Working with a primary aged child to create a short film was
eye opening for many reasons. After reading about literacy playshops in Karen
Wohlwend’s Literacy Playshop: New
Literacies, Popular Media, and Play in the Early Childhood Classroom, and
in particular the roles that popular media could play in constructing a
meaningful literacy experience, I was a bit skeptical. I had chosen to work
with a kindergarten student and I clearly brought doubts to the playshop
sessions as to what a kindergarten student could gain from this experience. However,
I was pleasantly surprised by the vision and structure that Bobby’s story
encapsulated. The use of a popular media toy franchise seemed to allow Bobby to
focus on his story’s arrangement and not get bogged down in character
development. While character development is an important literary device,
Bobby’s knowledge of an existing character allowed him to quickly move into
storytelling mode. I would hope that as Bobby’s literacy knowledge progresses,
he will deal more with character development in future storytelling exercises.
The popular media franchise that I chose to use with my
student was Batman. Bobby is obviously a Batman aficionado as I have seen him
wearing Batman clothing, I’ve witnessed him playing with Batman toys, and he
has told me about the Batman television show. The Batman franchise has been
around for some time now; however, each generation seems to bring Batman back
in a new and inventive commercial manner. The short film that I produced with
Bobby had many elements of the typical Batman story: good vs. evil, technology,
physical abilities, and Batman’s continuous need to fight crime.
I began by drawing up a storyboard and a list of characters
and settings. Bobby didn’t seem interested in spending much time on the
storyboard. He was very anxious to get started with the film. I explained that
a storyboard is a great way to keep your ideas in order before you shoot the
final film. I don’t believe he completely understood, but he did go along with
the activity. His main focus was that he wanted to make sure that I knew his
story was a battle between good and evil and that good always wins. After completing
the storyboard, Bobby practiced the story a few times while I watched. He was
intensely trying to remember what we had spoken about during our storyboarding,
but did add a few different elements to the story when it came time to shoot
the film. To my surprise, Bobby only needed two takes to film his story. The
first take ended with him forgetting to include Batman’s car and he seemed
genuinely upset about this. The second take went exactly as he had planned and
he seemed very pleased. Also, he was very excited to see the film after we were
done. I stopped the video halfway through, thinking that he just wanted to see
that I had actually taken film of the story; however, he was not pleased with
this and I had to start the video from the beginning and watch it in its
entirety.
While Bobby was noticeably borrowing storylines from actual
Batman movies or television shows, he did display an understanding of what
elements needed to be present for the story to be complete. His story
progressed by having a beginning, middle, and end, while expressing to the
audience the theme of good vs. evil without using much dialogue or narration. I
am very impressed with Bobby’s early literacy skills and am pleased that my
skepticism was proven wrong. The literacy playshop definitely deserves a place
in the primary classroom.
No comments:
Post a Comment