film as text

Films with enduring themes are a great way to bring historical information and concepts to students. In the clips that we saw about Late Spring, family, gender roles, and change are ideas that students can relate to personally. From that point of connection, they can insert new schema about postwar Japan or gender roles. This strategy would work great in a history class, but also in other classes. In English, students could compare the director of Late Spring and his choices to an author and the author’s choices of a similar time period, reading the film as text, informing writing choices.