Spellbound (ATOM Study Guide)

Spellbound follows eight young competitors who have their eyes firmly on the prize. Yet this documentary, while celebrating the triumph of the ultimate winner, Nupur Lala, also celebrates American diversity. The eight competitors come from trailer parks, leafy suburbs, high-rise apartments, and beachfront mansions; they are multi-racial and they cross socio-economic divides. They are a microcosm of American society, united in their obsessive, intellectual love of the origin, shape and meaning of words.
Spellbound is a documentary that can be used across all key learning areas enunciated in curriculum statements in Australia. Key ideas can be developed to support outcomes from levels five to eight. The film will appeal to students from Years 5 to Year 10.
Briefly, Spellbound can be used in:
English
- Character and family portraits of the contestants
- The search for identity and finding one's way in the world
- Coping with competition
- Peer pressure
- The debate on spelling and reading—phonics versus 'whole language' approaches
Media Studies
- The conventions of documentary
- Production values
Science
- The recognition of multiple intelligences
- The 'nature' versus 'nurture' debate
Studies of society and environmeNT
- The determinants of class, race, gender and ethnicity in the formation of subjectivity
- Family dynamics