience's reception. What does it tell us about the audience's values?

i.e. How is Kingdom of Heaven (2005) a movie about the Crusades but also about modern religion and conflict? What is the moral of this version of history?

Identify what is missing from a film? Why? What does this tell us about the filmmaker's perspective of history or purpose for making the film? Compare the film to other sources of information.

i.e. Why were Martin Luther's writings about Jews not mentioned in the film Luther (2003)?

Compare differing perspectives of "expert" interviews in a documentary film, or in multiple films about the same topic.

i.e. What do the experts in a documentary say about a historical person or event? Do they agree with each other? Why did the filmmakers pick these particular 'experts' to be used in the film? Are they really 'experts'? Who would you have used instead?

Compare how historical subjects are treated in documentary versus in feature films, or in different genres. Which give us a better experience of the past? Which are better for learning about history?

i.e. What differences are there between the accounts of Christopher Columbus in a documentary compared to Ridley Scott's film 1492?

Evaluate a film that claims to represent an authentic and truthful account of the past. (Any documentary works well for this approach.)

i.e. The Message (1976) – Research the origins of Islam. Is this account of the origins of Islam reliable to believe based your findings?

Compare how the subject of a film, or a particular story, such as Joan of Arc, Robin Hood or King Arthur, has evolved through different films over the last 50–75 years.

i.e. How have the films about ________ changed over time? What does this tell us about the audiences these films were created for?

Evaluate and discuss how a particular film has influenced students' ideas about the past or current events.

i.e. What was a pirate? How has Pirates of the Caribbean (2003) influenced your understanding of who and what pirates were? Is your understanding correct?

Explore a historical perspective or character in a film. What does it tell us about how people experienced the past?

i.e. Take on a role and shadow a character in a film. Journal about those experiences, then research the role using other sources to add or delete details from your writing. Compare the virtual experience of the film to other historical sources.

Compare perspectives taken in scenes from two different films on the same topic.

i.e. For the Hundred Years War, Joan of Arc (1999) is from a French perspective, while Henry V (1989) shows the English perspective. Who seems more justified for fighting this war? Have students create a piece of war propaganda, letter to the king, or journal account about the Hundred Years War from both perspectives.

Identify perspective and point-of-view in a film. i.e. Who are the "bad guys"? Who are the "good guys"? Why? How are they made to be this way? Is it a historically accurate representation?

i.e. Who are the bad guys in the film Kingdom of Heaven? Muslims or Christians? Who are the bad guys in Henry V? Do you agree with this interpretation?

All of the activities above require that teachers provide scaffolding when working with middle school students. The scaffolding must provide: clear instructions; well-defined tasks; opportunities to build on students' prior knowledge; questions or prompts to guide the inquiry and viewing process; good sources of information to compare to the film; and a meaningful assessment activity where students have the chance to develop and share their conclusions. Teachers should also carefully scaffold the process of introducing, actively viewing, and thinking about, the films they use. I have found that using a sequential process, as outlined below (Figure 3), is helpful for structuring lessons plans that make use of a film.

Figure 3 – Teaching with Historically-Themed Film

PRE-VIEWING:
- Access what students already know about the topic
- Formulate questions about the topic that the film might address
- Predict what the film will show or what will happen
- Identify what your purpose for viewing the film is
ACTIVE VIEWING:
- Ask questions – look for answers to questions – seek clarification and understanding
- Predict what will happen next – check predictions
- Describe what you see and how it makes you feel
- Re-watch parts that do not make sense
- Use contextual clues (foreshadowing, music, mood etc.) to determine the meaning, purpose and perspective of the film
- Create notes, charts, graphics, concept maps or webs as you view the film
- Make connections to what you already know
- Make personal connections to characters and events in the text
- Pause the film – reflect, write, discuss
POST VIEWING:
- Summarize the important ideas and information
- Retell the key events accurately
- Make generalizations, ask questions and reflect on the content
- Re-watch sections if necessary
- Compare the film to other accounts and information sources including primary sources
ASSESSMENT:
- Make evidence-based inferences, speculations and conclusions from a variety of sources
- Present final conclusions with others in a forum posting, drama, essay, editorial, film, journal, presentation, debate, etc.

Recognizing that educators commonly insist that students compare film accounts of history with other sources of information,³³ as will be seen I chose in most cases to expose students to additional information only after the film was shown. One reason I did this was to understand how film impacted my students' understanding of historical concepts that they had little prior understanding of. Secondly, I reasoned that middle school students rarely, if ever, consult additional sources of information to check for the accuracy of the film's details, before or after watching a film. I wanted to establish this important habit of mind in my students.³⁴

My Experiments in Improving My Use of Film

To study and understand how my students experience historical inquiry that makes use of film, I created a number of different lessons keeping in mind what I had learned from my review of the research literature. I expected to find that modeling my lessons on effective content area reading strategies using graphic organizers would give middle school students the scaffolding they needed to guide their learning about the past, and eventually to change how they thought about film and television out-of-school. Some of the strategies I used for my lessons with film are familiar, including writing prompts, anticipation guides³⁵ and Know-Want to Know-Learn (K-W-L) charts.³⁶ For most lessons, I only showed segments of a film.³⁷ To help students to avoid the confusion that results from having to record unfamiliar names, places and other details of a film, I created what I now term viewing guides. Viewing guides are sequence-by-sequence notes that outline key information in a particular film (Appendix A).³⁸ These lesson formats were repeated throughout the school year, each building on what I had observed or learned from student feedback.

