As part of our home school curriculum, we are 'studying' humor. I have been introducing the boys to the joys of slapstick. Their current favorite is Lucille Ball... and their favorite episode to date is from the 'Lucy Show' -- where Lucy dresses up as a Giant Pickle. It is physical comedy at its best... of course, Jason is now demanding to see 'The Naked Gun.' (He saw a clip from it and was immediately enamored.)
We have been continuing with the Mad Libs -- always a humor favorite and, of late, both Tom and Jason have taken to reading joke books.
I am thinking that I should take this to the next level and we can actually read up on the comedians, make a timeline of the developments in humor, find out how many comedians it takes to change a lightbulb...
Actually, the more I think about this the better I like the idea so I googled 'humor curriculum.' Most of what I came up with related to literary humor -- authors like Twain -- or poetry. Strangely enough, they didn't mention Ogden Nash...
But I also came across this rather interesting link about Buster Keaton -- did you realize that Keaton was homeschooled? Yup. And when you read this excerpt from his diary you will understand why!
http://books.google.com/books?id=tG-P-shNoXoC&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&dq=teaching+slapstick&source=web&ots=kEMfvfhsjd&sig=BCkEmv3z0hcLAg8jqyfWMJUKmzQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result
2 comments:
The Keaton biography excerpt is beguiling. What will it inspire Jason (family pratfaller) to do?
The Keaton biography excerpt is beguiling. What will it inspire Jason (family pratfaller) to do?
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