Unit Overview
Having had the opportunity to read a lot of critical writing about The Wizard of Oz, it is evident that L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and the authors of later derivations of the Oz narrative have a mischievous agenda. The list below clearly illuminates the true intention of Baum and others in their creation of Oz as a fantastic world:
Top Ten Reasons Why The Wizard of Oz is Really an Allegory for Teaching
- Convincing others to realize that they already possess the ability that we see in them
- Sometimes big stuff happens, and you weren’t really expecting it, but you handle it with bounce-in-your-step, style and grace
- Feeling like Dorothy when she enters Oz, overwhelmed by a great sense of wonderment, taking it all in with wide eyes-especially at the start of a school year.
- Needing magic shoes because there is no time for sitting down till the journey is complete
- Meeting interesting characters along the way, each with their own flaws and endearing qualities
- Feeling the need to just burst into song because the moment seems to call for it
- Dreaming of slaying some wicked witches
- Being told what to do by a big talking head and realizing he wasn’t a wiz
- No one believes your fantastic stories
- Yearning for home when the journey is complicated
All humor aside, The Wizard of Oz is a good starting point for thinking and learning about fantasy worlds. The question that The Wiz and Michael Jackson got me to groove to in my research is how to ease students down the road of being able to read like a critic and write a fantasy that rivals the richness of Oz or the darkness of Anthem, a dystopic fantasy by Ayn Rand.1 It is a process that is a journey that requires authorial mentorship in order to see how the work is done. To put it into the realm of Oz, students need to see the little man behind the cloak of the Great Wizard. Critical writing about reading and composing fictional writing like an author isn’t something to fear or think that it can’t be done. Because like Dorothy, I know that my students have the capacity already in them to read critically and write like an author; it is just a matter of putting the right conditions in place for students to make the same realization.
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