1950s Movie Extra Credit Assignment: October Sky

Due Sunday December 13 2009
The point of watching a movie set in the decade we are about to study is to get you in the mood of the decade. In teaching this course a few times, I have noticed that each decade we study seems to be so different from the current decade that students have a hard time truly grasping it. We will watch a documentary about each decade, but all those facts and events don't seem to help students grasp the feeling of the decade, the prevailing mood of the decade, how people who lived then thought, what was normal to them, what was important to them.

So when you watch one of the movies set in the decade we are about to study, try to absorb the mood of the decade. Try to get a feeling for what it might be like to live in that decade.

Requirements

1. Your paper must be 500 words long. You may write more. In order to find out how many words you have written, you can go to http://www.wordcounttool.com/ and paste your text in.
   
2. Your paper MUST be emailed to Wende at wendemm@gmail.com by 10 am pacific time on the due date (see Late Policy).
3. Your paper text must be in the body of the email you send.
4. Your email must have "CFS" in the subject line.

Assignment
After you write this paper/reflection, please set it aside for a day and then read it over, correcting mistakes and making sure that you came to some sort of conclusion at the end of your paper. This is a serious essay. In order to get full points, you need to have engaged deeply with the questions.

For this essay, please rent and watch the movie October Sky, released in 1999. Not every video store will have a copy of this movie as it is older. See the right side panel of this blog for the telephone numbers of two video stores that do carry the film. Call and try to reserve the film before you go to any video store. Netflix also carries the film.

• Study the parenting in the film and use three scenes from the movie to discuss how the era or the environment (small town, depressed economy in town) influenced the type of parenting seen.
  
• Remember that you will cite scenes from the movie to prove the three points you are making and are discussing thoroughly.

The rubric for grading this essay is as follows:
7 points total

• 1 point for a creative title
  
• 1 point for a robust and thorough introduction
• 1 point for discussing one way in which the era or the environment (small town, depressed economy in town) influenced the type of parenting seen in the film (only if an appropriate scene is cited and then discussed thoroughly.)
• 1 point for discussing one way in which the era or the environment (small town, depressed economy in town) influenced the type of parenting seen in the film(only if an appropriate scene is cited and then discussed thoroughly.)
• 1 point for discussing one way in which the era or the environment (small town, depressed economy in town) influenced the type of parenting seen in the film(only if an appropriate scene is cited and then discussed thoroughly.)
• 1 point for a robust and thorough conclusion
• 1 point for treating the title of the film correctly according to a nationally accepted citation style of your choosing