Lissette Lorenz

I walked into my classroom on Wednesday looking like this:

Then I turned on “Thriller”, the 15-minute version, and I tested my students’ comprehension of the music video by asking them questions such as, “What is the name of the monster Michael turned into?” “What are the monsters coming out of the cemetery called?” “Is Michael a werewolf, a zombie, or just a caring boyfriend?” Then during the zombie dance scene, I made everyone get up and show me their best zombie walk.

So now imagine the scene: all my students are roaming around the classroom, chasing each other and trying to eat each other’s brains, when suddenly a scary vampire swoops into the classroom, accompanied by about 20 ogling students. The vampire starts dancing madly, and I join in, even though I’m already sweating inside my Cookie Monster onesie. Everyone is clapping to the beat, taking pictures, filming, and dancing. It turned out that the teacher next door, the vampire, heard that “Thriller” was playing in my room, saw everyone pretending to be zombies, and then proceeded to flash mob us with an impromptu 5-minute Halloween dance party. The students were in an uproar.

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In keeping with the Halloween spirit, after the other class left, I proceeded with my Halloween assignment:

1) I made a PowerPoint displaying pictures of eight well-known monsters and ghouls. (I chose a zombie, ghost, vampire, werewolf, mummy, alien, witch, and demon.) I numbered each creature 1-8 on the slides (see below), then wrote the numbers 1-8 on the board.

2)  I got ready to play Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” (the 5-minute version). I explained to my students that they had until the end of the song to come up to the board and write down the name of each creature, in the order of appearance. (It would have been cool if I had the forethought to buy some Halloween candy that the students could have won as a prize for successfully  labeling the monsters within the time limit…next time.)

3) Next, I asked the class to think of eight Japanese monsters, called yōkai, try to find an English translation of their names (using their smart phones or dictionaries) and write those on the board as well.*  I gave them about 5 minutes do this.

4) Now equipped with 16 different monsters to choose from, I asked each student to pick one. On a sheet of paper, every student wrote out the title “My Scary ____________ Story” with the creature of their choice filling in the blank. Then they had to come up with the first sentence in their scary story and write it down.

5) I put students into groups of 4 or 5, their papers with them. They sat around each other, and passed their papers over to the person on their left in the group. Now everyone in the was looking at a different scary story paper (with just the title and the first sentence). Each student then wrote the second sentence to the story, and passed it on the next person on their left.

6) The papers can circulate around the group for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. (My students got really absorbed in reading and writing these stories). Each student’s final product should be a story in which each sentence was written by a different member of the group, working circuitously without consulting each other. (Person 1–>2–>3–>4–1–>2–>3–>4–1…)

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The stories can come out to be quite hilarious. My favorite story starred a Japanese monster called azukiarai, roughly translated to the “Red Bean Washer”. Here is a polished version of the tale:

Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived by the river. One day he heard a strange sound and curiosity drove him to follow it. The sound led him the the river’s edge. There he found the Red Bean Washer. He had yellow eyes and wrinkly skin. He was washing red beans in the river. It was very scary. The end. 

Me: How is this story scary?

Group member 1: The sound is scary.

Me: Doesn’t it just sound like beans being washed?

Group member 2: The sound is shaka shaka shaka. Scary.

Me: Okay…Then what? Does something happen when you see the azukiarai? Does he kill you or eat you?

Group member 3: No.  But his sound is scary.

Me: But he doesn’t attack or anything, so…he just seems like a harmless, hardworking old man.

Group member 1: Maybe the boy dies in the story.

Me: How?

Group member 1: Bean power.

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While the Red Bean Washer isn’t very scary, some  Japanese yōkai are really creepy:

slit-mouth woman 

long-necked woman

mountain ogre

haunted toilet girl

In conclusion, my Halloween class was awesome. It was so awesome, that I got home and convinced Anabel to learn the “Thriller” dance with me to celebrate on Halloween. Check out the video! Hope you had a happy Halloween!!!

* Japanese folklore has countless yōkai 妖怪, also known as ghost, phantom,  or strange apparition. Yōkai can be creepy, malicious, goofy, or simply an inanimate object that comes to life on its 100th birthday. Some of the more famous Japanese monsters are kappas, the turtle-like water sprites that like to drown people in rivers and take their “anus balls” (a mysterious organ supposedly located in the human colon). Nowadays kappa have been cute-ified and are associated with a cheap conveyer belt sushi chain.