From the time teachers first viewed The Piano by Aidan Gibbons on a training course, it suddenly became legitimate to use short independent film to inspire writing. Films like the Piano are perfect for lessons as they are often:
- Emotive and thought-provoking
- Aesthetic - the animation is often captivating and of high quality
- Short and therefore easy for children to take in and teachers to build questioning around
- Original – as the children have not seen the film before they do not come at the clip with expectations or baggage.
I love finding clips which I use with my class as a weekly alternative to class story. Alternatively I use a well-chosen piece as part of our literacy work for a way into poetry or story writing.
I have also found that embedding a clip on our class blog has led to some excellent review writing.
Though I have watched these myself and feel they are appropriate to use in class, I do advise you to watch any of these clips all the way through and make up your own mind.
I would also advise trying to download these clips individually, rather than relying on viewing them in this rather long
CREATE – A stop motion short by Dan MacKenzie from Dan MacKenzie on Vimeo.
