Film Synopsis
Reading and Writing Lesson
This reading and writing lesson specifically focuses on instructing students from an amalgamation of different countries (e.g., Brazil, China, Vietnam, and Japan) of various learner levels via Zoom. The content of this lesson involves practicing summary skills by learning how to write a film synopsis for various modern, popular films.
Lesson Materials
This lesson was developed for a 50-minute online course taught collaboratively by my colleagues and I in the Spring of 2021 via Zoom. Each of us filled various roles each week depending on whether we were acting as the primary instructor for the lesson or a co-instructor. Outside of the role of primary instructor, we were each required to fill the role of coach (i.e., assisted in reviewing and editing lesson plan materials), and evaluator (i.e., observer of the lesson). The homework assignment included was uploaded to the Google classroom and assigned to be completed by students prior to the following class.
Lesson Activities
The lesson content and activities attempt to make the genre of summarizing and synopsis enjoyable to students by including modern films ranging from Harry Potter to My Neighbor Totoro. The films selected by me, as the instructor, all involved relevant Hollywood hits or pop-culture films from the past 20 years. Outside of these films, seen in the warm-up activity and the movie-matching handout, the last activity prompts students to select one of their favorite films and to use the synopsis tactics we discussed during class to begin drafting a synopsis of their favorite film, which was then completed in their homework.
