Weitere Hinweise

Jede Teilnehmerin und jeder Teilnehmer wird im Frühlingssemester – nach Abgabe der

Maturitätsarbeit – einen Vortrag halten.

Prüfungen und Noten sind nicht vorgesehen.

Der Kurs richtet sich an alle 4. Klässler (ausser an SuS, die das Schwerpunktfach Englisch wählen) Der Kurs bereitet nicht auf einen spezifischen Studiengang vor, sondern soll dazu dienen, die Lektüre und die Recherche in englischer Sprache zu pflegen, das Allgemeinwissen zu vergrössern und überlieferte Bilder und Vorstellungen durch zielgerichtete Text-, Bild-, und Filmarbeit kritisch zu hinterfragen und zu interpretieren.

Kursbeschrieb Illustration

Wahlkurse 2020/21 Kursausschreibung

Prüfungen und Notengebung

Weitere Hinweise

Englisch Thomas Schmidt

Title: The Making of Tom Waits, singer, songwriter, musician, composer, actor, screenplay writer

(The Beatniks = Beat Generation: Jack Kerouac: “On the Road”, 1957, Allen Ginsburg / Bob Dylan, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 / Frank Zappa / Raymond Carver: Short Stories / Films: "Down by Law“, 1986, “Short Cuts”, 1993, etc.)

Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, composer, actor, and screenplay writer. His music is characterized by lyrics focusing on the underside of society,

delivered in his distinctive deep, gravelly voice. During the 1970s, he worked primarily in jazz, but since the 1980s his music has reflected greater influence from blues, vaudeville, and experimental genres.

Waits was born and raised in a middle-class family in Pomona, California. As a young adult in southern California, where surfers cultivated their own lifestyle of sea, beach and carefreeness, Thomas Alan Waits was one of those who were always there but felt more comfortable on the edge than in the center of the scene. In a popular pizzeria he worked as a dishwasher and cook, listening to the guests. He was also

interested in the music that was played on the jukebox: Ray Charles and James Brown, Bill Cosby, Frank Sinatra and Cole Porter.

Inspired by the work of Bob Dylan and the Beat Generation, he began singing on the San Diego folk music circuit as a teenager. In Dylan's songs he recognized the mental proximity to the breathless writing of the beat poets, to Jack Kerouac or Allen Ginsburg, who fascinated him so much himself. The friendly folk rock on the other hand, flower power and the giggling of the stoners, he couldn't stand all that.

• Would you like to get to know a milestone in American literature by Jack Kerouac (“On the Road”, 1957) as well as short stories by Raymond Carver. They both influenced Tom Waits a great deal.

• Would you like to get familiar with some of the films that play a crucial role in Tom Waits’

life as an actor and a screenplay writer?

• Are you prepared to be an active

member of this course and to present a story, a

series of songs or a film relating to the topic on your

own or give a speech about a related topic in the

second semester (FS 2021)?