I considered that naturalistic and qualitative methods of research were most appropriate for this study because it took place in the natural setting of the classroom in interaction between myself, as teacher-researcher and the researched, and my students. The phenomenon under examination was the impact on students of my lessons using film. My goal as teacher-action researcher was to examine and critique my expectations, understandings, decisions, and actions in the classroom to arrive at ways to improve my practice and generate new understandings or questions about how film can best be used to teach the history required by the middle school curriculum.³⁹ The concept map (Figure 4) illustrates how I arrived at new understandings about my practices of teaching about history with film.

Figure 4 – Mapping My Classroom Study Process

For the purposes of documenting my classroom research study, I made field notes from classroom observations anecdotally to record my students' on-task engagement and learning during the historical inquiries we conducted using film. I recorded my own reflections concerning my practices with film, as well as the responses and ideas generated from feedback my students gave me in casual after-class conversation. I also conducted two surveys designed to assess my students' attitudes about learning with film and to learn about changes in their viewing habits and thoughts on learning. To understand the impact of my practices on student understanding and cognitive processes, I collected and copied samples of the students' work that resulted from the lessons. Finally, I conducted two focus group interviews with small groups of mixed-ability students to better understand my students' experiences and feelings about my practices with historically-themed films.

The data collected from my study was analysed according to the standards of trustworthiness, credibility and respectfulness commonly modeled in teacher action research.⁴⁰ The data were carefully analyzed and coded to identify themes and recurring patterns. When I turned to student work samples, I generally looked at them with three broad themes in mind:

a)    Misunderstandings or confusion resulting from film use.
b)    Evidence of historical understanding resulting from the film.
c)    Evidence of impact on students' viewing habits.

A better understanding of the participants' understandings emerged from the triangulation of the data sources and enabled me to make assertions about whether my practices positively affected the learning goals I expected my lessons to accomplish. I conducted a member check to confirm the assertions. By returning to ask my students to read passages and comment on the findings, the member check allowed the participants the opportunity to comment on my assertions and then to represent the participants as fairly as possible. The data collected during my classroom study illustrate many benefits to student learning when using film to conduct historical inquiry. Some important themes emerge from my data that should be considered by other middle school teachers.

1. Using film can motivate inquiry and the comparison of film to other sources of information.

The use of film in my classroom motivated historical inquiry and helped students make connections to the past. Throughout the year, students were engaged in the topics the films covered and they eagerly anticipated their social studies class.

Cindy: I like [social studies] better than [other years]. I find that I have been getting a lot more out of it. I find that the movies really help me because I am a visual learner so I can remember it more.⁴¹

James: I think that this year's history class is a lot more entertaining and useful because when I am entertained I can pay more attention to whatever it is that is important, but if I am bored, I won't absorb as much information.⁴²

A classroom survey indicated that twenty-six of twenty-eight students believed that the films aided them in their learning of historical concepts. The two dissenting students reported that they preferred to watch the films without having to conduct a task. Most students reported that historically-themed films helped them engage in the lesson content because it made it interesting, held their attention, was fun, or gave them a visual picture to make connections with their print-based sources.⁴³ Students felt like they were witnessing and experiencing a possible representation of history, and this helped them to better understand the past.

Kate: It gives me a picture in my mind of what life at that time was like. It shows the difference in clothing, food and dialogue compared to today. It helps me understand the setting and feelings of people during that era.⁴⁴

Vin: It helps me remember things more. Seeing it visually sometimes gives me a better understanding.⁴⁵

However, these students' comments should also illustrate the power that film images have in shaping students' ideas about the past, and therefore is a convincing reminder that teachers need to provide alternative sources of information for students to compare with the cinematic accounts.

2. Using film can help students understand the interpretative nature of historical inquiry.

The content and perspectives taken in historically-themed films provided some structure for historical inquiry. Students could evaluate the validity of the account and understand more fully that historical thinking required them to look at an event or concept from multiple perspectives. Even though during an assignment in which they researched the film King Arthur (2004) some students were confused and could not distinguish between fictional stories and sound historical evidence, other students were able to apply higher-level thinking skills and to understand that finding the truth about historical events and people is often very tricky.

Kate: I think King Arthur was a little bit different from the other movies because no one really knows much about King Arthur, so ... instead of getting facts about him it was more about seeing different opinions about what actually happened to King Arthur so that after [the] researching on the project that we did and finding different information than the King Arthur that we heard about [in the film], then we can make our own opinion about it.⁴⁶

This student clearly understands that historical research requires one to negotiate between facts, myths and opinions to arrive at her own understanding. Film can be used as a vehicle for helping students better understand that historical knowledge is interpretive.

