Star Wars Texts Should be Compulsory at School

Hey I have got to make a persuasive speech at school and I didn't know what to do. So my teacher was like "What are you passionate about?" And i said "Star Wars" so she told me to do a speech on why studying star wars texts or movies should be compulsory to rview and study in secondary school (ages 13-19). Can anyone help me out on the text side as to why star wars texts should be reviewed in school?

 

But of course!

1.) Star Wars books are excellent literary works. Plot action is second to none, and certain books like Traitor can actually be philosophical in nature. Not to mention the traditional gamut of literary devices (simile, metaphore, etc.) are also present.

2.) Star Wars books are actually fun to read! *Laughs* .... There have been so many books in H.S. that were boring as all get up and go to me.

3.) Star Wars books have positive effects on the imaginations of their readers. In such a rich imaginative environment as those present in the EU, such creativity is easily rubbed off onto their readers.


Anywhos, I'm sure there are more out there, and I might post again if I think up something else. Good luck with your project and do us proud!

 

It's true. I'm a writer myself (and don't refer to my story for how well I write, lol. I'm just writing that for fun), and I spent one whole summer reading Star Wars books...and then I picked up a pencil and paper once school started and I was probably two to three times better at writing from last spring. And I owe it all to Star Wars books.

 

Yup. If you are to read a Stover book, especialy (I'm thinking Shatterpoint) is is chalk full of metaphors, and character conflict. Getting inside the characters head. Good stuff

 

Plus they also inspire people to become writers themselves.

 

Definitely talk about Shatterpoint and Traitor, the only two SW novels (IMO) that should be studied in schools. They are both very philosophical, and transcend pop fiction, becoming true literature. Easily on the same level as the novels one reads in high school.

 

Easy answer (and the one that worked for the Smithsonian Institution): The direct corellation that exists between the Star Wars universe (books, movies, etc) and the Western literary tradition of the Epic and Heroic Journey. Check out information on Joseph Campbell's analysis of Star Wars as Myth. . . now there's a good argument for including Star Wars texts as part of a literary curriculum.

 

Hey, most anything's better than the insipid trash passed off as 'modern literature', horrors like "Catcher in the Rye", "The Grapes of Wrath", "Lord of the Flies", and "Of mice and men". Give me Zahn, Stover, or Denning any day of the week. Heck, even turkeys like "Planet of Twilight" are better than anything by JD Salinger or James Joyce.

 

I agree with most of the last post, save that some more classical works are actually quite good, such as Shakespeare. The marriage sidequest on Dantooine in the original KOTOR is clearly a tribute to Romeo & Juliet, and if the guys who made KOTOR like it, you've gotta give it the props. But I will agree that a great deal of the "literature" that is foisted upon children in today's public schools is pure crap. I say this having handily bagged an IB diploma after exercising all the academic discipline of an average leftover pizza crust. Well, except in math. I'm a total calculus whore, but that's another story. The point is that Star Wars rules.

 

Ouch, Zebula! Them's fightin' words! j/k

Seriously, though, I don't think we can rank Planet of Twilight above Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man or Ulysses. Maybe Catcher in the Rye, but not Joyce's work.

Again, j/k.

Don't want any passionate literary types out for my blood.

 

One teacher at my old high school spends two weeks watching Star Wars, discussing archetypes. It is so chalk-full of archetypes, that it is a useful teaching tool.

Otherwise, everyone else has said it. Especially KnightMara.

 

Some classics are truly wonderful, such as Shakespeare's plays, the poems of Tennyson and his contemporaries, Les Miserables; more recently George Orwell's 1984, and Tolkien's tales of Middle Earth(all of them). Unfortunately, some trashy novels and senseless verse somehow got labeled as 'fine literature', and thus imposed upon students; while true treasures of the page are erroneously labeled as "escapist garbage", and thus denounced. Excuse me, but literature is supposed to be enjoyable and enlightening, not a chore.

 

The EU gets a double-whammy against it. Unfortunately, in literary circles, science fiction is the red-headed bastard step-child of the family. The coup de grace is the fact that not only is there the perception that the EU sci-fi, but it's also franchised fiction, the ultimate affront to "literary intellectuals."

So, it certainly has some rather steep obstacles in some people's minds to overcome before it can get any fair shot at fair consideration.

Star Wars, conceptually, is fantasy. Mythological fantasy to be even more accurate. The sole purpose of its existence was to be the vehicle which Lucas wished to use to revisit traditional mythological constructs in a more modern way. So, of course, the foundation of Star Wars opens up a fairly straightforward and reasonable way to bring the texts into various literary study. Bring it in at the end of the studies of mythology. Of course, for this, the parts of the EU which have the strongest connection to the original source would likely be the best candidates to use: Dark Empire, etc.

