Pulp Fiction

Given the breath of fresh air that has been taken by our new principal - and hopefully blown through the entire school, I am taking a look at my teaching and re-evaluating my approaches and practices.

One thing I'm wrapping up now is an inquiry approach to teaching the first theme I tackle in Lit & Lang 11 (American Lit), which is "The American Dream." I have some interesting ideas for approaching this. I've tried to incorporate a few key readings from our text of various genres. I've also lined up some videos. podcasts, and films to use. Students will have the chance to text and blog, use youtube videos, create collages, and finally, write a digital essay (an essay they read over an iMovie or slide show of pictures and images).

I've also looked at how I approach lit theory in College Comp. One type of theory that students always struggle with is post modern. Though it's my favorite theory, I too struggle to teach it.

Yesterday while heading to football practice, I was thinking about this and realized that one of my favorite films, Pulp Fiction, was my first taste of post modernism.

I mean the film runs counter to every other mainstream film I'd ever scene up to that point. The plot is told out of order. The protagonists are really the antagonists. Tarantino dispels the stereotypical image of the hero as wearing white and saving the day. In Pulp Fiction the protagonists are cold blooded killers and gangsters (or worse). There is no classic resolution - again, the film is told out of order. Even the story line and dialog are in stark contrast to the plots and dialog of traditional films.

In short, it's brilliant. This might have been the first film where I knew I was witnessing something great and important.

In the end Forrest Gump won the Academy Award. I was bitter. Though I enjoyed Forrest Gump, it was not - in my opinion - on the level of Pulp Fiction. I would have loved to have even seen The Shawshank Redemption get the nod over Forrest Gump.

Here is one of my favorite scenes from the film -



Again, I had never seen anything like that!

While I can't use Pulp Fiction in class, I can still refer to it and if the students go out on their own and watch it, well, so be it (one can only hope).

It wouldn't be until a year later when I saw Se7en, that I'd feel that same rush from a film again. After that, just a few films have struck such a cord with me, The Matrix, Crash, and No Country for Old Men.