dear fandom, please help me be awesome

[some_stars]

So here's my situation: I'm in an M.A. program in English Education, preparing to be an English teacher, which this semester mostly involves taking classes (although that is about to change for 15 hours a week, which is part of why this appeal, as will soon become clear). For one class, I have a not-quite-final project due in eight weeks with extremely open guidelines, but the core project is to present...something, in a multimodal format (engaging more than one sense), on the subject of literacy, probably but not necessarily focusing on teaching and learning in a school/classroom context. Because I am a ridiculous person with no respect for my own time or need for sleep, I really really want to make a vid.

Specifically, I want to make a massively multisource vid examining some aspect of literacy through any of a wide variety of possible lenses that I haven't decided between yet, because I got this idea this morning, but which include historical, multicultural, political, new media and/or remix culture, many other things. Actually whatever I do will probably end up being political.

I am 100% confident that I can do this and do it well, and I think it's a brilliant approach to this assignment in particular and will let me meaningfully incorporate almost all of the texts we're reading. The problem, of course, is that I've never made a multisource vid before, and I've definitely never made one with a deadline of less than eight weeks, a full three of which I expect to spend trying to fix technical problems. Three at minimum. Probably four. But that's not even the main problem; the main problem is that the reason I've never made a multisource vid before is because I have an absolutely terrible visual memory, and also regular memory, and I can't come up with possible sources, especially since I almost never watch movies and haven't really seen that much TV.

And this is all made more difficult by the fact that my primary audience is my classmates, not fans, so I can't count on them knowing any of the sources or having any vid-watching experience, and I can't rely on context for almost anything. Obviously I would like to make it with a second layer so that many of the clips become even more meaningful when you know them, but that priority comes a distant second to making something other people in the class can understand. (Although I definitely do want to use the format to engage with the concept of 'literacy' beyond written text, and the experience of reading a vid.)

Basically, if this is going to have any chance of happening, I'm going to need help. A lot of help. I have to mostly crowdsource the entire brainstorm stage of gathering sources, because I just flat can't do it myself in the time I have. Obviously I will then watch this stuff and choose what to use and do the rest myself, so I feel like this is completely legitimate in terms of not asking the internet to do my homework.

Which brings us to my request: please help me find sources for clips of the things on this list, and please point other people to this post!

1. People reading or writing


2. People trying to read or write and having difficulty or failing


3. Text (written, typed, chiseled into a slab of stone, etc.) that's particularly visually interesting either in itself or in the way it's filmed, especially if there's some kind of motion involved


4. The above three items but with other kinds of texts, probably visual but not necessarily--anything that depicts the process of production, reproduction, reception, transformation of any kind of text, the development and practice of any kind of literacy (in a form that I can vid--so the process should be clearly and immediately visible in some way even if the text itself is not)


5. Classes happening in classrooms, especially if there's reading/writing happening but also just depictions of classroom teaching and learning (or not learning) in general

(EDIT: I've done some more planning and posted a slightly updated request list.)

This list obviously includes a massive range of possibilities. While I'm interested, at this stage, in just getting a ton of options that I could take in all directions, here are some optional additional criteria:

1. Some kind of historical-change element is pretty high on my list of possibilities, so I'm especially keen to find both older sources and sources that depict many different historical periods (where the period is obvious from a two-second clip) (actually that parenthetical applies to everything I need)


2. This being an inevitably-political project about education, race and class are going to come into it even if they're not the primary focus. Sources featuring POC and sources depicting a variety of socioeconomic contexts will be especially helpful. ESPECIALLY historical sources (in either sense) featuring POC, and especially non-Western sources (or at least sources from anywhere that depict non-Western cultures and texts, although obviously this leads directly into a minefield that I probably won't have time to deal with properly).


3. I am particularly desperate for sources about schools that deal with race WITHOUT being grossly racist. (I'm strongly considering including a clip from the "Nice White Lady" sketch; I don't want to replicate the pattern it's mocking.)


