March of the Penguins (2005)
a documentary film (France)
This fascinating documentary film leaves anyone with a long-lasting impression. My students have an opportunity to receive complex content knowledge through the visual representation of the penguins' life cycle by performing a cognitively demanding task through a context-embedded activity. I believe this content knowledge will stay with them for a long time. A short summary of the film is as follows:
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While many people think of penguins as comical birds that look like they've
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decked out in tuxedos, the truth is they're among the strongest and most resilient creatures in the animal kingdom. And they have to be - each year, the emperor penguins of Antarctica travel through the most punishing environment on Earth
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to their nesting grounds, and after the females lay their eggs, the males keep them warm while their mates walk 70 miles back to the sea to fatten themselves with fish for themselves and their young. Filmmaker Luc Jacquet spent over a year braving
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the frigid temperatures of the South Pole to film this annual ritual of the penguins,
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and March of the Penguins documents their brave struggle to survive, as well as the
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close emotional bonds between the penguin families.
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"By the Left, Quick March: The Emperor Penguins Migration"
by Steve Connor
This is a short non-fiction article on the penguins' life cycle and their migration. It seems to present the gist of the content of the film, but its vocabulary and sentence structures have to be simplified, so I rewrite the article by replacing some scientific terms and infrequently used literary and informal words with their more often used synonyms. For example, in the sentence "As life in the northern hemisphere hunkers down during the shortest days of winter…," I change the metaphorical phrase "hunkers down" to the phrase "slows down." Along with text modifications, I highlight about five words I want my students to own by actively using them in their speaking and writing.
The article is also accompanied by a photograph, which I offer my students for examination and as the basis of a writing activity. It shows penguins walking in a single file probably on their way to their nesting grounds. They do resemble human figures while walking upright because their feet are set so far back on their bodies. The first penguin looks as if he is a leader, the next two keep some distance between each other, and the last three march together in unison, like soldiers.
To supplement the text of the article with more visual images, I use the book Penguins: Lifestyle, Habitat, Feeding, Behavior by Daniel Gilpin, which has abundant photographs of these extraordinary birds.