Stand+By+Me



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Your work on 'Stand By Me' will look at the reasons why we remember certain aspects of our past and also how we might present them. In the film we are presented a picture of a group of teenagers which has been constructed by adults. We might ask how different a picture would have been created by a group of 12 year olds. Even at the age of fourteen and fifteen our view of our earlier years is probably different to the way that we saw it as we lived it. At times we find it very difficult to explain things that we are experiencing at the moment whereas things from the past are more easily put into words.

**Weekly Activity: Portfolio/ weekly writing task 1 - Nouns** You will be given one writing task at the beginning of each week. You will be required to complete this at home and bring it into class during your last English lesson of each week. Each task will focus on a specific grammar and/ or punctuation technique/ strategy. You will combine all your writing pieces and submit them as a portfolio to your teacher at the end of the term. This is your first assignment.

This task requires you to write a reply to your teacher's letter. This letter will have a focus on nouns. You can look at nouns and how they are used in the Grammar & Punctuation section. In this section there are activities to complete using nouns which will aid you in using them correctly.

Due date: Friday 5 Februray 2010

**Movie Madness Passport** The //'Movie Madness Passport'// is your guide to '__Film Techniques__. This will be your bible for this class. It will include all the information on all the skills used in film and will help you during film study. This must be completed before your first viewing of //'Stand By Me'//.

Due date: Week 2 Session 2

**Assignment 1: Movie soundtrack** 

Due date: Week 3 session 3

**Activity 1: Introduction to //'Stand By Me'//** //‘Stand By Me’// is based on the Stephen King novella ‘The Body’ and details four friends’ search for the body of a young boy who has gone missing. When one of them overhears a conversation about the location of the body, they go on a journey through the woods on the far outskirts of their town to find it. Set in 1960, the journey takes on epic proportions as they must come to terms with their own personal fears to achieve their aim. In the end it seems that their trip together may be more important than the destination.

**Rite of passage** What is a ritual? Why do we have rituals? Why are they important? People do not form their identities naturally but as part of a cultural process. Rituals help to make individuals feel that they belong to a larger group; they are community sanctioned methods of marking natural or social transitions, times of danger, when outcomes can be unpredictable. These ceremonies attempt to control the natural world by marking a natural physical change like birth, adolescence, and death with a social/sacred ceremony.

The educational aspect of rituals helps to teach individuals their role in the larger social group; they are often used to pass on group history to novices and remind the larger group of the importance of cultural continuity. With every generation, change must be made to seem part of the greater scheme of life.

Societies also have rituals to mark non-biological events that mark status changes such as graduation, marriage, induction into different groups (military, scouts, first jobs) that involve special dress, a period of isolation with their peers and away from the rest of society, some kind of ceremony, and a recognition of the changed status (these also apply to those rituals that mark biological changes). 1. What is a ritual? A transition from one status to another—some kind of transformation must occur. Rituals are generally sacred ceremonies as opposed to profane (everyday) ones.

2. What is the purpose of ritual? A community sanctioned method of marking a natural or social transition. Transitions are a time of danger, when outcomes can be unpredictable. Hence, rituals attempt to control the natural world by marking a natural physical change with a social/sacred ceremony.

3. Three stages of a ritual:
 * 1) Entrance into a novice status,
 * 2) threshold or in-between time (often a time of seclusion),and
 * 3) transition completed/new status achieved.

4. What are some examples of natural events that rituals mark? For holidays/communities: changes of season, the middle of a season (New Year, autumn, spring, beginning and end of summer [Labor Day], winter solstice (Christmas, Chinese New Year), Spring Equinox [Easter, Passover, SE Asian New Years], summer solstice [July 4, Mid-Summer’s Eve, Ascension of the Buddha]).

For individuals in communities: Birth—Christening, Baptism, Brit/Circumcision, Naming; Adolescence—Bar/Bat Mitzvot, receiving gar, quinceañera, getting a driver’s license, graduation; Adulthood—Marriage, first job, first house; Mid-life—Menopause/Croning, Retirement; Death (funerals).

5. What are some examples of social/sacred events that rituals mark? Circumcision, First Communion, Confirmation, Marriage, Anniversaries, Birthdays, Graduation. Saltzman, Rachelle. (2007) RITES OF PASSAGE LESSON. Folklife Program. Iowa Arts Council.

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**Weekly Activity: Portfolio/ weekly writing task 2 - Adjectives** Your activity this week is to read the introduction of 'The Body' written by Stephen King. You will look at how King has used the English language to describe a memory from his childhood. The next part of the activity is for you to write your own memory in the style of King.

Th task this week has you focus on adjectives. You can look at adjectives and how they are used in the Grammar & Punctuation section. In this section there are activities to complete using adjectives which will aid you in using them correctly.

Due date: Friday 12 Februray 2010

Remember that we are studying this like any text. You need to understand the plot first and then you need to be able to analyse the film in terms of __characters__, __themes__ , __setting__ , __style__ and __mood__. When you have viewed the first ten minutes of the film, start your viewing log by answering the following questions:
 * Activity 2: Ten minute activity**


 * What do we know of the plot, the characters and the setting so far?
 * How did we gain this impression?
 * Were the opening sequences important?
 * How does the Director influence our thinking?
 * What colours dominate the introduction? What could they represent?
 * When/where is the story set? How do you determine this?
 * What do we know about the main character(s)?