3. Using film may help encourage students' critical viewing habits.

Teachers can use film to guide meaningful research for historical inquiry, but its effects must extend beyond historical study. Lessons must encourage habits of thinking that students take into their out-of-school lives as citizens in a media-dominated society. With some students, our repeated inquiries of historical representations in cinematic accounts slowly resulted in encouraging the habits of mind that I hoped to teach, such as the critical analysis of media messages and images:

Cindy: It makes you think more when you watch things. I often think hey that's cool! But now I think oh, I wonder if that really happened?⁴⁷

However, this claim is made cautiously because the phenomenon may also be the result of students being used to conducting several historical inquiries over the course of the year. My students are regularly encouraged to identify and evaluate historical accounts in a variety of history lessons and activities that do not use film, including role-playing, simulations, and debates. This may be evident in Jamie's comments:

Jamie: I think that since you pointed out bias at the beginning of the year at the first or second history class of the year, was about how some writings are biased and stuff, ... I think that since you've have been pointing it out throughout the year everyone has learned to when we watch films and read stuff to look for bias.⁴⁸

Unfortunately, without their future Social Studies teachers and teachers in other disciplines using film in the same way, my students may only see this habit of mind as an academic exercise, and it may not transfer into their lives outside of our classroom.

4. Using film for historical inquiry encourages students to compare sources of information.

The use of films for modeling historical inquiry encourages students to realize the importance of checking other sources of information and to question the authority and reliability of historical representations on film and television.

James: Well I think that an even balance of reading sources and movies helps me learn. Because the movies provide entertainment and information, and the paper sources help backup or takedown the information in the movie ... I can speak my opinion instead of returning information given to me in a textbook.

Kate: I think its good to be using movies because most teachers only give you a textbook or make you take notes and stuff, and it is just text on paper. But I think it is better to use movies with the text because ... it is giving us different sources of information, each source that we use to find more about the lesson gives us a better understanding all around ... we can see what something looked like at that time but then the text can give us a better understanding of what happened. It gives us variety.⁴⁹

Students liked having a variety of sources of information to compare, evaluate and to use to form ideas about the past. However, a survey at the end of the year showed that many of my students did not carry the habit of consulting other sources into their out-of-school viewing practices (Question 3, Figure 5). Less than a third of the students indicated that they would compare the accounts of history they see on film and television to other sources of information they encounter outside of school. I offer four possible explanations why:

1)    Students' passive viewing habits are entrenched in their out-of-school lives.
2)    Students perceive viewing film at school differently from viewing outside of school.
3)    Students are not taught by teachers in previous grades or other courses to watch film critically.
4)    Students must practice and develop these thinking skills over many years of schooling.

Nevertheless, the indication that almost a third of my students have made some changes in their viewing habits as a result of our inquiries is very encouraging – especially, considering that most of their educational experiences in school prior to grade eight have emphasised uncritical fact-gathering common to traditional teaching practices using film. I find it additionally encouraging that most students reported that comparing sources of information was beneficial to their learning (Question 8, Figure 5). This affirms my contention that students learn best from film accounts when they are included as sources of information to evaluate within inquiry-based activities. From these observations emerges a new question: How would using film to conduct inquiry over the course of several years and in several disciplines affect students' viewing habits?

Figure 5 – Students' Understandings of Their Learning About History With Film (Likert Scale Survey)⁵⁰
	strongly agree (1)	agree (2)	somewhat agree (3)	agree very little (4)	disagree strongly (5)	% who agree or strongly agree	mean
1. I now watch television shows or movies about the past and wonder if the events are true.	4	8	9	6	2	41.4%	2.79
2. I now look for bias in television shows and films.	2	11	3	8	5	44.8%	3.10
3. After I see something on television or film, I will now go and read some information about it to see what other sources of information have to say.	2	1	6	8	12	10.3%	3.93
4. In other classes, teachers use films but do not require students to compare information in the film to other sources of information.	6	13	8	2	0	65.5%	2.21
5. Watching a film helps me to better understand what I read in textbooks and primary sources.	10	14	2	2	1	82.8%	1.97
6. Watching a film helps me to make mental pictures of what the past was like.	14	9	4	2	0	79.3%	1.79
7. Watching a film in class helps me to better participate in class discussions or online forum discussions.	5	12	8	3	1	58.6%	2.41
8. Watching a film, and comparing it to written sources of information helps me to learn about the past.	6	12	8	2	1	62.1%	2.31
9. Watching a film helps me to pay more attention to what we are learning in class.	8	13	5	2	1	72.4%	2.14
10. Watching a film helps me to write better answers to questions on tests.	9	11	5	2	2	69.0%	2.21

5. Using film may help students more effectively comprehend text-based sources.

Though sometimes their understanding of a film was muddled, using film benefited students' reading comprehension of otherwise confusing historical documents, terms and concepts. The ideas, concepts, images and questions that were raised by the discussions generated by our various historically-themed films helped to scaffold students' reading of print-based sources and increased their participation level in class discussion. The majority (83 percent; see Question 5, Figure 5) of my students agreed or strongly agreed that watching a film before reading text-based sources aided them in understanding what they read in the primary documents, the textbook or other related sources.

