Since I am totally random abstract, my classes are often disjointed and messy. It’s not that I’m lazy or unprepared. It’s just that I’m prone to trying new things at any whim. For example, we have been reading Fahrenheit 451. I’ve been going over the key themes and ideas of the novel. Some of the things I’ve tried have worked - the Comiclife assignments and the ‘happiness’ essay I had them write to drive home the idea of flow being linked to happiness. Some things I wanted to try never got off the ground - I wanted to show episodes of Talk Soup or American Idol to drive home the point of the level of idiocy that is accepted in our society, bringing in current tabloids featuring our obsessions with Brittany Spears and Heath Ledger to drive home the same point. Some things that I didn’t even really plan have gone over better than anything I could ever have planned - since I have already given them their final test, I wasn’t sure what to do with the final two days. I could heap more work on them, but am I doing that to keep them busy or to really reinforce what they should have learned. I didn’t want to just take the last two days off so I wouldn’t have anything more to grade (and if I showed a film, I could actually get some other work done). So I decided to show the film “The Island,” which I usually use in my Science Fiction class.
By showing the film, I felt a little guilty. I would be giving them two days ‘off’ (although many are using it to get caught up on their final assignments). I would also have time to get other grading done. But I did feel that the film tied in perfectly to the themes and ideas of “451.”
I never would have expected the kids to love it this much. I mean they are enthralled - not just by the pretty actors and action packed plot - but also by the issues it raises (cloning, mind control, and an all-powerful state) and how it ties in to our novel. I could not have planned to conclude the unit in such a successful way. Go figure.
Even this morning, on the last day of class, we had a great little discussion about how the film ties into things going on in our culture right now - cloning embryos, the Chinese genetically engineering cats and pigs that glow in the dark, using cloned cattle for food, possibly using clones for organ transplants (fortuitously tying into a little sidetrack discussion about the young girl - from Australia I believe - who had an organ transplant and her body switched blood types to accommodate the new organ - and that has never happened in the history of our species before), and so on. What a day!
Now it has me thinking about how to tie more of this together. The Island ties in well with another film we watch called The Village. I use the latter film in conjunction with “Young Goodman Brown” and The Crucible. I also show an old Twilight Episode that deals with similar themes, The Monsters are Due on Maple Street. Of course, this ties in to “The Lottery,” which is one of the most powerful things we read all year. I just need a way to tie these all together better. I guess that’s what next semester is for.
Now my mind is really working overload. This thinking has got me digging for an old English Journal article about employing pop culture into the classroom. Just found it - it’s called “From Sheryl Crow to Homer Simpson: Literature and Composition through Pop Culture.” It is sort of like one assignment I thought up midway through “451” where I asked students to think of a song, film, or other book that relates to a theme from 451. The essays were very interesting. They weren’t especially well writing - we were crammed for time and I didn’t get a chance to walk them through the total writing process. But I will do better next time. An assignment like that would never have been possible in our former curriculum where Comp and Lit were two separate classes. The kids really got into it and brought up a lot of songs, films, and books I never thought of. Some, though, I did know and will try and use next time - “Another Brick in the Wall” by Pink Floyd and “Teenagers” by My Chemical Romance and “Warning” by Green Day are just a couple examples. Now I’m thinking about how much The Island is like The Giver, which the kids read in Middle School. Could I use that as a base to begin the unit? I also know of a graphic novel, Oink that is absolutely bloody and disgusting, but it ties right into the same ideas. Again, how to tie this all together?
Who knows. But I like where it is going. It beats the hell out of - read the novel and write an essay at the end or complete this worksheet.
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