High School - Superheroes

[thefrownclown]

This is a great collection! Good stuff, thanks!

[Munwon]

Great for mid-term week!

[swayze1313]

I always try to include a super-power brainstorming section.  Normally my students freeze when asked to use creative thinking, but when you give a few examples of your own first (the power to turn things into ice cream, etc), it gets them out of their shells a bit.

[Clumsyintellect]

Hey.

There are quite a few superhero/villain LPs on this site. It is a good topic, as it can be both fun and provocative. In the PPT, I first inquire of fantasy heroes (names and characteristics), then real life heroes (what made them heroes? and how can a person, who holds down a mundane/typical job, do something extraordinary/ Can we practice Chivalry and heroism today, or is something only of the past?), and last I showed them a picture of the hijackers of 9/11. We talked about how a group of ppl can elevate a person into the status of hero or leader, yet be totally deceived (or even willingly be deceived) by the intentions or pipe dreams they offer. It became a bit of a topic of relativism, and the boundaries between what makes good and evil, or whether they think both are the same. Everything is relative until someone gets hurt! At the end of the lesson, I got them to design their own superheroes. It was bloody hilarious some of the ideas they conjured! They'd take teachers from the school and adapt them nicely into a superhero outfit with a purpose and all.

Overall, it had high success among my students. I did this lesson with all levels, and obviously, the discussion depended on their English ability.












 

[CellarDoor]

I went searching for this topic specifically, because I'll need something sort of fun for the week after midterms.  Could I ask some opinions though?  Would it be better to save this for a camp lesson, or is there enough in this particular topic that I could revisit it and it wouldn't be a problem?

With a school anniversary and Buddha's birthday, I'll only have 3 teaching days next week.  Is this lesson potentially awesome enough that I would be better off using it for a week when all the students will benefit?  (The again, I guess I could just teach it to the first two days' worth of classes the next week, and teach something else for three days then.

I'd really like to include a female superhero too... I'm thinking there must be *some* pictures of a couple of female Xmen that are slightly less provocative...  Or maybe I'll include Buffy Summers... she's even a comic book superhero now!  Any more ideas about this aspect?

[Pandini]

You can start the lesson by asking who their superheroes are.
Then teach key words like,"powerful, strong,fast,etc. show them how to use that in phrases.
Then show the PPT

[Logan.kruck]

For those of you looking for decent female superheroes, check out:

Batgirl
Raven
Donna Troy
Wonder Woman (now in pants!)
Ms. Marvel (just shows legs - Bathing suit style)
Rogue
Some Supergirl uniforms
Wonder Girl

Just some Ideas.

DO NOT USE
Power Girl
Emma Frost

[Miss S]

DO NOT USE
Power Girl
Emma Frost

Ok I gotta ask... why?

[Logan.kruck]

The reason for not using Powergirl or Emma Frost:

Powergirl was created in the 80's with a uniform to match.  There is a large hole cut out of the chest of her uniform to reveal clevage.  Even DC comics makes jokes about this uniform within the comics: boys getting distracted, villains poking fun, etc.

Emma Frost has an interesting uniform, but it makes me wonder if Marvel was just attempting to see how the X in X-men could work for women.  Needless to say, she is missing an X in her uniform, letting most of her front show. 

The characters are good characters, and fun to read, but they are a distraction to lessons.

[#basedcowboyshirt]

This is a bare-bones lesson that can be fleshed out however you want. It can easily be stretched out over several classes. I got 120 minutes worth of full class time out of it (three classes of 40 mintues). I don't have a lesson plan .doc. It worked well for my high level and mid level high school boys, but may also work well for girls, as there are some strong female characters in the X-Men too. Depends on how you teach it. It doesn't have to be a bro-fest.

For me, I start by asking the students what their favourite comics are. Western or Japanese or Korean, whatever's fine. Just get the kids talking a little bit. go through the powerpoint, getting the students input and participation on the necessary slides (they're pretty obvious - prompts for brainstorming, questions, etc.)

The most important brain storming session is asking the kids what superpowers they can think of (after explaining what a superpower is).

Then, go through the roster of characters, explaining what they do, etc. It helps if you've seen one of the X-Men movies.

After all that, get the students to fill out the Superhero Profile .doc sheet. Encourage creativity.

The final activity is to randomly pair students off and explain that the characters they've created have to battle. Have the class vote on who they think would win, based on what the students wrote about them, and then ask why (ex. Black Mamba's laser eyes would melt Ice Queen's body, so Black Mamba would win).

Have fun getting your students to unleash their inner B-movie schlock.

EDIT: removed lesson

[Braveanglo]

This is a great lesson! Thanks for all the materials you included, especially the videos!

[Logan.kruck]

I've split up this lesson into 2 class periods. 

Class 1 (Lesson plan 7, Superhero ppt)
A. Quiz
B. Introduce the superhero
C. Superhero Virtues (talk about virtue - what are they)
D. Create a superhero

Class 2 (Lesson plan 8, Superhero Situation.ppt, Speed read activity)
A. Quiz
B. introduce the villains
C. The situation game
- Divide the Speed Read Activity into the 3 situations.
- Have one student read one line as quick as possible until the story is done.
- 1. Read situation 1
--- Who is the villain
--- Choose 2 heroes to fight the villain
--- Roll a dice +1 against the villain for being strong against their weakness, -1 against the villain if weak against their power
- 2. Read situation 2
--- Repeat from 1
- 3. Read Situation 3
--- Repeat from 1
D. Discuss how we can be heroes today.

Thanks for all the foundation work on this forum guys.  Hope my expansions are fun and help.

[robbb3490]

Wow all of this stuff is incredibly useful. I will definitely be teaching a lesson on something like this if I get the opportunity!

[Filarete]

I love this lesson! I was just browsing trying to find a nice fun lesson for my students - thanks!