Charles Sturt University (CSU) academic Dr Jane Mills will challenge current education methods with her public talk on Friday 9 September. Titled “Hollywood for Homework: you must be joking! The place of popular cinema in the classroom”, Dr Mills’ lecture will argue that the opportunity to learn how to be ‘screen literate’ is as much a democratic right as is learning how to read and write. For some years now the associate professor at CSU’s School of Communication and Creative Industries has been encouraging schools to include screen literacy in the classroom and this means encouraging students to look at Hollywood films for homework.  In this lecture she explores if there’s a conflict between classroom practice and official definitions of literacy.  “The current literacy testing system promotes the denigration of the image and the idealisation of the word, which creates problems for teachers and students when the image, especially the moving image, is used for teaching,” Dr Mills said.