DAY 15
WHATS ON: Today students will be viewing a scene from the movie Goodfellas. In this scene, the main character Henry is a young boy, and he shows the audience how everyone helped each other out in cheating large businesses in order to make money. Even the cops took part. the point of this is to compare the mafia culture portrayed in Goodfellas to the portrayal of The Colonel and his men in Graceland. These two groups are very similar, yet one is portrayed very affectionately, yet one is regarded as evil. The students are to speculate as to what government has to do with each of these groups, and how they are similar or different.
WHAT TO DO: Today when the students walk into the room, a television will be set up in the front of the room, and the students will be asked to take out a sheet of paper in order to create their own graphic organizer, labelled with the columns: "Goodfellas," "The Colonel and his men," and "Similarities." The students will then watch the movie clip and are asked to create bullets in the column that expresses the way the mafia characters are portrayed in the move--whether they are good or bad, how our government leaves room for law breaking, and to what extent, etc.
When the clip is over, students will break into pairs and discuss what they have written for the scene. Then, they will be asked to talk about chapter 21 and 22 in the novel, and how that shows the negative side of this type of behavior. Also, how does the different government allow so much power for the Colonel, and how is he portrayed in the novel. the students are asked to fill out the comparison column of their graphic organizer as well.
At the end of class, the students are given 10 minutes to work with their groups on their film treatments for their adapted scenes.
HOMEWORK: Students are asked to write a short paper and submit it to the teacher on the class website. This paper should discuss the different portrayals of the gangster in the movie and in the novel. The two groups should be compared, and it should be discussed whether one is better than the other. Also, read chapter 23 and 24