Summoning Units From Beyond The Grave

By Author: allan
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Because I taught high school students on the campus of a community college, I had more freedom in my selection of texts for my zombie unit. I taught Shaun of the Dead with great success, although I imagine its inclusion in a typical high school curriculum would be a nonstarter due to language and gore. Night of the Living Dead, while tame by modern standards, might also be a tough sell depending on community standards. This does not mean that the zombie unit isn't possible for those teaching in a school where R-rated zombie flicks are not allowed. In my preparation for this unit over the two years that I taught it, I have come across countless examples of texts from a variety of media that would provide many if not all of the same opportunities for deep, serious discussion of issues that should be part of any literature classroom. White Zombie, one of the earliest examples of zombie movies, features Bela Lugosi, famous for his other archetypal undead role, Dracula. Best of all Tag Heuer Women Collection Replica Watches, this movie exists in ...
... the public domain and can be downloaded for free. While White Zombie does not feature the same zombies we are familiar with today (the zombies in this film are more in line with the traditional Haitian zombie lore), it is just as suited for discussing social issues such as exploitation of workers and gender discrimination. Moreover, like my classes did in comparing / Am Legend, Night of the Living Dead, and Shaun of the Dead, White Zombie allows students to examine how a familiar trope in horror movie history has evolved and to examine how that evolution reflects shifting social norms and perspectives.

I imagine that no amount of arguing on the merits of the undead as a thematic unit will convince everyone of its value in the English classroom. However, there is a long history of using horror to illustrate and illuminate human experience. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Bram Stoker's Dracula are perhaps the easiest to name. However, Beowulf is not only one of the earliest examples of English literature, it is a monster story. Henry James's Turn of the Screw is a ghost story, and nearly the entire body of Edgar Allan Poe's work deals with the supernatural, madness, or murder.

Zombies and other undead denizens can provide for meaningful scaffolding onto knowledge that students already possess, and the undead are pretty popular right now. Recently, HBO began a series called True Blood, a drama about vampires living out in the open in modern-day America. Earlier, the void in "event publishing" created by the end of the Harry Potter series of books (themselves examples of high-interest reading) was at least partly filled with Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series of adolescent novels, featuring vampires as a central element. No English teacher should turn over the entire curriculum to the passing trends of adolescent interest. But if our goal for students is the "development of literacy. Replica Breitling Watches to achieve full participation in society" (NCTE), teaching texts with pop culture appeal can be an effective tact. For my classes, engaging with the undead not only provided opportunities to examine thematic material common to many traditional literatures, it presented a selection of texts that generated high interest and participation. And, it was a lot of fun.

Frequently in my teaching I have enjoyed playing devil's advocate to encourage students to consider viewpoints opposite of their own, to better understand different worldviews. For the undead unit, common thematic elements shared by the core texts lent themselves easily to this type of advocacy. To further explore and make explicit the idea of perspective, I concluded the unit with a short philosophical essay exploring the hypothetical "rights" of the undead.

One treasure I had come across during my preparation for this unit was a surprisingly accessible book entitled The Undead and Philosophy: Chicken Soup for the Soulless (Greene and Mohammad), a collection of essays on philosophical issues raised through consideration of our cultural myths of the living dead. The essay "Should Vampires Be Held Accountable for Their Bloodthirsty Behavior?" (Draeger) explores the question of whether the undead had the right to exist, as their behavior was not rooted in evil so much as it was rooted in a basic need to survive. This essay extended a discussion, begun while reading 7 Am Legend and continued through Night of the Living Dead, about how adopting a different perspective can change how one views situations that might otherwise seem cut and dry. Here at the end of the undead unit, students were required to empathize with zombies and vampires, at least long enough to determine if these undead creatures warranted the right to exist.

What followed was a spirited debate concerning the rights of the undead. Students quickly moved past the fantasy elements of the argument and delved into a serious debate about the rights of minority viewpoints. It should be noted that never did anyone, me included, suggest that those needing to feed off the blood or brains of others had a right to do so. Nor was there ever the suggestion of equivalency between this hypothetical discussion of rights and the real struggle for rights among those suffering from legitimate injustice. Rather, my students showed a ready ability to see through the conceit of the argument and recognize a larger truth: no matter how foreign the beliefs of others, foreignness do not by itself warrant bigotry and dismissal.