Dealing with Issues

This is another clip from the band "Flight of the Conchords". I love it so much because of the humor that is in the mixing of genres. I think we find this funny because of how seriously these two take themselves about extremely unserious things. They say that the song talks about "real world issues" and they point to only a few things and they are not all real. They also use music to make sounds as they tell their stories. Instead of showing a man cry in pain, they do it on pitch. It is funnier that way.

I was interested in this clip because in my "Teaching Composition" class today we were talking about Genre Theory and how we can teach the various genres of writing and how they are presented and how people and play with genre. We read a "fairy tale" that changed our perception of what a fairy tale is because it doesn't have the exact elements of what we consider to be a fairy tale, yet it is definitely introduced as one.

I think it would be a fun idea in class to have the students present a story in all different genres. For example, if we were to read a play or film in class, give the students a part of that script and let them choose various ways to retell the same story. This way we can talk about the different ways that the medium changes our message. Have them maybe choose from a hat either a storybook, a commercial, a short film, a reality TV show...etc. and then discuss how the story changed from each genre of media.