Overview

This learning module is the transformation of a single, multi-session lesson plan within a full year curriculum that I designed in 2016 while lead teacher, educational consultant, and administrator at Newport Academy. This overview consequently will provide the following context:

Newport Academy: student population and pedagogical approach
The Full Year Curriculum: title, content, purpose, and history of execution
Original Lesson Plan: inspiration and relationship to course ideas and principles
This Learning Module: how it transforms the original lesson plan into further practice

Newport Academy: student population and pedagogical approach.

Newport Academy is a therapeutic day school providing a student-tailored education for young people 13-20 years of age, academically from middle school to early college, who are in recovery from any number of individual or co-occuring addictive behavior disorders (e.g., substance abuse, eating disorders, self-harm, etc.). All students are participants in one of Newport Healthcare's residential or intensive outpatient/partial hospitalization programs, which mandates the provision of education so that falling behind academically does not compound students' psychological and social stress. Newport Academy works with students and their families to develop an optimal academic track for each individual’s specific needs, while also focusing on raising self-esteem, improving executive function, and establishing healthy friendships. More specifically, Newport Academy provides:

An accredited curriculum nonetheless designed to fit the needs of each student
High staff-to-student ratio (1:5) for individualized attention and tutoring
Daily therapeutic groups and weekly individual therapy
SAT/ACT prep and college application support as appropriate
Twice-weekly drug testing and ongoing monitoring of other self-destructive behaviors

At Newport Academy students in recovery are not set apart from their peers; they are their peers, supported by faculty and staff in an environment of abstinence and acceptance. Consequently, Newport Academy's pedagogical approach is to guide teens and their families to:

Embrace and learn from setbacks
Boost resilience and tenacity
Engage in both mastery-based and inquiry-based learning
Learn self-advocacy
Improve critical thinking
Establish kind and supportive relationships with peers and staff

(Monroe, 2020).

The Full Year Curriculum: title, content, purpose, and history of execution.

This learning module and the original lesson plan on which it is based is from the full year curriculum "Laughing at Life: Exploring Existential Questions through (mostly) Funny Films", with the further subtitle "a curriculum of 14 viewing lesson plans with extensions for credit -- suitable for all students, adolescent to adult, but especially young people in recovery." The purpose of this curriculum was to provide alternative lessons in the humanities that would be more relevant, and therefore more engaging, for Newport Academy's student population, members of whom were often gifted, always well-resourced, but unfortunately dogged by issues that made engagement in standard activities difficult or even alienating. This is discussed in philosophical and practical detail in the appendices.

In terms of execution, some lesson plans, like the first one in the curriculum, were used in a non-graded, not-for-credit manner as part of a student's initial three day orientation to their program. As such, that lesson plan has been executed over a hundred times with groups of 1-4 students due to Newport Academy's rolling admissions. A few other lesson plans, this one included, were used dozens of times, usually with an individual student, as a frequent substitution for other (typically English Language Arts) course materials. The reason for this substitution is because these lesson plans were deemed to resonate with the replaced materials in terms of rigor, skill, and content requirements, but were more pertinent to our population and less "triggering" for the particular student to whom it was assigned.

Substitution was always with explicit authorization from Newport Academy's accrediting body (AdvancEd) for those students directly enrolled, or the permission of assigning institutions for those students enrolled elsewhere but in residence at Newport (I.e., many Newport students were seniors, already accepted to college, on referral from their elite public or private high school, who would remain their academic institution of record upon graduation).

The full curriculum has been instructed start to finish three times, as personalized instruction at the 7th grade, 12th grade, and college freshman level. These students participated with others for select lesson plans when they coincided with other students taking those same lessons under one of the other scenarios described above.

Finally, Newport instructors at other among their national locations have used these materials, although not in full, and typically more for SEL-oriented supplement without assigning the extensions for credit.

Although systematic analysis has never been performed, these materials, their instruction, and students' productions therefrom were almost uniformly and unanimously praised by students, their families, therapists on the clinical side of the program, and the outside educators who in some of the circumstances described above were the necessary recipients and reviewers of student work for ultimate (transfer) academic credit.^[1]

Original Lesson Plan: inspiration and relationship to course ideas and principles.

This lesson plan for the film Big Fish, although the fifth in the curriculum, was actually the first to be conceived and executed, a positively received response to specific students' needs that led to developing the full year, fourteen lesson plan "Laughing at Life".

More specifically, the summer of 2015 there were two young women among Newport Academy's small school environment at its Darien, CT location (maximum 20 students). Neither were coming from one of Newport's residential programs. One was an 8th grader who had missed most of her spring semester due to psychiatric hospitalization, but was conditionally accepted to an elite private boarding school in the region based upon her prior academic record, family's advocacy, and her satisfactory completion of multi-subject coursework pre-matriculation. Her attendance at Newport was so that she could remain under clinical observation during the day and receive instructional assistance with that coursework. The other was a senior who had missed most of her spring semester due to a challenging period at a non-Newport rehabilitation center for substance abuse during which she refused any academic engagement. Based upon her prior academic record, family's advocacy, and her satisfactory completion by August 1 of abbreviated coursework across multiple subjects, her relatively local, prestigious public school was willing to send a complete transcript reflecting graduation to her intended college. For English Language Arts, each of these schools separately sent novels and related writing assignments, the plots for which centered around dysfunctional families in which the dramatic tension was resolved, in one case, by a father's suicide, and in the other, by a daughter's patricide. The counselors at both of these schools who forwarded the assignments were sufficiently aware of these students' circumstances to know these were not appropriate works, but also unyielding in their requirement, claiming an inability to contact the assigning teachers during the summer holiday. Although we sought to expedite and ameliorate the assignments, both teaching and clinical staff noted the negative impact they were having directly on these two students, and, through their changed demeanor, the overall spirit of the student body.

Therefore, once these texts and their assignments were completed (on a Thursday), I decided something different needed to be provided for these two students to close out the week. Even though clinical and academic staff joined students in a fun outing every Friday afternoon after school, this alone seemed insufficient. I deemed that the students needed similar content -- i.e., literary, centered on family dynamics, and that dealt unflinchingly with challenges -- but which was uplifting, resolved positively, and, as such, was not a distraction from, but an actual alternative to the material and life view they had been forced to digest all week.

With this in mind, I remembered a colleague, the campus minister at another school I had helped launch, who reported frequently using the film Big Fish to work with students with troubling parent-child relationships. I also recalled a professor and Jesuit priest who had been my colleague at Fordham University, and who had written a book about finding spiritual meaning in unlikely secular, commercial spaces, including silly (in his case, Adam Sandler) movies. (Mossa, 2009).

Thus I thought of a couple open ended discussion questions, showed the film Big Fish, and watched what happened. The two young women not only engaged with the film, but through the questions also engaged with each other -- which they had never done before -- in a fun yet meaningful manner. The fruitful direction in which they took the conversation prompted the initial notes, later research, and resultant lesson plan that became the structure for all future lesson plans in the final full year curriculum. Meanwhile, it completely changed the tenor of the week, not because these two students had repressed the texts and emotions they had been struggling with the prior four days, but because they had transmuted them, seeing that although conflict and difficulties are unavoidable in life, they do not always have to end like a Greek tragedy.

This Learning Module: how it transforms the original lesson plan into further practice.