Jamie: When I watch the movie, it is kind of confusing, but then I read and I get it and it all makes sense to me.⁵¹

Tim: Things make more sense and are easier to interpret when we have pictures to go along with the words.⁵²

Using film in conjunction with other sources helped students to critically evaluate information. During a class discussion of the medieval Church, for example, students drew upon their understandings of a docudrama film we watched to make connections to other sources of information that featured similar concepts and ideas. From this process, students were able to make evaluations of whether their information was reliable.

Emma: I think that out of all three films, the church documentary was the most reliable and most accurate based on the rest of information I've gathered throughout this unit. Everything it had in it was reviewed in our notes [created from various primary and secondary sources] and in other discussions.⁵³

Therefore, I find film is useful for introducing historical concepts to students and for giving them contextual references that aid them in constructing their own interpretations and understanding of the past.

6. Well-constructed graphic organizers are essential to scaffold viewing and thinking.

I frequently used a variety of graphic organizers as a tool for accessing students' prior knowledge and for encouraging them to make predictions about a topic they will encounter in a film. One tool, anticipation guides, contains teacher-created true/false/partially-correct statements for students to discuss and make predictions about. During the film, students are constantly thinking and questioning in order to check their predictions and modify them if necessary. Their final conclusions about the statements are afterwards compared to other sources. The first time I used this tactic was as a tool to guide my students' viewing of John Irvin's Robin Hood (1991), and to investigate the experience of feudalism in medieval England (Appendix B). Students were very engaged during the pre-viewing stage as was evidenced by the amount of dialogue and discussion that preceded viewing.

Kate: I like what you did before the Robin Hood film where you gave us a chance to evaluate first our beliefs about what really happened.⁵⁴

However, when we viewed this film, I observed that students were very frustrated with the anticipation guide. Some students, especially those who struggle academically, instantly disengaged and were off-task and disruptive behaviours became commonplace. Stronger students were frustrated and asked me to stop and explain several scenes; so much so, that I was essentially giving them the information necessary to make a judgement about each of the true/false/partially correct statements.

James: I found that the assignment was a bit confusing because I had to sharpen my multitasking skills, or else I couldn't do the assignment because I had to record information and watch the movie at the same time. So I had to choose different times in the movie when no information was being presented where I could find time to write down the information. But then sometimes I would forget the information because I had to wait so long.⁵⁵

James' comment reveals that the anticipation guide statements must be composed in an order that is congruent with the chronology of the narrative. Furthermore, it reveals how I needed to decrease the number of statements focusing on details, limiting them instead to a smaller number of statements focusing on key themes and concepts relating to the topic. His statement also reveals that I have to build in more time for students to think, write, share and reflect during the viewing process.

That some students left some of their statements uncompleted or unsupported with details from the film left me with a new question: Could anticipation guides be purposeful in helping students to identify what historical details are left out of a film, and to inquire why the filmmaker made that decision? Teachers could create statements about something that a filmmaker has purposefully excluded, such as Eric Till's film Luther (2003) that does not mention Luther's harsh opinions of Jews. This might help encourage students to speculate about why some information is omitted from film accounts of the past.

Students also reported finding viewing guides, like the guide that accompanied their King Arthur inquiry (Appendix A), quite helpful. Students liked it in that they were not required to focus on trivial details, but could instead focus on watching, questioning and discussing the images, issues and concepts in the film.

Cindy: In science we always watch Bill Nye videos and the teachers make us take notes. But you give us the notes and I think that's better because we can focus more on the movie ... sometimes you are writing down what has happened and you miss the next scene.

Jamie: It is good that you give us a guideline to the movies so that you can watch and see where we are in the guideline.⁵⁶

Giving students an overview of the plot and the details of King Arthur (2004) allowed them to concentrate on the key ideas I wanted them to focus on, rather than focusing on fact-finding and recording. During the viewing stage, students were engaged and asked questions that required us to stop the film, review scenes or discuss key concepts. But, on the other hand, some students liked the viewing guide because it allowed them to be more passive and view the film purely as entertainment. When we finished watching the film, the students used the information on their viewing guide to generate their own research questions about the historical content of the film.

7. Historical inquiry using film requires teachers to select good sources of information.

Student feedback was valuable to understanding how my lessons might be made more effective for their learning. During the activities structured around the film King Arthur (2004) – which claims to be "based on recently discovered archaeological evidence"⁵⁷– several students were frustrated while conducting research because there was a vast amount of information available on the internet and in print-based sources. Some sources about King Arthur were mythological or purely fictional, while online primary sources relating to King Arthur were too difficult for grade eights to make sense of. Therefore, students took the path of least resistance and many drew their conclusions about King Arthur from fictional narratives, while others simply cut and pasted information they did not understand.

Nevertheless, on a unit exam which tested their understanding of the early middle ages, most students were able to use teacher-edited excerpts from primary sources and some carefully selected excerpts of historians' accounts to determine whether certain aspects of the film were reasonable to believe based on the available evidence. They were able to do so, most likely, because I provided them with limited, appropriate sources of information and better scaffolding on the exam than I did during the open-ended research inquiry. When working with middle school students, teachers must carefully select the documents that students use to compare to film accounts.

