Tag: Educating Rita

Class, Wed, 9/25

Interpreting Michael Caine

Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan in The Trip (2010), directed by Michael Winterbottom

Interpreting Educating Rita

  • What does it mean to be a “student” (minutes 0–14)
  • What does it mean to “sing a better song? (minutes 41–49)

To Do

  1. Fri, 9/27: No class. Keep posted, though, for an email from me about the X2s we will discuss on Mon, 9/30.
  2. Mon, 9/30, class: Discuss X2
  3. Wed, 10/02, class: Discuss Push, pp. 1–66
  4. Fri, 10/04. class: Discuss all of Push.

Class, Mon, 9/23

UD Climate Change Rally, Friday, 9/20

Workshopping X2

Getting Started

Do the fastwrite for Friday, 9/20. Read it as a way of telling your readers what sort of feedback you’d like to get to your piece.

Follow the Workshop Guidelines (As Before)
Added Question

What is most distinctive about this piece? (Think in terms of how the “moving parts” connect.) How can the writer develop this aspect of the piece?

To Do

  1. Wed, 9/25, class: Watch the first 14 minutes, and then minutes 41–49, of the film version of Educating Rita. I’d like to talk about the “interpretive spin” the film puts on the play. (We will also continue today’s workshop of X2, if needed.)
  2. Fri, 9/27, class: Read pp. 1-66 of Push, by Sapphire.

Class, Wed, 9/18

Moe, Larry, and Curly, in perhaps their most famous skit, from “Gents Without Cents”

X2: Educating Rita and Learning to Write

Fastwrite

Make a quick start on responding to X2. Identify a moment in your own experience (or from another book or film) that you feel you can relate (either by connecting or contrasting) to Rita.

To Do

  1. Fri, 9/18, class: I’d like to look at a few scenes from the 1983 film version of Educating Rita. So there’s nothing you need to prepare. But I will set aside about 10 minutes at the start of class for you to share your ideas for X2 with two or three classmates. So be ready to talk about what you plan to write about, as well as any questions you may have about that.
  2. Mon, 9/23, class: Post X2 to the class folder on Google Drive. Bring three print copies with you to class.

Class, Mon, 9/16

Educating Rita, Act One

Educating Rita is not only a play about learning, it is a play about learning how to write critical or academic essays—that is, about exactly what we are engaged in doing in this class. So I’d like to begin our discussion by looking closely at three scenes from Act One that center on essays that Rita has drafted and Frank has read:

  • Scene Three: Essay on Howard’s End
  • Scene Four: Essay on Peer Gynt
  • Scene Eight: Essay on Macbeth
Groups

What does Rita learn about critical writing in this scene? What, if anything, does Frank? Is there anything in addition that we as readers of the play might notice? Ground your comments in three or four key phrase or lines from the scene.

Fastwrite

What do you notice about the “narrative arc” that these scenes describe? Straight? Broken? Simple? Complex? What, if anything, does this first act of the play suggest to you about the process of learning how to write at a university that you had not thought about before?

Julie Walters and Michael Caine
Julie Walters and Michael Caine in Educating Rita, directed by Lewis Gilbert, 1983

To Do

  1. Class, Wed, 9/18: Finish reading Educating Rita. Locate a scene in it that you can relate (connect or contrast) with either your own experiences in learning how to write, or a scene from another book or film you’re familiar with. I’ll ask you to do a fastwrite on that connection in class.
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