Please see **DISCUSSION** section on //'Stand By Me'// page.
 * Activity 3: Discussion question **

Due date: ?

Due date: ?
 * Activity 4: //'Stand By Me'// post-viewing questions **

Storytelling is an art form. As such it has structures and norms that have been handed down from generations, just as painting might have rules regarding composition and perspective. One of the methods used by story-tellers over the world is to set up reflective character types who signify certain aspects of the human condition and therefore express in a single character a simplistic mirror image in which we can reflect ourselves and also project ourselves into the story by allowing us to view a facet of our own personalities in the film. //'Stand By Me'// uses this is a clever way. By using a group of young people, the film-maker and writer can give us a group of characters who still have much to achieve. Despite suggesting the cynical views of teenagers, the characters carry hopes and dreams that many adults have long since lost.

Stephen King has set up four main characters with which to play off against each other, in order to create a stronger dramatic story line. They are as follows: **Chris:** The boy from the wrong side of the tracks, whose greatest fear is that he is being overlooked because of his background. **Teddy:** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> He is described as 'crazy' by his friends. Teddy has a devil-may-care attitude. His fathers' mental illness has already shaped him. It has given him a license to go further into danger. <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> // 'Stand By Me' // <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> also offers the image of another group - that of Ace Merrill's gang. <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> One commentator has described this group as a 'debased' version of Gordie's gang further into their teenage years. Do you think this is true? What has caused Ace Merrill's gang to become debased? Are Gordie's group headed in the same way? <span style="color: #1a171b; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Look around your school group, your family members of any other group that you are involved with. <span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Are some people in the group already regarded as character types? You may see individuals' regarded as leaders, the figure of fun or the budding creative. Do we accept these generalisations about others too readily or are they a method of understanding each other in a simplistic manner? You will be required to create a character profile on two of the four main characters from //'Stand By Me'//.
 * Gordie:** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">The budding writer - the creative member of the group. It is significant that he has one of the few private and sensitive moments in the film, when he watches a small deer pass by on the rail tracks.
 * Vern:** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> He is a figure of light relief, an overweight boy who thinks only of his hunger. Vern serves as a symbol of selfishness and as the character who is the slowest in reaching adulthood.
 * Activity 5: ** ** Character profile **

Due date: ?

**Parents** The relationship between the four boys and their parents.
 * Activity 6: Finding the theme**

Dr. Phil's Advice Website - Parenting: Develop a healthy relationship with your parent/teen. [] //'Stand By Me’// is about friendship, the friendship between a group of boys and in particular two of them, Gordie and Chris. Yet the four boys seem a mixed bunch with very little in common when it comes to backgrounds. What do you think it is that binds the four boys together? At times they seem to hate each other, throwing insults around whilst later making up. Try to give some reasons for them being friends. One of the key conflicts in '//Stand By Me//' is the one between the four boys and the older group led by Ace. What moments in the film do we see this conflict occurring? Why do you think the group of elder boys are bothered about the younger boys? Surely they are nothing to them? Why should they not simply ignore them? They are always trying to prove something but what are they trying to prove? Is there a difference in the way that the young boys relate to each other in their group and the way that Ace and the older boys relate to each other? ** What is the theme of ‘//Stand By Me’...// ** ‘Kids lose everything unless there’s somebody there to take care of them’ //(Chris to Gordie)// 'I never had any friends like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?' //(The Narrator - The adult Gordon Lachance)// 'Do you think I'm weird?' //(Gordie to Chris)// 'Everyone's weird' //(Chris to Gordie - in answer to the above)// ​ 'Chopper' (the junkyard keeper's dog) was my first lesson in the difference between myth and reality' //The Narrator - The adult Gordon Lachance)// <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> // ‘Stand By Me’ // is set in __1960 in America__. Although the film does not reflect much of the politics of the era, it suggests a period of time before American civic and cultural life changed. //‘Stand By Me’// is set before the __U.S. involvement in Vietnam__, before the __assassination of President John F. Kennedy__; before the __Watergate Scandal which caused the removal from office of President Nixon__ and before the __radical shifts caused by the counterculture movement of the 1960’s__. So while ‘//Stand By Me’// is a somewhat nostalgic look at young people’s lives in 1960, it offers a realistic viewpoint on life, touching on issues such as w, x, y and z. What are the issues that are brought to light in ‘//Stand By Me’//? Reflecting also that //‘Stand By Me’// was made in 1986, it may be a comment on the __Reagan era in America in the 1980s__ which __encouraged a return to traditional family values__, such as those thought to be prevalent in the America of the 1950s. //‘Stand By Me’// above all suggests that the praised family values of the 1950s and early 1960s were probably a falsehood. //If ‘////Stand By Me’////Stand By Me’// //Stand By Me’// An Outline is a synopsis of the plot of a film. It gives a brief account of the story and characters and is used as a guide as to whether the prospective film will be made. It is usually about 500 words long. A production company can option a treatment or screenplay from this source. //The Body’//
 * Friendship**
 * Activity 7: //'The Body'//**
 * Activity 8: ** **Historical context**