Wednesday, February 28, 2007

High school: you'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Did anybody see the LA Times yesterday? The kid on the cover tagging a bus window with the mayor and his press core inside? Yeah, that was one of ours. Our principal is less than pleased.

I'm tired from moving and I have twenty research papers and thirty-five short stories to grade today. So I'm spending the next two days showing movies. That is by far the best thing about my job. Have a headache? Need some time to post on your blog? Show a movie. It makes the kids happy and allows you to watch your favorite films while getting work done.

There are teachers who will show films like Saw and The Longest Yard, which kind of pisses me off since there's no educational value there. I never show anything I can't use to teach.

First period I'm showing Star Wars Episode IV to discuss story structure and the Hero's Journey and effective character development. I'm showing the original version because Greedo is a punk bitch. When I mentioned the film they all groaned, not because they've seen it, but because some of them have seen the new films and because they've heard Star Wars is for nerds. But right now they're mostly watching with complete interest. Suckers. I'll turn them all into nerds eventually.

Second period I'm showing The Outsiders because it's an American Lit class. The kids at my school love that film because it's about gangs. One of my kids did her research paper on that book so I'm gonna make her talk.

If only I didn't have to grade those pesky papers I could just sit back and watch movies. But I put it off to write screenplays and now I'm in trouble if I don't get this done today.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:10 AM

    S.E. Hinton rocks

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous12:57 PM

    I just like that you're showing the original version. I should have expected nothing less.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Outsiders should be required viewing for all high school students, just as To Kill a Mockingbird should be for elementary school kids .. and Greedo, as you so eloquently put it, is indeed just a punk bitch

    ReplyDelete
  4. Agreed. But don't try to read Mockingbird out loud to tenth graders. It suddenly becomes the most dull book ever written.

    ReplyDelete

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