8. Teachers should consider stance of the text/film when designing lessons.

I had hoped that using writing prompts (see Appendix C) and assigning students to shadow a character in a film would help students experience what a past society may have been like. During one class, I assigned students to each shadow a character appearing in a docudrama about three men on a pilgrimage to a shrine in medieval England. After the film, the students were required to write a journal account of the pilgrimage and then assure its historical authenticity by comparing it to other sources, either to add to, or to delete from their writing piece. I provided writing prompts to the students to guide their viewing and help them generate ideas, but they were not required to use them if they had their own ideas.

However, this lesson missed the objective and many students were frustrated with the task during the viewing process. The following student discussion reveals how two students interpreted the task very differently.

Cindy: I liked that assignment because I thought it was fun and kind of interesting to put myself into someone else's footsteps.

Kate: I liked the assignment, and I think what Cindy said was true, but I think that the movie didn't have very good examples of what the questions were ... I think that, ... I don't know ... It was harder for me to find answers to the questions because I was more looking for answers for the questions than to take information out of the film.

Cindy: But he said we didn't have to follow the questions.

Kate: Yeah, well I did.

James: I liked them because I could see what it was like for them ... for their perspective and I liked that. But, I also feel like Kate ... I was trying to fill it out rather than watching the movie and actually understanding it.⁵⁸

The student experiences reveal how many students interpreted the reading prompts as "questions" to "find answers" for and "fill it out." Instead of students trying to imagine what the middle ages might have been like, the task merely reinforced the information-gathering that they were so used to when watching films in school.

This may be explained by my failure to recognize that film, like other media such as books, is a text containing its own special set of contextual and production clues that condition the reader's "stance."⁵⁹ Regular interruptions in the action where a professor explains some particular aspect of the medieval church, for example, condition the students to watch the film from what literacy theorists call an "efferent stance," where one reads a text with the expectation of getting information. Alternatively, in an "aesthetic" stance, one would expect to have a "virtual experience" from engaging with the text.⁶⁰ If teachers wish students to develop historical empathy, which is understanding how people experienced the past and what motivated their beliefs, attitudes and actions, then they must select films that encourage the viewer to take an aesthetic stance. Some films, especially docudramas and documentaries, contain far too many contextual clues that position the viewer to be watching for information. If historical perspective-taking is the aim of a lesson, teachers must be careful about the kinds of questions they ask before a film, consider the activities they require students to do during the film, and be sure to choose an appropriate film. Students still enjoyed shadowing a character during the film, and some produced reasonably good work, but few students truly demonstrated historical empathy. This lesson caused me to re-think my criteria for selecting films to show during history lessons.

Some Limitations of Teaching With Film

Some findings emerged from my study that I did not expect to encounter and are now invaluable in helping guide my decisions about how and when to use film in the middle school history classroom. These findings indicate some pedagogical limitations of film to consider. One of the frustrations I experienced was that the planning and delivery of lessons often took longer than expected. Creating quality inquiry-based activities for students to use film in learning about history requires a considerable amount of time to preview the film and prepare materials for the class. I also learned that because some films, and the discussions they generate among students, take significant time to complete, using film may not be an efficient use of time for teachers who are pressured to deliver a considerable amount of content during the year.

I had expected the use of shorter clips of feature films to be efficient, but found that the use of a scene without prior knowledge and properly established context sometimes confuses students and necessitates a lot of time to explain. Students were less able to make their own inferences in such cases, and so I often resorted to transmitting my own interpretation of the film, rather than providing opportunities for students to construct their own ideas.

Another reason the effectiveness of using film to teach history is limited is because the narrative of some films moves too quickly and assumes a lot of prior knowledge. Students cannot watch at their own pace and, once the activity is completed, students cannot later re-access the information as easily as they could if they were using print-based sources. Print has the advantages of quickly delivering vast amounts of content information and description that can be accessed at anytime. Therefore, unless the reading level of students is a concern, teachers should consider whether many documentary films contain any real advantage over print-based sources of information, including the Web, and whether the documentaries they choose might actually have some significant disadvantages. I have found that before deciding to use a documentary it is useful to ask: Is this documentary simply an audio-visual lecture or textbook? What advantages does it have over other sources of information? Consequently, I have established some criteria for deciding whether a film can best be used to support student inquiry about the past. Generally, the chosen film must fulfill at least one of the following criteria before I decide to use it:

Figure 6 – Criteria For Selecting Historically-Themed Films

The film must recreate an out-of-school experience for students that could not equally well be described or experienced in print-based sources. For example, students cannot go on a fieldtrip to Pompeii or to the Egyptian pyramids.
The film must portray powerful dramatizations or re-enactments of history that print-based sources could not possibly replicate for students, such as the chariot-racing scene in Ben Hur (1959).
The film must portray a sophisticated event that cannot be adequately illustrated or explained in other sources of information. For example, using computer-animated illustrations, films can show the detailed movements of armies on a battlefield.
The film must show differing perspectives or opinions about an event. For example, biographic documentaries often feature experts whose views disagree with each other, and they often weave interesting primary sources into the narrative. Students can be guided to see how the evidence is used to construct various interpretations of the past.
The film might make a claim of historical authenticity that can be challenged and evaluated in comparison to other sources of information. Consider how the feature film The Message (1976) claims to be a completely historically accurate account of the beginnings of Islam.
The film must depict a meaningful or important topic from a perspective not captured in other sources such as the textbook. For example, textbooks often exclude controversial narratives or events that do not fit into the myth of progress.
The film has played a noticeable role in shaping students' stereotyping or misunderstandings about the past. Consider for example, how native peoples or religious groups are portrayed in Hollywood feature films.

