Themed-lessons – not just another bore
December 1, 2009
My last themed lesson with teenage students was on Halloween. I chose ‘Zombie’ by Cranberries to elicit ‘the masked evil’ because I am sick and tired of gores, vampires, and other spooky faces I cannot relate to in any possible way. Therefore, listening to ‘Zombie’ which sings about the horrors of what wars leave behind, I easily elicited the answer to Who is Zombie – War is, they said…and a concrete silence unfolded when I said there is still war nowadays as you know, this planet is not living in peace…
Another mother’s breakin’,
Heart is taking over.
When the vi’lence causes silence,
We must be mistaken.
We started talking about what starts wars and even historicized violence. They seemed pretty shaken about this topic on violence. The next move was to make up a poem on War looks like, feels like, smells like, sounds like…thing as much as Peace looks like, feels like, smells like, sounds like…
The most amazing answers from the predictable answers like : Wars looks like blood, smells like blood, sounds like cries and screams (very Halloween-ish I should say), I had one that rocked the day: Peace smells like my grandma’s cake. I said: Oh…can we have some? He mutters more to himself, gaze down the desk: Well, she’s dead. She died in second world war, split by shrapnel. I know my grandma baked awesome cakes because my mom says so…I never got to taste them.
