New resources from the Australian Children's Television Foundation: the ACTF free interactive online kit for media teachers.

LOOKING FOR RESOURCES to teach media concepts from mid-primary to senior secondary levels? The latest resource from the ACTF will be available from 1 January 2004 on the Learning Centre at www.actf.com.au. The Learning Centre will be searchable from that date and the kit can be accessed by searching under the KLA of the Arts where it will be listed in results as Media Studies Teaching Kit. The kit provides links to lesson plans in the Learning Centre and the interactive tutorials in the ACTF Film Production Kit. Here is an example of activities and lesson ideas from the Media Studies Teaching Kit for the media concept of genre.

Teaching about genre

Film and television genres are various identifiable types, categories or groups of films or television programmes and have similar, familiar or instantly recognizable patterns, syntax, filmic techniques or conventions that recur. These include one or more of the following: settings (and props), content and subject matter, themes, period, plot, central narrative events, motifs, styles, structures, situations, recurring icons (e.g. six-guns and ten-gallon hats in Westerns), stock characters (or characterizations), and stars. Many films and television programmes straddle several genres.

Genre Teaching Activities

Discuss the concept of genre in film and television.

1. A genre is a category or type; genres are differentiated from each other by characteristics of style, technique or narrative content. Ask students to list as many features of each genre as they can …