This is a quick refresher or a nice (educational) brain break to cover plot diagrams. Instead of using an entire episode, I found a segment of the first Halloween special that works well and is only seven or eights minutes long. I pull this out when I want to do a quick review or have fifteen to twenty minutes I need to fill. No need to wait for Halloween. Students enjoy this more-funny-than-spooky story any time of the year.
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There is one bad word (damned) at the very beginning when Lisa says what the title of the story is: “Hungry are the Damned.” You can avoid this by starting the episode at 8:41 rather than 8:20. You can show the episode, The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Season 1 Episode 1, via Disney Plus or you can get it on Amazon Prime.
Here are my worksheets to go with it 🙂
Exposition
The segment opens with the Simpson family having a family bbq. There is just enough dialogue and action for students to glean a bit of background information and make inferences about the setting.
Conflict
In what is hopefully an obvious example of conflict, a spaceship appears over the yard and quickly beams up the entire family.
Rising Action
Even though this will all happen with a minute or two, there are various incidents of rising action or increasing tension happening in this section. Most of the rising action is in relation to how the aliens appear to be fattening up the humans to eat them.
Climax
Lisa and the rest of her family confront the aliens about their nefarious intentions to eat them.
Falling Action
Just as quickly as the climax arrives, it fizzles out. The aliens explain away everything the Simpson family (mostly Lisa) thought was evidence of the alien’s wicked intentions.
Resolution
The Simpsons are returned home and given a lecture about their behavior.
2 comments
Awesome Simpson’s lesson. Thank you!
Author
My pleasure!