An Ode to John Green, Part 2: The Videos

It's been a while!

This semester's been a little bit crazy.  I just got finished with my first ever unit plan (that is, 25 lesson plans complete with final assessments, a syllabus, a calendar, etc. etc. etc.), as well as a 20 page scholarly paper that I'm actually looking to get published in a journal . . . so, that's excited.

Anyway, I hope you can understand why my little blog has gotten a little less love than it might deserve.

But I am back with a vengeance, and by a vengeance, I mean more teaching ideas that really excite me.  I've already posted one part about John Green--now on to part two, his lovely, wonderful videos.

Read about 'em after the break.

John Green is not only an amazing author, but he's also an amazing educator, even though he's not classically trained in education.  Green, along with his brother Hank, have started a youtube channel called Crash Course.  The channel is all about informing students or watchers in an exciting, well-produced, well-edited, and really engaging format.  The video use animations, pop culture jokes, and fast-paced editing to make sure the videos don't get boring and bogged down.

In the channel, Hank hosts the videos regarding science.  I'm sure they're lovely.  I'm a big Hank fan.  Chemistry, though?  Maybe not so much.  I'll have to check them out sometime, as I'm sure Hank and the Crash Course format would make them really interesting, but, well . . . I'm here to talk about John.

John takes over two different sets of videos.  First and foremost is John's collection of world history videos.  John starts with The Agricultural Revolution and goes up until Modern Globalization.  John makes a point of focusing on world history in the first set of videos, which I think would be extremely beneficial for anyone who wants to teaching world literature.  World history classes usually aren't super in-depth, because there's only so much about the whole entire world you can fit into one school year.  Even if the students have gone over, say, Buddha in one of their classes but you plan on teaching Siddhartha, you could easily work John's Buddha and Ashoka video into your unit, especially if you're not extremely well-versed on Buddhism yourself.  If you were teaching Shakespeare (which, I mean, I assume you'll have to), you might want to skip over the "Shakespeare's Life!" section that every student gets every time they read Shakespeare (and that I'm not so sure is super important, really), and instead show your students the video The Renaissance: Was It a Thing? to spark a group discussion.

John Green's next set of Crash Course videos is his series on Literature.  Let's start with his analysis of Romeo and Juliet.  While many of your students might like the happy, pretty idea of Romeo and Juliet, let's be honest here: it's a tragedy.  It's even in the title.  Green's two-part Romeo and Juliet analysis covers not only the tragedy behind the play, but also the politics (but don't worry, it's interesting).  Green's analysis of The Great Gatsby might seem surface-level to us English teachers, but he speaks with the kind of fervent love and adoration that can turn a book that some people might hate into a book that some people might really, really love.  These two videos do have spoilers, though, so you should screen them before using them.  Green also has a video on Emily Dickinson's poetry, and his two videos on Catcher in the Rye are literally the reason why Catcher is now one of my favorite novels.  I went into the videos absolutely hating the book, and left crying over Holden and wanting to find comfort in my own red hunting cap.  The real gem of the series, though, is his video How and Why We Read.  All I can say is that I will literally never teach a class without this video being shown in the beginning.  Just--just take my word on this, and give it a watch.  I think you'll be really impressed.

Finally, John Green's been working on a series of American history, which is still going at the time this post is being written.  Basically, you could apply the World History ideas to these videos (here's lookin' at you, Junior AP teachers).  He's currently only up to slavery, but I will say that I am really really really looking forward to one on the Jazz age.

I might be biased.  I wrote my unit plan on The Great Gatsby and Green's latest novel, The Fault in Our Stars.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the post and found some things you might be able to use.

Up next:  more educational videos with snappy editing.

Snappy editing might be a trend you'll notice in my posts.