Tri-3 SUPERHEROES & POWER
Superheroes and Power
Mr. Taylor
Contact Information
Room: 129
Phone: 425-204-4245
Email: jeff.taylor@rentonschools.us
DISTANCE LEARNING IS O.V.E.R.
Accept it and move on. Leave behind any notion that you can get an A, let alone pass a class, without attending. Leave behind any notion that you can get all that you need off of Canvas. Leave behind any notion that you will have days where we “don't do anything” in class. Leave behind any notion that simply turning something in on Canvas guarantees you an A. Leave behind the notion that classes begin and finish at your convenience. Leave behind the delusion that you “Work” better at home. That is not a statement on the environment. It is a statement about choices. You are choosing to "work" at home and play at school. I will not honor this choice. Welcome to the Real World. Adulthood is not about freedom. Ask any adult if they get to do whatever they want whenever they want. When they stop laughing they will tell you that adulthood is the crushing weight of responsibilities, mixed with constant soul-sucking consequences.
YOU SHOULD HAVE NO...NONE....ZERO... REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS OF PASSING THIS COURSE WITHOUT REGULAR ATTENDANCE!!! YOU CAN NOT GET EVERYTHING OFF CANVAS. THERE WILL BE ASSIGNMENTS, ACTIVITIES, AND INSTRUCTIONS THAT WILL ONLY HAPPEN IN CLASS. MISSING THEM WILL NEGATIVELY IMPACT YOUR GRADE.
Syllabus Highlights:
- This class is easy to the point of being insulting. Come to class, try, you’ll be fine.
- Citizenship is worth 20% of your overall grade.
- Phone violation (notice there is no s) will result in the complete loss of your citizenship points.
- The only way to earn your citizenship points back is by attending class for 15 straight days with ZERO acts of electronic malfeasance (Phone, computer…anything more advanced than a sundial)
- You will not be allowed to submit or make up work for unexcused absences.
- Late work will be accepted but at a reduced rate (See below)
- Every class will begin with a 5-minute writing activity. You will write for 5 straight minutes. Stay hydrated!
- If you are tardy (by absentia or action) you will not be allowed to make up or submit your entry task.
- If you have a 504 or an IEP talk to me so that we can make a plan to meet your accommodations/modifications. Many of these plans include language like "mutually agreed upon" which means we actually need to work together.
Course Structure
This course is going to feature varied methods of instructional strategies including but not limited to, Project Based Learning, small group work, Socratic Smackdowns, debates, moral dilemmas, student teaching, guest speakers, discussion, inquiry lessons, jigsaw, deliberate discussions, etc. Students will take responsibility for their own actions and allocate their time efficiently: keeping up with the readings, doing all of the assignments, approaching me with any questions, handling make-up work, and playing an active role in your education. One of my many goals is to take the focus from counting points and squabbling over letter grades. This course is about acquiring knowledge, challenging oneself, developing life skills, and discovering a passion for learning through history. In the end, the class is truly about how you choose to see the world…Choice is powerful, so choose wisely.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
In a world full of blockbuster superhero movies, teaching critical thinking about mass media is vitally important to guarantee that students are not just capable of working, but also functioning as literate, informed citizens. Superhero movies are not what we make, they are who we are. This course will explore how popular culture reflects and influences people’s everyday lives. Students will be asked to form concepts of understanding on allegories and archetypes of superhero media and how this media indoctrinates people to create social constructs and misconceptions. Students will connect the content we examine to each other, their lives and the world. This course will align with the guiding principles of the C3 Framework, specifically the Civic Life portion of the framework. The course will explore moral philosophy, the role of government and the nature of authoritarianism. In addition, race, class, and gender representations and misrepresentations on the screen and behind the camera, and vigilantism or how citizens can and should right the wrongs in society, will be explored.
Essential Questions
- What are the techniques and devices that filmmakers use to create meaning?
- How do the tropes and schemes of a genre impact the viewer's experiences?
- How are tropes limiting in their representation of marginal identities with regards to race, class, gender, sexuality, class, etc.?
- How are films like literary texts?
- How can films reflect their own time and history?
- How do you detect the filmmaker'/ screenplay writer's bias in regards to their own time in history?
- How do films reflect the problems or issues in our own society?
- What makes a universally "great" film (or is there even one)?
LEARNING OBJECTIVES – Students will be able to:
- Discuss the impact of the film on the viewer
- Use film vocabulary to discuss camera shots and angles, lighting, use of color, sound design, editing, etc.
- Apply literary terms and analysis skills to the medium of film and to treat the film as a text
- Identify differences between the film-maker's intent and the finished film's impact
- Examine all elements of film to look at film as a whole
- Use film as social criticism
- Evaluate film-makers' biases and intentions
- Reflect on the effects of oversimplification and generalizations that may occur in film.
CONNECTION TO OTHER COURSES:
Superheroes and Power is an elective social studies course that students take in high school. This course connects to the writing and reading standards of LA 11 and LA 12. Students will be building on the reading analysis skills they have developed in LA 9 and LA 10 to sharpen and hone their understanding of literary texts and how to create them on their own. While LA 9 and LA 10 are not pre-requisites to this course, it is strongly recommended that students have a fundamental understanding of literary concepts to further their ability to deeply analyze the craft of film.
SCOPE AND SEQUENCE
Units may be taught in any order or length depending on student interest and/or needs.