4. Another major possible theme is the evolving concept of what "literacy" means as the cultural experience of reading shifts increasingly to images and multimodal text and screens/screen environments instead of traditionally printed text, so sources that address this kind of thing are great. Basically--computers, technology, new media, people reading and writing texts that are something besides lines and/or columns of directional text on a page. Or any kind of reading/writing/texts that could fall under the conceptual umbrella of "remix culture."


5. I'm also especially on the lookout for stuff that deals with the ideas of decoding and deciphering and/or translating and interpreting.


6. Almost everything I'm going to be able to come up with on my own is relatively mainstream American TV and movies from the last 20 years, and just in terms of visual interest that's going to suck, so anything with a very distinct visual style--very different from, as a general category, "stuff fandom likes"; it doesn't have to be not American or not recent--will help a lot.


7. Non-fiction is welcome/encouraged, as long as I can get at it, and bearing in mind it's going to be enlarged to fit a projector screen and needs to not dissolve into pixels when that happens. Mostly I'm thinking documentaries, but really, anything visual and available could be useful, throw it all at me. Game shows, talk shows, infomercials, music videos, games, reality TV, home movies, educational filmstrips, absolutely anything that could possibly go in a vid.


8. Also welcome: animation!

Some practical considerations:

1. I need to get this stuff ASAP, so unless it's in my tiny DVD collection (unlikely) or you can upload it for me (which would earn you my eternal gratitude but I seriously do not expect that), I need to be able to torrent it. The list of "stuff I can probably torrent" is pretty long, though. Basically if it's famous, or from the last 40 years and not actually obscure, I have a good chance of finding it, especially if it's Anglophone TV or anything that might be on AsiaTorrents.


2. Relatedly, if there's a way to download video from Netflix or Amazon streaming, I would LOVE to know about it. I'm pretty sure there isn't, though, since that's probably literally the very first issue streaming media companies address in their business plans.


3. If, given the above two items and this post being unlocked, you don't want to leave a comment, you can PM or email me, or comment anonymously.


4. I need to at least skim everything and find all potential clips by November 1 at the very latest, so if you can point me to specific scenes--or even, may angels shower endless kisses upon your face, specific timestamps--that's going to help a LOT. Obviously with some sources the relevant scene would be "all of them," but even with those, if you remember particular moments where the reading and/or writing were extremely immediately visible, that will be a big help. Especially for non-English sources that may not have subtitles, really especially then.

ALL THAT SAID: I would rather get many suggestions with several that I can't use than get no suggestions at all, so if something comes to mind and you're not sure how obscure it is or if it's available with subtitles or exactly where the useful part is, please go ahead and tell me about it! I will be so happy, I promise. All that other stuff is just in case some beautiful and unlikely person wants to invest some serious thought into this.

One more request: please please please signal-boost this post! This is only going to work if lots of people read it and I don't have a particularly huge readership on either of my blogs. I wish I could offer some kind of incentive for helping me (aside from "in December you get to watch a vid! :D? :D?"), like writing people fic or whatever, but the basic premise of this post is that I don't have time for anything ever and never will again until possibly next summer, sooooooooo, yeah. I'm going to give this crowdsourcing thing a shot for two weeks, and if it doesn't work out I'll figure out some other, less awesome thing to do for my project. But I really hope it works out because this could be SO GREAT, and also because any other idea I come up with probably won't allow me to incorporate Newsies. Which is not to say I will not try.

Oh also, if anyone has song suggestions I am 100% open to hearing them, because I have literally no ideas for that so far. Although it has been less than 24 hours so I'll probably be okay.

