Photofest Jack Nicholson as a private investigator in the 1974 film “Chinatown.” Go to related article »
Teaching ideas based on New York Times content.
Overview | What do we say about ourselves when we quote lines from movies or elsewhere? Why do famous quotes from movies, literature and history resonate with many people? In this lesson, students consider the power of their favorite movie lines and other famous quotes, then write essays interpreting and commenting on a selected quotation.
Materials | Computers with Internet access, copies of the “Quotation Interpretation” handout (PDF).
Warm-up | Tell students to pair up and try to list as many famous lines as they can from movies. You might widen the task to include memorable lines from television shows, songs and other arts and entertainment vehicles, or even from history (“Ask not what your country can do for you …”) and literature (“To be, or not to be …”). And to make this competitive, set a time limit and see which pair can write down the most memorable lines in the prescribed time.
When they are finished, have groups read their lists. You may also want to show students a list like “101 Movie One-Liners Everyone Should Know” to round out their lists. Ask: Did you recognize where all of the quotes came from? Have any of them become so ingrained in our culture that everyone seems to know and quote them, even if they haven’t seen the movies they are from? Why do we quote movies to one another? What movies do you tend to quote? Do your parents or teachers quote movies? Are they the same movies you quote? Do you think the movies you quote today will always mean something to you?
Next, have groups look at their lists again, putting check marks next to any quotation that goes beyond mere references to specific movie plots, settings or characters (like “First rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club”) to a message or theme that they or someone else might take to their heart, using it as instruction or encouragement (like another quote from “Fight Club”: “The things you own end up owning you”). Encourage students to articulate how the two types of quotes are different, as well as how some, like “I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore” (“The Wizard of Oz”) or “We’ll always have Paris” (“Casablanca”), blur that line.
Ask: Next, tell students they will read an article that argues that since the 1990s, movies with “sticky” lines are few and far between. Ask: What do you think of this? Do you agree? Are the movies you quote at least 10 years old?
Related | In “Longing for the Lines that Had Us at Hello” Michael Cieply writes:
Have we heard the last (truly memorable) word from Hollywood?
Probably not, but it’s been a while since the movies had everybody parroting a great line.
Like, say, “Go ahead, make my day.” That was from “Sudden Impact,” written by Joseph Stinson and others, more than 27 years ago.
Sticky movie lines were everywhere as recently as the 1990s. But they appear to be evaporating from a film world in which the memorable one-liner — a brilliant epigram, a quirky mantra, a moment in a bottle — is in danger of becoming a lost art.
Life was like a box of chocolates, per “Forrest Gump,” released in 1994 and written by Eric Roth, based on the novel by Winston Groom. “Show me the money!” howled mimics of “Jerry Maguire,” written by Cameron Crowe in 1996. Two years later, after watching “The Big Lebowski,” written by Ethan and Joel Coen, we told one another that “the Dude abides.”
But lately, “not so much” — to steal a few words from “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.” Released in 2006, that film was written by Sacha Baron Cohen and others and is one of a very few in the last five years to have left some lines behind.
Read the entire article with your class, using the questions below.
Questions | For discussion and reading comprehension:
You might also share with students some of the memorable lines suggested by readers, like “I wish I knew how to quit you” from “Brokeback Mountain” and “Why so serious?” from “The Dark Knight.”
Activity | Tell students that today they will be practicing a skill that is demanded on tests up and down levels and across subject areas: the ability to react to a quotation by explaining what it means, taking a stand on it, and showing its relevance and connection to other aspects of life and art. They will be doing this first by talking in partners, then by writing an extended essay.
To get started, distribute copies of the “Quotation Interpretation” handout (PDF) and allow time for everyone to read it. Point out that there is space at bottom of the page for students to fill with their own choices of quotations, whether from their reading at school or home, history, movies or anywhere else. They should strive to include mostly those that reach for the same seriousness and/or universality as the other quotations, plus a few that are “just for fun.” Students may want to consult resources for accuracy and correct attribution.
When they are finished, ask: Why do quotations like these endure? Why are they important? How do the quotes you wrote compare?
