Wreck-It Ralph...using a movie to infer theme {freebies}

Every once in a while there is a movie that comes out that both adults and their children can enjoy together.  Disney has one of those movies on their hands with "Wreck-It Ralph".  This is SUCH a cute story, with great characters to draw in the little ones and enough nostalgia that us parents can also be entertained.

If you haven't heard of it, "Wreck-It Ralph" is a movie about a video game villian named Ralph.  His job is to be the building wrecker in a game where the little hero fixes the building up again.  For 30 years (which is a fabulous lifespan for a video game) he has wrecked the building and he simply has had enough.  He doesn't like how everyone sees him as "bad".  He feels there is more to him than meets the eye and he sets on a quest to prove it.

Besides this movie being really funny (seriously, the entire theater was laughing throughout), there is a fabulous message that I, as a teacher, thought really important.  Ralph sets on his quest to find an extrinsic way to validate himself in the eyes of others (by winning a medal), but in the end, he realizes that his self-worth has to come from inside.  What a fabulous message to send to our students.

Since this movie is PG, I can't show it in my room.  However, there are some released clips on youtube that are appropriate for the classroom and will help to grasp the theme of this story.  I created these two little organizers to help your students write down their thoughts on the theme as well. The first one is a multi-flow map that really has the students looking at the actions of the characters and what happens to the character to shape the theme.  This can actually be used with a variety of different media, in case you wanted to use it elsewhere ;)


The second one is for use with the trailer, and then the movie.  So if you are able to show PG movies in your room, you can use this one.  Here is the actual trailer for the movie.

 

First, the student watch the trailer to gather information about the characters and what is going on.  Then, they watch the movie and compare the trailer info with the actual feature.  You can actually use just the first part of it if you can't show PG movies in your room. The trailer will provide a great deal of information that can lead the students to infer a theme.

Do you use movies to help the students understand to infer theme?  How do you do it?

And...are you excited to see this movie????