Significant Learning: Effectively Using Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs in a Critical Writing Class

Using film in class is nothing new. Film in higher education has been used to explore content, ideas, context, social or political issues, highlight discussions and model certain behaviors, among other things. For years I have used film to highlight rhetorical appeals, audience awareness, and logical fallacies, or to set up critical thinking discussions and writing assignments. We might watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail, for example, and highlight the various logical fallacies that are present; however, there seemed to be a lack of “deeper learning.” While these types of assignments focusing on one specific student learning outcome like logical fallacies are positive in many respects, I always felt they were superficial and the lesson was forgotten as soon as students left the classroom. Students were not carrying their recognition of fallacies over to other texts or their own writing. That changed when I found a clip from Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs.