Professor Explores Teaching Uses of
Movie 'The Wizard of Oz'
University of Pittsburgh at Bradford faculty member Tim Ziaukas traveled to a national conference to present a paper that explores using the 1939 film version of “The Wizard of Oz” as a tool to introduce students to concepts of visual communications. Ziaukas, associate professor of public relations, presented “Because, Because, Because, Because, Because: ‘The Wizard of Oz’ as Visual Literary Primer” at the Visual Communications Conference in Portland, Ore. Ziaukas uses “The Wizard of Oz” in his visual communications class to introduce basic concepts of color theory, “sacred geometry” and more. “Nearly everyone has seen it,” Ziaukas said, “so they all know that visual text very well.” Ziaukas said he is able to talk about some of the imagery in the movie without having to show them the film again.” “It’s a good place to begin because most of the students know the film so well,” he said. There are interesting reasons why the se...