This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: Movies for Educational Purposes in Homeschool High School- Special Replay.

Movies for Educational Purposes in Homeschool High School

Need some fun in your homeschool high school? Think: movies!

Can movies and reading books BOTH count as English/Language Arts assignments?

It’s complicated, but the answer is: Yes!

Movies alone cannot count as literature for teens’ ELA booklists, but they can be used to learn:

themes
plots
characters and
other tools of literary analysis

In fact, we 7Sisters have always allowed our teens to count some movies as books for their ELA booklist as long as they complete an accompanying study guide that emphasizes literature analysis skills. That’s why we have made sure they had good resources for studying movies as if they are books (like 7Sisters Cinema Studies for Literature Learning Study Guides).

Join Sabrina and Vicki for an enlightening discussion of movies for educational process.

Why learn literature analysis skills through watching movies?

There are lots of reasons to add some movies to homeschool high schoolers’ literature analysis lessons. Let’s start with another of Sabrina’s famous quotes:

Stories are stories.

So, a story in a movie is still a story.

Studying a movie can add some sparkle to a year that is getting bogged down in heavy literature books

Of course, teens need to read lots of good books during their homeschooling high school years. Some teens like to choose literature topics for a year, such as:

Other high schoolers prefer a mix of genres and authors (which is why 7Sisters offers the popular “One-Year” ELA series).

Either way, reading books, books, books can be cumbersome, so liven things up by learning literature analysis skills through movies!

Teens with learning difficulties will find analysis skills more accessible when they watch and discuss movies

Learning story analysis skills by watching movies is good for all teens, of course. However, learning some of these literature analysis skills while watching a movie simplifies the educational process and adds a layer of multi-sensory learning.

Studying movies for educational purposes is an inspiring activity for co-op

Teens love watching movies together and the literature analysis skills are great discussion material.

It’s fun!

Face it, it’s fun to watch movies! So why not have some educational fun!

A story is a story.That's why movies can be tools for literature analysis.

So where do you start?

First off: We recommend that you do not overdo it! Just choose one or two aspects of the story to discuss and analyze, even if the movie has lots of outstanding features that could be explored. In other words, don’t kill the movie (or a book, for that matter) trying to analyze everything that could be analyzed! Instead, allow teens to concentrate on just a couple of outstanding facets to analyze! Then they can actually learn and hold onto their learning- and still have positive feelings and inspiration from the movie. We suggest 7Sisters Cinema Studies for Literature Learning Study Guides for this.

When teens learn some concepts from a film story, they can then find those concepts when they read books. Making these connections is a necessary facet of education (and an important life skill).

Watching movies as an educational tool, helps teens begin to think that any time they watch a movie

They can use their brains and think about what they are consuming. In other words, when given tools for analysis in a gentle way, most teens will have more critical thinking skills for watching movies any time.

All 7Sisters curriculum is level-able (adaptable for Average- through Honors-level studies.) Homeschool high schoolers who are college-bound Honors level cinema studies will find interesting and meaningful leveling-up activities in 7Sisters Cinema Studies for Literature Learning Study Guides.

The way the Cinema Studies guides work:

Students watch the movie.
They take notes as they watch the movie on anything that is interesting to them.
They watch the movie again several days later.
Then they complete the study guide (questions and a writing assignment).

As an aside, Vicki and Sabrina rabbit trailed onto the topic of audiobooks for books and poetry. They noted that Benedict Cumberbach is one of their favorite readers. Vicki has several pins on her Pinterest Poetry board with him reading a poem.

Join Sabrina and Vicki for a “moving” talk about movies!

For more creative Language Arts ideas, check out this episode!