Right On! We’re starting our play… AMERICAN GRAFFITI written by George Lucas

Summary of Research Let’s talk about the Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How about the 1950s and 1960s’: -Television and movies -Music -Cars -Fashion -The Red Scare/McCarthyism -The Civil Rights Movement

What School Was Like: We're going to watch a short video watched by students entering Junior High (Grades 6,7,8,9) in American in The play we're reading takes place in 1962, so this is pretty close to how education was seen at the time. Please fill out your Positive, Minus, Interesting handout and include your name. You will submit this handout for assessment. Video Clip: American Teen 1950s/60s in Junior High:

Post-Film Rap (Rap=Talk about)‏ 1) Why do you think they created and showed this film to students of the early 1960s? 2) What about the tone of the video? What do you think about the expectations people had about junior high school students? 3) How do the expectations in the film compare to expectations we have of students today?

Look at the following two covers...

Cover # full-american-graffiti- poster.jpg

Cover #2 SXKoDQe-wG4/Uiqjaw- fEWI/AAAAAAAABww/EX_hkeP NZSk/s1600/american-graffiti- poster-white+background.jpg

Which cover do you prefer? Why? Get ready to INFER and PREDICT: Based on the images featured in the preceding covers, what do you think the story will be about about?

Let’s get ready to read! A tongue-twister is a sequence of words that is difficult to pronounce quickly and correctly. Try them yourself. Try to say them as fast as possible, but correctly! Repeat the ones on single lines three times. This will help warm us up for reading our play. 1. A proper copper coffee pot. 2. Around the rugged rocks the ragged rascals ran. 3. Mixed biscuits, mixed biscuits. 4. Pink lorry, yellow lorry. 5. Red leather, yellow leather, red leather, yellow leather. 6. We surely shall see the sun shine soon. 7. The sixth sick Sheik's sixth sheep is sick. 8. Swan swam over the pond, Swim swan swim! Swan swam back again – well swum swan! 9. Three grey geese in green fields grazing.

Gucci loves this play. He told me the play is “boss” (he knows 60s lingo, too). He can't wait to hear you read it to him, so let's do this... Boss.