A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

by Amy Frantz, Brave Writer alum

Marty McFly is a normal ’80s teenager with normal boring parents and normal concerns like girls, school, and being in a rock band. Marty worries that, like his father, he won’t ever amount to anything because he’s afraid to be rejected. But one day Marty receives a call from his mentor, the eccentric Dr. Emmett “Doc” Brown, who claims to have unlocked the secret to time travel. Doc has transformed a car into a time machine! But Doc’s experiment goes awry with the arrival of some unexpected consequences and Marty is accidentally flung back in time to the 1950s where he encounters his own parents as teenagers. When Marty accidentally interferes with his parents’ past, his own future begins to disappear. He must team up with a younger Doc to fix time, make his parents fall in love, and get himself…back to the future!

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Back to the Future was released in 1985 and was an immediate box office hit. Produced by Steven Spielberg, directed by Robert Zemeckis, and starring Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly, Back to the Future launched a beloved franchise and is still considered a staple of science fiction today.

The sets for the film were built on a Universal back lot. The ’50s sets were built first so that the crew could then age them for the sequences in the ’80s. A lot of research was done for the ’50s pieces. At the time, not many films were being set in the ’50s because it was considered “too recent,” a sentiment which seems pretty hard to comprehend now in the 21st century. For modern context, if the film were remade now about a teenager living in 2018, the sequences set back in time would be set in 1988 (which is pretty close to when the film was actually made)!

The DeLorean that Doc converts into a time machine is perhaps one of the most iconic images from ’80s science fiction. The design team even used air plane parts for the unique interior. It’s hard to imagine the story without it, but at one point the time machine was going to be refrigerator!

Originally, a different actor was cast in the leading role of Marty McFly even though Michael J. Fox was the filmmakers’ first choice. When Fox eventually took on the role, he had to work a grueling schedule because he was also filming a television series during the same time that Back to the Future was in production. As a result he got very little sleep and had to film later in the day to accommodate his TV schedule, which you might never know to watch his high energy performance in the finished product.

A note to parents: Although Back to the Future is rated PG, it does contain more mature themes than you might find in a PG film today. We recommend looking up the film on websites such as Common Sense Media before deciding if it is right for your family.

Discussion Questions

• “I was never like that when I was your age!” various adults around Marty, including his mom, exclaim. But when Marty goes back in time, he discovers that his own mother didn’t behave all that differently from the teenagers Marty knows. What might the film be trying to say about the way time changes people and their own recollections of themselves?
• Great Scott, it’s a paradox! Back to the Future plays with several time travel paradoxes. One of them is the bootstrap paradox (example: you’re a time traveler and you decide to take a copy of your favorite work of classic literature back in time to have the author sign it. But when you get there, you discover that the author does not exist! There’s no one to write your favorite book! So, you copy out the book and publish it under the author’s name, so that it can still exist. But wait! Who originally wrote that book?). How many instances of this paradox can you find in the film?
• How do you think you would react if you went back in time and met your parents when they were your age?
• Some aspects of Back to the Future haven’t aged well, for instance some of the racial stereotypes and gender norms included in the film. Did you notice anything that you didn’t agree with? Explain your answer.

Additional Resources

Make Your Own Flux Capacitor

by Amy Frantz, Brave Writer alum

The March household has fallen on rough times. Mr. March is away fighting in the war, and the March sisters–Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy–along with their mother must keep themselves afloat financially while the four girls face the growing pains of transitioning into young women. Jo, a tomboy and an aspiring writer, must learn to mitigate her fiery temper as she navigates changing relationships within her family, as well as her burgeoning friendships outside the home, while she struggles to find an identity and a place in society.

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Little Women by Louisa May Alcott was originally published in the late 1860s in two volumes (Little Women and Good Wives), which are now sometimes sold as one book under the first title. The classic coming of age story depicting young American women was written at the behest of Alcott’s publisher who wanted her to write something for young girls. Since its publication, Little Women has enjoyed popularity among people of all ages and differing social spheres. Its themes of growing up and the struggle to find and maintain an individual identity amidst social pressures to conform struck a resonate chord with its readership which continues to echo into the present day.

