06th Jul 2007
why am i having the freshmen watch Fahrenheit 9/11?
The class I am teaching everyday right now is the pre-freshman summer workshop, which is designed to help prepare them for the reading and thinking load in their college classes. The main book we use, along with a reading and study strategy guide, is Kite Runner. I’ve taught KR with the basic skills reading class for the last six semesters, and it’s a book that students find compelling and important. This time, though, as we focus on reading across the fictional world of the novel and the real, non-fictional political landscape of Afghanistan, we all have a lot of questions. America didn’t just become involved in the lives and politics of Afghanis after 9/11. We funded the mujahideen and then the Taliban against the Soviets in the decades leading up to 9/11.
Which leads us to Fahrenheit 9/11, a problematic film but one that raises important questions for all of us to think about. We live in a world today where countries from opposite sides of the globe live very intertwined lives, and nowhere is this more the case than the Middle East through to Afghanistan. Iraq. Israel. So many other, smaller places. And now Iran. The idea here is to see the film, read pros and cons about it, and take that back to the story of Kite Runner, which is very much the story of a world we, in modern society, created.
At least that’s the plan.
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