This unit introduces students to how stories evolve over time through translation, adaptation, and cultural reinterpretation. Using Charles Perrault’s Cendrillon (Cinderella) as a foundation, students explore how new storytellers add unique perspectives that transform tales over time.

In this unit, students watch Pointé de Couture for the first time and begin examining how visual and narrative style shape meaning. Through reflection and close observation, they explore the film’s use of animation, color, rhythm, and design to understand how artistic choices convey emotion and authorship. The unit encourages curiosity, careful looking, and the understanding that what we see on screen often carries deeper layers of meaning.

In this unit, students explore how filmmakers bend and shape time to tell stories in creative, emotional, and unexpected ways. Through selected scenes from Russian Ark (2002) and other films, they’ll compare linear and non-linear timelines and consider how time can move like memory-looping, skipping, and repeating.

In this unit, students explore how words, sound, and movement create rhythm within storytelling. Through poetry, dialogue, and film excerpts from Pointé de Couture, they will examine how language can function like music by setting tone, emotion, and pace.

In this unit, students explore the connection between authorship and identity by exploring how our own experiences, memories, and emotions shape the stories we tell. Through guided discussion and reflective writing, students consider what it means to be recognized, misunderstood, or unseen as a creator.

In this unit, students step into the art of performance, learning how actors express emotion, intention, and story through body language and voice. Students will explore the key differences between acting for stage and acting for camera. This unit emphasizes empathy, imagination, and versatility as the foundation of authentic performance.