I've loved Anne ever since Mrs.
Clerk read it to me and my sixth grade classmates in 1957. Today, I use
the movie as the thematic heart of my class.
I introduce the film with a series
of slides such as the one above, which introduce the kids to the characters
of the story, as well as certain necessary background information for the
setting. You can see the complete
slide show on my Multimedia Slideshow page.
Anne
of Green Gables is perfect for young people. It shows the
adventures of a young woman who just doesn't quite fit into her society.
She's a feminist in the age of petticoats, an artist caught in the transition
from Romantic to Realist. More importantly, she leads us in many
directions.
When we learn of Anne's devotion
to "The Lady of
Shalott," we stop the film and put the poem on the screens for our
perusal. Later, we'll use this Waterhouse painting to lead us into a dicussion
of romance in literature and eventually to the Arthurian
legends, and later, to Ivanhoe.
An interesting parallel that we use
in "The Lady of Shalott" came from the kids. Anne's failure to love Gilbert
in the story is due not to any weakness on his part, but on the fact that
Anne is waiting for Lancelot, a knight in shining armor, to come up the
road outside her window. She can only love Gilbert when she becomes mature
enough to understand that Lancelot exists only in romantic fiction.
Another interesting parallel was recently
made by a student in Diane Sutschek's class at Carwise Middle School. She
pointed out that in the beginning of the film, Anne talks a her "mirror
friend." The Lady of Shalott in Tennyson's poem sees the world through
her mirror.
If you will return to the
Class
Page of the Multimedia Classroom, you will see links to several of
the works I use to give the students parallels for Anne.
The Multimedia Classroom is proud to be associated with Amazon.com.
Books and videos to accompany my lessons may be obtained by clicking on
the logo.
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