Student surveys revealed another important consideration. Through repeated lessons that encouraged students to deconstruct historical accounts in a variety of films, my students came to recognize films as the least likely reliable source of information. They ranked primary sources and textbooks to be the most accurate sources of information.⁶¹ My practices of comparing films with primary sources and textbook accounts may have inadvertently led students to be far too trusting of print-based sources of information as authoritatively truthful.

I also found it interesting that at the end of the year students reported fact-finding worksheets as being the second most useful learning activity (20.7 percent).⁶² However, this may be explained as the result of the traditional teaching practices in earlier classes that students were more familiar with. Students indicated that other teachers rarely ever required them to compare sources of information to films. Worksheets, for some students, were easy to do well because they expected to find fact-gathering simple. Some students only liked assignments that offered the path of least resistance. Alternatively, some students found these activities frustrating because they missed information, got lost in the assignment and then gave up, only to copy from other students once the activity was over.

Colton: I don't like worksheets with questions AT ALL. I don't know what's going on, where I am (on the worksheet), and I have to like copy off others persons sheet.⁶³

This reveals a significant difference in what some students think is useful for learning. For some students, useful learning activities with film may be activities that easily translate into a good mark on the assignment. For other students, what counts is what they remember after the assignment. If teacher-created questions are to be used when teaching about history with film, teachers must create questions that encourage the higher order thinking necessary for inquiry. A dilemma that emerged during most of my lessons was that, to varying degrees, all my assignments accompanying a historically-themed film still encouraged students to be fact finders. Alternatively, if I did not require any learning activity its absence simply encouraged passive viewing and the expectation to be entertained, and thus students stopped thinking and asking questions of the film.

Conclusion

Observing some shortcomings in how history is taught in schools, Barton and Levstik ask, "Why don't more history teachers engage students in interpretation?"⁶⁴ Because historically-themed film and television programs are places where students are most likely to see the authentic application of historical knowledge, they are one tool that teachers can use to engage students in interpreting accounts and representations of the past. Given that middle school students are often passive consumers of media, including historically-themed video games, movies, and television, teachers should consider how film representations affect students' historical understanding. Including film is essential to creating what Seixas defines as good history instruction; one that models application of the thinking skills necessary for participating actively and responsibly in today's media dominated society.

A good history curriculum would prompt students to ask of cinematic and fictional accounts of the past, as well as their textbooks' and teachers' accounts, who constructed this account and why? What sources did they use? What other accounts are there of the same events or lives? How and why do they differ? Which should we believe?⁶⁵

Conducting inquiry with films to learn about the interpretive nature of history can have several benefits for middle school students' engagement and understanding. If it is well done, middle school students will begin to understand the importance of comparing media sources with alternative sources of information and they may learn that our knowledge of past and present events are constructed from multiple perspectives. The students will learn to make connections to the historical content covered in traditional print-based sources, and have the opportunity to practice habits of thinking, such as critical viewing of media, that may carryover into some of their out-of-school entertainment practices.

However, my study indicates that this approach to learning about history probably must be carried on into the high school grades, across the curriculum, if it is to have a significant impact on students' out-of-school thinking. More studies are also needed to understand the long-term potential of teaching about history using film. How would successive years of a historical inquiry approach, beginning in middle school, affect students' viewing habits? To date, most research reports of the effects of teaching practices using film are based on short-term studies of history learning environments.

When considering how to use film to teach about history, teachers must skilfully use tactics that engage students in historical inquiry and encourage them to critically evaluate the content and message of the film. Graphic organizers are helpful for guiding students' viewing and for generating questions about a film account of the past, but they must be properly used so that students do not get bogged down in recording data and miss the key issues that the film addresses. If teachers want students to be able to develop historical empathy through film narratives, they must be careful about the questions and tasks they require students to do while viewing a film. There is a danger that these will lead students simply to search for the "right answers," rather than to strive to understand the emotions, ideas and circumstances that motivated the actions of historical people. Good scaffolding is essential to inquiry-based learning. These findings that emerged from studying my own practices of teaching about history using film have resulted in a new framework that I now use to design historical inquiry-based activities (Figure 7).

Figure 7: Framework for Using Film With Middle School Students

Teaching with film does require a lot of the teacher, including a broad knowledge of different films that are available and how they may complement historical inquiry. Teachers also need knowledge of where to find good age appropriate sources of information, such as primary sources, and they need a sound understanding of historical methods in order to create the necessary scaffolding for student learning. It is far easier, but less beneficial to students' understanding of the past, for teachers to simply turn on the film and ask students to watch it, take notes or answer fact-finding questions.

