Snapshot 5.7. Silent Film Festival About Mars
Integrated ELA/Literacy, Visual Arts, and Theatre in Grade FiveMs. Johnson is launching a unit focusing on the hero’s journey that integrates the
ELA/literacy strands with the arts—one that ensures much student collaboration and therefore
plentiful and purposeful language use. Knowing how influential movies are to her students,
she begins to show short silent films depicting variations of the hero’s journey as a way for
students to trace the structural elements of film, as well as understand the concept of the
hero’s journey. Ms. Johnson takes the opportunity to point out how silent film grew out of
American theatre styles like melodrama and vaudeville. After having the students watch
George Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon (1902), and Thomas Edison’s A Trip to Mars (1910), she
asks them to read a short excerpt from the informational text, Discovering Mars: The Amazing
Story of the Red Planet, by Melvin Berger. She asks her students to keep in mind that just as
Méliès and Edison had never been to the moon, humans have never sent someone to Mars
and that we have only recently seen pictures of the terrain.
When students are finished reading and discussing the texts, they work in small teams
to create a short silent film about traveling to Mars, using classroom tablets. After Ms.
Johnson reviews rubrics that specify qualities for successful storyboards and film productions,
each team begins brainstorming by mapping out the story structure of their film through a
storyboard application, which will guide their production. The teams work together to design
characters’ costumes and set pieces and to cast the film within their team. The students also
have an opportunity to create or identify music they would like to use in the film. After filming
and editing the footage together, complete with title screen and credit roll, they share the first
draft with Ms. Johnson, who refers to the two rubrics when she meets with each team. The
teams then take time to revise, edit, and polish their work. Their work culminates in a “Silent
Film Festival” where parents and school staff are invited to come and watch the films the fifth
graders have created. The project concludes with the students completing self-evaluations
of their individual contributions to the team projects, based on the two rubrics, as well as a
reflection of what it was like to work collaboratively as a team. Ms. Johnson reviews all of the
evaluations and reflections and provides individual feedback.
As an extension, students script simple dialogue to insert between scenes as title cards for
A Trip to the Moon or for their own projects.
The students later read Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret, in which George
Méliès and silent film play special roles.Resources
Berger, Melvin. 1992. Discovering Mars: The Amazing Story of the Red Planet. New York: Scholastic.
Edison, Thomas. 1920. A Trip to Mars (film). Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np7VImsSMQM
Méliès, George. 1902. A Trip to the Moon (film). Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbGd_240ynk
Selznick, Brian. 2007. The Invention of Hugo Cabret. New York: Scholastic.CA CCSS for ELA/Literacy: RL.5.7, 9; RI.5.7; W.5.3; SL.5.1, 5
Related CA Visual and Performing Arts Content Standards:
Theatre 1.2 Identify the structural elements of plot (exposition, complication, crisis, climax, and resolution) in a
script or theatrical experience.
Theatre 2.3 Collaborate as an actor, director, scriptwriter, or technical artist in creating formal or informal theatrical
performance.
Theatre 4.1 Develop and apply appropriate criteria for critiquing the work of actors, directors, writers, and technical
artists in theatre, film, and video.Grade 5 Chapter 5 | 479