- What is Camp? What is a Camp sensibility?
- What is Camp’s relationship to queer culture?
- How does Camp challenge our traditional views of art and culture?
- What is the role of Camp today? How has Camp sensibility evolved since Sontag’s era?
- How can students use a Camp sensibility to express their own perspectives?
- Articulate the cultural history and significance of Camp
- Recognize historical and contemporary examples of Camp
- Explore the legacy of Sontag’s essay on Camp and reflect on its continued relevance
- Use art and popular culture to express alternative visions
1-8 Class Periods
VIDEOS:
Notes on Camp Video and Transcript
HANDOUTS:
Unit Background
Unit Research
Handout 1
Handout 2
Handout 3
Handout 4
WORKSHEETS:
Class Challenge Worksheet
Essay/Speech Worksheet
Exhibit/Presentation Worksheet
Fine Arts Worksheet
TEACHING PLANS:
Teach Handout 1
Teach Handout 2
Teach Handout 3
Teach Handout 4
Class Challenge Activity
Essay/Speech Activity
Exhibit/Presentation Activity
Fine Arts Activity
- Art and Culture
Medium > Visual Arts
Subject Matter > Art History
Subject Matter > Music
- History and Social Studies
People > LGBT
Themes > Culture
Themes > Politics and Citizenship
World > The Modern World
- Literature and Language Arts
Genre > Drama
Genre > Essay
Genre > Novel
Genre > Poetry
Genre > Short Stories
Place > American
Place > Modern World
- Analysis
- Auditory analysis
- Compare and contrast
- Creative writing
- Critical thinking
- Cultural analysis
- Debate skills
- Discussion
- Evaluating arguments
- Expository writing
- Film editing
- Gathering, classifying, and interpreting written, oral and visual information
- Historical analysis
- Internet skills
- Interpretation
- Journal writing
- Letter writing
- Literary analysis
- Making inferences and drawing conclusions
- Media analysis
- Musical analysis
- Online research
- Oral analysis
- Oral communication
- Oral presentation skills
- Painting
- Persuasive writing and speaking
- Photography
- Poetry analysis
- Poetry writing
- Report writing
- Representing ideas and information orally, graphically and in writing
- Research
- Role-playing/Performance
- Summarizing
- Synthesis
- Textual analysis
- Using primary sources
- Using secondary sources
- Visual analysis
- Visual art analysis
- Visual art skills
- Visual presentation skills
- Writing skills
- ELA Reading: 1, 3-7, 10
- ELA Writing: 1-7, 9-10
- ELA Speaking & Listening: 1-6
- ELA Language: 4, 6
- HSS Reading: 1-2, 4-10
- HSS Writing: 1-2, 4-7, 9-10
Ah, Camp. “The essence of Camp,” Susan Sontag wrote in 1964, “is the love of the unnatural, of artifice and exaggeration.” The essay “Notes on ‘Camp’” propelled Sontag to early fame and recognition as an essayist; she shocked the literary establishment by writing about something that had been considered too pop, too underground, too gay, or perhaps just too silly to warrant consideration in an intellectual magazine. Sontag’s Camp essay is paradoxical, in that she wrote with great seriousness about cultural products that were previously viewed as trivial or unworthy of attention by intellectual elites: drag queens, Tiffany lampshades, Marlene Dietrich, and other extravagant, queer, ridiculous, and over-the-top forms of culture. Sontag wanted to be taken seriously, and yet found the not-so-serious a perfect vehicle through which to advance her ideas. This lesson looks at historical and contemporary examples of Camp and asks about its relevance today, five decades after her essay was published. Having gone mainstream in myriad ways, how does Camp still subvert, shock, comment on, or undermine the dominant culture? What does it tell us about ourselves?
LESSON 4 HANDOUTS
LESSON 4 STUDENT ACTIVITY OPTIONS
- Watch Regarding Susan Sontag and reflect on its relevance to your students and subject area. For extracurricular organizations, community groups, and book clubs, consult our guide on adapting the curriculum.
- Select the handout(s) and student activity you will use with this lesson.
- Begin the lesson by watching and discussing the lesson video module with Handout 1
- Continue the lesson with Handouts 2-4 to deepen learning (optional)
- Complete the lesson with a student activity: options include writing, presentation, and creative assignments as well as class projects or debates
- Download or print all related resources for this lesson at our resource center (video module, handouts, worksheets, teaching plans), and prepare for classroom use. Preview the video module, familiarizing yourself with the content and any potential areas of sensitivity for your students (see Information for Teachers).
- Screen Regarding Susan Sontag and discuss with our Educational Screening Guide before beginning this lesson.
- Assign full texts or articles in place of handout excerpts.
- Assign supplementary texts or facilitate independent research with our Art & Literature Unit Research handout, which includes:
- Online art and literature resources
- Art and literature reference texts (unit citations and recommendations)
- Allow additional time for discussion, group work, peer-review, editing, revision, or student evaluations and critiques of finished work.
- Coordinate presentations of student activities outside the classroom, such as a class blog, podcast or online gallery posts, school newspaper or literary/art journal publications, student radio or video broadcasts, or all-school exhibits, panel discussions, and screenings.
- Teach this lesson with additional content from the curriculum guide. See our Interdisciplinary Diagram for help choosing related units and lessons.