Comments

[vass]

- the pilot of Buffy has a scene in the library with Buffy and Giles and a whole lot of weapons and books

- in The West Wing, 'The State Dinner', a scene where Toby and Sam want to speak to the Indonesian president's top aide, but he only speaks Batak (which is not just one language, by the way - *side-eyes writers) and the state interpreter they found speaks Javanese but not Batak. But Donna finds a dish washer in the White House kitchen who can speak Batak and Portuguese but not English. But as it turns out, the Indonesian president's aide speaks English. Oh, here it is. [Insert rant here about the likelihood of a US state interpreter of Indonesia and a top Indonesian official not speaking the Indonesian state language, aka INDONESIAN, which, just... they would know it. Even the dishwasher guy would know a bit of it if he was from Indonesia.]

- Harry Potter, first movie: "It's pronounced Wingardium Leviosa, not Wingardium Leviosa."

More when I get back from work.

[some_stars]

Oh, these are all great! And thanks for the teaching movie recs--that's exactly the kind of thing that I may well have seen but just cannot remember because brain damage /o\

off the top of my head

[harpers_child]

-the Stargate movie has Sha're showing daniel the glyphs/gate addresses.

-Stargate SG1 and SGA both had scenes where translations were big moments. (i can look at episodes tomorrow.)

-the Highlander series has a whole bunch of moments revolving around looking shit up sometimes in dubiously historical contexts. mac meeting methos for the first time while methos is reading hits me as a nice visual, but i have a soft spot for methos.

-if you put in something from Hackers it would be hilarious. there's a bit where the kids are hanging out and passing around binders full of codes. a bit where one of the kids phreaks. several bits with ridiculous interpretations of cyberspace.

-there was a startrek ds9 episode where they all worked at a pulp scifi magazine. (long spear uses it at the beginning which is where i know it from.)

-beauty and the beast (both the tv show and disney) had pivotal scenes involving books.

-in due south benton refers to his father's diaries often and there's a bunch of police paperwork always.

Re: off the top of my head

[some_stars]

stargate is actually one of the very few things i thought of myself right away! i really imprinted on that show /o\ and oh my god, Hackers. I NEED HACKERS. thank you.

("far beyond the stars" i also thought of! because i was so depressed i couldn't use "darmok" with a non-nerd audience.)

[giandujakiss]

God writes the commandments with a finger of fire in The Ten Commandments. At the end of the movie there's a shot of two commandment-like tablets only they say "so it was written, so it shall be done." - or something like that quote anyway.

Yentl is chock full of scenes of Yentl reading - in the opening, she tries to buy a book from a bookseller and he refuses to sell her a religious book, insisting on giving her a picture book. Later, in secret, her rabbi father teaches her Torah, and she then does the same with her wife after she disguises herself as a boy.

Belle in Beauty and the Beast

It's been forever since I've seen it but The Name of the Rose - it was all about a secret book that the Catholic church didn't want anyone to see, right? So there are probably nice shots of libraries and books and possibly illuminated manuscripts, etc.

Impromptu features Judy Davis as George Sand writing with a quill pen.

[some_stars]

God writing with fire--that's PERFECT, oh man. The Yentl stuff sounds great too! and the other stuff. all of it. thank you!

[armadillo1976]

The "Captain my Captain" scene from The Dead Poets Society, which is literacy + books (as objects) + literary reference made in the actual movie + kids in a classroom with a teacher, so kind of ebverything you want all in one :-)

[some_stars]

That movie is definitely tailor made for my purposes, it's true :) thanks!

[vass]

There's every feel-good comedy/drama about teaching ever:

- Mr Holland's Opus, about music, forcibly shown to my tenth-grade class by our music coordinator in the erroneous belief that it would mean as much to us as to her. There's a scene where the eponymous protagonist sings 'Beautiful Boy' in ASL to his Deaf son, having heretofore refused to learn to sign because he's so furious he can't share his love of music with his son.

- of course, Dead Poets Society, in which Robin Williams encourages Robert Sean Leonard to become a dead poet himself by first playing Puck and then committing suicide.

- Renaissance Man, starring Danny de Vito as a US Army remedial English teacher who stirs his students into caring about the English language by teaching them 'Once more unto the breach' from Henry V.

