Perspectives and Point of View

In this media gallery, students will interact with clips from the Ken Burns’ Mark Twain. After watching these clips and engaging with the associated discussion questions, students will analyze how Mark Twain’s (Samuel Clemens’) perspective and point of view was evolved over time.

In the support materials you will find videos from Jocelyn Chadwick, a Mark Twain Scholar featured in the film, in which she offers guidance to educators on using the film as a tool to teach theme and style. We have provided transcripts of these instructional videos. A culminating activity engages students in critical thinking and media analysis through an exploration of how the fim’s soundtrack adds a layer of meaning to what we see and hear spoken.

About the Authors: 

Jocelyn A. Chadwick is a life-long English teacher and international scholar. She was a full-time professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education and is now lecturing occasionally and conducting seminars there. In addition to teaching and writing, Chadwick also works online and in classrooms with 4-12 students and teachers around the country, focusing on literature, writing, and curriculum development. She has worked and continues to work with PBS, WNET, WGBH, BBC Radio and was invited to the White House as panel member for the series, Celebrating America’s Authors for Ken Burns’s Mark Twain. In addition to teaching and writing, Chadwick also consults and works with teachers, elementary, middle and high school students around the country: literature, writing, modern and classical rhetoric. Chadwick also is an expert consultant for NBC News Learn and is now Past-President of National Council of Teachers of English.

John Grassie has an extensive background in television news and documentary production, along with his current experience as an author, lecturer, and developer of digital educational materials for classroom teachers. As a producer, he created programs, multiple series, and documentaries for Public Television, NBC News, and Discovery. For his work, Grassie was awarded the DuPont-Columbia University Award, the CINE Golden Eagle, the New York International Film and Television Festival Award for Outstanding Programming while also being nominated for multiple Emmys and International Documentary Association awards. His focus on education has included lecturing on digital media at Harvard and Boston University, co-authoring two books with Jocelyn A. Chadwick, developing the Teaching Challenging Texts project for Savvas Learning, and serving as a contributor and developer for NBC News Education and PBS LearningMedia.