{"id":11602,"date":"2026-07-21T20:15:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T01:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/?p=11602"},"modified":"2026-08-02T20:03:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T01:03:07","slug":"movie-nights-turn-theater-into-classroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/07\/movie-nights-turn-theater-into-classroom\/","title":{"rendered":"Movie nights turn theater into classroom"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a long day in Chicago, cherubs filed into Fisk Hall for the final event of the night: a viewing of the movie \u201cCitizen Kane.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Throughout the program, instructor John Kupetz showed students three movies centered around investigative journalism. The decades-long tradition gives students a glimpse into the real-world impact of reporting.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI really liked being introduced to movies I hadn\u2019t heard of because I\u2019m not a very big film person, so I only see the ones that come out recently,\u201d said Sirena Chen of Portland, Oregon.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kupetz said he enjoys seeing students\u2019 initial reactions to cinema classics.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s very exciting, to have a student come to great art for the first time, because you only do that once,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

After each screening, Kupetz led students in a discussion of the film. He awarded \u201cshiny new dimes\u201d to students who correctly answered film trivia questions, including Ignas Petrus of Chicago.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat shiny new dime is, of course, making it back to Chicago,\u201d Petrus said. \u201cIt\u2019s somewhere safe in my dorm right now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Olivia Karp of Miami said she enjoyed hearing a variety of perspectives about each movie.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone had a different response because we\u2019re all different people that come from different places, and we interpret things in different ways,\u201d Karp said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Petrus said he especially liked \u201cAll the President\u2019s Men,\u201d which follows the reporters who exposed the Watergate scandal. He said the film encapsulates the role of journalism in society.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHad it never been for these two journalists from The Post following the paper trail, we may have never known that any of that was going on,\u201d Petrus said. \u201cThat\u2019s what journalism is. It\u2019s about being the watchdogs of society.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Students in past years gave Kupetz gifts like a \u201cCitizen Kane\u201d movie poster and miniature sled. Chen gave him a matchbox she found labeled \u201cRosebud,\u201d a recurring word in the film.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t react at first,\u201d Chen said. \u201cI thought he hated it, but then he smiled and it was the sweetest thing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

These small acts of kindness are \u201cone of the great pleasures of teaching,\u201d Kupetz said.<\/span><\/p>\n

To him, watching films is a different way to experience learning.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re under no pressure,\u201d Kupetz said. \u201cThere\u2019s not going to be a test. You\u2019re not going to have to write an essay about it or anything \u2014 just go and respond to the art.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cherubs learned fundamental lessons in journalism from an unlikely source: movies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":374,"featured_media":11703,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[683],"class_list":["post-11602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":683,"user_id":374,"is_guest":0,"slug":"zhang26","display_name":"Celine Zhang","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e8cf8d52b7b12ccb73ff9cbbb18bf1b72f44a5d6f5f96c9f7b11b250373a098f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Zhang","first_name":"Celine","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/374"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11602"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12950,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11602\/revisions\/12950"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11602"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=11602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}