Teen Talk: Summer blockbuster movies

Who wants to be in an English class when you can be at the movies? This summer promises the usual big budget extravaganzas. Here’s a quick test.

Each of the following “pairs” contains a quote and the tagline from upcoming summer movies. Can you guess what films they come from?

Quote: “Maybe if I can control it, I can use it . . .”
Tagline: This summer our only hope is something incredible.

Quote: A: “You’re a teacher?” B: “Part-time.”
Tagline: The adventure continues.

Quote: A: “So you believe in these kinds of things?” B: “Let’s just say I wanna believe.”
Tagline: To find the truth, you must believe.

Quote: “He’s extremely curious. And just a little bit lonely.”
Tagline: An adventure beyond the ordinar-e.

All this raw material opens up several interesting possibilities. You can ask students to watch the trailers on the internet (using YouTube or Yahoo Movies) to find the answers. They can then make up similar questions, searching for other upcoming movies they’re interested in. Or, you could take a quote and make some changes to it. Tell them to find the original by watching the trailer.

Alternatively find images from several summer films in newspapers or magazines. Put these up around the classroom. Students have to match the quotes and/or taglines to the pictures.

Many of these summer blockbusters have a predictable storyline and dialogue (who wants to think too much in the summertime?). After doing one of the above activities, ask students to invent a four-line dialogue. If they need help, tell them to use one of the quotes as a starting point. Students present their dialogues to each other and guess the films.

Finish off by cancelling the next class and taking everyone to see one of the films of their choice. Long live the summer!