Thanks so much for posting this. I saw the film this summer as was very impressed. Then just last week, while discussing a writing assignment based on Aristotle's Epideiktikon, I found that my while my students could select any public figure as a topic for praise or condemnation, several had selected Marilyn Manson and Charleton Heston. Finally I learned that the cable channel in the dorms has been running _Bowling for Columbine_ and it's really in the forefront of their minds right now. This teaching guide will help work it into next semester's class.

1) Moore is a very talented filmmaker.

2) I am personally in favor of all kinds of gun-control legistlation.

3) Using a teacher's guide authored by (or at least marketed by) Michael Moore in order to study the film made by Michael Moore in which Michael Moore advocates the social positions held by Michael Moore will teach the students not to think for themselves, but to think like Michael Moore.

4) To teach critical thinking, open students' minds to the wider debate -- walk them through some of Spinsanity's objections to Moore, or better yet, analyze some of Moore's own comments. Show the videotape of the Hollywood crowd booing Moore during the Oscar presentation, and then show him afterwards claiming that the booing was actually some of his friends kidding him. Analyze with them the tautology of Moore's recent defense, "Every fact in the film is true. Absolutely every fact in the film is true."

5) Oh, wait -- no need to ask your students to confront that material head on, because Michael Moore has already told everyone "How to Deal with the Lying Liars when they Lie about 'Bowling for Columbine'."

6) Decide whether you want to use the controversy surrounding the movie "Bowling for Columbine" in order to teach critical thinking, or you want to teach the movie "Bowling for Columbine" to appreciate and/or deconstruct Moore's mastery of the art of persuasive filmmaking, and to discuss the origin and purpose of the documentary film, and the artifice of the "Reality TV" genre.

Or remind them that as long as Coulter, O'Reilley, Moore, and a host of others on both the right and left keep making money off of a host of books that rely upon anecdotal evidence, ad hominem attacks and all sorts of other things that you try to prevent them from putting in their assignments, our students are going to need to be informed about rhetoric so that they can make their own critical judgements about what they watch or read.

Dennis G. Jerz

Jerz's Literacy Weblog

I never said students have to think like Michael Moore. I, in fact, have some definite objections to Moore from a feminist standpoint. For example, he scoffs at the fact that a lot of people fear for their safety on a day-to-day basis. As a woman, a lot of times I have very good reasons to be afraid for my safety. I do think that this teaching resource is good for one primary reason: the activities. I sometimes have a hard time thinking of activities, and it seems to me that the activities the guide is recommending could be tweaked and used as heuristics for analyzing practically any documentary film, and other media as well.

CultureCat

Yup, I see in your original post that you are noting the ideas for activities, not the content.

I had been thinking about how to use "BfC" as a teaching tool for some time, and your post was just an opportunity for me to download. On my own blog, where I posted my comment under a quote from Moore's site ("lessons and activities in this GUIDE are designed to help students develop critical thinking skills,") my strong reaction probably makes more sense.

Dennis G. Jerz

Jerz's Literacy Weblog

I haven't seen the movie or read the assignment by Moore (have been meaning to). But I'd like to point out that it's not just a feminist standpoint that would reveal that people might "fear for their safety." As a family man, I also have many "good reasons" to frequently fear for the safety of my wife and son perhaps for similar or different reasons, even if I don't fear for myself.

I find it fascinating that the bulk of Jerz's opposition to Moore consists of "anecdotal evidence, ad hominem attacks and all sorts of other things..."

He writes, "Using a teacher's guide authored by (or at least marketed by) Michael Moore in order to study the film made by Michael Moore in which Michael Moore advocates the social positions held by Michael Moore will teach the students not to think for themselves, but to think like Michael Moore." Does that mean that using a teacher's guide authored and publiched by McGraw-Hill staff teaches students to think like MgGraw-Hill? Of course not. This is an allegation that needs to be substantiated with examples.

The Spinsanity website is no doubt an interesting artifact, but hardly a model of informated criticism. Consider, for example, its deep concern about "Moore's heavy and misleading editing of NRA President Charlton Heston's speech in Denver after the Columbine massacre." Having at least something of a memory, and having followed the Columbine story, I think that Moore was, if anything, kind. The NRA held a rally in Denver just days after Columbine, despite the pleas of the city that they reconsider. Now since I actually remember this happening, it seems odd for a site like Spinsanity (and numerous others) to come along and suggest or iomply that this never happened.

Nobody really believes that Moore seriously asserted that the booing was his freinds kidding him. Nobody can be that dense.

The sentence "Every fact in the film is true. Absolutely every fact in the film is true." can, and under a proper analysis, would be analaysed in such a way as to render it non-tautological. Specifically, it should be paraphrased as "Everything asserted in the film as fact is true." A failure to read the sentence thus is a violation of one of the fundamental principles of argumentation.

The use of of "How to Deal with the Lying Liars when they Lie about 'Bowling for Columbine'" in no way implies that students need not confront that material head on, despite the unsubstantiated claim that it does.

I didn't agree with everything in Moore's film, and in particular I think that the overall thesis has problems. But I have seen substantial documentary evidence elsewhere, enough to suggest that the factual content of the film is substantiated and that the arguments themselves are reasonably well presented.

Downes, you find enough opposition to Moore in my brief post to constitute a bulk? Rather than oppose anyone, I'm more interested in illustrating some of the ways in which Moore uses media to sell his message. I'd also ask students to critique Spinsanity with the same rigor, and in fact every source (including me).

You imply that Spinsanity and numerous other sites deny that the NRA did held a meeting in Denver a few days after the massacre and that that the city of Denver asked them to stay away. I dunno, maybe somebody is denying that -- but I'm not. The annual meeting of a large organization would have to be planned months in advance; but Moore's voice-over, selection of images, and editing of Heston's speech strongly suggests that the Denver rally was organized in response to the Columbine shootings. That part of the film is certainly effective... but does that part of his cinematic argument hold up to critical scrutiny? Do documentary filmmakers typically edit this heavily in order to make a point, and if so, is that an ethical practice? (See this critique of the Disney film White Wilderness, that allegedly popularized the meme that lemmings jump off cliffs in swarms; Disney employees allegedly hurled animals off in order to get the footage.)

Moore admits that one of the clips of Heston shown during that sequence -- the one where he recites the "cold dead hands" slogan -- was taken from a completely different event. Here's an interesting side-by-side comparison of the speech as Moore presented it, and the transcript of the speech as given by Heston. Moore also spliced two separate sentences together in order to make it appear that Heston opened his speech with a defiant response to the mayor of Denver.

Every scholar has chosen quotes selectively in order to enhance an argument, but what constitutes too much tweaking? Where does editing raw footage into a compelling narrative cross the line into willful revisionism?

Downes, leaving aside the issues of editing and interpretation, and getting back to the main point of my previous comment: I'm sure you'd object to Charlton Heston writing a teacher's guide on videotapes of Charlton Heston's NRA speeches, and marketing it on charltonheston.com as a critical thinking tool. So would I.

But I shan't be sucked into a "duckspeak" debate today... by now, you and I are probably the only ones listening.

Dennis G. Jerz

Jerz's Literacy Weblog