Reading in the Dark

This practical book for English teachers describes how to use film effectively in the classroom. Golden believes that watching and analyzing films improves students' reading and literary analysis skills. He advocates the use of short clips to highlight particular analytical skills and begins with a brief introduction to the language of film: the shot, framing, focus, angle, and more. Many concepts are illustrated, either by a description of a famous movie scene or by an actual still photograph from a film. The heart of the book is the section on film and reading strategies and analysis. Golden believes that because film is more friendly to most students than the printed word, it is possible to use films to teach students analytical skills that they then can transfer to books. By showing short film clips that serve to highlight the use of symbols, irony, point of view, or other literary devices, the teacher can illustrate the concept, then follow up by having the students find similar devices in a literary work. Golden lists specific scenes, most only a few minutes long, and identifies where they occur in the film by using the VCR minute/second counter. He concludes the book with a