As described above, Newport Academy's pedagogical approach is clearly not that of the traditional classroom, and is at least in principle aligned to many facets of "new learning" (Cope & Kalantzis, 2014), affordances that were were explicitly leveraged in the design and execution of the original version of this lesson plan (see Appendix II):

Montessorian mixed age classroom (Montessori, 1912).
Dewey-derived project based learning (Wikimedia Foundation, 2021)
Personalized, adaptive learning (Cope et al., 2015)
To varying degrees, albeit not in an exclusively e-learning environment, all seven affordances of collaborative/reflexive learning: ubiquity, active knowledge making, multimodal meaning, recursive feedback, collaborative intelligence, metacognition, and differentiation (Cope & Kalantzis, 2014)
To varying degrees, 19 of the 36 principles characeristic even of good online games that are drawn from learning design, specifically the principles of: attentive/active learning, semiotics, psychosocial moratorium, identity, self-knowledge, ongoing learning, regime of competence, multiple routes, text, intertextual, multimodal, incremental, discovery, transfer, cultural models about the world, cultural models about learning, distributed, dispersed, affinity group, and insider (Gee, 2003)

Adaptations for this learning module were largely to make this learning more ubiquitous, enabling peer collaboration to occur across wide geographies and asynchronously, which also means not necessarily in physical or temporal proximity with its facilitator. The grading rubric (again, see Appendix II) was already aligned with the philosophy behind CGScholar's analytics, so assessment was less changed than made more efficient by the use of technology. However, significant work had to be done to chunk lessons into updates in a manner to ensure peers could both work at their own pace, but without getting so out of sync to frustrate some or require spoiler alerts for others. To also ensure engagement that would support those aims, the absence of in-person conversation and dynamics required increased incorporation of visual elements. Considerations for future transformation would be how to incorporate more of Gee's (2003) 36 principles of good learning design gleaned from online gaming, 17 of which were not identified as existing in the original lesson plan or the curriculum in which it resides.

Footnotes

^ Specifically, this course has been accepted for transfer credit in satisfaction of the following Common Core standards: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.6-8.1-10, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.1-10, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.1-10.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Students will explore -- through pre- and post-viewing "discussion" of the movie Big Fish, including related poetry, non-fiction, and visual art mediated role play -- the first of our Unit 2 (Existing in Context) existential questions:

Once I've grown up, what is the purpose of parents, and what purpose do I serve for them?

Update 1: Introducing our essential question and a big fish

For the Student

Image 1. (Merriam-Webster, n.d.)

The essential, existential question to keep in mind as we watch the film Big Fish is one about how we exist only in the context of other people. Namely, for this film, the relationship we will explore -- whether in each of our particular contexts that relationship is fully known or only imagined, characterized by comfort, conflict or both -- is our original one to this world: parents.

So here's the question we're going to explore for the next several sessions, not just through our movie, but through conversation, creating our own expressions, and hearing the thoughts of others through text and other forms of media. Keep this question in mind, as we'll discuss it once we're done with our film and its exploration. Our shared learning outcome is solely for you to be able to express an honest, well-thought out, and personal answer rooted in everything we're about to do for this one essential question:

Once I've grown up, what is the purpose of parents, and what purpose do I serve for them?

Now, let's get started. I'm going to give you 6 DIRECTIONS.

First, please DON'T look up the film or read anything about it, and if you've seen it before, I promise you, this is still going to be like watching something wholly new. Therefore, also, if you've seen it before, please don't reference the movie at all in your pre-film comments and updates. There's no need, and we don't want to spoil the many surprises for those who are yet to experience it for the first time.

Second, DO read the definition and sample sentence for the colloquial expression from which this movie takes its title, which is provided by Merriam-Webster's Dictionary at the top of this update.

Third, write a comment^[1] responding to one of the three question groups below:

Big Fish: How might a child apply this title to their parents? In other words, how might the child think their parent is, or perhaps only acts like, a “big fish”? Similarly, how might a parent apply this title to their child? In other words, how might a parent think their child is, or perhaps only acts like, a "big fish"? Finally, what tensions do you imagine might arise in this relationship as a result of these perceptions? (If you choose this question group, preface your comments with the words "GROUP A RESPONSE")

Image 2. (Kim, 2015).

Big Fish: How might a parent apply this title to themselves? In other words, how do parents actually behave like they’re “big fish”? Similarly, how might a child apply this title to themself? In other words, how do children actually behave like they're "big fish"? Finally, what tensions do you imagine might arise in this relationship as a result of these perceptions? (If you choose this question group, preface your comments with the words "GROUP B RESPONSE")

Image 3. (Tan, 2014).

Big Fish: Read at least one each of "GROUP A" and "GROUP B" responses by your classmates. Were the parent-child tensions imagined generally the same or different between the two groups? Please explain your answer. (If you choose this question group, preface your comments with the words "GROUP C RESPONSE").

Image 4. (Stanford, 2018).

REMEMBER AS YOU WRITE: In this course, it is acceptable and encouraged to include personal experience. You may do so -- or choose not do so -- to whatever degree you feel comfortable. You may also choose -- and this will have no affect on your grade, positive or negative -- to discuss personal experiences brought up by these prompts with the course facilitator and/or school counseling staff instead of including them in your response. These conversations would be kept confidential.

Fourth, create an update^[2] following the directions below.

Look at the imagery of the movie poster for Big Fish and respond to ALL 3 prompts that follow.

Image 5. (Sony Pictures, 2003).

Describe the tree, the surrounding foliage, the sky, and the direction in which you think the solitary figure is walking.
Considering only this imagery, not the ad’s words, what do you think the filmmakers are trying to tell us about their movie’s main character?
Considering what you and your classmates wrote previously in the comments about "big fish" -- including parent/child's varying perceptions, and those perceptions' consequences -- what do you think this movie is going to be about and what message(s) do you think the filmmakers are going to try to send to you, their audience? Cite evidence from the movie poster to back up your statements.

Fifth, read and comment on at least one update written about this movie poster by someone else^[3] in this course.

Sixth and finally, if you'd like to make your one required class presentation^[4] for Big Fish to be about what you wrote for this update, sign up here on the tab "Update 1". You would present at our next live session. You will have four more opportunities to sign up and present on future updates.

Footnotes

^ For purposes of this course, a "comment" is a 100-300 word response to a prompt that is generally rooted in personal opinion or reflection.
^ For purposes of this course, an "update" is a 300-600 word response (or quantitatively and qualitatively equivalent effort if incorporating video/audio elements, which are encouraged). Furthermore, although still expressing personal thoughts on a subject, updates are expected to have those thoughts grounded in specific reference to the film and/or other class materials being explored. In other words, as with a "comment", there is no single absolute right answer that is expected; however, different from "comments", all answers must demonstrate what you have learned from the class (even if it's to express your total disagreement). The one thing that is not acceptable is providing a response that could have been provided even if you had never heard of this class or encountered any of its material.
^ For purposes of this course, this "comment on someone else's update" is a 50-200 word response that has to be based on the class materials and what that other person wrote. In other words: first, you can't solely talk about yourself, you must be responding to that other person; second, you're responding to their update, not them as a person; third, as such, you can (and are welcome) to disagree with their update, but you must do so in a manner that remains respectful, and focuses on what they wrote as opposed to them as a person. If you are taking this class alone as part of personalized instruction, your facilitator will provide their own update so you can respond. The are your facilitator for this material, not a teacher or supervisor, so, as above, feel free to disagree with them.
^ For purposes of this course, a "presentation": (a) is only required once per lesson/film, but you may present more than once if the number of spots available are greater than the number of students taking the class; (b) is short (2 - 3 minutes), and isn't reading your update, but summarizing its main point(s) to then pose provocative thoughts or questions to your audience, which requires you to be ready to listen and respond to the conversation you create amongst your classmate(s) and/or class facilitator(s).

For the Facilitator

Big Fish Film Review (Edited), from Spirituality & Practice

In preparation for this course, please:

Read the review attached above.
Watch the film, available here on Amazon Prime and YouTube Rentals, as well as other streaming services.
Preview the entire facilitator and student content for this lesson.
If you wish to use more lessons from, or even the entirety of, the full year course from which this lesson is derived, additional context is available in the "Overview" and "Appendices" to this work where it appears in CGScholar.
Make certain students have been familiarized with and know how to use CGScholar, both conceptually and technically, prior to posting Update 1 and asking them to log into the course.
Make certain students know that there is an expectation that they read at least some of their classmates' comments and updates, and read a few of each group of classmates' updates with sufficient care and attention to provide a comment to at least one other person's update for that "session." The comment they provide should be meaningful to them (the commenter), to the recipient of their comment, and to the overall classroom "conversation" of which it is a part. If facilitating this course as part of a single student's personalized instruction, the facilitator should also write an update so the student can complete this exercise and benefit from the consequent "conversation".
Assess and provide the degree of guidance your students will need in order to write appropriate length, detail, tenor/courtesy, and depth of comments, updates, and comments on classmates' updates based on their age and experience (may need to be adjusted after they start submitting work).
Emphasize to students that there are no explicit right or wrong answers to any of the questions or prompts in this class, only those that are completed honestly, with honest effort, explicitly demonstrating an engagement with and reflection on all the material presented, and those that aren't (see also the grading rubric to the original full course, provided in Appendix II).
With regard to presentations, either eliminate the sign-up sheet if this is one-to-one instruction or groups so small that all students can present at each live session, or, if that is not the case, adjust the number of available spots on each tab accordingly to ensure that everyone has at least one opportunity to present and that there aren't too many slots causing you to run out of presenters before the last live session.
Have fun.

