The Dragon Waiting:
Richard Oberdorfer, Norfolk Academy

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• New seminar based on fantasy novel, John Ford's The Dragon Waiting
  • Key events alter future?

  • Seminar reports on "reality" vs fiction

  • Final event: draw altered turning point from hat

• Pursuing the White Boar
  • First printed in Ricardian Register in 1995 -- on web -- S.M.A.R.T., spring 1998

  • Everybody loves a mystery

  • Revealing fifteenth-century lifestyles and values

  • The impact of Richard's age on events and values today

  • Dealing with the historical images of Shakespeare's Richard III

  • Political propaganda and public morality

  • Turning students into effective research historians

  • Using the debate surrounding Richard III to counter passivity in the classroom

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  Richard Oberdorfer is the head of the history department at Norfolk Adademy, and has been using the case of Richard III to present issues in historical inquiry for over a decade. His latest project has been a "what-if" or alternate futures approach, using John Ford's fantasy novel, The Dragon Waiting, as the centerpiece.

  In 1993-94, Oberdorfer conducted a survey of members of the Richard III Society who used the case of Richard III in classroms or in public speaking. He blends his own experiences with the accounts of others in an article, "Pursuing the White Boar: Approaches to Teaching Richard III." This article was published in the Ricardian Register and later on in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching. It offers a review of issues and techniques, reading lists, and suggested essay and discussion questions.

  [Next: Teaching Resources]

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