[sapote]

- Opening scene of Pride and Prejudice 2005 is Kiera Knightly reading and walking. Mr. Darcy also writes letters?

- In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon there's a scene of a woman doing calligraphy that should be pretty easy to fast-forward for. Mulan also does some calligraphy in the Disney movie.

- Hackers has a diverse cast handling 1995-era computers (oh, someone else suggested this. I second it!)

- I am trying to think of specific sequences in Avatar that have to do with books or reading - I know Aang handles scrolls at various points.

- Dangit, I'm 100% sure that there are scenes out there of people handling papyrus, doing stellae inscriptions, etc, but all I'm coming up with is a vague suspicion of Disney movies. I have not, until this point, been aggravated that I don't know of any good movies about Mayans or Sumerians, but now that I've thought about it it seems like a terrible gap. I've just googled and all I can come up with is Mel Gibson's Apocalypto, or a 2001 Nova special about the city of Copan, which is probably hard to get.

[sapote]

I asked a friend who watches more movies, and he said that honestly Nova specials are probably a good bet for shots of people writing - you know, the cheesy historical-flashback bits where someone writes on papyrus while a folley artist imitates the sounds of a bustling Egyptian market, but that might be a lot to screen for on short notice. Still, pretty much any documentary about the Mayans, the Sumerians, or the ancient Egyptians would feature some slow pans of texts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1Wav5KjBHbI has a teenage boy using a Braille typewriter - don't know if you can rip youtube videos, but it's supposedly easy?

[laurajv]

The Stargate movie scene where Daniel is shown & reads the hieroglyphs, for sure.

A huge number of scenes in Buffy -- classrooms, reading, libraries, lots of research, including online.

In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones takes a medallion to be read by someone who can decipher it.

Sneakers has a blind hacker character who uses a Braille terminal.

The Fifth Element has a scene near the beginning where an archaeologist is reading inscriptions, and a later scene where Leeloo is speed-catching-up on world history through a multimedia terminal of some kind.

Little Women (the Winona Ryder one) has a bunch of scenes of Jo writing

10 Things I Hate About You has a number of classroom scenes, mostly set in English class, including one where Kat reads a poem she wrote, and at least one where she's seated on a sofa reading.

[holli]

Yeah, there's a great shot of Kat reading The Bell Jar, and a scene in a bookstore as well.

[holli]

The episode of Buffy you want is probably "Earshot"-- it has a classroom scene where the students discuss SHakespeare.

The Beast giving Belle the library is a must; there's also a deleted scene you may be able to track down where he relearns how to read, with her help.

The film of Matilda should have some good clips; I'm thinking in particular of Matilda's little red wagon full of books.

The Mummy might have some good translation scenes. Maybe also the bit in Last Crusade where Indy has to step on the stones marked IEHOVAH? There should be some good stuff throughout the Indiana Jone franchise, actually.

Is computer literacy part of what you want to do? There are a bajillion scenes you can use of people working on computers: Willow on Buffy, off the top of my head, and oh! The kids in Galaxy Quest using their computers to do the walkthrough of the ship.

[some_stars]

oh hey i remember that scene! i will definitely check it for any possible visuals because yay, buffy :D honestly one could do an entire vid on this theme for the buffyverse alone. although i'm not going to. but i could.

MATILDA. how did i not think of that YES. definitely going in. and everything else, this all sounds super great :D

[laurajv]

Oh, Harry Potter!

There's the monster book and Tom Riddle's diary and the textbook in the Half-Blood Prince, at least. (Wait, nevermind, in HP practically all books not curated by Hermione are evil.)

[basingstoke]

The Wire s4 has a quick shot that's always stuck with me, of a bunch of young kids eagerly raising their hands in class. In the show it's contrasted with the apathy of the older kids.

I'll have to find the clip. Clips of kids not learning in that show are easy and abundant.