The book has been adapted into many mediums, including stage and film. In 1994, it was yet again adapted to screen. Starring Winona Ryder as Jo March, it was filmed on location in Vancouver and directed by Gillian Armstrong. With beautiful cinematography and music, and special attention paid to the props and costume design to maintain the 1860s period feel, the film creates a gorgeous setting for the story of the March sisters.

Discussion Questions

• Which of the March sisters do you identify with the most and why?
• As with most film adaptations, the 1994 film takes some liberties with the source text. If you have read the book, how do you feel about the film as an adaptation?
• One of Jo’s flaws that she struggles to overcome in the story is her temper. Do you think she is ever successful? Explain your answer.
• In the book, Jo deliberately lets Amy go out on the thin ice, not really being sure if Amy heard Laurie’s warning or not, leading to her sister falling into the freezing water. This is not made nearly so plain in the film and the incident is framed as more of a true accident. How do you think this change alters Jo and the way the audience may feel about her behavior?

Additional Resources

Little Women infographic

Learn language arts with the Little Women Boomerang!

The Boomerang is a monthly digital downloadable product that features copywork and dictation passages from a specific read aloud novel. It is geared toward 8th to 10th graders (ages 12—advanced, 13-15) and is the indispensable tool for Brave Writer parents who want to teach language arts in a natural, literature-bathed context.

by Amy Frantz, Brave Writer alum

Christine Daaé is an orphaned chorus girl living in the ballet dormitories of the Opera Populaire. After a mishap in rehearsal, the reigning prima donna storms out, declaring that she will not perform that night, and Christine is called upon to replace the temperamental diva amidst anxiety that the accident was the work of “the opera ghost.” The performance is an outstanding success for Christine, who has been taking voice lessons from a mysterious “Angel of Music.”

Afterwards she is reunited with her childhood sweetheart and the new patron of the opera house, the handsome Raoul, but before Raoul can take Christine for a romantic outing, she is spirited away by the Angel of Music. Down beneath the opera house, Christine must confront the identity of the man behind her masked angel as she begins to suspect that the phantom haunting the Opera Populaire may not be so spectral after all.

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The Phantom of the Opera, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s award-winning musical based on the novel by Gaston Leroux (originally serialized from 1909 to 1910), opened on the West End in 1986. One of the most successful works of musical theatre to this day, and the longest running Broadway show, it was adapted into a film in 2004, directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum, and Patrick Wilson as the ill-fated love triangle at the center of this extravagent Gothic Romance.

Famously, Lloyd Webber first entertained the idea of turning Leroux’s novel into a musical one afternoon when he happened to pick up the book at a shop to read. Although Lloyd Webber felt that the classic novel, which has inspired countless adaptations and derivative works, was a “confused” book, he also thought that it could be turned into a successful musical if the story were refocused into a high romance.

The stage musical opened to critical acclaim and became a phenomenon almost overnight. Talk of adapting the stage show to screen began in the late ’80s when the production went to Broadway, but did not come to fruition until the early ’00s.

With lavish sets and costumes meant to create a sense of “heightened reality,” with Lloyd Webber’s iconic score played on a 105 piece orchestra, the 2004 film is a feast for the senses. But at its core the story still remains one that asks the audience to ponder deep questions such as the line between intense love and obsession, as well as social prejudice against those who are different.

A note to parents: The Phantom of the Opera (2004) is rated PG-13. We recommend looking up the film on sites such as Kids in Mind before deciding if it is right for your family.

Discussion Questions

• Do you think the Phantom loves Christine or is he simply unhealthily obsessed? Explain your answer.
• At the end of the story, Christine returns the Phantom’s ring and departs with Raoul. Do you think Christine made the right choice? How would the story change if she made a different decision?
• Christine is an orphan and feels the loss of her father strongly. Do you think her lack of parental figures makes her particularly vulnerable to the Phantom’s manipulations? Explain your answer
• Due to his deformity, the Phantom has faced extreme social prejudice and abuse which has caused him to become violent. He blames his deformity for Christine being unable to love him, but Christine says that the “true distortion” is in his soul. What do you think the story may be trying to say about social stigmas and the impact they can have on a person?
• What is your favorite song in the musical and why?

Additional Resources

25th Anniversary production of the stage musical starring Ramin Karimloo, Sierra Boggess, and Hadley Fraser.

Official Phantom of the Opera YouTube channel – Behind the scenes of the stage productions, trailers, and more