Surprisingly, my use of film to teach about history was not as popular as I believed it should be. My students ranked film behind class discussions, role-playing and research projects as the most useful activities for learning history. This led me to realise that the same energy, time, creativity and thought I put into my film lessons, should also be put into other learning activities. Film should be considered as one tool, among many others, necessary for conducting historical inquiry with middle school students, because as Thomas said one day after discussing a film, "You see Mr. W, school can be educational AND fun!"

Notes

¹� Paul Weinstein, "Movies as the Gateway to History: The History and Film Project," History Teacher 35,1 (November 2001): 27–28; Ron Briley, "Teaching Film and History," Organization of American Historians Magazine of History 16,4 (Summer 2002): 5–6; Alan Marcus, "'It is as it was': Feature Film in the History Classroom," The Social Studies 96,2 (March/April 2005): 61; Alan Marcus and Jeremy Stoddard, "The Burden of Historical Representation: Race, Freedom and "Educational" Hollywood Film" History and Film, 36,1 (2006) 28; Peter Seixas, "Confronting the Moral Frames of Popular Film: Young People Respond to Historical Revisionism," American Journal of Education, 102,3 (May 1994): 285; Robert Rosenstone, "History in Images/History in Words: Reflections on the Possibility of Really Putting History onto Film," American Historical Review 93,5 (December 1998): 1174; Thomas Doherty, 13.

²� Paul Weinstein, 27.

³� Peter Seixas and Carla Peck, "Teaching Historical Thinking," in Alan Sears and Ian Wright, eds., Challenges and Prospects for Canadian Social Studies (Vancouver, B.C.: Pacific Educational Press, 2004), 110.

⁴� Alan Marcus, "'It is as it was': Feature Film in the History Classroom," 66.

⁵� Benicia D'Sa, "Social Studies in the Dark: Using Docudramas to Teach History," The Social Studies 96,1 (January/February 2005): 9. D'sa explains that docudramas are a hybrid mix of the elements of documentary and feature film. They typically infuse a dramatic recreation of the past with expert testimony and narration that guides the viewer. The BBC film Pompeii: The Last Day (2003) is a good example of a docudrama that I regularly use in the classroom.

⁶� This argument is made from observations of various schools and discussions with other teachers. Some researchers also note that this is the dominant method of instruction in History and Social Studies classrooms. See Keith Barton and Linda Levstik, "Why Don't More History Teachers Engage Students in Interpretation?," Social Education, 67,6 (October 2003): 358.

⁷� Alan Marcus, 63. Marcus finds that even though students are aware of the biases and motives that affect the accuracy and believability of information in feature films, they did not apply this thinking when teachers used feature films in class. Instead they sought to acquire and memorize the details of the film. Marcus speculates that the teacher's inclusion of a film validates it as an authoritative source of information.

⁸� Trenia Walker, "Historical Literacy: Reading History Through Film," The Social Studies, 97,1 (January/February 2006): 30.

⁹� Alan Marcus, 61; Robert Rosenstone, 1173.

¹⁰� Alan Marcus, 66.

¹¹� Richard Cunningham, "Teaching Pupils How History Works," Teaching History, 102, (February 2001), 15.

¹²� Linda Levstik and Keith Barton, Doing History: Investigating With Children in Elementary and Middle Schools, 2nd Ed. (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, 2001), 9–12, 358; Barton & Levstik, "Why Don't More History Teachers Engage Students in Interpretation?" 358–60.

¹³� Alan Marcus, 63.

¹⁴� Paul Weinstein, 27.

¹⁵� Ron Briley, 3–4; Thomas Doherty, 13–15; Robert Toplin, "Invigorating History: Using Film in the Classroom," Organization of American Historians Magazine of History 16,4 (Summer 2002): 5–6.

¹⁶� Thomas Doherty, 15.

¹⁷� Renee Hobbs, "The Uses (And Misuses) of Mass Media Resources in Secondary Schools," (Washington D.C.: Eric Document No. ED439452, 1999), 2, 5.

¹⁸� Renee Hobbs, "Teaching the Humanities in a Media Age," Educational Leadership, 56,5 (February 1999), 55–57.

¹⁹� Alan Marcus, 65.

²⁰� Renee Hobbs, "The Uses (And Misuses) of Mass Media Resources in Secondary Schools," 7. She explains that this practice of using television and film as a motivator for behaviour or performance communicates unhelpful messages, such as that film is the best that a teacher has to offer his students.

²¹� Renee Hobbs, "The Uses (And Misuses) of Mass Media Resources in Secondary Schools," 7–8. Hobbs notes that the "capacity of video to sedate children has been recognized since the 1970s."

²²� Alan Marcus, 63. Ryan Sprau and Larry Keig, "I Saw it at the Movies: Suggestions for Incorporating Film and Experiential Learning in the College History Survey Course," College Student Journal 35,1(March 2001): 101.

²³� Alan Marcus, 63.

²⁴� Not watching a film with students communicates that the activity is not important. It also denies students the opportunity to ask questions or seek clarification. See Renee Hobbs, "The Uses (And Misuses) of Mass Media Resources in Secondary Schools," 6.

