Learning task 1: Introduction and viewing the film
Introduction
Stephen King has a reputation as one of the most well known and popular science fiction novelists. Some of his most well known works are: Misery, It, Christine, The Tommyknockers. The main characters in these stories range from a psychotic clown to a man eating car. The students' predictions about The Shawshank Redemption should be interesting if they have read any of King's other novels.
See The Stephen King WebSite
. What do we expect in terms of a story line?
Discuss Stephen King and his novels. Stephen King has a reputation as one of the most well known and popular science fiction novelists. Some of his most well known works are: Misery, It, Christine, The Tommyknockers. The main characters in these stories range from a psychotic clown to a man eating car. The students' predictions about The Shawshank Redemption should be interesting if they have read any of King's other novels.
Look at the title of the film. What does it suggest? What is redemption?
Redemption (n) - The act of redeeming.
Redeeming (adj) - Serving to compensate for faults or deficiencies.
Redeem (vb) - 1. To recover possession of by payment of a price or service. 2. To convert (bonds or shares) into cash. 3. To pay off (a loan or debt). 4. To recover (something mortgaged or pawned). 5. To exchange(coupons) for goods. 6. To fulfil (a promise) 7. To reinstate someone's good opinion. 8. To make amends for. 9. To recover from captivity, esp. by a money payment.
Taken from,
The Collins Pocket Dictionary, HarperCollins Publishers, England, 1989.
Viewing
Hand out the
viewing_worksheet (RTF 9KB)
. These are to be completed as the students are watching the film. Give them about 10 minutes at the end of each viewing period to work on them and discuss relevant issues.
View the film. This should take at least 3 periods including breaks for response (as above).
Post viewing
Students are to complete the viewing questions. Discuss answers/ideas as a class. It can be a group activity, ie. each group takes a question and then reports back.
Students could write an evaluation or personal response to the film. Use such starters as, 'I enjoyed the film because...', 'I especially liked the scene where...', 'The character that remained in my mind was... because...', etc.
