OBJECTIVES
Students will work cooperatively on a collage that will include poetry and graphics, and that will also be somewhat representative of the American flag in that it will have stars and stripes.
PRESENTATION
Martha Savage, the Art Department Chair at BRAMS, will give a presentation on collage techniques.
METHOD & APPLICATION:
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They will brainstorm for ideas and make sketches for the overall structure of the piece (2-D, 3-D, stationary or with moving parts, etc.);
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Students will ensure that the design will clearly show the diversity of cultural groups that are present in American society today;
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Students are welcomed to do further research as they deem necessary;
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Once the design has been decided upon, students will decide how they are going to proceed—they may choose to work individually, cooperatively or alternate working in both ways.
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EVALUATION
The final piece will be mounted in the Library Media Center for viewing. Students will also offer some selections of their work in a poetry reading during this time as well.
The next two presentations will focus on issues of diversity and civil rights as they are expressed in a futuristic milieu. While a lot of popular science fiction is largely focused on action-packed adventure in outer space, there are also films and television shows that deal with more down-to-earth themes. As an aging baby boomer, my first experience with multiculturalism came in 1966 while watching television. Gene Roddenberry, a fairly accomplished teleplay writer for TV westerns and detective shows, introduced American TV viewers to an interracial, cross-gender, politically diverse and peacefully coexisting group of people from various planets called “The Federation.” The cast of characters who flew about the cosmos on board the Starship Enterprise in search of adventure featured an Iowan captain, a good ole boy country doctor, an African-American “lady” lieutenant in charge of Communications, a Russian helmsman, a Chinese navigator, a Scottish engineer, and an emotionally austere Vulcan (alien) science officer-slash-ascetic who bore a remarkable resemblance to Satan (and who was originally to be featured with fire-engine red skin in the pilot until the producers decided against it). The name of the show, of course, is
Star Trek.
Considering the 60’s—the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War protests, the Cold War, and the beginnings of a resurgence for women’s rights—it seems amazing that
Star Trek
ever got air time. As it turned out, it didn’t get very much at that. The show ran a couple of seasons
and was canceled, but Trekkies (
Star Trek
devotees) survived a lot longer; long enough and strong enough to create a market demand for
Star Trek
movies and to usher in a “new generation” of
Star Trek
TV shows almost twenty years later:
Star Trek The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine,
and
Voyager.
Added to the social consciousness that Roddenberry had tapped into in the 60’s,
Star Trek
shows continued “to boldly go where no one had gone before” into the heart of old prejudices as well as some newly resurfaced ones—heterosexism and equal opportunity for physically impaired people—with shows exploiting such concerns in the politically secure world of the future.
Perhaps the most salient reason for the success of
Star Trek
shows can best be expressed by Ursula K. Le Guin in her article, “My Appointment With The Enterprise, an appreciation” (TV Guide, May 14-20, 1994): “I like
The Next Generation
because it shows us a future I could live in.” A future we can live in is the cosmic objective of this topic area. Understanding the past, acknowledging its existence and coming to terms with the present, helps us to envision that future. In this regard, two shows from the series,
Star Trek, The Next Generation,
will be featured.
STNG
was the second in the line of
Star Trek
shows. In this series, which takes place in the 24th century—again on board the Enterprise, but she’s a new and improved model—Captain Jean Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) takes command. His first officer is William Riker (Jonathan Frakes), a kind of mellowed Kirk (captain in the first series). The rest of the crew includes: ship’s doctor, Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) and her teenage wiz-kid son, Wesley (Wil Wheaton); the blind-with-optical-visor head of engineering (originally the navigator), Geordi LaVorge (LeVar Burton); ship’s shrink-slash-psychic, Counselor Deanna Troy from Betazed (Marina Sirtis); Klingon security officer, Warf (Michael Dorn); Data, the android, who like Pinocchio, wishes to be human (Brent Spiner); and ship’s barkeep-slash-sage, Guinan (Whoopie Goldberg).
At the beginning of the first class in this section, the homework assignment, “The Solar System Evolves” (
Exploring the Universe
, pp. 56-59)—which will be given after the collage project has been completed—will be reviewed. We will also discuss the
Star Trek
phenomena as well as science fiction as a way to make commentary on some of our present day ills. Students will be advised that they will view two
Star Trek The Next Generation
shows; that we will view these during class time as well as during lunch time since the shows run about 45 minutes in length and we will need extra time for discussion.
