Quotes Lesson Plan

Overview | What do we say about ourselves when we quote lines from movies or
elsewhere? Why do famous quotes from movies, literature and history resonate with
many people? In this lesson, students consider the power of their favorite movie lines and
other famous quotes, then write essays interpreting and commenting on a selected
quotation.

Materials | Computers with Internet access, copies of the “Quotation Interpretation”

handout (PDF).

Warm-up | Tell students to pair up and try to list as many famous lines as they can from
movies. You might widen the task to include memorable lines from television shows,
songs and other arts and entertainment vehicles, or even from history (“Ask not what
your country can do for you …”) and literature (“To be, or not to be …”). And to make
this competitive, set a time limit and see which pair can write down the most memorable
lines in the prescribed time.

When they are finished, have groups read their lists. You may also want to show students
a list like “101 Movie One-Liners Everyone Should Know” to round out their lists. Ask:
Did you recognize where all of the quotes came from? Have any of them become so
ingrained in our culture that everyone seems to know and quote them, even if they
haven’t seen the movies they are from? Why do we quote movies to one another? What
movies do you tend to quote? Do your parents or teachers quote movies? Are they the
same movies you quote? Do you think the movies you quote today will always mean
something to you?

Next, have groups look at their lists again, putting check marks next to any quotation that
goes beyond mere references to specific movie plots, settings or characters (like “First
rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club”) to a message or theme that they
or someone else might take to their heart, using it as instruction or encouragement (like
another quote from “Fight Club”: “The things you own end up owning you”). Encourage
students to articulate how the two types of quotes are different, as well as how some, like
“I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore” (“The Wizard of Oz”) or “We’ll always
have Paris” (“Casablanca”), blur that line.

Ask: Next, tell students they will read an article that argues that since the 1990s, movies
with “sticky” lines are few and far between. Ask: What do you think of this? Do you
agree? Are the movies you quote at least 10 years old?

Related | In “Longing for the Lines that Had Us at Hello” Michael Cieply writes:

Have we heard the last (truly memorable) word from Hollywood?

Probably not, but it’s been a while since the movies had everybody parroting a great line.
Like, say, “Go ahead, make my day.” That was from “Sudden Impact,” written by Joseph
Stinson and others, more than 27 years ago.

Sticky movie lines were everywhere as recently as the 1990s. But they appear to be
evaporating from a film world in which the memorable one-liner — a brilliant epigram, a
quirky mantra, a moment in a bottle — is in danger of becoming a lost art.

Life was like a box of chocolates, per “Forrest Gump,” released in 1994 and written by
Eric Roth, based on the novel by Winston Groom. “Show me the money!” howled
mimics of “Jerry Maguire,” written by Cameron Crowe in 1996. Two years later, after
watching “The Big Lebowski,” written by Ethan and Joel Coen, we told one another that
“the Dude abides.”

But lately, “not so much” — to steal a few words from “Borat: Cultural Learnings of
America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.” Released in 2006, that film
was written by Sacha Baron Cohen and others and is one of a very few in the last five
years to have left some lines behind.

Read the entire article with your class, using the questions below.

Questions | For discussion and reading comprehension:

1. What memorable lines from movies made in the 1990s are quoted in the article?
2. What role might the Internet play in the scarcity of memorable lines?
3. Why does the article call the 1940s the “golden era of movie quotations”? Is it the
sheer volume of lines, their iconic quality or something else?
4. Into what categories might you group the lines quoted in the article?
5. Do you think a movie has to have at least one memorable line to become an
enduring part of our culture?

You might also share with students some of the memorable lines suggested by readers,
like “I wish I knew how to quit you” from “Brokeback Mountain” and “Why so serious?”
from “The Dark Knight.”

RELATED RESOURCES

From The Learning Network

 Lesson: Do You Speak My Language? Considerting the Relationship Between

Language and Culture
 Lesson: Give Me Liberty or Give Me Freedom
 Lesson: An American Wit: Approaching Mark Twain’s Life and Works
From NYTimes.com

 Freakonomics blog: Give Me More of Your Notable Quotations

 On Language: Movie Misquotations
  Opinionator: Vengeance Is Mine
Around the Web

 About.com: Quotations
 Filmsite: Greatest Film Quotes of All Time
 UNC Writing Center: Quotations

Activity | Tell students that today they will be practicing a skill that is demanded on tests
up and down levels and across subject areas: the ability to react to a quotation by
explaining what it means, taking a stand on it, and showing its relevance and connection
to other aspects of life and art. They will be doing this first by talking in partners, then by
writing an extended essay.