[some_stars]

I am DEFINITELY going to make heavy use of The Wire. Even though I have never seen that season and never will because my heart can't take it, but there's no way I can't use it, it's like tailor made for my purposes. So yeah, pointers to any specific episodes/scenes would be hugely appreciated.

[executrix]

The beginning of "Serenity" (the movie, not the episode) in River's class"room" with the futuristic desks with type projections

[some_stars]

oh yeah, that's a good one! thanks :D

[tassosss]

In Firefly one of the early episodes has Inara writing calligraphy (see icon).

A League of the Own - one of the players is illiterate and can't read the lists to see if she made the team, another player helps her out. Later Madona's character teaches her to read with trashy romance novels

Teen Wolf characters text each other

[some_stars]

oh dang A League of Their Own sounds perfect! I will definitely get ahold of that.

[juniperphoenix]

Northern Exposure had several scenes of a DJ reading books over the radio -- the episode "Seoul Mates" is a good example.

There's a 2-part episode in season 2 of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers called "Storybook Rangers," in which the Rangers attend a school book fair and three of them get sucked into an enchanted storybook. One scene that might be of particular interest is near the beginning of Part 2, when some of the characters open a book and see their friends trapped inside the pages; this scene includes characters of color. (Pictures here.)

In The Fellowship of the Ring there is a scene of Gandalf looking at ancient parchments in a candlelit library (here's a picture). On the DVD this is in chapter 8, "The Account of Isildur."

The X-Files: "Biogenesis," the last ep of season 6, has scenes with writing carved in stone; "The Sixth Extinction," the first episode of season 7, has scenes of Scully translating with papers spread all over the floor.

[some_stars]

omg those Power Rangers screencaps--omg. I really want to use this. Grumble the Magic Elf!!

[abyssinia]

This sounds like a really great vid idea

The Neverending Story goes between the story itself and scenes of the kid reading the giant book - you also have him carrying it while he's running away from bullies, etc. The Princess Bride also has some book scenes - with the boy and his grandfather. And there's images of people writing with quills, I think.

Mel Brooks History of the World - there's a scene where someone is writing graffiti on the side of the Colleseum and some Roman Guards come by and start correcting his latin.

I think some of the early episodes of "#1 Ladies Detective Agency" at the least depict someone typing on a typewriter (Africa and women POC) - I have a vague memory of some form of somebody teaching someone, but I can't remember.

Whalerider has classroom scenes in a Maori school. You could also use it as ideas of ways of passing on traditions/stories in ways that aren't written.

I'm sure there's more...

[starlady]

There's a graffiti grammar-correction scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian, too.

[actiaslunaris]

The third and fourth games for Myst have some cutscenes of a gentleman writing with a fountain pen (Youtube video), as well as a father teaching his pre-teen daughter with books before them. Here's a photo-set I made of the latter scene, shared on Tumblr (in-game it looks a little different -- Youtube video, starting at 13:00). I have avi copies of both scenes.

[some_stars]

Oh, nice, the father/daughter scene especially. I will definitely let you know if I need it, thanks so much for the offer!

[rymenhild]

Possession! It's a film (loosely) based on an A.S. Byatt book. Roland and Maud are scholars in the twentieth-century, researching the nineteenth-century writers Henry Randolph Ash and Christabel LaMott in a place that purports to be the British Library. We also get a second narrative showing Christabel and Ash writing to each other in the nineteenth century. I'm sorry, it's been too long since I saw it and I don't remember scenes.

Toshokan Sensou / Library Wars is a Japanese series that comes, IIRC, in live-action film, anime and light novel. I've only seen the live-action film, which was rather too violent to watch on a plane with somebody next to me... anyway, the plot is generally that Japanese librarians are defending the preservation of knowledge against Those Other People Who Hate Books. Probably any episode in any format has good library-defense scenes to work with.

