This document outlines micro-lessons on humanities topics, including Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon, the spoken word poem "To This Day" by Shane Koyczan, and the Moth Radio Hour storytelling organization. The Rashomon lesson discusses how the film tells the same story from four perspectives to show how unreliable witness memory can be. The "To This Day" lesson analyzes how Koyczan uses a variety of artistic methods to effectively deliver his message. The Moth Radio Hour lesson introduces the organization that shares true stories at events and encourages listening to their stories and considering submitting your own.

1. Humanities 101: Micro-lessons
LESSONS
Kurasawa’s Rashomon
To This Day
Moth Radio Hour
The Unreliable Narrator
Would you like to know more?
Visual Analysis of Rashomon
https://akirakurosawa.info/2016/06/22/video-analysis-how-akira-kurosawa-framed-rashomon/
Narrative Analysis of Rashomon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP2MhghDal4
Considered one of Kurosawa’s masterpieces, Rashomon
tells the story of a murder but from four different
perspectives: the bandit, the samurai (his ghost), the wife,
and the woodcutter. Each character changes the plot to
paint a better picture of him or herself. What is mot
interesting about this, is that Rashomon is a very human
film: people are notoriously terrible witnesses. Consider
the studies done by: Joe Ledoux and Elizabeth Loftus. Both
show that not only is memory not reliable, but when we
remember something we are actually telling a narrative!

2. Humanities 101: Micro-lessons
LESSONS
Kurasawa’s Rashomon
To This Day
Moth Radio Hour
Message and Method
Would you like to know more?
Shane Koyczan’s To This Day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=sa1iS1MqUy4
Other videos by Shane:
https://www.youtube.com/user/ShaneKoyczan/videos
Shane Koyczan is a spoken word poet, who received
great acclaim from his work To This Day. I have
linked the full video below (oftentimes, students are
shown only clips – you have to watch it in its
entirety!). What Koyczan does is he uses a full range
of artistic expression for his idea. He uses spoken
word poetry, narrative, visuals, music, and acting, all
to share his message. How do his methods impact
his message? How does his message impact his
methods? Why does this work so well?

3. Humanities 101: Micro-lessons
LESSONS
Kurasawa’s Rashomon
To This Day
Moth Radio Hour
Storyslam: Moth Radio Hour
Would you like to know more?
Moth Radio Hour:
https://themoth.org/radio-hour
How to submit a Moth Radio Story:
https://themoth.org/share-your-story/storytelling-tips-tricks
The Moth Radio Hour is a non-profit organization
which celebrates storytelling. At events all over the
country, and through a podcast and radio program,
The Moth shares true, exciting, engaging, and
meaningful stories. Amateur storytellers share a
biographical tale at an open-mic, and then compete
with other storytellers to get their stories shared. Start
by going to the Moth Radio Hour website and check
out the stories. They are incredible! Then consider
how you would deliver your own “Moth Story.”