Oppdatert: 20.03.2018

Pink Floyd - The Wall

Classroom ideas

Ideas, everybody, ideas ...
Below are some classroom ideas on how to approach "The Wall"
(written by students).
We'd love to receive more methodological 'sparks of divine fire'.
How would YOU like to present 'The Wall' to YOUR students???
Note! You don't have to be a teacher to join in!
AND - as usual when reading poetry - just forget everything you have been told about THE meaning of the text.
You should definitely add your own experiences, attitudes and opinions to the process of intepretation!

Some examples:

1. The Thematic Approach

I'll just try to outline some of the more basic ideas presented by my students when working with the essential question:
'What is this really about?"

  1. 'Psychological' interpretation

    1. It's about the eternal conflicts between GOOD and EVIL in Man's mind

    2. It's about how interaction with other people might wound you so violently that you choose isolation as self-defence

    3. It's really about mobbing


  2. 'Social' interpretation

    1. It's about how society alienates and mentally breaks down individuals (and)

    2. How modern society creates a basis for extreme organizations like e.g. the neo-Nazis

    3. It's about how money and power represented by the Capitalist system and the Establishment ruin 'ordinary lives'

    4. Actually, it is about the established generation's efforts to raise obedient and submissive, brainwashed and disciplined citizens who willingly accept the established order by having every spark of their originality, individuality and creativity wiped out.

    5. Really? It's definitely about everybody's 'modern life'.
      We are simply crushed by the increasing demands for more efficiency. We get too much to do and we can't maintain our natural social networks any longer, and we replace the 'Empty Spaces' with junk, drugs and traditional human ill-behaviour (racism, scapegoats, prejudice, discrimination, etc. etc. (- The Old, Eternal Stuff...)


  3. 'Result'

    1. a feeling of 'emptiness' - not to belong - being an outcast creating a desire for order, unity, discipline and community, and an urge for gaining acceptance through action against those who don't fit in.


  4. 'Message'

    1. Negative:
      It all goes in circles. Nothing may really be done.
      Human nature is in general negative, and usually leads us towards a rather gloomy fate.
    2. Positive:
      The 'Trial', and the end of the movie, indicates clearly a hope for the future, especially represented by the children in the last scene.


Essay by Petter Pettersen

Essay by Stine Ersvik


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oppdatert 20.03.2018
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