{"id":59070,"date":"2014-05-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-19T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-to-offer-free-weekend-workshop-for-educators-on-exploring-the-history-of-the-american-west-through-film\/"},"modified":"2014-05-19T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-05-19T00:00:00","slug":"uri-to-offer-free-weekend-workshop-for-educators-on-exploring-the-history-of-the-american-west-through-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2014\/05\/uri-to-offer-free-weekend-workshop-for-educators-on-exploring-the-history-of-the-american-west-through-film\/","title":{"rendered":"URI to offer free weekend workshop for educators on Exploring the History of the American West through Film"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tPresented by URI\u2019s Harrington School of Communication and Media<\/p>\n


\nKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 19 \u2013 2014 — URI\u2019s Harrington School of Communication and Media will host a unique educational and cinematic experience in June for educators and librarians in collaboration with the Film Foundation\u2019s educational initiative, \u201cThe Story of Movies.\u201d The free weekend seminar\u2014\u201cThe American West and the Western Film Genre\u201d\u2014offers an interdisciplinary curriculum covering this important period of American history (1860-1900) and exploring how 20th-century filmmakers represented this era. <\/p>\n


\nThe program will be held on the University of Rhode Island Kingston campus in Swan Hall, 60 Upper College Road, Saturday, June 14 from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday, June 15 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The seminar challenges educators to move far beyond a read-the-book, watch-the-movie approach to film study, by incorporating teaching strategies for how to read a film cinematically and as a historical and cultural document. This free interactive seminar includes film screenings and small group sessions for analysis. Participating educators will receive age-appropriate lessons and training materials for use with students in grades 5 through 12.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThis time of year, many students in schools all across New England are viewing films in the classroom as part of English or History classes,\u201d said Renee Hobbs, professor and founding director of the Harrington School. \u201cThrough this new professional development initiative, educators and librarians can learn how to transform passive viewing into active, critical thinking that supports students\u2019 ability to meet Common Core State Standards.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nFilms selected for screening and discussion include John Ford\u2019s Stagecoach and The Searchers, as well as George Stevens\u2019 Shane. Saturday morning participants will also screen The Great Train Robbery, a silent film considered to be the first film narrative. Saturday evening\u2019s feature film is The Big Trail, directed by Raoul Walsh in 1930, featuring a very young actor soon to make his mark on the big screen: John Wayne. <\/p>\n


\nThe seminar instructor is Catherine Gourley, an award-winning author of nonfiction books for young adults and the principal curriculum writer for The Film Foundation. She has presented programs on film study and popular culture nationally and internationally. \u201cThis is a real roll-up-your-sleeves, intensive immersion in what is essentially a unique American invention: the Western film,\u201d says Gourley. \u201cThe Western was America\u2019s mythology throughout the 20th century. We\u2019re going to explore some of the consequences of fictionalizing the past. We also explore how the Western changed in the years after World War II and why today the Western genre has fallen into decline.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nThe program also features a talk by Professor Kathryn Kalinak, director of the Film Studies program at Rhode Island College, an internationally-recognized expert on film music. Her book, How the West was Sung: Music in the Westerns of John Ford, explores the use of folk songs, hymns and period music in Ford\u2019s work. <\/p>\n


\nTeachers who have participated in \u201cThe Story of Movies\u201d program note how helpful the program is for introducing innovative instructional practices to enrich language arts and history classes. \u201cIt reinforced my ideas about using film as a resource and confirmed my desire to view film as a \u2018text,\u2019 said Cheryl Gonder, a participant who attended the program in Los Angeles in November 2013.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThe Story of Movies\u201d is an educational outreach program of The Film Foundation, a not-for-profit film preservation organization founded by director Martin Scorsese and other prominent film directors. \u201cThe Story of Movies\u201d is designed to help students better understand the language of film and visual images. \u201cThe American West and the Western Film Genre\u201d seminar\u2019s objective is to provide students with a deeper understanding of the various stages of American cultural history by examining the mythology that made this genre so appealing to generations of Americans. <\/p>\n


\nThe Harrington School of Communication at the University of Rhode Island prepares outstanding graduates for careers, life and citizenship in a rapidly changing global economy with programs in film\/media, public relations, communication studies, journalism, writing and rhetoric, and a graduate program in library and information studies. In collaboration with the URI School of Education, the Harrington School is preparing to launch a 12-credit graduate certificate program in digital literacy to help educators, librarians and technology entrepreneurs to prepare the next generation for the digital economy of the 21st century. <\/p>\n


\nAlthough \u201cThe Story of Movies\u201d is free and open to the public, the weekend seminar requires registration; seats are limited. The registration deadline is Friday, May 30. To register: http:\/\/web.uri.edu\/harrington\/event\/the-story-of-movies\/<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Presented by URI\u2019s Harrington School of Communication and Media KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 19 \u2013 2014 — URI\u2019s Harrington School of Communication and Media will host a unique educational and cinematic experience in June for educators and librarians in collaboration with the Film Foundation\u2019s educational initiative, \u201cThe Story of Movies.\u201d The free weekend seminar\u2014\u201cThe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}