Re-viewing the canon : using film and critical pedagogy in the standards-based classroom

Graduation date: 2014This thesis analyzes the efficacy of emancipatory (critical) pedagogical practices in an educational climate of standards-based reform. Using two films noir of the blacklist era--Body and Soul and Crossfire--as the core texts of a unit in a secondary school curriculum, I argue that an emphasis on student agency and a de-centering of curriculum and instruction is not only compatible with national reforms like the Common Core State Standards but is essential for English/language arts classrooms in the 21st century.\ud In addition to a scholarly review of critical pedagogy and media literacy, and close readings of the two films themselves, this thesis also ends with an informal case study in which both films-as-texts were taught to 9th grade students. By combining theory and practice, I was able to model the praxis at the heart of critical pedagogy, what Paulo Freire calls in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, "reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it."\ud The films of the blacklist match current national mandates for relevant texts, for media and visual literacy, and for authentic and emancipatory pedagogy.\ud Narrowing down even further on two highly-regarded films released in 1947, the same year the blacklist was initiated, allows for an analysis of the artistic and aesthetic complexities of the texts as well as the high-stakes terms of the political engagements of the blacklist. Both films promote the civic honesty--the willingness to face the dark corners of our history--essential for a democracy. The films also represent a visual vocabulary primer, enabling the kinds of media study crucial for our media-saturated world. Bundling the historical/aesthetic/pedagogical readings of these films in this thesis allows me to engage in current debates on literacy, textuality, and the changing mission of secondary-level English literature studies