Critical Reading in Everyday Life

Obtained from: http://www.movieposter.com/poster/MPW-33994/Pokemon.html

As seen above, this is a movie poster for the first Pokemon movie, released way back in 1999 (yes, that's 10 years ago, though it doesn't seem that way).

Coding Competence

As mentioned above, this is a movie poster, and this can be seen from the words 'The First Movie' underneath the huge word 'Pokemon'. Below them, we have the words 'Catch it only in theatres', informing viewers of where to wathc the movie, and the 'November 10' in green below that also informs readers of when the movie will be shown in cinemas. Other less important information are located at the bottom, so that readers can choose whether to read them. The movie poster also informs readers of what the movie is about - the battle between Mewtwo and Mew. Those who are familiar with the series would know that these two pokemon are considered two of the rarest ones amongst the various pokemon in the show, and there are also foregrounded in the poster, taking up half of the whole poster, therefore being salient. At the lower left corner, there's a special section in dark green with yellow words 'Who's that pokemon? There's only one way to find out.' and accompanying the words are two pokemon which have been darkened to 'protect' their identities. As such, we can see how the image and words complement one another to achieve the aim of the poster.

Semantic Competence

The movie poster's motive is obviously, to attract movie-goers to watch the movie, which is why there are a lot of elements in the poster where the words attempt to entice the reader, for example the word 'only' in 'Catch it only in theatres', where it is implied that readers will not be able to watch the movie elsewhere, and 'Who's that pokemon? There's only one way to find out.', implying that the reader must watch the movie to find out the identities of these unknown pokemon. Also, the words 'The pokemon match of all time is here' right at the top further implies that for the viewers that have been following the cartoon, they must watch this battle, as it is the 'match of all time'.

All these elements work together to attract the audience and achieve its aim.

Pragmatic Competence

After looking at the poster, readers can decide whether to watch the movie.

Critical Competence

Students need to realize that movie posters are also used as advertisements for the movies, and not just information texts for the readers who wish to find out more about the movie. So by revealing little bits of information and creating some suspense through the words and images in the poster as highlighted above, movie posters serve this dual-purpose.


A Critical Reading Lesson

A favourite past time of Secondary School students is watching movies with friends, and pokemon is a cartoon that they would be familiar with, having watched or are still watching on television right now. So the movie poster will definitely be familiar to them, rather than some art house film poster or those that were shown very long ago. Even recent movies will make good examples, depending on the teacher's purpose.

My purpose is to facilitate students' realization that texts are not as 'simple' as they may assume them to be, and movie posters are examples of such texts. So what they see as a simple information text actually does much more than just providing information.

So I would begin the lesson by asking the students if they remember any cartoons that they have watched when they were younger, and a likely student response would be 'pokemon'. I will then follow up by asking (through a show of hands) if any of them have watched the pokemon movie when it was shown in the cinemas, and if they remember any memorable scenes.

Following their responses, I would then show them a copy of the poster and ask if they remember it, and a number of them would probably agree. I will then ask them what they think of the poster, whether it ties in with what they remember about the movie, what information does the poster provide.

I will then show them an advertisement, and ask them to tell me the features of the advertisement. I will bring out the movie poster again and ask them to compare the features of the two texts and whether they are any similarities between both, thereby helping them realize that movie posters can also function as advertisements.

As a follow-up activity, I will ask them to work in groups and give them other movie posters to search for the advertising elements within them and present it to the rest of the class.


Just my 2 cents worth,
=^.^=

Comments on Classmates' Interpretations of the Flower picture

After reading through the class's interpretations, I realized that as per Barthes' idea of connotations, that everyone's interpretations of the picture of the flower is different, depending on our own experiences, prior knowledge, etc.

For example, Sujing identified the flower as spider lilies, while not many of us did so. She also used the picture of the white lilies as a metaphor for the lives of young children as they grow older, "white lilies which symbolises pure and innocent seems to be depicting young children who are green to the environment and society. They are still oblivious to the danger around them. However, as they were to get older. They may be tainted with habits such as "smoking" or "drinking" which are ususally associated as unacceptable at the health angle. These tainted habits are then symbolised by the withering browish colour (which could also represent the colour of the lungs or heart of smokers?)"

On the other hand, Aishah has a totally different interpretation of the picture, "I would also say that white flowers represents death to me because I associate white flowers as the type of flowers to bring to a funeral. Perhaps this is because I saw on television a few times before whereby a female would place a white flower on the coffin as a pay of respect. It is also because I grew up believing that angels are white in colour because their glow and purity."

Yet another person has a different idea, where Pavani feels that, "life can be beautiful and growing vibrantly but the downside is that if you do not provide for yourself the necessities to keep alive, life may be wilted. It can also be interpreted that in life, the stronger people may outdo you by taking up your necessities so it is up to you to compete in order to survive. It is up to every individual to prevent him/herself from wilting and to enjoy the beauty of life at every growing stage."

This is quite an eye-opener for me, as I never thought that there could be that many diverse interpretations of the same picture. So this exercise has really taught me to consider things from many different points of views, and not just stick to what is familiar and generally known, for it may not be the most applicable.