After students have begun, please watch for the following content in their posted comments and updates to Administrative Update 1, and during their subsequent presentations and commensurate conversations before posting Administrative Update 2, try to elicit and/or highlight that:

First, both parents and children may have an exaggerated sense of who they are in this world (i.e., feeling like a "big fish in a small pond").

Second, a parent’s exaggerated sense of self may be the result of:

Problematically, self-delusion in order to avoid disappointment with what they have attained in life, which may manifest as increased pressure on their children to succeed (i.e., a parent trying to live vicariously through their child, which can cause a corresponding resentment from the child as well as a feeling that the parent is asking for a degree of deference that the parent hasn’t earned).
Also problematically, the parent having experienced great success in one facet of their life and/or community, which their child may view as a relatively “small pond” and/or a “pond” that does not align with the child’s own values, causing the child in this case to feel the parent is asking for a degree of deference that the parent doesn’t deserve).
Positively, the parent's sacramental view of the world, which is the view that ordinary, everyday items and events may be symbolic of greater spiritual meaning, even to the point where that meaning may enable someone to live sacrificially, putting the welfare of others ahead of their own – as may be said of the father character in this movie. However, conflicts may still arise if the child for whatever reason has lost or failed to develop their own sacramental view of the world – as may be said of the son character in this movie. This is a scenario the facilitator may have to posit at the end of the live session presentations, foreshadowing the film, as it would be an extremely insightful student who could come up with this on their own before seeing the movie.

Third, a child’s exaggerated sense of self may be the result of:

Problematically, self-delusion in order to avoid the general insecurities of adolescence or the specific insecurities of feeling like they have not met their parents’/community’s/society’s expectations, which may manifest as the child feeling under- or un-appreciated, or not loved simply for who they are rather than for their latest performance/accomplishments. Similar to a parent's self-delusion, this will also leave a child feeling like they have not received the credit they have earned or otherwise deserve.
Also problematically, the child having experienced what is at least in their own eyes a great success in some facet of their life and/or community, which at this stage of development is likely to be a relatively “small pond” in terms of geography or discipline, and/or a “pond” that does not align with the parent’s ultimate expectations or values. Again, similar to when a parent has experienced great success in one facet of their life, this may also cause the child to feel they are not receiving the credit they have earned or otherwise deserve.
Positively, a sacramental view of the world, just as described above with regard to parents. It is highly possible for a child’s larger than life sense of self to stem from this positive source, even if their parents failed to foster such a sacramental view of the world for themselves. This is because the sense of awe (awe = wonder + gratitude) that is the prerequisite for a sacramental view of the world comes naturally to young children, but tends to dissipate during the transition to adolescence. In fact, adolescence is often defined by the loss of awe, which adults might mistakenly encourage as a mark of maturity, cynically mislabeling awe as overenthusiastic naivete. As such, awe is often forgotten through much of adulthood, only to be (hopefully) recultivated as part of the wisdom that comes with age (but, also hopefully, at a more conscious level characterized by self-mastery and selfless action). Again, this last source for a (positive) larger-than-life sense of self is probably one the facilitator will have to posit, once more presenting it as foreshadowing the film, as it would be an extremely insightful student who could come up with this on their own before seeing the movie. When re-visiting this foreshadowing during the post-film discussion, the facilitator should bring to students’ attention that the film’s backstory does show the son enjoying his father’s tales as a child, but losing that ability as an adolescent. The whole film is about the adult son – in order to “discover” and appreciate his father – needing to simultaneously “re-discover” and appreciate his own child-like self.

Fourth, that whoever the “big fish” is in this movie, the movie poster's visual imagery suggests:

They are moving away from the viewer, into the autumn/winter (final stages) of life (most common student interpretation).
Alternatively, that they are moving toward the viewer in the early spring, toward something new (an uncommon, but not unprecedented interpretation, which can and should be validated and harmonized with the more common response, as both are true to the film)
That, in the end at least, the filmmakers' message may resonate more with the postive reason (sacramental view) for feeling that one is a “big fish” (evidence: the warm autumn colors and blue sky; the whimsical, as opposed to frightening, text font; the Thanksgiving holiday release date; and even the less common, but not necessarily untrue, interpretation of the poster's figure moving toward the viewer in early spring, if offered by the student or facilitator).

Fifth, and finally, ask students to keep those last points in mind (i.e., last three bullet points above) as they explore and respond to the next update.

Post Student Content to a Community

Update 2: If my whole life came down to this…

For the Student

Image 5 (repeat). (Sony Pictures, 2003)

Thank you for everyone's participation in Update 1!

To summarize where we've traveled to by the end of our presentations:

Both parents and children may have an exaggerated sense of who they are in this world (i.e., feel like a "big fish in a small pond").
Both a parent's and a child's exaggerated sense of who they are can be problematic. This is true whether that exaggerated sense stems from self-delusion or genuine success, because either can result in feeling un- or under-valued for your achievements, or, perhaps even worse, only valued for your achievements.
An exaggerated sense of self in parents or children can be positive, if its stems from a sacramental view of the world. This is the exaggerated view that ordinary, everyday items and events may be symbolic of greater spiritual meaning, even to the point where that meaning enables you to live sacrificially, putting the welfare of others ahead of your own.
The movie poster's imagery above suggests that a character is moving toward the end of an adventure -- or maybe the beginning of a new one, and quite possibly both -- but for whatever difficulties they have encountered along the way, they are probably going to turn out to be a positive version of our "big fish."

With all that in mind, before we actually watch the movie, I'd like you to consider that doctors, nurses, hospice workers, clergy, and others who are accustomed to accompanying the dying have often been cited as saying that of everything they hear people say to their family and friends during those final days, they can all be boiled down to these three simple statements:

Thank you
Forgive me
I love you

These caregivers state that those who are able to make these statements to – and have them
accepted by – those who are important to them are the people who most appear to pass in
peace. No matter what they have done or endured during their time on earth, these are the
people who in the end appear the most satisfied with the life that they have led.

Please write a comment to the following: Reflecting on everything we've discussed so far in preparation for this movie, how might someone being perceived -- or perceiving themself -- as a “big fish” get in the way of saying and/or accepting any or all of these three statements?

Please write an update to the following: Based on your comment and those of your classmates, if you knew your entire life’s happiness would boil down to your being able to make these three statements – thank you, forgive me, and I love you – how would you live today? You may use text, images, original or pre-existing video, etc. to illustrate (but not avoid making) your points.

As last time, please also write a comment to the update of one of the other people in this class.

Finally, if you'd like to make your one required class presentation for Big Fish to be about what you wrote for this update, please sign up here on the tab "Update 2". You would present at our next live session. You will have three more opportunities to sign up and present on future updates.

REMEMBER AS YOU WRITE: In this course, it is acceptable and encouraged to include personal experience. You may do so -- or choose not do so -- to whatever degree you feel comfortable. You may also choose -- and this will have no affect on your grade, positive or negative -- to discuss personal experiences brought up by these prompts with the course facilitator and/or school counseling staff instead of including them in your response. These conversations would be kept confidential.

For the Facilitator

Post Administrative Update 2 after your first live session with student presentations on Administrative Update 1 has been completed.

There is no advance preparation for Administrative Update 2 or your second live student presentations on that content other than those enumerated "for the facilitator" in Update 1.

