WOW...your course and methodology of teaching sound so interesting, exciting -- and inviting. How lucky these young Orthodox Jewish women are to have an Orthodox Jewish (young) man teach them the (according to some Orthodox, the unorthodox) art of scriptwriting.

I think this post has a great title, and I think the story behind it would make for a wonderful movie itself -- either a British-type comedy, or some kind of ABC Afterschool Special or Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation. Get these girls to write the script...for extra credits!

Kol HaKavod for teaching them valuable lessons, and for gaining such personal pleasure from doing so.

Pearl:

I never taught before in my life. I did it because I remember how starved I was in yeshiva high school for some kind of outlet for my creativity.

It took me a while to figure things out but my "methodology" emerged pretty naturally and much to my surprise it works just beautifully.

The workshop is only right for highly motivated kids who are willing to work very hard, but I teach my students more than screenwriting, I teach them how to think creatively about, well, most everything.

Robert, I have actually had the good fortune of being taught by you (okay, so shooting isn't exactly screenwriting, but the principles remain the same). From the short amount of time I spent being instructed by you, I am familiar with the gentle care you must have bestowed on these girls, and the hard work ethic you surely instilled in each of them. They were lucky to have you, and it sounds like, you were lucky to have them.
Believe me, they will never forget you...and when one of them (or all of them) stand up to accept their academy award or emmy, they will remember that it was Mr. Avrech who, like, um, nurtured their hearts and touched their souls.

Randi:

What can I say but, like, um, thanks.

Wow. They're blessed to have you in their lives and vice versa. I guess it's too late for me to enroll, right?

Finally, re Melanie Griffith: no comment!

Too late? I am begging you to let me enroll.

As for Pearl's movie idea... I can see it now: Mona Lisa Smile meets Dead Poets Society.

(On second thought, maybe not)

Albert:

The Yeshiva is fairly strict about separating boys and girls, so I'm going to have to reject your application. Sorry.

Ralphie:

You could come in drag. Yeah, that'll fool the Rebbeim.

I considered getting up on the desk and telling the class to look at the world from a different POV, as in "Dead Poets Society" and then I realized the girls would rightly consider me a complete knucklehead.

The Melanie Griffith story is, like, hilarious.

The funniest thing I ever heard was on WABC in NY, when the host turned the program over the the traffic announcer, a woman, and asked her to do a teen rendition. "The traffic is, uh, backed up all the way to the, like, turnpike, and, umm... I-don't-know-why"

I'm sure you have your girls a pep talk about how vicious the industry can be, starting in colledge. Or did you leave them to find out on their own?

You teach a course in English writing that where students learn immediately marketable skills?

Wow, like, cosmic!

I don't think they'll ever forget what you've done for them. A few years from now, you'll be even more proud of them and the powerful movies they will create.

Oh great, more competition! Actually, good screenwriters should always be a welcome thing for other good screenwriters, (or those of us who think we're good); it's when Hollywood and TV start getting into lame remakes and reality TV that things get really tough.

And you know, this is a wonderful thing you do and, in my opinion, a good model for what we should be doing in all of our schools. Too much of formal schooling is about basic skills-building, which is absolutely necessary, but think how much better high school would be for American kids if they learned a real job skill from someone still doing that job or recently retired! This is what I try to do in my NYU classes; present a course where the top students would be ready to work in a specific job immediately after graduation. Liberal arts colleges usually offer no courses like that for ther $40k per year tuition.

Hmmm:

I tend to keep away from Hollywood tales and focus intensely on the craft of screenwriting, and screening a few seminal films. I do mention, in passing, that Hollywood is like any other business: tough, competitive, and filled with utterly ruthless people who will cut your throat two ways.

Solomon:

It is interesting, I've been teaching at the yeshiva for 7 years. The girls who take my class and stick with it year after year, are, as you can well imagine, unusually talented and disciplined. So far, not one has decided to go into the film business. They seem perfectly content to learn the craft and then move on to other things.

I can just see your class... I wish I were there! : ) Sounds like those girls are going to do quite well!

