My Musical Students

[BentonGrey]

Howdy guys, as many of y'all have heard me say, I've been teaching an Honors seminar this semester on "Vice and Virtue in Fantasy."  For our student's final projects, they had a number of different options, everything from short stories to traditional essays.  They had to demonstrate facility with the material throughout the semester, so the final project was mostly just designed as a fun opportunity for them to be creative and do something interesting.  Our bottom line requirement was, 'do something cool.'  Well, we just started going through and scoring them, and I came across something that I didn't quite expect. 

A number of our students combined their efforts to produce a musical retelling of the Hobbit.  It's a fun, silly little video, and I thought that y'all might enjoy it.  Keep in mind, these kids just whipped this up in an afternoon or something, so don't expect too much, but it's cute and entertaining. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqkUgbOYBeQ

They had me cracking up, and I hope this brings a smile to your day. 

The girls involved each also wrote a coda, connecting their ideas to the themes of the class.  They put a decent amount of thought into those as well.

[spydermann93]

Hehe, these students remind me a lot of the students in my Honors class at my college (myself included).

Good to see that there are people out there just as nerdy as we are

[thalaw2]

I can't watch the video from China, but I'm glad to see that something so creative is happening.  This term in China has been one of the worst for me.  The school I work for is going down fast in terms of the quality of students enrolling.  Profits are up and so is apathy.  I've been encouraged to continue by a video that students  in one of my worst classes did about job interviews. 

Don't get me wrong...i love teaching and I love my students.  I do all that I can for them, but at the college level if you students who are not trying at all to help themselves succeed...you gotta let em' fail.  I hate to let anyone fail my classes but i think it's necessary.  People in a spin sometimes need to hit rock bottom before they realize what they need to do to make things right.  I do help those who actually are trying, but as much as it hurts me, I've gotta let others fail.   
....Sorry for thread jacking.  I'm inspired by your post and the work I saw from my class of business English students.   

[stumpy]

Hehe. Very amusing, Benton. Your students look like they had a good time with that. :-)

(LOL. It took me a minute to figure out what that hanger was supposed to be!)

[...] Profits are up and so is apathy. [...]

It's early, but that's a pretty good candidate for quote of the day. ;-)

[BlueBard]

Can't view it on YouTube...

This video contains content from BMG_Rights_Management, INgrooves, Sony ATV Publishing and UMPG Publishing, one or more of whom have blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.

I'm guessing you can't say "The Hobbit". 

[BentonGrey]

Gah!  That's completely ridiculous.  Something like this is clearly 'fair use.'