A group of students file into Brian Alford’s classroom next school year ready to learn about history, but they won’t receive a lecture. Instead Alford will dim the lights, turn on the projector and begin to play a film.

“[American History Through Film] is not gonna be a bunch of documentaries. It’s going to be full length Hollywood feature films that go back and tell a story in some part of american history,” Alford said.

After speech class no longer became a required course, Alford came up with a new course to fill the space it left: American History Through Film.

“Well since there’s no more speech class anymore I have to have something to teach, so I thought of something that I thought would be interesting and they accepted [American History through Film],” Alford said.

The class will take a new look on a traditional history class, looking at past events through the film medium.

“We’re going to talk about prohibition and civil rights, and World War II, stuff that happened at home, Vietnam, look at the presidency, look at stuff that has led up to where we are now,” Alford said.

The class has appeared on many course sheets, and has sparked the interest of a number of students.

“I like history, it’s my favorite subject and I think it’s interesting to look at history through film to see how it’s been portrayed, rather than just study in a class, and I like Mr. Alford,” sophomore

Jack Maedgen said.

Other students are taking it for the film aspect, and the fact that it’s a weighted elective.

“It seems like an interesting class, I like WWII films and that seems like a large chunk of it, and it’s a weighted class, so it’s seemed like a fun class,” sophomore Tate Westin said.

This new course is offered for the upcoming school year.

“It’s not gonna be sitting around and eating popcorn all the time, it’s gonna be a lot of in class discussions and then watching movies.” Alford said, “It’s gonna be really interesting for history nerds like me.”