Filmic Pedagogies in the Teaching of History: Research on and Recommendations for Using Video in the Classroom (International Journal of History Learning Teaching and Research 14.1) Debra Donnelly, University of Newcastle, Australia Abstract: As contemporary history sources, historical feature films serve to link the school and the world of the students. The films’ multi-modality endows them with a currency that is often lacking in other teaching resources, and as such can provide a welcomed change from printed text. This paper reports the findings of an Australian research project that investigated teacher perceptions, understandings and practices concerning historical feature film in the history classroom using survey, interview and classroom case studies methodologies. The project concluded that historical feature films offer unique and rich opportunities to explore historical knowledge as contested, problematic and interpretative. However, the research indicated that these opportunities were often neglected in practice due to limited pedagogical approaches that failed to effectively integrate and interrogate the filmic representations. This paper culminates with the presentation of the pedagogical recommendations of the study for the use historical feature film in the teaching of history. Keywords: Australia, Case Study, Film, Ethics, Filmic pedagogies, Historical feature films, History education, Pedagogy, Praxis, Professional development, Quantitative research, Qualitative research, Semiotics, Teacher practice, Values Introduction Many historical feature films are designed to be memorable multi-sensory events with a mission to transport their audiences temporally and geographically. They have become major artefacts of popular and youth culture and for a brief interlude they bestow global-scale historical significance on their narratives of, or at least set in, the past extended by media hype, social networking clamour, gaming appropriations and product merchandising. As contemporary history sources, these films serve to link the school and life world of the students and their multi-modality endows them with a currency that is often lacking in other teaching resources and as such can provide a welcomed change from printed text. Multi-modal literacy was first proposed by Professors Gunter Kress and Carey Jewitt (2003) and concerns the different ways that knowledge and meaning can be communicated and integrated, such as visually, aurally or somatically. However, historical filmic narratives are often a single representation of the past with no obligation to adhere to evidentiary records. Added to this, feature films serve a commercial imperative, and coupled with the limitations of the art form, this often leads to manipulation of the narrative and the inclusion of fictionalised elements. Despite these issues, international scholarship as well as anecdotal and research observational evidence suggests that these frequently historically inaccurate and distorted resources are being widely and regularly used as teaching resources in many history classrooms (Donnelly, 2013; Marcus et al, 2010; Metzger, 2007; Blake & Cain, 2011). This situation prompted an Australian research project, which aimed to investigate how historical feature films were being used in the teaching of secondary school history and identify pedagogical strategies that allow these multi-modal texts to be effectively integrated into teaching programmes. The project was located in New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state.