PWPQRPQ and ImageReel: Engaging Students into Activities Converging Poetry and Cinematography

A challenge to Filipino educators is the constant adaptation to teaching and learning styles as millennial learners become more exposed to and adept with handy electronic devices, multimedia technology and digital applications but less engaging in their school subjects especially a reading and literature class. This paper discusses simple and innovative activities which enhance the teaching and learning of basic literary concepts, like poetry, through the aid of cinematography. These are “Play, Watch, Pause, Question, Resume, Pause, Question” (PWPQRPQ) and ImageReel. This paper centers on the Poetry Class of the researcher during the first semester of 2015-2016 using modified guidelines and rubrics of photo-based learning and filmmaking techniques/strategies of Katherine Kuta, Sarah Kavanagh, Katherine Schulten and Dave Bonta. In the process of these two activities, the learners were able to not only appreciate literature and film but also develop skills in deciphering, questioning, assessing and short filmmaking. Moreover, such shared activities transformed the class into an interdisciplinary and multilayered teaching and learning environment for both educator and learners. In creating this teaching and learning space, literary educators significantly address the common reading issue of learners being passive readers but active screen viewers. These activities result to learners becoming active readers, critical thinkers, constructive interpreters, creative narrators, and sensitive individuals. Future researchers, whose interest lie on the teaching of literature and film through technology can study on other aspects of the learning performances of students, such as their attitude, interest, engagement, and creativity. They also can study the effectiveness of the teaching strategies used by teachers whose materials are similarly digital-driven using quasi or experimental designs.