Post Student Content to a Community

Update 3: The Movie

For the Student

Media embedded November 22, 2021

VIDEO 1. (Burton, 2003).

Yes, before we meet again, and before you respond to this update, you will finally get to watch this movie!

A few words first, building on your discoveries and everything we've discussed before, as well a liitle last background.

For some odd reason, high school English curricula are crowded with tragedies centered around problematic parent-child relationships that are never or only negatively resolved: Death of a Salesman, The Bluest Eye, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Oedipus Rex, and Huckleberry Finn, for
example, to name only a few. For all students, but particularly those in the midst of such challenges themselves, this can give an exaggerated sense of the frequency and degree of such dysfunction, lending a further (defeatist, acquiescent) sense of normalcy and intractability to their own situation.

However, not all parent-child relationships are dysfunctional, nor are all dysfunctional relationships doomed the way the frequently assigned readings cited above would suggest.

Happy endings, or at least acceptable ones, are far more frequent in life.

Why then the plethora of tragic assigned readings? Because many authors and teachers of
creative writing ascribe to the aphorism that “good people make for bad stories”. Not getting into
a debate over whether or not this is true, it is easier to get people to gawk at a car accident than
at a beautiful sunset as they drive down the highway. Similarly, news organizations know people
will tune in more to hear what horrible things have happened in the past twenty-four hours than
the hundreds of happy circumstances that they are much more likely to encounter, or even the
difficulties that affect them directly that they might have the power – and therefore the
responsibility – to do something about.

The film Big Fish is an antidote to these tragedies.

It is about saying – and learning to say – “thank you, forgive me, and I love you” on both sides of the equation.

Telling you this gives away nothing of the story or its ending.

Enjoy.

You can watch the movie here on Amazon Prime Video or YouTube Video Rentals, as well as other streaming services.

Once you have watched the movie:

Please write a comment to the following: What are your general impressions of the film and its four main characters – the father Ed Bloom (young and old version), his son Will, his wife Sandra, and Will’s wife Josephine – as well as the relationships among them?

Please write an update to the following: By now have seen the film, had some time to generate and express your general impressions through your comment, and had the benefit of reading and hearing your classmates' thoughts about everything we explored in anticipation of this movie. With that context, open the PDF below that re-states all of our prior questions and conversations in a brief one-pager. Maybe you've changed your mind about some of the things you thought, wrote, or said before. Maybe there are things you didn't think, write, or talk about before, but on which you now have an opinion. Maybe you're just ready to go deeper along a path you already started. Pick anything from this PDF that most resonates with you now and explore it again. Make certain you refer to the movie, but you are also welcome and encouraged to speak from personal experience as well. Furthermore, as before, you may use text, images, original or pre-existing video, etc. to illustrate (but not avoid making) your points.

Big Fish Pre-Film Questions Reprised for Your Update 3

As last time, please also write a comment to the update of one of the other people in this class.

Finally, if you'd like to make your one required class presentation for Big Fish to be about what you wrote for this update, please sign up here on the tab "Update 3". You would present at our next live session. You will have two more opportunities to sign up and present on future updates.

For the Facilitator

Post Administrative Update 3 after your second live session with student presentations on Administrative Update 2 has been completed.

There is no advance preparation for Administrative Update 3 or your third live student presentations on that content other than those enumerated "for the facilitator" in Update 1.

Post Student Content to a Community

Update 4: On the Days I am not My Father

For the Student

On the Days I am not My Father. (Owens, 2008).

Thank you for your initial insights into the film Big Fish from Update 3!

With this update (Update 4), we move past the halfway point in our exploration of this movie, and with that, toward opportunities for your own creative self-expression on its topics.

Toward that end, in the PDF above you have the poster for Big Fish so as to keep that movie in mind, but also the poem "On the Days I am not My Father" by Scott Owens.

Please read the poem, respond to the prompts below to provide your own comment, update, and comment on others' updates, and then proceed to Update 5, which will give you directions on how to use this poem to generate your first of two, larger works in our exploration of Big Fish.

Please write a comment that briefly, but completely, responds to ALL of the following:

How does the poet perceive or feel about his father?
Describe the poet's father as you infer or think he really is.
Is your description the same as the poet's implied characterization? (Explain the similarities and/or differences)
Does your perception and the poet's perception of his father have to be the same for both of them to be true? Explain your answer.

Please write an update that briefly, but completely, responds to the following: Why does the poet conclude by saying "I like how much I am my father"? What might the poet mean if this statement is taken at face value? How might this statement be ironic? This update should be text only; your work for update 5 will provide ample opportunity for other forms of expression.

As last time, please also write a comment to the update of one of the other people in this class.

Finally, if you'd like to make your one required class presentation for Big Fish to be about what you wrote for this update, please sign up here on the tab "Update 4". You would present at our next live session. You will have one more opportunity to sign up and present on future updates.

For the Facilitator

Post Administrative Updates 4 and 5 (Work 1 Request) after your third live session with student presentations on Update 3 has been completed.

There is no advance preparation for Administrative Update 4 or your fourth live student presentations on that content other than those enumerated "for the facilitator" in Update 1.

Post Student Content to a Community

Update 5: Work 1 assignment & instructions

For the Student

Work 1 Directions:

Guiding Question: What insights does the poem "On the Days I am not My Father" by Scott Owens -- in light of the movie Big Fish -- give you into your own life?

Your response: "Answer" the guiding question in "Creator" using whatever textual, visual, video, or audio elements, singly or in combination, original or curated, that enables you to best express (not avoid) your personal reflection. The poem has been included again here for your convenience. A clear connection between your response, the poem, and the film must be made, either directly in the work created or in a written introduction to the work (for example, if your original work is completely visual or audio, or in some other way an artistic self-expression that doesn't explicitly reference the poem or film, you need to provide a brief written introduction that does make an explicit connection of your artistry to both the poem and the film).

On the Days I am not My Father. (Owens, 2008).

REMEMBER AS YOU CREATE: In this course, it is always acceptable and encouraged to include personal experience.

HOWEVER, because this work explicitly asks you to speak from personal experience, it will NOT be made public unless you choose to present it. In other words, it will:

not be read or commented on by your classmates
not be published in CGScholar unless you ask for it to be published
remain confidential to the course facilitator and, not without prior discussion with you, potentially school counseling staff

THAT STATED, if you'd like to make your one required class presentation for Big Fish to be about this work, please sign up here on the tab "Update 5". You would present NOT at the next live session, which will focus on Update 4, but our fifth live session together (i.e., you have extra time to prepare, as this is a longer work).

For the Facilitator

Post Administrative Update 5 (Work 1 Request) simultaneously with, or relatively shortly after, posting Administrative Update 4; in other words, also after your third live session with student presentations on Administrative Update 3 has been completed.

PLEASE NOTE: Although there is no advance preparation for Administrative Update 5, these are the instructions that accompany a work request, and are therefore different from prior updates in terms of content, procedure, and timing. Consequently, please review the "for the student" section of this update carefully for those differences in addition to continuing to keep in mind the preparations enumerated "for the facilitator" in Update 1.

PLEASE NOTIFY STUDENTS during your fifth live session that Administrative Update 7 (Work 2 assignment & instructions) will be posted before instead of after your next live session, as there will be no student presentations at that live session, which will instead be office hours to assist anyone with questions about Work 2 (or anything else about the class before it ends).

Post Student Content to a Community

Update 6: Re-visiting Big Fish's essential existential question

For the Student

Congratulations, although this is a bittersweet moment -- we're coming close to the end of our exploration of Big Fish, but that also means saying goodbye to characters with whom I know I've grown fond, and for whom I feel a lot of empathy.

Coming to that close, however, also means revisiting the "essential existential" question we posed way back in Update 1, and which I bet has still been in the back of your mind throughout our exploration of this movie, even if you think you've forgotten it!

Before we bring that question up, though, let me give it a little re-introduction in the context of our main topic: existentialism.

