film clip lesson presentations

It was really helpful to see everyone's film clip lesson plans. There are so many movies based on young adult novels! And so many young adult novels that I've never heard of! It always helps to see everyone else's ideas because we can build off of them. And it lets us know who everyone is and will be as a teacher, which I always think is very neat. There is definitely a broad spectrum of creativity represented in our class and in this program, and I'm sure that all of us will succeed in maintaining the ingenuity that is integral to the teaching profession.
I chose to write my lesson plan for Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God again. I chose a clip from YouTube that features the sond "Poor Unfortunate Souls" from Disney's The Little Mermaid to go along with it. My rationale was a comparison/discussion between the idea of finding yourself as they are depicted in the two medias. Janie from Their Eyes Were Watching God embarks on a journey to find her voice and eventually, after successive relationships with dominant male figures, discovers the boundaries of her horizon. Meanwhile, Ariel chooses to give up her voice in an effort to meet the man that she loves and get him to fall in love with her. It's so ironic (and horrible) that as children our society throws the message at you that you must give up your opinions (in the case of The Little Mermaid, Ariel's opinions are symbolized by her "voice") in order to find love. Ursela sings to Ariel, "It won't cost much, just your voice!" As if giving up a part of who you are is negligible compared to the prospect of finding a good man. Well, I could go off on a tangent here, but I'm pretty sure that I already slightly did both in my lesson plan and in my presentation. So, I'm sorry for any childhood memories of Disney movies that may have been tainted by this new perspective. Actually, I'm not that sorry because it's quite upsetting that the majority of our youthful cultural icons (cartoon icons?) had to be rescued by a handsome prince before we could look up to them.