Fun Homework

So my son had to do this epic tale thing for English homework in the form of . . a comic book. This is a fun assignment, right? Except for M, who became overcome with gloom and sorrow until we bethought ourselves of the Historic Tale Construction Kit. Remember them? They are fantastic and as a result, M & I just did the most totally kickass epic ever tapestried. It had better wow the 9th grade English teacher.

I'm always terribly disappointed when a project of mine my kid's doesn't get a good grade. I've never forgiven A's 8th grade teacher for only giving a C on my her Slake's Limbo diorama. I mean, a whole bunch of actual certified artists worked on that thing, and we made wee figures out of Sculpey, and even a cardboard escalator. It was a rockin' diorama, as diorama's of slightly uneasy children's books go, and it should have gotten an A. So, come to think of it, should the several papers I my children have written on Harriet Tubman. Not to mention M's "auto"biography, which took days and was quite epic itself. But this kind of homework is fun, unlike math homework, at which I am frankly hopeless. The math homework he's bringing home now has those weird quasi medieval swooping fs in it. I admire the typography, but the formula escapes me.

On a more serious note, this project was also, well, noteworthy in how difficult it was for young M to grasp the concept of the classically epic hero. He's so post modern, so steeped in contemporary culture, that every single hero he came up with at first was fatally flawed. Sure, that's what makes heroes interesting and human to us, but you don't find Beowulf emoting over his Oedipal issues, or Hercules having much of a crisis of existential dread. Okay, Hercules does go mad for a while, but that was probably manure fumes. Every single story M came up with (and there were some extremely awesome plots in there) featured a doubting, flawed hero who has to overcome personal shortcomings. It's damn hard to escape your culture, even for long enough to write a comic book.