Irina:

Here's an inside look:

Top 10 Things Overheard in Robert Avrech's Screenwriting Class

by Jake Novak

10) "Miriam, your script is obviously completely plagiarized from "The Seven Sammurai"... you get an A+!"

9) "Um Mr. Avrech, I've been watching a lot of current movies and are you SURE we can use words with more than one syllable in our scripts?"

8) "I wanted to write a Jewish version of 'Pulp Fiction,' but there aren't enough Yiddish curse words."

7) "You're 17th century romance is lovely Shulamit, but next time, put in some more scenes with automatic weapons."

6) "This script is a Jewish horror movie. It's about 6 Orthodox teens trapped in the haunted ruins of Grossinger's."

5) "Spielberg would never make this script, all the Jews in it are alive."

4) "I'm sorry Rochel, but this scene is just not believable; it takes place in a kosher restaurant's CLEAN bathroom."

3) "Before we get started I'll need your parents to sign these 5-Starbucks-coffees-per-class permission slips."

2) "This isn't gum, it's the same piece of shmurah matzo I've been trying to swallow since Pesach."

1) "I know it's been 3 weeks, but haven't had a chance to read your scripts yet; I had to change the lightbulbs in my dining room."

Sorry for the typo! #7 should say "Your" no "You're"

Wonderful!
What an empowering gift you've given these girls! The experience must have pushed their creativity to blossom, which can only enhance their lives - no matter what their choices.
If ever their lives will revolve around working and wiping baby bottoms and cooking kugels: it is expereinces like the one you provided for them, that will give them strength, to not plague themselves with "what if's?" but to know their talents and choose contenment.

Jake, you are one funny fellow. I especially love your #1 reason...shows you've been paying attention in class at Seraphic University!

As for the horror flick at Grossinger's...I think it would have to be reworked just a tad -- didn't they convert the property to time-share condos? No haunted ruins there, except for maybe some of Jennie Grossinger's recipes lying around.

Pearl:

Great point! I did not know about Grossinger's. I need you to be my researcher. Hey, it worked for Harper Lee.

The list is hilarious!

My favorite was # 2.

I should have added that the title of the movie in #6 is "I Know What You Fressed Last Summer"

4 years with the same 4 students is extraordinary. Your pride, gratitude, and discipline shine beam. Is it OK to chew gum while commeting on your blog?

Irina:

My Movie Girls from all 7 years are doing very well. A student from my first year of teaching just visited yesterday and we had a wonderful talk. She's going to graduate school in economics.

Yael:

You are oh so right. I never really set out to produce Hollywood screenwriters. I just knew that there were Orthodox girls who needed a creative outlet and no matter what they do in your life, this creative endeavor will always serve them well.

Jake:

Were you in drag in my classroom?

Jeremiah:

Yes, I am very proud. Cyber-Chewing is fine.

Robert:

I have many enemies... I must travel in disguise.

Jake:

I thought that girl in the back was, unusually, er, homely.

Darn it, I am like too late to make any good "like" jokes and too tired to craft a list that is remotely close to Jakes.

So I'll go a different direction.

Real writers," I insist, "are like plumbers,

Cool, I have the perfect pair of pants. ;) Sounds like a wonderful class, they were lucky to have you.

Now I can picture you with the toolbelt, Robert. In the loops and holsters:
a pencil, a pen, a highligting marker, en eyeglass case, a remote control, a pistol, an Uzi, and ... a samurai sword.

A pistol and an Uzi? C'mon, that's overkill!

Robert, I'm suprised your Movie Girls go on to bigger and better things. What could be bigger and better other than Hollywood? :) Nevertheless, the critical and creative thinking skills you have taught will remain with them forever.

I wouldn't be suprised if that grad student decides to title her thesis "On the Economic Structures of Movie Screenwriting".

Jack:

I was luck to have My Movie Girls as students for so many years.

Jeremiah:

I still have to get Karen to buy me that tool belt. But I do have the weapons covered.

Solomon:

Yup, it's the creative thinking that really counts. One former student, who's now in another field entirely, told me recently that my screenwriting class taught her how to think in new ways about "everything."

