Paul Austers “Moon Palace” and film material concerning the Vietnam War

I. Introduction

In the following written analysis, I am going to deal with the topic „Film in the classroom“. In the main body, I am going to show the II.1“Stundenentwurf”. After that, I will focus on the chosen film scenes and divide them into the sections “Before/ after/during the war”. The next point will deal with connecting the film materials to the novel, II.2 Anknüpfung an Moon Palace. I will divide this point into II.2.1 The draft and II.2.2 Students revolts. After that, I will talk about II.3 Homework. The next point is II.4 Time. After that, I will talk about II.5 Problems with showing films in the classroom. Than I will suggest further film material in III. Other film sequences and films about Vietnam. The last point will be IV: Conclusion.

I think that showing films in the classroom in regrads to Paul Austers’ novel “Moon Palace” is important to visualize or connect the scenes. On the other hand, a lot of problems might appear as I will discuss later on.

Teaching this lesson, I want to achieve that my pupils can imagine the background of the novel, of Vietnam War.

The preceding lesson should have dealt with the historical dates of the Vietnam War. At the end of this lesson, I will also present them a written summary of the most important facts of the Vietnam War. The next lesson will begin with the discussion of the homework. If we have enough time, we could collect arguments against the Vietnam War and present a little demonstration. Or we could also collect arguments to write a letter to Paul Auster explaining him the necessity of doing a film about “Moon Palace”.

II. Main body

II.1. Geplanter Unterrichtsverlauf

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II. 1.1 Film sequences

I will use several sequences from the films “The deer hunter” (Robert de Nero and Meryl Streep) “In country” (Bruce Willis). I will distribute this sheet:

Before the war

- How were the soldiers motivated before going into the war?

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^[1] UG= Unterrichtsgespräch; FeU= fragend-entwickelndes Verfahren