²⁵� Ryan Sprau and Larry Keig, 101.

²⁶� Unless students are encouraged to look for differences in production and to analyze why those decisions were made, this is not an educationally profitable activity because it simply encourages students to watch film for entertainment only.

²⁷� Trinia Walker, 31; Benicia D'Sa, 10–11.

²⁸� Briley, 3; Robert Rosenstone, 1178; Jill Godmillow and Ann-Louis Shapiro, "How Real is the Reality in Documentary Film?" History and Theory, 36,4 (December 1997): 81.

²⁹� Alan Marcus, 63.

³⁰� Linda Levstik and Keith Barton, Doing History, 14–15.

³¹� Alan Marcus, 2.

³²� The following articles contain excellent ideas for classroom activities that I adapted, modified and synthesized into this list of ideas for historical inquiry at the middle school level. See Paul Wienstein, 34–48; Ron Briley, "Reel History and the Cold War," OAH Magazine of History, 8 (Winter 1994): 19–23; p. John O'Connor, "Reading, Writing and Critical Viewing: Coordinating Skill Development in History Learning," The History Teacher, 34,2 (2001): 183–93; Renee Hobbs, "Teaching the Humanities in a Media Age," 55–57; Benicia D'Sa, 9–12; Peter Seixas, 261–285; Alan Marcus & Jeremy Stoddard, 34.

³³� Benicia D'sa, 12; Alan Marcus, 64–65; Peter Seixas, 109.

³⁴� Toplin recommends teachers give students "preliminary readings on the subjects addressed in the films." I disagree. Middle school students are unlikely to look at information about a film's subjects before going to a movie or watching a television show. Middle school students out-of-school entertainment activities are often spontaneous. Therefore, I believe it is more important to encourage students to question and develop a healthy scepticism of film representations of history, and to help them develop the habit of mind to look at alternative sources of information after viewing something. See Robert Toplin, 5.

³⁵� A. Kozen, R. Murray and I. Windell, "Increasing All Students Chance to Achieve: Using and Adapting Anticipation Guides with Middle School Learners," Intervention in School and Clinic, 41,4 (2006): 195–200. M. Yell, G. Scheurman and K. Reynolds, "The Anticipation Guide: Motivating Students to Find Out About History," Social Education, 68,5 (2004): 361–63.

³⁶� Mary-Beth Sampson, "Confirming a K-W-L: Considering the Source," The Reading Teacher, 55,5 (2002): 528–532; Linda Levstik and Keith Barton, Doing History, 17. Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey and Douglas Williams, "Seven Literacy Strategies That Work," Educational Leadership, 60,3 (November 2002): 71.

³⁷� Showing shorter clips helps teachers to use films that might otherwise be inappropriate for middle school students because of the depicted violence, sex or language. It is important to communicate in writing to parents that you are not promoting the film by showing it in class. The reason for showing the film clips should also be communicated to parents.

³⁸� The viewing guide was adapted from O'Connor's idea provided in his discussion of teaching with the film The Return of Martin Guerre (1982). See John O'Connor, 189–92.

³⁹� Joanne Arhar, Mary Louise Holly, and Wendy Kasten, Action Research for Teachers: Traveling the Yellow Brick Road (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, 2005).

⁴⁰� Joanne Arhar Mary Louis Holly and Wendy Kasten.

⁴¹� Focus group interview, April 21, 2006.

⁴²� Ibid.

⁴³� Survey, April 21, 2006.

⁴⁴� Focus group interview, April 21, 2006.

⁴⁵� Survey, April 21, 2006.

⁴⁶� Focus group interview, April 21, 2006.

⁴⁷� Ibid.

⁴⁸� Ibid.

⁴⁹� Ibid.

⁵⁰� Survey, June 15, 2006.

⁵¹� Focus group interview, April 21, 2006.

⁵²� Survey, April 21, 2006.

⁵³� Web forum posting, May 2, 2006.

⁵⁴� Focus group interview, April 21, 2006.

⁵⁵� Ibid.

⁵⁶� Ibid.

⁵⁷� David Franzoni. 2004. King Arthur. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Antoine Fuqua. USA/Ireland/UK: Touchstone Pictures/Jerry Bruckheimer Films Paramount Pictures. DVD.

⁵⁸� Focus group interview, April 21, 2006.

⁵⁹� Lee Galda and Lauren Aimonette Liang, "Literature as Experience or Looking For Facts: Stance in the Classroom," Reading Research Quarterly 38,2 (May/June/July 2003): 268–75.

⁶⁰� Ibid.

⁶¹� Survey, Jan. 23, 2006.

⁶²� Ibid.

⁶³� Ibid.

⁶⁴� Keith Barton & Linda Levstik, "Why Don't More History Teachers Engage Students in Interpretation?", 253.

⁶⁵� Peter Seixas and Carla Peck, 109.

Appendix A

Viewing guide for the film King Arthur (2004)

Appendix B

Anticipation guide for the film Robin Hood (Irvin, 1991)

Appendix C

Writing Prompts

Student sample of the writing prompts I used and her notes taken during the film. It shows that students approached this as a fact-finding task rather than as historical perspective-taking.

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