Loud As A Whisper
This first show, “Loud As A Whisper,” features guest actor, Howie Seago, in the role of Riva, the great Ramatisian mediator of universal acclaim for his prowess in negotiating peace treaties. When Captain Picard and Counselor Troy first meet Riva, they are somewhat surprised by his entourage of three unique individuals who appear to be speaking in Riva’s stead. As we soon find out, Riva, like all the members of his ruling family, was born deaf and acts in tandem with a three-member chorus who communicate telepathically with him and verbally for him. Midway through the show, Riva’s chorus is accidentally killed. The easiest sci-fi solution might have been to cook up a device similar to Geordi’s visor that provides far greater than 20/20 vision. But the solution offered in this show was far more culturally aware in that Riva decides to bring the warring factions—the ones he has been sent to help negotiate a peace treaty for—together by teaching them a common language of signing. It is interesting to note that the resolution in this scenario was proposed by Seago, who is deaf. After the viewing, students will be given a homework assignment to read “Science and Technology Transform America” (
Exploring American History
, p. 658-661).
In the next class, we will discuss the homework in relation to physically challenged people. With respect to the show viewed in the last class, students will be given a sign language chart, and Marianne Fountain, a dance teacher at our school and formerly a teacher of the deaf, will speak to us about the deaf as a cultural group. Lastly, students will be given the homework reading assignment: “The Different Ones,” a science fiction teleplay by Rod Serling (
Scope English Program Reading Anthology
, pp. 248-254), which may be started in class as oral reading, time permitting.
The Measure of a Man
The homework assignment, “The Different Ones,” will be discussed in class and will also serve as a segue into this next topic area—from mistreatment and/or misconceptions about physically challenged folk to the institutionalization of those who are “different.” In this episode, Captain Picard represents Data in a court case to dispute a three-hundred-year-old law that he (Data), as an artificial life form (android), is, in fact, the property of Starfleet (the military branch of The Federation). The case is precipitated by the request of a Starfleet cyberneticist who plans to disassemble Data in order to study him and make duplicates models. In the course of the trial, the evidence against Data seems overwhelming, but Guinan, in her ever sagacious way, advises Picard that “an army of Datas” without rights sounds all too familiar. Picard realizes that she is speaking of slavery and that idea becomes the keynote for Data’s defense.
In our next class, and with respect to this scenario that speaks to issues of the law and civil liberties, students will read, “The Story of the Amistad Affair,” by Jeannette Rogers (excerpted from the Yale-New Haven Teacher’s Institute Unit:
Leanring through Drama
, 1990, Vol. 2, under the name, Jeannette Gaffney). This is the story of Cinqué, who has become a hero of civil liberties in New Haven, and whose statue appears in front of Town Hall. Excerpted material from Rogers’ unit chronicles the Cinqué story from his capture in Africa to his return to Africa three years later in 1841.
“The story of the Amistad Affair is a confrontation on the national and international level of law, morality and treaties. I have referred to Howard Jones, Mutiny On The Amistad, for this condensed version of the story. It begins with the kidnap of Cinqué, a free African farmer. The story ends with Cinqué’s return to Africa from America, where he, with the help of the New Haven community, was able to use the law to ensure his liberty. It is a very important case in the history of slavery and abolition. It is also a very important story in the history of the relationship between those people whose ancestors were brought to this country as slaves and those whose ancestors came here seeking freedom.”
—Jeannette Rogers
In discussing this story, students will gain a better understanding of the Judicial branch of government and the law of the land. Reading homework in preparation for our last writing assignment will be assigned: “The Space Age” (
Exploring the Universe
, pp. 126-129).
The last several classes for the unit will involve students in writing a 1,000-word science fiction short story. Thematic content should include one of the following: stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination, racism, religious bigotry, anti-semitism, sexism, heterosexism, or scapegoating. Students can refer to their “Research File” for information on astronomy in order to make their stories plausible. They can also refer to their “Resource File” for help with characterization techniques and dramatic structure. Work in progress will be reviewed and advised upon frequently, and final work will be presented in Library Media Center storytelling sessions.
Children, like everyone else I suppose, enjoy being entertained. More and more, teachers are met with the challenge of distilling the information age into a tantalizing elixir that can be swallowed easily and savored over time. Therefore, since students spend a great deal of their free time watching TV and going to the movies, film has not only been topical to this curriculum, but has served as a mainstay of its pedagogy in that the unit has been geared to an audio/visual audience of learners. Through its interdisciplinary focus, it is hoped that students will come through this course with enhanced analytical skills with which to view films (and life). Through their discourse and expression—their poetry, their artistry, their inventiveness—students will hopefully feel empowered to continue on in creating the future in a richly diverse world.
