01-31-2012, 12:32 PM
Yep, the semester ended and it all went fairly smooth. The monster part of the course went great, but kind of fizzled at the end. The last two weeks were vampires and zombies and since there weren't any assignments based on it I know about half of them didn't watch the movies. The communication part (teaching them writing, presenting, etc.) could have gone better too. I'm not an English teacher so most of the time my feedback on fucked up sentences was "AWK" (awkward). If I were to teach the class again I'd do a lot of things differently.
One of the major themes of the course was balance. We were usually able to look at what made each monster monstrous and find out where they went wrong (if the fell into monstrosity) or what separates them from humanity. It usually came down to a lack of balance. I enjoyed this because I felt it gave a fantastic opportunity for these kids to think about what it means to be a decent human being by looking at what not to do.
For example, emotion was a big balance issue. We read two Greek plays, The Bacchae and Medea, which both were about balancing emotions with reason and what can happen when there is imbalance in either direction. Medea lost control of her grief, stress, anger and depression and plotted a revenge that included killing her own children. I've always loved the phenomenon of "cutting off your nose to spite your face" and it fit perfectly in here.
We also spent a lot of time on subjectivity and how a monster can sometimes become understood and less monstrous when their perspective is taken. The monster Grendel from Beowulf is a two dimensional demon in the poem. In the movie he becomes a little more understood, and maybe pitied. In the book "Grendel" you get a behind the scenes perspective from Grendel himself, and although many students still considered him a monster, others felt his actions were justified or understandable considering his background and treatment by the Danes.
Those are some of the more repeated ideas we touched on.
It was a good time, and it was fun to walk the line of "acceptable" academic topics and complete geekdom. For instance, check out the intro to the instructions for their final presentation (I read it out loud in my best monster truck rally announcer voice. SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!):
MONSTER BATTLE!
Monsters are mean. Monsters are violent. Monsters are scary. But when two monsters face each other in battle, the earth itself quakes! Monster Battle! Rage, blood and brawn collide in a royal rumble of doom!
Your assignment is to provide a detailed analysis of a hypothetical confrontation between any two monsters of your choosing. You will set the stage with background information on each monster, providing details of their history and monstrous characteristics. You will then square the monsters off against each other in an ideological skirmish; which monster is most evil, most scary, most monstrous? Which monster’s place in hell will be the deepest? Finally, you will stage a physical meeting between the two monsters and let the combat begin! Provide post fight highlights of their match and declare the victor.
Some of them were fantastic. My favorite was "The light-weight battle of the little people: Chucky vs. The Leprechaun." It was hilarious. Oh, and a good presentation... excellent research. :wink:
This semester I'm teaching the spring version of this class on the HBO show The Wire. So far so good.
One of the major themes of the course was balance. We were usually able to look at what made each monster monstrous and find out where they went wrong (if the fell into monstrosity) or what separates them from humanity. It usually came down to a lack of balance. I enjoyed this because I felt it gave a fantastic opportunity for these kids to think about what it means to be a decent human being by looking at what not to do.
For example, emotion was a big balance issue. We read two Greek plays, The Bacchae and Medea, which both were about balancing emotions with reason and what can happen when there is imbalance in either direction. Medea lost control of her grief, stress, anger and depression and plotted a revenge that included killing her own children. I've always loved the phenomenon of "cutting off your nose to spite your face" and it fit perfectly in here.
We also spent a lot of time on subjectivity and how a monster can sometimes become understood and less monstrous when their perspective is taken. The monster Grendel from Beowulf is a two dimensional demon in the poem. In the movie he becomes a little more understood, and maybe pitied. In the book "Grendel" you get a behind the scenes perspective from Grendel himself, and although many students still considered him a monster, others felt his actions were justified or understandable considering his background and treatment by the Danes.
Those are some of the more repeated ideas we touched on.
It was a good time, and it was fun to walk the line of "acceptable" academic topics and complete geekdom. For instance, check out the intro to the instructions for their final presentation (I read it out loud in my best monster truck rally announcer voice. SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!):
MONSTER BATTLE!
Monsters are mean. Monsters are violent. Monsters are scary. But when two monsters face each other in battle, the earth itself quakes! Monster Battle! Rage, blood and brawn collide in a royal rumble of doom!
Your assignment is to provide a detailed analysis of a hypothetical confrontation between any two monsters of your choosing. You will set the stage with background information on each monster, providing details of their history and monstrous characteristics. You will then square the monsters off against each other in an ideological skirmish; which monster is most evil, most scary, most monstrous? Which monster’s place in hell will be the deepest? Finally, you will stage a physical meeting between the two monsters and let the combat begin! Provide post fight highlights of their match and declare the victor.
Some of them were fantastic. My favorite was "The light-weight battle of the little people: Chucky vs. The Leprechaun." It was hilarious. Oh, and a good presentation... excellent research. :wink:
This semester I'm teaching the spring version of this class on the HBO show The Wire. So far so good.