2/28/2014- Pop Culture Friday (Comparing Nonfiction Mediums)

I can compare nonfiction texts in different mediums.

Today we started class with a student led discussion. The question we discussed was: Should we have to read every week if we can do our weekly reading assignment on a movie?

• Responses varied. Some believed that you can get the same thing out of a movie as you can out of a book. Others thought that you can learn more from reading than from watching a movie? What do you think?

Next we reviewed what we learned last Friday. Go back to last Friday (on this blog) and review what we learned. We want to build on that knowledge.

Today we compared poems with commercials that quote the poem. First we did it in groups. Here is an excerpt from the first poem we read: 

Pioneers! O Pioneers!
by Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)

Come my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the past we leave behind,
We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Here is an explanation of the poem.

Here is the commercial:

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After viewing both versions of the poem we got into groups. Each groups answered one of the following questions:
·         How is the multimedia clip similar to and different from the original Whitman poem?

·         How does the medium used (video clip) impact the effect of the words and meaning of the poem?

·         Why do artists use multimedia to reproduce written text?

·         What does it say about Whitman’s poem that Apple used it to advertise?

After groups came up with their answer, groups presented their answers.

Then it was time for each person to show what he/ she had learned on their own. This time we read another poem by Walt Whitman "O Me! O Life!" and talked about it. The poem was written in 1892- over 100 years ago. But in 1989 (almost 100 years after the poem was written) it was quoted in the movie Dead Poets Society. Here is what the movie says:

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. 
To quote from Whitman, 
"O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. 
That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. 
What will your verse be?

In the poem the "powerful play" is the world and life, and the "small verse" is the difference we can make in the world. Essentially the poem is saying that the world and life have meaning because we exist and can make a difference. The movie takes the poem a step farther and asks, "What will your verse be?" Basically the movie is asking, "What are you going to do to make the world a better place?" After discussing that we watched the new Apple Ipad Air commercial.

After watching the commercial, we did the worksheet below. If you were absent, watch the videos and fill out the worksheet. Once you have completed the worksheet, you are done!

RI.7.7