Sungkyunkwan Scandal is a Korean drama set in an eighteenth-century university. Our protagonist is a girl in disguise as a boy who ends up, due to various hijinks, enrolled at the all-male university. Try the first episode, available on Hulu (although I have no idea about download options), to see our heroine copying student texts in a bookshop. I don't remember which one of the first few episodes she ends up taking the university entrance exam in; that's her and everyone else writing essays, on scrolls, to get into Sungkyunkwan University. Later in the series there's a hunt for a very important McGuffin, I mean scroll, and a puzzle the heroes have to solve through research, but I don't remember where you'd have to look to find it.

Fingersmith, a Sarah Waters novel which was filmed by the BBC. Sue is an illiterate young woman raised by Dickensian thieves. Maud, a young lady just Sue's age, has been trained as her uncle's library assistant in a Gothic mansion. They both have plots and fall in love. Check out the second episode, of three, to see Maud's training from her own perspective. (Spoiler, for that episode, in ROT13 code: Znhq'f hapyr vf n pbyyrpgbe bs rebgvpn, naq ur unf orra perrcvyl genvavat Znhq gb ernq fzhg.)

I'm trying to think of songs...

and honestly the best thing I can come up with, in all its eighties glory, is the Reading Rainbow theme song. Take a look! It's in a book!

[rymenhild]

Oh! How did I forget Princess Tutu? It's an anime series set in fairy-tale never-never Germany, and it's basically a massive metatextual take on stories, living in stories and writing stories. You need Season 2 for this. Episode 21, The Spinners, recapped by Mark Reads here, has a LOT of books and writing stuff going on that I cannot summarize without going into spoiler code... but I think you'd find it useful to your project.

[jjhunter]

Dave Bonta's Moving Poems site may have some great source material to work from - and if you contact him directly, he can likely point you to particular clips if you don't have time to browse through the collection of shorts yourself.

Welcome to Moving Poems, an on-going anthology of the best poetry videos from around the web, appearing at a rate of one every weekday most weeks.

Other suggestions:

- Doctor Who episode "A Good Man Goes to War" - at the end of the episode, there's an excellent example of visually interesting text-in-transformation at the very end of the episode (around 5 min. from the end, if I remember correctly). Following description of what's going is in ROT13 (plug in here to decode) because of major plot point spoilers: Evire fubjf gurz Ohpxrg'f pybgu cenlre yrns jvgu Zrybql'f anzr, fgvyy va gur pbg. Nzl gryyf Evire gung fur xabjf ure qnhtugre'f anzr; Evire gryyf ure gung gur crbcyr bs gur Tnzzn Sberfg qba'g unir n jbeq sbe "Cbaq", nf gur bayl jngre va gur sberfg vf gur evire. Nf Nzl naq Ebel fgner ng gur cenlre yrns, gur jevgvat vf genafyngrq vagb Ratyvfu, erirnyvat gur puvyq'f anzr: Evire Fbat.

[jjhunter]

See also this post with an embedded youtube vid of a Walt Whitman quote in the fence at Battery Park, plus some related links. (Pic set below is of Frank O'Hara quote implemented in a similar fashion)

Deaf Jam

[bibliofile]

...is a documentary about some deaf high school students who write poetry and participate in poetry jams in New York City. About an hour long. I saw it on the PBS series Independent Lens IIRC.

Re: Deaf Jam

[some_stars]

oh man that is PERFECT. that is exactly a thing I need. It is also not being seeded by anyone nor apparently for sale /o\ but there are some clips on youtube! I can take those! Thank you :D

The Pillow Book (1996)

[bibliofile]

It's an Englishman's movie about Japanese calligraphy and writing. There are fabulous scenes of people writing on other people, and people with gorgeous calligraphy on their SKIN.

My friend the calligrapher says that the calligraphy truly is fabulous (yes, I'm having trouble coming up with more words).

Trigger warnings: full male nudity (Ewan Macgregor, whee) and also a physical book made from human skin (high eww factor for many).

Re: The Pillow Book (1996)

[bibliofile]

Oh, and all the calligraphy is in Japanese. Also, a pillow book is about sex, so subject matter may or may not suit.

