On Regarding Susan Sontag
In this activity, students will respond to Regarding Susan Sontag in an essay or reviews, exploring the formal and aesthetic features of the film as well as its portrayal of Sontag’s life and work.
FILM LESSON 1:
ESSAY / REVIEW
½ —1 class period (30-45 min) + written assignment
- Art and Culture
Medium > Visual Arts
Subject Matter > Art History
- History and Social Studies
Themes > Culture
- Literature and Language Arts
Genre > Biography
Place > American
Place > Modern World
- Analysis
- Auditory analysis
- Compare and contrast
- Critical analysis
- Critical thinking
- Cultural analysis
- Discussion
- Expository writing
- Interpretation
- Making inferences and drawing conclusions
- Media analysis
- Musical analysis
- Persuasive writing and speaking
- Report writing
- Representing ideas and information in writing
- Summarizing
- Synthesis
- Textual analysis
- Using primary sources
- Visual analysis
- Visual art analysis
- Writing skills
- ELA Reading: 1, 5-7
- ELA Writing: 1, 4-6, 9-10
- ELA Speaking & Listening: 1-2
- HSS Reading: 1-2, 5, 7-8
- HSS Writing: 1, 4-6, 9-10
- Allow additional time for peer review, editing, and revision, or for students to critique the structure, style, approach, and conclusions of the final essays or reviews.
- Add a visual requirement, such as asking students to incorporate film stills into their essays/reviews, then analyze these frames in their response.
- Increase the minimum length requirement for the essays, asking students to cite professional reviews of the film in their responses, noting any areas of controversy about the film and comparing their own evaluation to these assessments (see Handout 2 or Film Unit Research handout for related resources). Alternately, ask students to watch another contemporary documentary portrait of a writer or artist, then compare their approaches and impacts.