The Allegory of the Cave

1. A multi-media approach to bridging the gap between text and student The Allegory of the Cave

2. Précis • Honors World Literature, Sophomore English • 26 students- 8 make 18 female • Plato’s Republic, “Allegory of the Cave” • Making meaning of text in a modern world

3. What is “the Cave”? • Extended Allegory with many interpretations • Prisoners chained to a wall in a cave, unable to move their heads • Puppeteers located behind them present images on the wall immediately in front of the prisoners • Over time, prisoners come to know the shadows as reality • One prisoner breaks free and makes their way into the “light” to experience the reality for themselves • Return to cave to present truth- not accepted!

4. Assignment • The group must develop a multimedia (Video, audio, still pictures, etc…) project to represent how the “allegory of the cave” applies to our world. • “How are we prisoners chained in a cave?” • In completing this assignment, the group would need to do the following: • Brainstorm ways that Plato’s theory of forms is relevant in our day and age (this is the difficult part, I instructed them to spend some time brainstorming) • It is helpful to have them focus on the symbolism of some of the following: o the cave o the chains o prisoners o the fire o the sun o shadows o puppeteers

5. Helpful hints for students • Once again, it is essential that they plan their approach to representing the allegory in our world (think outside the box!) • I provided them with a basic storyboard layout. I will load the template on the share drive so that they can complete this in a paperless format. (some issues in our building with sharing docs at this point in time) • Find images, audio, video… whatever you need, to create the project. We have laptops (2 per group) and a video camera (1 per group) at their disposal. • They were not allowed to leave the building during the course of the school day to film and they were asked to not disrupt any classes to shoot footage. I informed them that they were their own writers, camera crew, directors, actors, editors, researchers, etc. • (Divvy up the roles to get this accomplished, they will not get it done without teamwork and organization)

6. Struggles- we all have them! • Student s lack of experience with shooting video • Student inexperience with video editing software • (moviemaker, imovie, etc.) • TIME! • It is essential that you allot time so that the students have enough time to discuss, plan , shoot and edit their video. This is not something that you should rush (TRUST ME) • Colleagues may dismiss the idea as trivial or a waste of valuable curriculum time.

7. BENEFITS • Encourages close reading • Students have to explain and defend their work • Actively engages the students in the text • Focuses on the visual nature of the text • Creates a student/learner centered classroom • Wider range of student involvement • Every student has his/her strengths to contribute • Touches on different learning styles • Helps students recognize the different interpretations of text and it encourages more active involvement from all students • No one “right answer” • IT’S FUN!