Stand and Deliver (1988)

[bibliofile]

(starting separate threads for each movie in case other folks can help narrow down scenes and options for you.)

Edward James Olmos plays a math teacher who totally takes (mostly POC IIRC) high school students from arithmatic to calculus. Math, AsYouKnowBob, is the language of physics and many sciences. Mostly takes place in classrooms and learning that's not just writing on chalkboards: One of the earliest scenes has Olmos cutting apples into pieces to show fractions.

[harpers_child]

The Bletchley Circle "In 1952, four women who worked at the wartime code-breaking center, Bletchley Park, reunite to track down a serial killer." -imdb

just thought of this one today, but lady code breakers sounds potentially useful.

[some_stars]

it definitely does, thank you!

[wychwood]

Here via rydra_wong

Specific Stargate: SG1 scene that sprang to mind: in Window of Opportunity, where Jack and Teal'c are translating the writing from the planet they visit at the start with Daniel while stuck in the timeloop. See my icon!

A:TLA: "The Library" in the second season has loads of books, etc.

Babylon 5: G'Kar spends a lot of time reading a book (his religious text) and later writes one of his own. There's a couple of nice scenes - one of them is near the end of the episode The Long Dark.

[some_stars]

man, i wish i could make a vid entirely about representations of text and literacy in Stargate. because that's totally a thing you could do.

The Library! how did I forget the library episode, yes, excellent :D

[rhivolution]

Definitely what jjhunter refers to above in 'A Good Man Goes to War'--very straightforward in terms of transformation. Another new skool Doctor Who segment that might be useful is the opening of 'School Reunion', wherein the Doctor is undercover teaching physics to a class of young secondary school students (pre/early-teens).

There are a bunch of instances of Picard or Data reading on Star Trek: TNG, including 'The Most Toys', where Picard reads from Data's copy of Shakespeare.

With regards to POC and non-Western literacy, there's an interesting take on communication/writing in Wanuri Kahiu's short film 'Pumzi'--in this water-conserving future, all distance (possibly all overall) communication appears to be written or typed, despite having video conferencing access. Asha, the main character, communicates this way twice.

[some_stars]

Pumzi sounds great, I'll check it out! thanks :D

[minxy]

Two short scenes: One from Farscape where John Creighton is processing huge amounts of science in his brain (*technobabble reasons*) and writing all over himself in dark inked math.

Gandalf researching the one ring early in Fellowship of the Ring.

And the Mummy movies: Rachel Weisz's character is frequently translating heiroglyphs from huge walls of writing. There are a couple of pivotal scenes in which someone reads an incantation from ancient Egyptian to save the day (John Hannah at the end of the Mummy, I think, the kid in the Mummy Returns).

One scene that may or may not be right up your alley is early in the first movie, where Rachel Weisz's character is distracted and trying to focus on a book while walking and trying to tidy her quarters on a ship. There are some nice moments where she attempts to hang something up and misses the hanger, so visually it might work for your 'reading badly' idea. (but, to be clear, it's not because she can't read, she's just unable to focus.)

A good non-sci fi, teacher moment is in the film Mystery, Alaska (adorable movie! with sports! and Russel Crowe,) where a weekend hockey player/elementary school teacher by day gets written up in a news article. He has his students read the article in class and is very excited when they get to the good parts about him.

[minxy]

And the Princess Bride! The movie story is read to the little boy, who resists at first then gets completely into it.

[grammarwoman]

The "Anne of Green Gables" miniseries starring Megan Follows had lots of scenes set in turn-of-the-century classrooms, with writing on slates and such.

Similarly, you could go with clips from the "Little House on the Prairie" that had depictions schoolrooms and teachers.

You could probably get a lot of mileage from adaptations of "The Miracle Worker", as Helen Keller is taught how to sign and read.

Speaking of Buffy, you could use "Hush", to show people trying to communicate without voices.