A multi-media approach to bridging the gap between text and student

Précis  Honors World Literature, Sophomore English  26 students- 8 make 18 female  Plato’s Republic, “Allegory of the Cave”  Making meaning of text in a modern world

What is “the Cave”?  Extended Allegory with many interpretations  Prisoners chained to a wall in a cave, unable to move their heads  Puppeteers located behind them present images on the wall immediately in front of the prisoners  Over time, prisoners come to know the shadows as reality  One prisoner breaks free and makes their way into the “light” to experience the reality for themselves  Return to cave to present truth- not accepted!

Assignment  The group must develop a multimedia (Video, audio, still pictures, etc…) project to represent how the “allegory of the cave” applies to our world.  “How are we prisoners chained in a cave?”  In completing this assignment, the group would need to do the following:  Brainstorm ways that Plato’s theory of forms is relevant in our day and age (this is the difficult part, I instructed them to spend some time brainstorming)  It is helpful to have them focus on the symbolism of some of the following: o the cave o the chains o prisoners o the fire o the sun o shadows o puppeteers

Helpful hints for students  Once again, it is essential that they plan their approach to representing the allegory in our world (think outside the box!)  I provided them with a basic storyboard layout. I will load the template on the share drive so that they can complete this in a paperless format. (some issues in our building with sharing docs at this point in time)  Find images, audio, video… whatever you need, to create the project. We have laptops (2 per group) and a video camera (1 per group) at their disposal.  They were not allowed to leave the building during the course of the school day to film and they were asked to not disrupt any classes to shoot footage. I informed them that they were their own writers, camera crew, directors, actors, editors, researchers, etc.  (Divvy up the roles to get this accomplished, they will not get it done without teamwork and organization)

Struggles- we all have them!  Student s lack of experience with shooting video  Student inexperience with video editing software  (moviemaker, imovie, etc.)  TIME!  It is essential that you allot time so that the students have enough time to discuss, plan, shoot and edit their video. This is not something that you should rush (TRUST ME)  Colleagues may dismiss the idea as trivial or a waste of valuable curriculum time.

BENEFITS  Encourages close reading  Students have to explain and defend their work  Actively engages the students in the text  Focuses on the visual nature of the text  Creates a student/learner centered classroom  Wider range of student involvement  Every student has his/her strengths to contribute  Touches on different learning styles  Helps students recognize the different interpretations of text and it encourages more active involvement from all students  No one “right answer”  IT’S FUN!