Creating Monsters
A couple of months ago I was studying the Adventure genre with my students and it seemed the best movie I could show them was "The Princess Bride", which most of them had never seen before and is one of my favorite movies ever and has about the best definition of an adventure book/movie that I could imagine:
The Grandson: A book?
Grandpa: That's right. When I was your age, television was called books. And this is a special book. It was the book my father used to read to me when I was sick, and I used to read it to your father. And today I'm gonna read it to you.
The Grandson: Has it got any sports in it?
Grandpa: Are you kidding? Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles...
The Grandson: Doesn't sound too bad. I'll try to stay awake.
Grandpa: Oh, well, thank you very much, very nice of you. Your vote of confidence is overwhelming.
The kids really loved the movie and I was glad and I will show it again next year.
So today I showed them the first two episodes of the BBC series "Robin of Sherwood", because we're studying Medieval England and we've just finished a novel of Robin Hood adventures and it's still my favorite screen version of the Robin Hood legend. And the kids loved it, too, and they really got into it and they are very excited about writing and performing their own Robin Hood plays.
But I didn't quite realize how much of an influence these movies were having on them until the very last scene of "Robin of Sherwood", where Robin and Marian are being married by Herne the Hunter and I heard a boy across the room saying under his breath- "Mawwiage. It's what bwings us togevah today.".
:)
As a teacher sometimes you really do create a monster... in a good way.
The Grandson: A book?
Grandpa: That's right. When I was your age, television was called books. And this is a special book. It was the book my father used to read to me when I was sick, and I used to read it to your father. And today I'm gonna read it to you.
The Grandson: Has it got any sports in it?
Grandpa: Are you kidding? Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles...
The Grandson: Doesn't sound too bad. I'll try to stay awake.
Grandpa: Oh, well, thank you very much, very nice of you. Your vote of confidence is overwhelming.
The kids really loved the movie and I was glad and I will show it again next year.
So today I showed them the first two episodes of the BBC series "Robin of Sherwood", because we're studying Medieval England and we've just finished a novel of Robin Hood adventures and it's still my favorite screen version of the Robin Hood legend. And the kids loved it, too, and they really got into it and they are very excited about writing and performing their own Robin Hood plays.
But I didn't quite realize how much of an influence these movies were having on them until the very last scene of "Robin of Sherwood", where Robin and Marian are being married by Herne the Hunter and I heard a boy across the room saying under his breath- "Mawwiage. It's what bwings us togevah today.".
:)
As a teacher sometimes you really do create a monster... in a good way.