Outcomes and Skills
These outcomes describe what students should be able to do by the end of the unit. They are formative: use them to plan, self-check and give feedback. They do not rank students or record results.
Knowledge
- Know how documentaries make truth claims and how those claims differ from news, drama and propaganda.
- Know the main documentary modes and the conventions associated with each.
- Know how shot size, angle, composition, light and setting shape meaning.
- Know how editing creates order, emphasis, contrast and cause.
- Know how diegetic and non-diegetic sound, music, silence and narration guide interpretation.
- Know how interviews, testimony and archive footage become evidence, and how they can be misused.
- Know how narrative structure and rhetorical appeals work together in a documentary argument.
Skills
| Skill | What it looks like | Next step if it is not yet secure |
|---|---|---|
| Identifying a truth claim | States what a documentary asks the audience to believe about reality. | Write one sentence: "This film wants me to believe that..." |
| Analysing framing | Names a visual choice, explains its effect and connects it to purpose. | Use the frame: choice, effect, audience, purpose. |
| Analysing editing | Explains what a cut, sequence or juxtaposition makes the audience infer. | Describe what is before and after the cut, then what the order suggests. |
| Analysing sound | Distinguishes what is heard in the scene from what is added for the audience. | Mute the extract and ask what information is lost. |
| Evaluating testimony | Considers who is speaking, what they know and what their position might lead them to emphasise. | Ask: who is not interviewed, and why might that be? |
| Checking archive | Identifies the source, date, context and possible reuse of an archival item. | Find the earliest available version and compare captions. |
| Building an argument | Connects a central question to reasons, evidence and a conclusion. | Write the question, then two reasons the film gives for its answer. |
| Recognising manipulation | Identifies omission, false balance, staged emotion or misleading editing. | Ask what the film would look like if the opposite conclusion were intended. |
| Research | Checks claims against independent sources and records what each source can show. | For each claim, write one source that supports it and one that complicates it. |
| Planning | Writes a feasible treatment with a question, access, sequence and ethical safeguards. | Explain the film in one sentence: who, what question, why now. |
What progress looks like
| From | To |
|---|---|
| Retelling the plot of the documentary. | Explaining how the film constructs its argument. |
| Saying a shot is "sad" or "dramatic". | Explaining which choice creates that feeling and for whom. |
| Treating archive footage as unproblematic proof. | Asking who filmed it, when, why and what was left out. |
| Assuming an interview is the truth. | Considering the speaker's knowledge, interest and position. |
| Listing techniques without a claim. | Using techniques as evidence for an interpretation of the whole text. |
| Planning a documentary as a sequence of nice shots. | Planning a sequence that answers a question and tests an idea. |
Formative success criteria
- I can state the central question a documentary is trying to answer.
- I can explain how a framing choice positions the subject.
- I can explain what an edit makes the audience infer.
- I can distinguish diegetic from non-diegetic sound and explain the effect.
- I can evaluate an interview as evidence rather than as automatic truth.
- I can trace an archival image to its source and context.
- I can identify one way a documentary could mislead even without inventing facts.
- I can write a feasible treatment with a clear question and an ethical safeguard.
- I can revise a sequence after showing it to a small audience.
These criteria are formative. They are not a ranking tool. Use them in conferences, peer feedback and self-checks, and revise your judgement as your understanding changes.