5.+Activity

Although this episode could work well in all of the units mentioned on the Teaching page, we will focus on the Hero unit for this activity.

To begin study of this episode and/or the Often Awesome series, it would be beneficial for students to begin exploring their ideas of what defines a hero. First, students should write a journal entry answering one/all of the questions, "What does a hero look like? Sound like? What does a hero do? What is the difference between a hero and just a good person?"

Next, we would show the class this episode //without// first discussing their journals. After viewing, we would discuss whether Tim and Kaylan are heroes, or if they are just good people. Do their ideas of what defines a hero change after seeing this video? What is the difference between a real world hero and a super hero from a film or television show?

After this discussion, we would ask students to work in groups to find videos of other everyday heroes on Youtube or other video-hosting websites. Once students have selected their videos, they will compare their real-life hero with one of our literary heroes, either with a Venn Diagram, in a compare-and-contrast essay, or in another format that the teacher prefers. Students should focus on the traditional hero characteristics for their comparison/analysis. If possible, it would be great to compare a film adaptation of the text to one of the real-life hero videos so students could analyze differences within the same media type.

In addition to the character analysis, students should also note the construction of the video they selected, analyzing how and why the videos cast the characters in a heroic light. They should identify visual, graphic, iconic, and aural elements the filmmaker utilizes, and discuss the effect these elements have upon the viewer. This would lead into a discussion of rhetoric and argument, and how these elements are present in every clip we watch and text we read, even when in a nonfiction documentary. This portion of the activity could (or should) be completed on a second day.