Friends, I need your help. I am continuing my effort to redesign my launch unit for 2017. Beowulf will remain my anchor text to start the year, but rather than dive into the history of ancient England and study the waves of migration, we’re going to thematically break down the idea of “heroism.”
Most of the skills development is standard stuff that can be done with almost any selection. It will begin with the more accessible non-fiction and then extend to the larger, more difficult works.
I’m trying to build a set that will be engaging AND stretch minds (not too far, perhaps).
I’m publishing the text set to my blog and cross-linking to Facebook, hoping for comments from English teacher friends, thoughtful colleagues and my network of intellectual former students. Please be critical and offer suggestions.
Some guidelines for your critiques and ideas:
-I’d like more diversity in these texts.
-Only Beowulf, the Gandhi selection, O’Brian’s “Things They Carried” and the Tagore poem are non-negotiable.
-I’d like to work in as many media types as possible. I know my “Film Clip” game needs work.
-I’d like to approach the idea of heroism from as many PoV’s as possible. We’re working, throughout the unit, to distill “heroism” to its essential features. However, I don’t wanna look at grandpa going to work every day.
-A variety of text complexities would be great.
-Social justice heroes would be great.
-I need to try to stay mostly apolitical.
The Train Scene – Spiderman II – Film Clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUsssa6ArAY
We Are Groot – Guardians of the Galaxy – Film Clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpTG-O8JlaQ
Omaha Beach – Saving Private Ryan – Film Clip (going to need a PG-13 edit)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5p5j_K0CsY
St. Crispin’s Day Speech – Speech (excerpt from Henry V) – Shakespeare
http://www.gonderzone.org/Library/Knights/crispen.htm
Hero – Poem – Rabindranath Tagore
https://allpoetry.com/The-Hero———English-Translation
Fearlessness – Essays – Gandhi
The Charge of the Light Brigade – Poem – Alfred Tennyson
https://allpoetry.com/The-Charge-Of-The-Light-Brigade
Don’t call 9/11 First Responders Heroes -Essay, from Slate – Samantha K. Smith
The Things They Carried – 2 Selections – Literary Non-Fiction – Tim O’Brian
The Man I Killed (file attached)
On the Rainy River (file attached)
Beowulf – Burton Raffel translation
Malala Yousafzai (I’d like a good profile or human interest piece)
Martin Luther King Jr. (Suggested reading to pair with Gandhi selections, perhaps)
Juian Asange or Edward Snowden (I’d like something addressing whether one or both of these men are champions of truth or security liabilities.) Also, perhaps discuss whether heroism is a matter of perspective.
Sports (high interest?)
Hero Controversies???
(UPDATE 7/26): The conversation on Facebook continues…