The Bonfire of the Vanities | Activities :&: Classroom Projects

Fun Classroom Activities

The 20 enjoyable, interactive classroom activities that are included will help your students understand the text in amusing ways. Fun Classroom Activities include group projects, games, critical thinking activities, brainstorming sessions, writing poems, drawing or sketching, and more that will allow your students to interact with each other, be creative, and ultimately grasp key concepts from the text by "doing" rather than simply studying.

1. Another Racially Charged Trial

Spend one class period watching the Frontline episode "The O.J. Verdict" (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/oj/view/) which deals, ten years after the fact, with the cultural and racial implications of the O.J. Simpson trial. Discuss the similarities between that trial and the fictional McCoy trial in terms of public reaction.

2. Another Film

The version of Bonfire of the Vanities was a famous disaster in filmmaking. Wishing to make the story more palatable, the studio changed the racist Judge Kovisky...
(read more)