To get started, distribute copies of the “Quotation Interpretation” handout (PDF) and
allow time for everyone to read it. Point out that there is space at bottom of the page for
students to fill with their own choices of quotations, whether from their reading at school
or home, history, movies or anywhere else. They should strive to include mostly those
that reach for the same seriousness and/or universality as the other quotations, plus a few
that are “just for fun.” Students may want to consult resources for accuracy and correct
attribution.

When they are finished, ask: Why do quotations like these endure? Why are they
important? How do the quotes you wrote compare?

Next, have pairs of students exchange papers with others to read additional quotations,
then work together to choose a total of eight quotations (some combination of their own
and those provided) with which to work closely; one of the quotes will be the subject of
the essay each student will write independently at the end of this lesson. Tell them they
will have only 10 minutes to do the following task (one minute per quote, four quotes per
partner, with extra time as they switch tasks). Tell them that you will keep time in order
to help them complete these tasks:

1. Decide which partner will go first. When the teacher says “go,” that person should
talk for the entire minute about one of the eight quotes, while the other partner
silently takes notes. The speaking partner should first tell what the quote means,
putting it into his or her own words. Next, this same partner should react to the
quote, saying whether he or she agrees or disagrees with it. Finally, the speaking
partner should verbally brainstorm all the connections between this quote and as
many aspects of life — today, at the time it was coined, or for the future — as
possible. This may mean describing how the quote might apply to literature,
popular culture, current events, history or the speaker’s own life experience.
2. After one minute, time is called and partners reverse the roles. Repeat for the
other seven quotations, so that each partner has talked about four and taken notes
on four. The exercise should get easier as it goes on.
Before students begin, you might give an example, using a quotation that is not on the
sheet. For example, use a quotation like “This above all: to thine own self be true,” as
Polonius tells Laertes in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” Explain what the quote means and tell
students whether or not you agree with it. Then point out characters who embody this
spirit, like Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye” and Roark and Cameron in “The
Fountainhead.” You might also mention nonconformist artists and musicians students
know and ask students how the quote applies to their own lives. Are they “true to
themselves”? Do they know people they admire for this quality?

When the pairs are finished, have students choose one of the quotations from the sheet
about which to write an independent essay. Because of the speaking and listening
exercise they have just worked through with their partner, they should have notes from
their “verbal rough draft.” Encourage pairs to choose different quotes.

Essays should clearly state the quotation, tell what it means, whether or not the essay
writer agrees with it, and why. They should then try to connect the quote to other aspects
of life and art, as they did in the paired exercise. (For extra help with this, students might
use the classic “text-to-text/text-to-self/text-to-world” exercise and adapt this handout.)

You may want to give students requirements like a minimum number of

connections/disconnections to the quotation. You may want to review with students how
to correctly use single and double quotation marks, perhaps by having them look at the
examples of book reviews that incorporate quoted dialogue and other passages.

Going further | Students compile all of the quotations from this lesson in a class binder
or online space and add to it as the year goes on.

An alternative to this is to require all students to keep their own commonplace books of
quotations they come upon, beginning with those that resonate personally with them from
this lesson. Check their commonplace books regularly and encourage them to keep the
books handy, whether they are reading, listening in their classes or even out in public
observing others, because as Thornton Wilder put it, “There’s nothing like eavesdropping
to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your
head.”

Standards | This lesson is correlated to McREL’s national standards (it can also be
aligned to the new Common Core State Standards):

Language Arts
1. Uses the general skills and strategies of the writing process
2. Uses the stylistic and rhetorical aspects of writing
3. Uses grammatical and mechanical conventions in written compositions
4. Gathers and uses information for research purposes
5. Uses the general skills and strategies of the reading process
7. Uses reading skills and strategies to understand and interpret a variety of informational
texts
9. Uses viewing skills and strategies to understand and interpret visual media
10. Understands the characteristics and components of the media

Art
1. Understands connections among the various art forms and other disciplines

Behavioral Studies
1. Understands that group and cultural influences contribute to human development,
identity, and behavior
2. Understands various meanings of social group, general implications of group
membership, and different ways that groups function
3. Understands that interactions among learning, inheritance, and physical development
affect human behavior
4. Understands conflict, cooperation, and interdependence among individuals, groups,
and institutions

Life Skills: Thinking and Reasoning

1. Understands and applies the basic principles of presenting an argument
2. Understands and applies basic principles of logic and reasoning
3. Effectively uses mental processes that are based on identifying similarities and
differences