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Unit 1: Introduction to Heroism/Origin Stories Approximate Time: 2 weeks
Unit Description: This unit will ask students to examine superhero origin stories. What makes an individual a hero? Is it heroic acts, powers, or overcoming obstacles? Essential Questions: What makes a hero a hero? Objectives: Students will be able to:
Movie Suggestions: Thor Doctor Strange Moon Knight Text Suggestions: Rousseau: discourse on heroism |
Standards addressed: RL 12.4 Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed). RL.11.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain. RI 11.7 Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words in order to address a question or solve a problem WS 11.6 Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information.
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Assessments:
Students will create their own superhero portfolio and evaluate why/how they challenge ethical and psychological principles. |
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Unit 2: Do We Need a Hero? Approximate Time: 2 weeks
Unit Description: This unit will ask students to examine if heroes are necessary or are they a social construct? They will also evaluate whether heroes are created because of the American Dream or are they a necessity due to the American Nightmare. Essential Questions:
Objectives: Students will be able to:
Movie Suggestions: Iron Man 3 (2013) Thor: The Dark World (2013) Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) Ant-Man (2015). |
Standards addressed: SSS2.9-12.2 Evaluate the validity, reliability, and credibility of sources when researching an issue or event. RL.11.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain. RH 11-12.9 Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and secondary, into a coherent understanding of an idea or event, noting discrepancies among sources. |
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Assessments: Formative:
Summative: Student will revise their Hero Portfolio using Supposition Question |
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Unit 3: Is Good Really Good? Or are heroes shades of bad? Approximate Time: 2 Weeks
Unit Description: In this unit Students will examine the ethics of choosing to be a superhero, choosing to use one’s extraordinary powers to fight the good fight. We will also use philosophy to disentangle various ways of understanding what heroism is. Essential Questions:
Objectives: Students will be able to:
Suggested Movies:
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Assessments: |
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Standards: RH 11-12.3 Evaluate various explanations for actions or events and determine which explanation best accords with textual evidence, acknowledging where the text leaves matters uncertain SL 11-12.1 Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions with diverse partners, building on others ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. |
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Unit 4: Are we ready for Heroes? Approximate Time: 2-3 weeks
Unit Description: This unit will ask students to examine how superhero stories have forced us to confront the messiness of morality and the flaws of our moral characters. They will explore whether there is any sense to be made of there being moral absolutes, or if it’s all relative. Students will also explore reactions to how society reacts to superheroes differently based on social issues. Essential Questions:
Objectives: Students will be able to:
Movie Suggestions:
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Standards addressed: SSS2.9-12.4 Explain how supporting questions contribute to an inquiry and how, through engaging source work, new compelling and supporting questions emerge. WL 11-12.8 Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the strengths and limitations of each source in terms of the specific task, purpose, and audience; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and overreliance on any one source and following a standard format for citation. |
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Assessments: Use Moral Absolution and Consequentialism to amend our Living Viewing Guide Add to the Hero Portfolio to align with MA or CQ Summative Ending Reimagined: Students will re-write the ending of one of the selected films through the lens of either Moral Absolutism or Consequentialism |
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Unit 5: Who Gets a Hero Approximate Time: 2-3 weeks In this unit students will examine the ethics of fighting bad guys and saving lives. Who has access to these powers and resources? Are choices Superheroes make in the hands of the hero themselves or do other factors get a say?
Essential Questions:
Objectives: Students will be able to:
Movie Suggestions:
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Standards addressed: SSS3.9-12.6 Assess options for individual and collective action to address local, regional, or global problems by engaging in self-reflection, strategy identification, and complex causal reasoning. C4.11-12.2 Analyze and evaluate ways of influencing local, state, and national governments and international organizations to establish or preserve individual rights and/or promote the common good C4.11-12.3 Evaluate the impact and the appropriate roles of personal interests and perspectives on the application of civic virtues, democratic principles, constitutional rights, and human rights. |
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Assessments: Student will add to the Living Tribunal and use it to view the unit movie Summative: Wakanda Mock Trial: Students will put the Black Panther on trail for their action or rather inaction during the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Scramble for Africa |
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Unit Title: MCU in the Real World Approximate Time: 2-3 weeks
Unit Description: In this unit students will examine how Superheroes pursue justice. But what does justice look like? Students will examine social justice, economic justice and environmental justice. They will also examine how superheroes fit into the government power structures in the world. Essential Questions:
Objectives: Students will be able to:
Movie Suggestions:
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Standards addressed: W.11.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1-3 above.) SSS1.9-12.5 Explain the challenge and opportunities of addressing problems over place and time using disciplinary and interdisciplinary lenses. C2.11-12.1 Analyze citizens’ and institutions’ effectiveness in addressing social and political problems at the local, state, tribal, national and/or international level. |
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Assessments: Punishment Evaluation: Students will watch a film and analyze every act of punishment through the 5 types of punishment Summative: Choose a political issue and create an allegorical film to offer your perspective on that issue to your viewers. Final piece to turn in might be movie trailer, storyboard, etc (teacher's choice) |
School Information
If you are experiencing stress, anxiety, or thoughts of self-harm call Teen Link at 866-TEENLINK (866-833-6546) and ask to talk to a peer. The phone line is open 6 p.m.– 10 p.m. and chat is available 6 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. daily. https://www.teenlink.org/
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