Summer SAVY 2017, Session 4/Day 4- Theory, Criticism, and The Force (Rising 6th/7th)

Posted by morganr1 on Thursday, July 13, 2017 in SAVY.

I can’t believe tomorrow will be our last day together, my friends. This week has flown by! I’m excited for our final class, when we’ll unpack our last lenses of analysis and tackle our trickiest content.

Today we added Historicism to our collection of tools. You understand that meaning can be ascribed by the time and events surrounding the creation or the encounter of content. As with all lenses of analysis, you also know the shortcomings of historicizing or re-historicizing: in the case of Historicism, you know that time and events are relative, and so we must be precise when establishing our terms.

As for analysis, today you performed multiple analyses on several pieces of content – including, yes, selections from the infamous “Star Wars Holiday Special” and my son’s 5th birthday party. I’m especially pleased with your work on that second video, as the narrative-free material forced you to think abstractly (this was good practice for tomorrow, by the by).

And, yes, we finished Star Wars. We completed a structural analysis of the entire film, and then, in groups, you set your terms and discovered dozens of thoughtful answers to the question, “What does Star Wars mean?” Now, when someone says to you, “That’s just a bunch of flashing lights and loud explosions,” you can smile knowingly and guide your Formalist-friend through a menagerie of interpretations.

Get your rest, and I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Tomorrow’s challenges will be new and exciting, but – as Master Yoda once said, “Already know you that which you need.”

Mr. David Lee