“It was a movie about American bombers in World War II and the gallant men who flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this: American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.
"The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers , and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans though and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.
"When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.
"The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn't in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
Videos
Videos and films should always be included in lessons with care. Teachers should be encouraged to make their own instructional or illustrative videos if none already exist—videos can then be tailored to curriculum, instead of vice versa. If teachers can see the creative possibilities of making their own content through film, music, and editing, then that can be passed on to students. When students are tasked with making a video, they should be challenged to really understand the connection between all of those elements.
Example
This passage from Slaughterhouse-Five has always been one of the most affective for me as a reader. It very clearly and imaginatively illustrates the real spoils of war and Vonnegut’s message about that. There are already videos that capture this idea (like a brief moment in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), but I couldn’t find any that tried to tell a complete story like this passage does. What I came up with is not a literal translation of Vonnegut’s words, but rather an interpretation of his message. Students have said that this is what sticks with them most long after we’re done reading.