Made my day.

Sorry I haven't been around lately, but we finally got our phone and *internet* hooked up, so I'm back in blogland. I wish I had had your class in high school instead of the creative writing one I had - utter waste of time, since the teacher just wanted us to kiss up to her. The practice was good, but I didn't get the discipline that you talked about, and that's what would serve me well these days...

SS:

Too many creative writing classes end up doing the exact opposite of what they are supposed to do. I'm not sure why this happens, but I vowed that my class would be different. Maybe because I'm a volunteer, maybe because I see writing as "problem solving" and not some romantic poetic endeavor -- maybe because of all these factors I managed to avoid all the terrible pitfalls that come with creative writing classes.

The Yeshiva is fairly strict about separating boys and girls, so I'm going to have to reject your application. Sorry.

I wish we could, like, run the public schools this way. Not a snowball's chance in the current social and legal climate, of course; but I have no doubts the kids would learn more.

Kent:

If there were boys in the class, well, My Movie Girls would never feel free to write what they write, to express what they express--and in all honesty, I would never teach such a class. Teenage boys and girls in the same classroom. That is madness as far as real education is concerned.

Teenage boys and girls in the same classroom. That is madness as far as real education is concerned.

You know that, and I know that -- but it is quite literally unthinkable to most of the public.

Kent:

I believe that many parents would probably listen to a reasonable argument in favor of separating boys and girls in classrooms. But it's the "educators" who would never stand for such a policy. These elites suffer from a disease called: TMGS. It's a recent diagnosis, quite serious, whose effects on our children's education are far reaching and quite tragic.

TMGS: Too Much Graduate School. In which reasonably bright people go to school, lose all common sense and every basic value that binds decent societies together. For instance: everyone knows that boys and girls are different. Until they get to graduate school and learn that the sexes are, get this, "cultural constructs." Thus: TMGS.

For what it's worth, I have a Ph.D. from Caltech. TMGS is a concept that resonates with me. I kept my sanity by joining the Caltech Men's Glee Club, which consisted mostly of undergraduates who still had a grip on their sanity.

Kent:

In my experience, people who join Glee Clubs are usually on the more sane side of the social and political spectrum. Glee Clubs speak/sing to our more traditional and conservative values. They remind us of the virtues of Frank Capra-like small Town America.

Any DVD's we can listen to?

what a wonderful piece. just great. i learned new information and i like laughed out loud.

Any DVD's we can listen to?

Not of the Caltech Men's Glee Club. I'm not that young.

I have a CD of a more recent performance with my local choral society, but I think I'd feel funny linking to an upload of it here. We performed Handel's Messiah.

I think you're right about why the Glee Club was an oasis of sanity.

Rabbi Neil:

Glad you learned a few things. And I like to make you laugh.

Kent:

Good call. Thanks for being so sensitive. We all have our islands of sanity, don't we?

We all have our islands of sanity, don't we?

Some wag once said that American universities were islands of oppression in an ocean of freedom.

Kent:

How true, how true. Look at what the tyrants did to the President at Harvard.

Wow. Those girls are so lucky. How I wish I would have had just such an opportunity. I adore the arts, especially music, literature, and drama. And yet, the high school I attended, while great in many ways, was sorely lacking in these areas. I loved to write (and still do) but I wasn't lucky enough to have someone really instruct me in the craft. I was just given 'A' grades and it was left at that. In all fairness, the English teachers weren't writers and so they could hardly be expected to shed much light on the subject beyond waht you could read in a textbook. The only real joy I got out of English class was when we read plays. Whether it was Hamlet, Pygmalion, or Macbeth, my class would unanimously "elect" me to read the main part and I would throw myself into it. True, I was reading against voices with little to no expression and life, but, if I put my mind to it, I could almost imagine myself in a serious drama class with a teacher that would stop me and teach me what works better and why.

Ayelet:

I volunteered to teach this class because I knew there were girls like you in the yeshivas, smart and creative, who hunger to express themselves. I hope that more yeshivas will make room for creative workshops. Our kids sorely need it.