There's also another "valid" way that I see. Star Wars as Star Wars. Star Wars is unquestionably a pop culture phenomenon, and the study of such phenomenon and its effect on a culture is certainly valid for study. Parallels between real-world events and their EU counterparts are numerous.

I think there's room there to explore the things that Star Wars has created in print inside of the classroom.

 

Sad, but true. Ever notice how "literary intillectuals," especialy English Teachers especialy avoid it like the plague?


For some reason they can't begin to fathom a sci-fi story actualy being written well, and bein a fun read. For the exception of 1984 which IMO is hardly sci-fi, it's just in the future (although the same could be said about Star Wars to a lesser extent) or Ray Bradbury, who I agree is good, but you can't just limit yourself to one author. Hell, they usualy even like fantacy, which seems to be only one step removed from sci-fi. Plenty of the Star Wars authors have written fanacy books, so whats to stop from reading those? And if you read those, what's wrong with giving their Star Wars books a try? Even without Star Wars, there are plenty of good writers in sci-fi. Arthur C. Clarke is a good example, as is Orson Scott Card (although his later books in the Ender series are crap, the shadow series is much better ), Michael Chrichton (although he isn't only a sci-fi writer), and plenty of others (including Zahn I've heard). Why don't these people even venture into sci-fi? Well, I don't know, but I have a theory.


Most of these "literary intellectuals" probably either didn't like math/science or were bad at math/science, so the don't want to read a genera including those factors, for whatever reason. And when asked why they don't read it, they take the stance that it must be bad, even if they have read nothing or next to nothing of it.



Sci-Fi is an oppresed genera

 

Shhh. . . . don't tell anyone. . .but I'm an English teacher. . . and yes, I use the movies in my class. Shhh. . . .


I feel like I should be adding some sort of password or code. "The bantha crows at dawn."

Not true. There are a lot of English teachers out there who are more than happy to teach science fiction (btw, don't use the term sci-fi in English circles, or it will just stir up a whole womprat's nest of trouble ). My classroom library is full of science fiction and fantasy novels, including the SW EU--and they are constantly flying off my shelves. I've even had to replace quite a few of them because they never quite made it back to my shelves (hmmm, wonder how that happened). I also incorporate a number of works of science fiction into the curriculum, and I'm not just talking about Orwell. Check out my sig. Orson Scott Card has been covered in my class, as has Ray Bradbury. I suppose it all comes as a result of growing up on Star Wars, but I can still say with a fair amount of certainty that I am not alone in my teaching of science fiction as literature.

Not all English teachers are bad.

Neither are red-heads.

 

Well, none of my English teachers ever did anything sci-fi realated




You = good English teacher. For that you get a

 

Do I get anything else for incorporating Raiders of the Lost Ark as well? I've used that in my classroom . . .twice.

 

I'll give you The Grapes of Wrath, 'cause it's awful. But no SW novel measures up to Catcher in the Rye. Shatterpoint *may* be on par with Lord of the Flies, but it's certainly not above anything written by Salinger or Joyce. The only SW writer who can be considered in an English class is Stover (and, of course, Lucas' films). Stover probably ranks somewhere above Mary Shelley and Harper Lee but below John Steinbeck.

 

Don't I even get a gold star? A cookie?

 

I'll give you The Grapes of Wrath, 'cause it's awful. But no SW novel measures up to Catcher in the Rye. Shatterpoint *may* be on par with Lord of the Flies, but it's certainly not above anything written by Salinger or Joyce. The only SW writer who can be considered in an English class is Stover (and, of course, Lucas' films). Stover probably ranks somewhere above Mary Shelley and Harper Lee but below John Steinbeck.

Didn't you just say you hated The Grapes of Wrath? Total Steinbeck action right there. Catcher in the Rye is just kind of...well...crap. Angst? Been there, done that, and much better-executed angst works have been done. Zahn, Luceno, and Stover are EASILY on par with any of the authors you named, if not murdering their writing outright.

 

Hmm, well, I've never been a big Indiana Jones fan, but showing movies in class is always good, so you get a cookie:

[image=http://www.gift-baskets-4u.com/images/Cookies/Milk%20Chocolate%20Chip%20Cookie%20With%20Pecans.jpg]

 

Wait, you're a SW fan but not an Indy fan?

Wow, I didn't know people like you existed. . .

 

Alright thanks for all the help. I'm going to have a kick ass speech now!!!