Next, have pairs of students exchange papers with others to read additional quotations, then work together to choose a total of eight quotations (some combination of their own and those provided) with which to work closely; one of the quotes will be the subject of the essay each student will write independently at the end of this lesson. Tell them they will have only 10 minutes to do the following task (one minute per quote, four quotes per partner, with extra time as they switch tasks). Tell them that you will keep time in order to help them complete these tasks:
Before students begin, you might give an example, using a quotation that is not on the sheet. For example, use a quotation like “This above all: to thine own self be true,” as Polonius tells Laertes in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” Explain what the quote means and tell students whether or not you agree with it. Then point out characters who embody this spirit, like Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye” and Roark and Cameron in “The Fountainhead.” You might also mention nonconformist artists and musicians students know and ask students how the quote applies to their own lives. Are they “true to themselves”? Do they know people they admire for this quality?
When the pairs are finished, have students choose one of the quotations from the sheet about which to write an independent essay. Because of the speaking and listening exercise they have just worked through with their partner, they should have notes from their “verbal rough draft.” Encourage pairs to choose different quotes.
Essays should clearly state the quotation, tell what it means, whether or not the essay writer agrees with it, and why. They should then try to connect the quote to other aspects of life and art, as they did in the paired exercise. (For extra help with this, students might use the classic “text-to-text/text-to-self/text-to-world” exercise and adapt this handout.)
You may want to give students requirements like a minimum number of connections/disconnections to the quotation. You may want to review with students how to correctly use single and double quotation marks, perhaps by having them look at the examples of book reviews that incorporate quoted dialogue and other passages.
Going further | Students compile all of the quotations from this lesson in a class binder or online space and add to it as the year goes on.
An alternative to this is to require all students to keep their own commonplace books of quotations they come upon, beginning with those that resonate personally with them from this lesson. Check their commonplace books regularly and encourage them to keep the books handy, whether they are reading, listening in their classes or even out in public observing others, because as Thornton Wilder put it, “There’s nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your head.”
Standards | This lesson is correlated to McREL’s national standards (it can also be aligned to the new Common Core State Standards):
Language Arts
1. Uses the general skills and strategies of the writing process
2. Uses the stylistic and rhetorical aspects of writing
3. Uses grammatical and mechanical conventions in written compositions
4. Gathers and uses information for research purposes
5. Uses the general skills and strategies of the reading process
7. Uses reading skills and strategies to understand and interpret a variety of informational texts
9. Uses viewing skills and strategies to understand and interpret visual media
10. Understands the characteristics and components of the media
Art
1. Understands connections among the various art forms and other disciplines
Behavioral Studies
1. Understands that group and cultural influences contribute to human development, identity, and behavior
2. Understands various meanings of social group, general implications of group membership, and different ways that groups function
3. Understands that interactions among learning, inheritance, and physical development affect human behavior
4. Understands conflict, cooperation, and interdependence among individuals, groups, and institutions
Life Skills: Thinking and Reasoning
1. Understands and applies the basic principles of presenting an argument
2. Understands and applies basic principles of logic and reasoning
3. Effectively uses mental processes that are based on identifying similarities and differences
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Movie quotes are still alive and well. Anyone who disagrees has not seen American Psycho, The Dark Knight, or The Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day. Saying that the 1940s was the “golden era of movie quotes” is admitting you haven’t watched anything since that time. It would be appropriate to call it the beginning. Every generation has their quotes. People from around 1980 might say “I’ll be back” or “Yippie-kayaye, mother-“…well, you get that one. Someone from the 1990s might say “You had me at hello” or some other line from a Tom Cruise movie. But today, I don’t think my generation really appreciates great lines when they hear them. My generation being kids around 16. They just watch movies to watch them. I swear, when the new Nightmare On Elm Street came out, I was so infuriated when I heard a group of annoying girls (You know, the kind with no intelligence that walk in groups all the time) said “Yeah! I’m totally gonna see the new Freddy movie!” “OH MY GOD, ME TOO!”. I’m not saying I liked that movie, just I know they didn’t actually watching it. Perhaps this generation will learn over time.
100 of the greatest movie lines of all time may be found on the Humble Genius website at //www.humblegeni.us/Category.aspx?tagid=20. Enjoy!
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This is a great lesson plan! I just stumbled on it trying to find a resource to replace my own missing quote list. I’m going to adapt this to fit my needs, but this is an awesome starting point! Thanks!