Existential philosophy is rooted in two questions stemming from crisis: Why am I here? and, commensurately, Why do I remain? The fruit of that inquiry for many philosophers -- and people in general, from priests, to presidents, to tribal traditions reaching back to the cradle of civilization (just check out the video below) -- has been context. In other words, we don't exist alone, in a vacuum, but in the context of other people. For such philosophers, and for many people's common philosophy, our lives do not have meaning before our individual existence, but only after we began to exist as individuals, because it is at that moment that life -- our life -- is given context. Put another way, you are here, and you should remain, because you mean something to others, and they mean something to you, or, more succinctly: I am because you are.

Media embedded November 23, 2021

VIDEO 2. South African Bishop Desmond Tutu explains the cultural concept of ubuntu -- literally, acting in accord with the belief that "I am, because you are" -- which former US President Bill Clinton relates to a modern (personal and global) context. (Clinton Foundation, 2007).

Through the film Big Fish -- as well as everything we did together leading up to watching that film so that we could understand it on a deeper level, and, with that understanding, everything we explored after watching that film in order to make its lessons personally meaningful -- we have been focused on our first context: parents.

In each of our particular contexts, whether who they are and who we are to them is fully known or only imagined, characterized by comfort, conflict, or both, they are our original relationship in and to this world.

Therefore, as we come to the end of our encounter with a Big Fish, let's re-visit our essential existential question:

Once I've grown up, what is the purpose of parents, and what purpose do I serve for them?

Please write a comment to the following: A one sentence "gut" response to our essential question.

Please write an update to the following: Use the one sentence "gut" response to our essential question as a thesis statement to develop a longer, more thought out "update" response. Read and reflect on some of your classmates' comments to this update before you start. You may simply unpack your thesis and explain your answer, you may contradict your thesis and tear it apart, or you may do a bit of both and come to a whole new conclusion by the end of your update. There is no right or wrong answer, just make the answer yours: honesty and honest effort is all anyone can ask.

As before, please also write a comment to the update of one of the other people in this class.

REMEMBER AS YOU WRITE: In this course, it is acceptable and encouraged to include personal experience. You may do so -- or choose not do so -- to whatever degree you feel comfortable. ALSO NOTE, there is no presentation on this update, in case that makes you feel more comfortable as you're writing. In any case, as always you may also choose -- and this will have no affect on your grade, positive or negative -- to discuss personal experiences brought up by these prompts with the course facilitator and/or school counseling staff instead of including them in your response. These conversations would be kept confidential.

For the Facilitator

Post Administrative Update 6 after your fifth live session with student presentations on Administrative Update 5 (Work 1) has been completed.

Please note that there are no student presentations based on Administrative Update 6.

Rather, your sixth live session will be dedicated to office hours for answering student questions about Administrative Update 7 (Work 2 assignment & instructions) specifically, as well as anything about the class generally.

THEREFORE PLEASE NOTE AHEAD that the instructions for Update 7 will be to post shortly (i.e., 24 - 72 hours in advance) of your sixth live session.

Post Student Content to a Community

Update 7A: Work 2 assignment & instructions (option 1)

For the Student

Work 2 Directions:

Guiding Prompt: "Write" your own "poem" entitled “On The Days I am Not My Father” (or “Mother”, or “Parents”, or "Family", whichever will be most meaningful for you).

Your Response: Respond to this prompt in "Creator" using whatever textual, visual, video, or audio elements, singly or in combination, original or curated, that enables you to best express (not avoid) your response. The original poem by Scott Owen has been included again here for your convenience, but does NOT need to be explicitly referenced in your work. Neither does the film Big Fish. This is completely your own self-expression, it just needs to be titled and congruent with the theme "On The Days I am Not My Father".

On the Days I am not My Father. (Owens, 2008).

REMEMBER AS YOU CREATE: In this course, it is always acceptable and encouraged to include personal experience.

HOWEVER, because this work explicitly asks you to speak from personal experience, it will NOT be made public unless you choose to present it. In other words, it will:

not be read or commented on by your classmates
not be published in CGScholar unless you ask for it to be published
remain confidential to the course facilitator and, not without prior discussion with you, potentially school counseling staff

THAT STATED, if you'd like to present this work, please sign up here on the tab "My Choice". You would present NOT at the next live session, which will be office hours to answer any questions anyone has about this assignment or the class in general, but at our last live session together (i.e., you have extra time to prepare, as this is a longer work).

For the Facilitator

Post ONE of the Administrative Update 7 options 24-72 hours before your sixth live session, which will be dedicated to office hours for answering student questions about this update (i.e., the Work 2 assignment & instructions).

Select the Administrative Update 7 option that is most appropriate for your students.

Alternatively, you can also not post an Administrative Update 7 to the whole class, but copy and paste content from any of those options into individual emails so as to give differentiated assignments to each student.

In either case, please give students advance notice during the fifth live session that the next live session will be "office hours" for questions about their Work 2 Assignment and Instructions, and that Update 7 will therefore be posted early so they can review it in advance and come to that session prepared. Similarly, at the end of the sixth, "office hour" live session, remind students that they will have a seventh live session for Work 1 presentations.

Post Student Content to a Community

Update 7B: Work 2 assignment & instructions (option 2)

For the Student

Work 2 Directions:

Guiding Prompt: "Write" your own “Big Fish” ending with the parent(s)/family member(s with whom your are most conflicted. Stretch yourself – despite whatever hardships that relationship has endured – to imagine as positive an ending as possible. This ending should focus on at least one of you expressing – somehow, some way – the sentiments “thank you, forgive me, I love you”. Your imagined final farewell should not be Pollyannaish, but neither is “being realistic” an
excuse to write a self-fulfilling false prophecy – false because it predicts nothing but the perpetuation of the status quo in your relationship.

Your Response: Respond to this prompt in "Creator" using whatever textual, visual, video, or audio elements, singly or in combination, original or curated, that enables you to best express (not avoid) your response. You do NOT need to be explicitly reference the film Big Fish, as this is completely your self-expression about a hypothetical reconciliation with your family member(s).

REMEMBER AS YOU CREATE: In this course, it is always acceptable and encouraged to include personal experience.

HOWEVER, because this work explicitly asks you to speak from personal experience, it will NOT be made public unless you choose to present it. In other words, it will:

not be read or commented on by your classmates
not be published in CGScholar unless you ask for it to be published
remain confidential to the course facilitator and, not without prior discussion with you, potentially school counseling staff

THAT STATED, if you'd like to present this work, please sign up here on the tab "My Choice". You would present NOT at the next live session, which will be office hours to answer any questions anyone has about this assignment or the class in general, but at our last live session together (i.e., you have extra time to prepare, as this is a longer work).

For the Facilitator

Select the Administrative Update 7 option that is most appropriate for your students.

Post Student Content to a Community

Update 7C: Work 2 assignment & instructions (option 3)

For the Student

Work 2 Directions:

Guiding Prompt: Read and reflect on one or both of the poems in the attachment below: A Father’s Prayer by General Douglas MacArthur and Rudyard Kipling’s If.

MacArthur: A Father's Prayer & Kipling: If

Potential parts of your reflection could include any one or more of the following:

Do you think the the sentiments expressed in either poem seem to come from who you would consider an “ideal” parent? Why or why not?
If was written in 1895 and A Father’s Prayer around 1942. Are these parents’ sentiments universal and timeless, or are they culturally specific and/or out of date? How are the film Big Fish’s (2003) more recent sentiments the same or different from either of these poems?
A Father’s Prayer was written by General MacArthur subsequent to having been named “National Father of the Year” in 1942, three months after he moved his family to the Philippines while he led the American campaign against Japan in World War II. MacArthur’s immediate statement upon receiving that award was: “By profession I am a soldier and take pride in that fact. But I am prouder — infinitely prouder — to be a father. A soldier destroys in order to build; the father only builds, never destroys. The one has the potentiality of death; the other embodies creation and life. And while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still. It is my hope that my son, when I am gone, will remember me not from the battle but in the home repeating with him our simple daily prayer, ‘Our Father Who Art in Heaven.'" You don’t need to like or agree with all of that statement or the background from which it comes, but one approach to reflection might be to pick out at least one sentence from it with which you do agree and explain why, as well as what it would mean for you to hear/feel that sentence said/lived toward you, and how you could/would in turn embody that statement in your own life going forward.
In contrast with General MacArthur, the author of If later saw his 18-year-old son die as a soldier during World War I, after which he famously wrote: “If any question why we died / Tell them, because our fathers lied.” It is unclear what he meant by that: Kipling did push his son toward a military career, which at that time was a sure route to position and power; Kipling and others also wrote positively and naively about the virtues of Britain entering World War I as a necessary, heroic, and predicted to be short war, but which instead proved not only exponentially longer than expected, but unprecedented for its brutality. One approach to reflection might be whether you think Kipling’s poem If represents a “loved only for your accomplishments, achieve at all cost” view of one’s children, or the sentiments of remorse Kipling expressed after that child died, ostensibly because of the life Kipling expected him and his nation to lead. Can you draw any analogies or make comparisons to your own contemporary life/family/communities/society?

