About the Course
Images of the American family on both the small and silver screen have a great influence on our society. Gender roles and parenting styles from post-war television shows are still influential even more than 50 years later. Notable films have changed our national conversation about families.
This course explores those powerful images and follows the evolution of the changing image of the American family in film and television throughout three of the most influential deacdes of the 20th century and compares the realities he American family faced during the same time periods.
Special attention is given to economic, political, and social changes, their affects on families, and how film and television families mirrored those societal changes or shifted in response to them.
About the Instructor
With interdisciplinary degrees in Film & Television and Rhetoric & Composition, Wende Bonner Morgaine has been teaching at Portland State since 2001. Wende has taught a wide range of courses:, including
Family Studies
The Serial Killer Film Genre
Gay Rights, Film, Television, and Social Change
Politics, the Silver Screen and You
The City in Film
As a genre scholar, Wende is always interested in what various pieces of media can tell us about the people who watch them.
When she's not teaching, Wende is a leading national expert in facilitating group creation and revision of authentic assessments by faculty for higher education. VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) Initiative Manager for the Association of American Colleges and Universities, her skills in designing, organizing and coordinating comprehensive national educational projects are unprecedented.
To contact Wende about any questions you have about this course, please email her at wendemm@gmail.com. Include "CFS" in the subject line so your messages doesn't get deleted in her spam.
About the Course Policies
The first policy to be aware of is that all written information provided about this course and its assignments are subject to change. Information about all other Portland State policies, including policies about the flu, that apply to this course can be found on the course blog at:
http://americanfamilyontv.blogspot.com/
About the Flu
Portland State University is committed to maintaining the safest possible environment to promote the health and well-being of its students, faculty, and staff. H1N1 flu is being reported at many colleges and universities across the country and it is likely that there will be an epidemic of H1N1 in addition to the usual seasonal flu. The H1N1 virus will affect younger people to a much greater extent than seasonal flu, but everyone is at risk. We all have a responsibility to help prevent the spread of flu and faculty can play a particularly important role. Everyone should review Preparing for the Flu. This is an exceptional resource document by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://www.flu.gov/professional/school/higheredtoolkit.html
Here are some policies that, if followed, can help control the epidemic.
Students will not be penalized for illness-related absences and will be provided with opportunity to make up missed assignments.
Faculty will not require a physician’s note for student absences. If faculty are concerned that student absences might not be justified they should contact the Dean of Students.
Faculty are responsible for communicating basic information available from Student Health and Counseling Services (SHAC) regarding prevention and control of flu to their class on, at least, a weekly basis. Information and recommendations will be updated regularly on the SHAC site http://www.shac.pdx.edu/.
Faculty have the authority and responsibility to require a student who is exhibiting clear symptoms of the flu to leave the classroom and not return until they are without a fever for at least 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medications.* According to the Centers for Disease Control flu symptoms include fever (usually high), headache, tiredness (can be extreme), cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, and body aches.
Faculty should provide alternative means of communication with flu-affected students so that the student may continue contact with the course. Examples include use of email or websites. OIT is developing additional tools that can be found on their website http://oit.pdx.edu/ that will be useful to faculty in helping ill students maintain contact with the class.
Faculty must stay home and use their sick leave if they have flu symptoms and not return to work until they are without a fever for at least 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medications.* Faculty should work with their chair, in advance, to identify other faculty or graduate students who may be able to cover their classes.
Faculty should work to create a classroom environment, when possible, that minimizes flu transmission. Examples include not passing out paper that might be handed from one student to another, when possible asking students to leave empty chairs or desks between them.
In the event of a campus shut down PSU will issue specific guidelines, policies, and procedures regarding matters such as course completion, grading, and financial aid that might not be covered by existing policies.
CDC guidance recommends that, based on current flu conditions, faculty, students, and staff with flu-like illness should stay in their home, dormitory, or residence hall until at least 24 hours after they no longer have a fever (100 degrees Fahrenheit or 38 degrees Celsius) or signs of a fever (have chills, feel very warm, have a flushed appearance, or are sweating). This should be determined without the use of fever-reducing medications (any medicine that contains ibuprofen or acetaminophen).
About Renting Movies
You will need to rent between three and six movies for this course. That will be the extent of the cost associated with this course. In addition, we will be seeing documentaries and television episodes during each class period. All the materials we will see in class (except for one) are available through Netflix. (One of the documentaries cannot be rented anywhere.) You can get a monthly membership at Netflix (with unlimited Instant Watching) for less than ten dollars a month. Some of the movies you will be asked to watch on your own are hard to find in video stores.
If you do not use Netflix, I suggest either the Hollywood Video on Burnside by PGE Park or Movie Madness at aproximately 43rd and Belmont. Either way, it will be easiest if you watch the movies you are writing papers on (especially for the 1960s assignmen) as a group to cut down on the number of copies you, as a class, need to rent of each film. Be careful however to not discuss the movies you see together as this often leads to papers that seem plagarized.
About Social Media
Although I am on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, I have a policy that I do not friend, follow, or connect with students until after the term is over.
About the First Day
3:15 Have students come to the front of the class and pick up all handouts
Explanation of first day card and cards due later
3:20 Reasons Not To Take This Class
3:30 Roll call
3:40 The American Family in Film & Television: Why?
3:50 The American Family in Film & Television: How?
- Syllabus
- Schedule
- Points
- Objectives
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