I showed this short film to my sophomores Friday. It may be even more amazing than the audio reports I posted earlier this week over at my class website; it’s hard to compare the two since they’re very different. But both concern the power of words.

First, I asked students to watch the film and pay close attention to the clips. I thought it was really interesting how similar the vocal responses were across the classes. The pants splitting and the man falling down the stairs got surprised laughter every time. And the runny nose got “ewwws” every time.

After the first viewing, I asked students to write down a brief description of the one video clips they thought was most memorable in some way. We shared some of these. The clips mentioned above got the most coverage here, too.

Then, I asked if anyone noticed anything special about the clips and their arrangement. Yes, many said: The words were all similar but used differently, like “flying” into a “fly,” or “pushing play” into “a play” into “playing.”

When we watched the film a second time, I asked them to help me name the words the clips were referring to. And we did. It was inspiring how many students got into it.

At the end, I asked them to consider the film a prompt for their daily Writer’s Notebook entry.