REMEMBER AS YOU CREATE: In this course, it is always acceptable and encouraged to include personal experience.

HOWEVER, because this work explicitly asks you to speak from personal experience, it will NOT be made public unless you choose to present it. In other words, it will:

not be read or commented on by your classmates
not be published in CGScholar unless you ask for it to be published
remain confidential to the course facilitator and, not without prior discussion with you, potentially school counseling staff

____________________________________________________________

**ALTERNATIVE TO THIS ASSIGNMENT** that we can discuss and put to a class vote during our next live session's "office hours", at which we will go over how to complete Work 2:

Instead of the above creation, we would hold a class debate derived from the poem If and its author Rudyard Kipling.

Context: Kipling is also the author of The Jungle Book, which was recently turned into a popular movie (2016), the plot of which is that an orphaned child is raised by wolves to understand and respect the law of the jungle, while still discovering his greater capabilities as a human. In 1903 – based on the principles from that story as it was originally published – Kipling helped start a series of children’s camps that (a) still exist today, and which were also (b) influential on the subsequently formed boy and girl scouts, whose founders were friends of Kipling.

Details: First, prepare for your debate by visiting those camps’ website at www.mowglis.org and reading about Camp Mowgli’s mission, program, etc. Second, during our next live session's "office hours", if the class votes to do this whole-class work as opposed to individual works, you will be divided into three groups (pro, con, and voting audience) to debate – providing details from the website as evidence – the resolution that “Camp Mowgli is positive for children and families.” We will poll the "audience" before the debate to determine how many are pro (for) the resolution and how many are con (against it). Then we will hold the debate as follows:

Pro resolution group's opening statement
Con resolution group's opening statement
Pro's rebuttal
Con's rebuttal
Pro's counter-rebuttal and concluding statement
Con's counter-rebuttal and concluding statement
Conclusion: we poll the audience again, and whichever side was able to change the most voters’ minds (i.e., not necessarily the side that simply received the most votes) is declared the winner (although our debate is not about winning; it's all for fun and working together to think more deeply on an issue than we might have done if only working alone).

This debate would happen during an eighth and final live session (i.e., you would have two weeks to prepare, including collaborating in your groups on your own schedule). Otherwise, our final live session will be our next (seventh) one.

For the Facilitator

Select the Administrative Update 7 option that is most appropriate for your students.

____________________________________________________

CONTENT NOTE: If students vote for the **Alternative Assignment** (debate) under this option, please also thoroughly review that assignment's research material and be prepared to moderate the Oxford-style debate as described in the "for the student" section to this update. More specifically, points of contention on which the pro and con groups may focus are Camp Mowgli's:

Concentration on achievement/external validation (is this good or bad?)
Use of ranks (again, good or bad?)
Requirement that children attend away from their families for almost the entire summer (could this be positive for some, negative for others, or perhaps negative in principle but positive in specific circumstances?)
Premise to create a child development scenario on the story of an orphan raised by wolves (does this foster independence or survival of the fittest behavior?)

Information on all of these elements are available on the camp's website provided for analysis.

Please note that this option will require an eighth live session, which may not be necessary with the other Adminstrative 7 (Work 2 Assignment & Instruction) options.

Post Student Content to a Community

Update 7D: Work 2 assignment & instructions (option 4)

For the Student

Work 2 Directions:

Activity to be Defined: Group Project option for students taking the full year curriculum.

Rationale & Requirements for Definition: One of the film Big Fish’s revelations is that Ed Bloom’s stories, rather than aggrandizing him, humbly hid amidst their assumed fictions the fact that he was considered a hero by many and had even saved an entire town. Therefore, instead of being the egocentric individual his son perceived, Ed Bloom was ironically quite self-effacing. At Ed’s funeral, all the people he had helped came out of the woodwork, revealing to Will that his father’s stories – indeed, his father’s life – was not self-centered after all, but had always been about others. As a group, come up with a few different ways your community can be more other- as opposed to self-focused and how that would still benefit you as a community and as individuals. Select one of those ideas to be implemented, then plan its implementation and see it into being. (all group projects selected/assigned during Unit 2 should be considered to have approximately 150 hours to complete over the duration of the remainder of this year long course).

For the Facilitator

Select the Administrative Update 7 option that is most appropriate for your students.

____________________________________________________

CONTENT NOTE: This service learning project is an assignment required by the full year curriculum to be given once in response to one of its 14 lessons, and is meant to extend the students' experience beyond their individual efforts, the physical space of the course, and the temporal space of the specific class for which it is assigned. Facilitators will have to arrange for monitoring and supporting as appropriate for their specific context.

Post Student Content to a Community

Update 7E: Work 2 assignment & instructions (option 5)

The facilitator is always welcome to create their own final work assignment, or adopt their students’ ideas for a final work assignment, if they would better serve their particular communities' exploration and understanding of this lesson's essential existential question.

That stated, all the other general directions posted in the Administrative Update 7 options still apply:

Select the Administrative Update 7 option that is most appropriate for your students.

References

Brussat, F. & M.A. (2003). Spirituality & practice. Big Fish | Film Review. Retrieved November 22, 2021, from https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/reviews/view/6827/big-fish.

Clinton Foundation. (2007, August 1). Bill Clinton: "I am because you are" [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/6YswUI-yqXo.

Cope, W., Kalantzis, M., Francis, K., Tzirides, A., Mattingly, S. (2015). Advanced Instructional Techniques. Retrieved November 19, 2021, from https://cgscolar.com/bookstore/works/advanced-instructional-technologies?category_id=higher-education-modules&path=higher-education-modules%2F160

Education at Illinois. (2014, March 3). From didactic pedagogy to new learning [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/YIWM7Ot9yD4.

Education at Illinois. (2014, March 3). What's the use of technology in learning? introducing Seven e-affordances [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/INC4s_kuC7g.

English language arts standards " writing " grade 6-8. English Language Arts Standards " Writing " Grade 6-8 | Common Core State Standards Initiative. (n.d.). Retrieved November 30, 2021, from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/WHST/6-8/.

English language arts standards " reading: Literature " grade 9-10. English Language Arts Standards " Reading: Literature " Grade 9-10 | Common Core State Standards Initiative. (n.d.). Retrieved November 30, 2021, from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RL/9-10/.

English language arts standards " reading: Literature " grade 11-12. English Language Arts Standards " Reading: Literature " Grade 11-12 | Common Core State Standards Initiative. (n.d.). Retrieved November 30, 2021, from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RL/11-12/.

Gee, James Paul. 2003. What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kipling, R. (1937). Twenty poems from Rudyard Kipling. Methuen.

MacArthur, D. General Douglas MacArthur's prayer. The Spiritual Life. (2021, August 10). Retrieved November 23, 2021, from https://slife.org/general-douglas-macarthurs-prayer/.

Monroe, J. (2020, December 2). Day schools. Newport Academy. Retrieved November 19, 2021, from https://www.newportacademy.com/programs/day-schools/.

Montessori, Maria. 1964 (1912). The Montessori Method. New York: Schocken Books.

Mossa, M. (2010). Already there: Letting god find you. St. Anthony Messenger Press.

Owens, S. (2008). The Fractured World: Poems. Main Street Rag Pub. Co.

