Newswise — Like many colleges, Lafayette College in Pennsylvania has traditionally assigned a required "summer reading" book project to all incoming freshmen. Instead of a book this summer, the college has assigned the movie "Crash," the 2005 Oscar winner for Best Picture. Students are required to view the film over the summer and they will again watch it as a group at orientation August 25-27.
According to Rose Marie Bukics, dean of studies at Lafayette, they will be asked to examine and "read" the film, allowing themselves to look beyond good or bad, and to actively examine the film's form and content in an effort to better analyze, critique, and discuss the issues and situations brought to light.
For the past three years, incoming students have been introduced to their undergraduate lives at Lafayette with the theme "Imagining America." Kicked off with the Class of 2007, Imagining America enables first year students to delve into the exploration of the American identity, human interdependency, and shared responsibilities of securing and advancing civil society.
The method of exploration has changed this summer. While students in the past have focused primarily on written text for the summer reading, this year's class will have the opportunity to give their intellectual attention to a new type of media: film. Crash, the 2005 film, will be this year's text. The program began in mid-July when supplementary materials were mailed to students by Rose Marie Bukics, Dean of Studies. "How to Read a Film: Looking at Crash," written by assistant professors of English Alix Ohlin and Andy Smith, who is also chair of American studies, will help students navigate the perhaps previously uncharted territory of critically "reading" a film.
"In examining the interplay of a film's form and content " which is to say, in "reading" it critically " we can and should adopt an active, searching, and analytical posture " the opposite of the typical relationship with film. Learning to read a film carefully is a conscious choice: it's the difference between being a half-aware consumer of flashy products and a bright student doing thoughtful work in the context of an intellectual community. In our increasingly visual, media saturated culture, such critical awareness of how visual and aural texts function gives one a dramatic advantage over those who remain passive and unaware," the professors write.
Also included in the packet are directions on how to use the College's Blackboard Learning System. The blackboard acts as an Internet community for students. It contains a list of questions to consider while viewing Crash and links containing further information about the movie.
At orientation, students will be involved with faculty in discussion sessions, where certain themes and questions will be explored and critiqued in an intellectual setting. During this time, students will be asked to discuss the film's form, rather than just the content. Along with the racial issues brought forth in the plot, stylistic element will also be analyzed.
Mary Stuart Hunter, Director of the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience http://sc.edu/fye/resources/fyr/index.html calls the assignment an interesting idea, and says she is not aware of another college or university assigning incoming students a required movie.
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