Movieclips Classic Trailers. (2017, February 16). Big Fish (2003) Official Trailer 1 - Ewan McGregor Movie [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0kiS4ROWkQ.

Wikimedia Foundation. (2021, October 20). Project-Based Learning. Wikipedia. Retrieved November 20, 2021, from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project-based_learning.

________________________________

Images

Kim, L. (2015, June 10). Why it's better to be a big fish in a small pond. Inc.com. Retrieved November 20, 2021, from https://www.inc.com/larry-kim/why-it-s-better-to-be-a-big-fish-in-a-small-pond.html.

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). A big fish in a little pond definition & meaning. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved November 20, 2021, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/a%20big%20fish%20in%20a%20little%20pond.

Stanford Education Study provides new evidence of "big-fish-little-pond" effect on students globally. Stanford Graduate School of Education. (2018, December 13). Retrieved November 20, 2021, from https://ed.stanford.edu/news/stanford-education-study-provides-new-evidence-big-fish-little-pond-effect-students-globally.

Tan, D. (2014, January 8). Big Fish Small Pond. Material World. Retrieved November 20, 2021, from https://materialworldsingapore.wordpress.com/tag/big-fish-small-pond/.

Appendices: Facilitator Materials from the Original Full Year Syllabus

Appendix I: Statement of Purpose

Synopsis: to stimulate students’ personal reflection toward enhanced insight into and sympathy for the human condition, with a consequent ultimate aim of student “engagement” with the world.

Elucidation:

The purpose of any course is to educate.

The questions to therefore put to any course are, to educate (a) about what and (b) how?

For this course, the answers to each of these questions in turn are:

(a) Existentialism, which is:

the intentional confrontation (whether playfully or with deadly seriousness)...
of the potential purpose(s) or purposelessness of existence...
in order not to live in fear of that about which we cannot be certain (which includes the reality or continued existence of what each of us thinks of as “me”).

(b) Through (mostly) funny films (i.e., playfully).

Of course, these answers beg a third question: why?

In terms of existentialism, the answer to this question is simple: why not?

Contemporary philosopher, best-selling author and public atheist Alain de Botton – in an interview with Krista Tippett, herself the 2013 recipient of the National Humanities Medal at
the White House for her “thoughtful delving into the mysteries of human existence” – has
lamented that his personal experience has not enabled him to embrace any religious tradition. This philosopher freely confesses that as an atheist he does not oppose religion, but rather envies those who are religious, because he finds that secular education has strayed from what, according to him, religion has always rightly recognized as of primary importance. In explanation, Messr. de Botton states that most high schools and colleges – public and private – despite what they might say in their admissions literature, dedicate their time almost exclusively to teaching topics that any student with an adequate elementary foundation could and largely does learn on their own, the cost of which is that they then spend precious little time on or even outright ignore the truly difficult questions of identity, friendship, family, rites of passage, and the handling of personal tragedy – including the ultimate “tragedy” of death, whether that death be our own or that of someone we love. Messr. de Botton’s personal and professional lament is therefore that – as people have abandoned their traditional religious institutions – these subjects have also been left out of how our schools – those institutions that do remain – prepare the young. The philosopher laughs at the irony: we act as if marriage, death, raising children and similar subjects are either easy or unnecessary topics, while calculus and the like alone are what are truly difficult, demanded by life, and therefore deserving of dedicated instruction.

For educators and therapists working with young people in recovery, the fallacy of such an approach – its absolute inversion of what we know to be true – is painfully obvious.

Thus the answer to “why existentialism” is equally obvious, and just inverts the question:
knowing what we do, why wouldn’t we teach a course exploring existentialism?

Consequently, the only question that really remains is “why through (mostly) funny films”?

The easy responses are:

film because it resonates with more young people than reading; is short enough of an art form to explore several over the course of an academic year, each selected for how it resonates with a particular existential question or concept; and yet is also an art form with a long enough narrative structure and sufficient potential for character development to enable a rich conversation.
funny because it’s harder to capture flies with vinegar than honey.

There are other, equally potent reasons for exploring existentialism through (mostly) funny films; however, those reasons are best understood by explaining why this course doesn’t explore its existential questions by other, more traditional means.

For example, there is a rich history of fine children’s movies that respond to life’s questions and are enjoyed by all ages. However, despite much to commend them, these movies are not optimal for our purpose of working with individuals in adolescence and early adulthood. This is because these films, arguably by necessity, cut up their philosophical food into easily digestible moral lessons for younger audiences still in need of spoon feeding. The problem with using this approach for adolescents and early adults is that, as we grow older, we tend to only embody that with which we have had to wrestle in order to understand – in other words, we appreciate most the meal that we have had a hand in preparing, especially those whose ingredients we have hunted and harvested ourselves. Fortunately, existential questions are also essential questions, and as such they appear naturally and frequently in films never formally intended to explore such issues, the same way existential questions frequently intrude unbidden into our actual lives. Therefore, although not a perfect surrogate for real life experience, the process of discovering and exploring these questions through films in which all the answers aren’t laid out for us increases the likelihood that we will make their life lessons our own.

Conversely, young people in recovery are often found to have grown up knowing and loving every song and string of dialogue from the major Disney cartoons, or the ins and outs of all the hero-quests from Star Wars to Harry Potter and beyond, yet, despite this familiarity, deeper discussion and personal reflection reveals that they have either forgotten, taken for granted, or simply set aside the more profound meanings of these movies. Although they’ve savored their flickering images on the screen and swallowed their stories whole, it’s as if these films’ – often wonderful – life lessons have been made so palatable that these young people never even tasted them on the way down. Consequently, many teachers and students advocate for meatier fare, “true-to-life” dramas whose fictional or non-fictional characters and situations are serious enough to choke on. However, these film suggestions are also suboptimal. The problem with fictional yet “true-to-life” drama will be examined later in the context of prescribing contemporary literature for these students. The two-fold problem with prescribing non-fictional characters and events will be examined now.

First, for these students, even the finest of films can be alienating: young people in recovery are often literal minded and also frequently feel – however incorrectly – that they are unique in their problems. As such, they would ascribe to Tolstoy’s aphorism from the opening of Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Thus the initial risk in using dramas based on real characters or events is that students will have a knee-jerk response of “that isn’t me.” Whether this response comes in the form of an active resistance or simply a passive failure to identify with the medium doesn’t matter; either scenario is sufficient to preclude the existential exploration we want to engage.

Second, although an instructor may counter that confronting these students with extraordinary real life situations and/or individuals is precisely the point, “the conquering hero” narrative that is most frequently championed in this context can prove more problematic than inspirational. To understand why, let us consider the case of the recently canonized Catholic saint and social activist Dorothy Day. Day recognized the ironic flaw in the "conquering hero as inspiration" narrative when she pleaded before her death that she never be canonized – that she never be made a saint – because then people would forget about all the bad things she had done, how human she really was, how much she was like each one of us. Day's concern was that when this happens people feel they are excused on account of this unrealistic portrait (and unattainable example) from trying to do their own radical good in the world. Of course, having passed away in 1980, Day may not have come to fully realize how much a post-Watergate America and a post-9/11 world would yield a further problem with holding up heroes to audiences who feel decidedly unheroic: here in the 21st century we love to tear our heroes down, re-casting even Superman as a possible villain, all human heroes naturally suspect, perhaps especially to young people for whom it is age appropriate to question authority.

Which by the process of elimination brings us to dramatic fiction. This we will discuss in the context of literature, for the critiques here apply equally well to film, and it is in literature classes – if anywhere – that schools most often seek to address existential questions. Alain de Botton’s accusations at the outset of this introduction notwithstanding, schools are aware of the crises common to many young people, and young people with a history of addictive behavior in particular. In this context, as well as the constraints of their classes and what many school districts conservatively interpret the First Amendment to allow in terms of "moralistic" texts, most literature teachers turn to reading the classics as a simultaneously implicit and automatic remedy. They are, after all, classics for a reason. Meanwhile, more therapeutically minded teachers may seek to replace such standard fare with more contemporary works populated by characters who struggle with issues similar to those of their readers. But however well-intentioned, both approaches are problematic.

First, although it should not be the case, the classics – even with the most universal of literature taught by the most ardent of instructors – often fall prey in the minds of young people, particularly those in recovery, to the literal-minded alienation already discussed above, as well as the distrust or outright denouncement of heroes. However, a caveat should be mentioned here: many students in recovery don’t fit that population’s stereotype of being academically behind or belligerent. Many students, particularly those from families at the top of the socio-economic ladder, begin their addictive behaviors in a maladaptive effort to excel, not escape, from the academic (and implied future professional) pressures society places upon them. Such students frequently are among the best of the best at dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s of the traditional curriculum; however, such success is misleading. These students embrace those i’s and t’s precisely for their ability to distract them from classic works’ greater, existentially challenging meanings. Thus we have uncovered a second problem with simply assigning the classics to engage students: conscientious grade-seekers in today’s over-scheduled academic environments are not rewarded for taking time out for thoughtful self-reflection; however, students are rewarded for the superficial pre-occupation with grades that is often commensurate with the unrelenting self-criticism and quest for perfection characteristic of being an individual in recovery (particularly for students with a history of eating disorders and other forms of self-harm). Thus prescribing the “expected reading” in which everyone else in their class year is engaged can initiate a knee-jerk response from these students that (i) leave both them and their teachers self-satisfied because of the high grades achieved, and yet, ironically, (ii) only perpetuates the students’ more existential problems, because to achieve those grades these students feel both compelled to and rewarded for failing to engage with a classic text’s inherent therapeutic power.

In other words, the student is not only left unchanged by the reading, but feels validated for once again having avoided a process that might have led them toward change.

Doubly unfortunate, though, is that the literature typically assigned as an alternative to the classics fares no better.

Specifically, when more contemporary dramatic works populated by characters who struggle with issues similar to those of the reader are assigned – but that reader is still engaged in the studied avoidance of their emotional self, precluding empathy for others, reflection on their own thought processes, and the cultivation of a self-actualized life – instead of providing its intended illumination, such literature becomes voyeuristic fodder for those students’ alternately narcissistic and hypercritical gaze. Students and teachers may feel self-satisfied that – unlike the classics, which would have been mostly skipped or skimmed in favor of scouring their synopses and analyses online – in this case the assigned text will have been actually read and genuinely enjoyed. However, the nature of these students’ process for reading and enjoying these texts will have only – and once again ironically – perpetuated their existential problems.

Why?

First, the students will not have been challenged to become more engaged with the world beyond the disorder with which they have historically struggled.

Second, not having gained sufficient distance from that narrowly circumscribed world, neither will they have been enabled to become any more insightful about that disorder.

In other words, young people in recovery will tend to focus on how a book’s activities and events mirror their own present or relatively recent life as opposed to how the author’s insights and acquired wisdom may have come to contradict it.

Consequently, as with the classic texts, the student is not only left unchanged by the reading, but feels validated for once again having avoided a process that might have led them toward change.

Nor can we completely blame them; both the classic and contemporary literature assigned by high school English curricula are oddly crowded with tragedies centered around problematic parent-child relationships that are never or only negatively resolved: Death of a Salesman, The Bluest Eye, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Oedipus Rex, and Huckleberry Finn are only a few examples of those assigned from school districts around the country over the course of a single academic year to students at one treatment facility. For students in recovery these assignments can give an exaggerated sense of the frequency and degree of family dysfunction, lending a further (defeatist, acquiescent) sense of normalcy and intractability to their own situation.

Thus, what are we left with?

(Mostly) funny films.

These films are optimal for our purpose because comic irony is by design disarming and surreptitious, sneaking in on us between chuckles and against our better judgment to confront us with questions that we would rather not contemplate. By the time we do realize what we’ve allowed ourselves to be sucked into, it’s too late: we’re already bought in, identifying with the actors’ “every person” characters on the screen before us, almost no matter how surreal their situation, as in the example below.

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Hell Harold, you could just eat nothing but pancakes if you wanted.

Harold Crick: What is wrong with you? I don't want to eat nothing but pancakes, I want to live! I mean, who in their right mind in a choice between pancakes and living chooses pancakes?

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Harold, if you pause to think, you'd realize that that answer is inextricably contingent upon the type of life being led... and, of course, the quality of the pancakes.

From the film, Stranger than Fiction (Lesson 4)

IN CONCLUSION, here are a few less philosophical points about this course to keep in mind before launching into the lesson plans. These points may have been implied, but were not covered explicitly in the Design, Grading Rubric, and other introductory material:

This is not a class to teach existential philosophy, let alone the history of existential philosophy, but to get students – through the Socratic method – to philosophize about their own existence.
Neither is this a film class. There are arguably better films if one was studying either cinematic history or technique, but that is not the point. Unlike traditional high school and college literature or film classes, in this course the works of art are a means, not an end. The point is to get students to “commit philosophy”. Many films’ content could be relevant to this activity, but the movies herein were also chosen because they were: (a) generally popular/accessible, enabling students to focus on philosophizing, not struggling to understand a challenging movie; (b) not written to do the philosophizing for its audience (as, for example, a film like The Matrix); (c) at least ten years old at the time this curriculum was written (with one exception) in order to decrease the likelihood that students would have already seen or been familiar with a movie, and also to provide the author a greater opportunity to assess each film’s capacity to remain relevant and not distract students by being “dated”.
The lesson plans refer to a “facilitator” and not a “professor/teacher” for a reason. This course is less about professing or teaching than keeping students engaged with a constant barrage of questions. Whatever truth exists, it won’t matter to these students if they do not believe that truth to be their own, arrived at on their own accord. Furthermore, and of particular relevance to non-traditional high school and therapeutic settings in which this course may be offered, one need not be a formal “professor/teacher” to facilitate this course; therapists, care coordinators, and other suitable and suitably motivated staff well versed in the course content will prove equally appropriate.

Appendix II: Original Course Outline, Design Statement, and Grading Rubric

From the Curriculum/Syllabus "Laughing at Life: Exploring Existential Questions through (mostly) Funny Films"

Appendix III: Original Lesson Plan

Big Fish Original Lesson Plan

Appendix IV: Full Curriculum Original Final Exam Options

The PDF below provides the original, full year "Laughing at Life" curriculum's 5 final exam options.

Please note that this course was originally designed for students of Newport Academy (see "Overview"), and the films selected, although meeting all the criteria stated in Appendix I, are consequently also reflective of the super-majority of that school's student population.

Thus, for many facilitators, assignment of exam option 3 and incorporation of those students' productions into subsequent iterations of the course may be optimal, as it would broaden the cultural relevance of its materials both for the students immediately given that assignment, as well as their later peers who would be the subsquent beneficiaries of their efforts.

Laughing at Life - Full Curriculum's Final Exam Options

Work 2B: Learning Module Design

Project Overview

Laughing at Life

Exploring Existential Questions through (mostly) Funny Films: Lesson 5 of 14: Big Fish

Overview

Intended Learning Outcomes

Update 1: Introducing our essential question and a big fish

For the Student

For the Facilitator

Update 2: If my whole life came down to this…

For the Student

For the Facilitator

Update 3: The Movie

For the Student

For the Facilitator

Update 4: On the Days I am not My Father

For the Student

For the Facilitator

Update 5: Work 1 assignment & instructions

For the Student

For the Facilitator

Update 6: Re-visiting Big Fish's essential existential question

For the Student

For the Facilitator

Update 7A: Work 2 assignment & instructions (option 1)

For the Student

For the Facilitator

Update 7B: Work 2 assignment & instructions (option 2)

For the Student

For the Facilitator

Update 7C: Work 2 assignment & instructions (option 3)

For the Student

For the Facilitator

Update 7D: Work 2 assignment & instructions (option 4)

For the Student

For the Facilitator

Update 7E: Work 2 assignment & instructions (option 5)

References

Appendices: Facilitator Materials from the Original Full Year Syllabus

Appendix I: Statement of Purpose

Appendix II: Original Course Outline, Design Statement, and Grading Rubric

Appendix III: Original Lesson Plan

Appendix IV: Full Curriculum Original Final Exam Options