The Holstee Manifesto was put together in summer 2009 by Mike, Fabian and Dave, the founders of fashion company Holstee, to embody what they wanted from life, and what they believed their designs should incorporate.
The original poster was also accompanied by this video:
There is already an excellent lesson plan at film-english, but I thought I might throw it out there and see what you guys can do with it too 🙂
What would you do with this manifesto in your classroom? You can make any assumptions you like about the context it is used in. Post your ideas in the comments below. All ideas are welcome (there are no wrong answers!)
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(Almost) Infinite ELT Ideas 
Comments on: "Holstee Manifesto" (7)
Hello Sandy,
Thank you so much for the idea. We based our lessons on Monday and Tuesday on the manifesto. The lesson is suitable for FCE students, but we adapted it for Pre-Intermediate as well.
I took shots of the video, paired the photos and made up FCE-style questions (part 2) like ‘Compare the pictures and say why people choose to spend their free time like in these situations.’ Sts did this in pairs. So that was the beginning of the lesson. Then Sts were told that the photos are taken from a film and they guessed what the film might be about. The answers differed from ‘It’s about bikes’ to “It’s about love and friendship’ depending on the questions they answered about the photos. Then we pre-taught essential vocabulary (recommended in the original idea) and asked what they thought the film was about and then wrote ‘manifesto’ (thankfully Sts knew the word) and asked what the film was about again.
Then we dictated the three questions from the recommended idea at film-english. Sts watched and answered the questions. Then we handed out cut manifesto and asked them to choose the part that appeals to them more and explain why. Then we watched the second video and put the manifesto in order.
As for homework, Sts are to find who wrote the manifesto from the Holstee site and write their own manifestos.
If you find such a lesson as an interesting one, I would be glad to send you the photos and questions we made for the lesson.
Hope you’ll like the idea,
Alexandra
Hi Alexandra,
That’s a fascinating idea. It would be great to get the photos and questions – I can add them to the post for other people to use then. It’s interesting to see how you combine the lesson plan from film-english and your own ideas, while adapting it for an exam situation too!
Sandy
Thank you for kind words, Sandy! I have the photos in a Word document. You can find it in a public Dropbox folder http://dl.dropbox.com/u/56885284/Bookless%20lessons.doc.
Naomi has offered some great suggestions, along with a worksheet, over on her blog. Take a look! http://visualisingideas.edublogs.org/2012/02/07/using-the-holstee-manifesto-video-to-practice-expressions-of-opinion/comment-page-1/
Just found this lesson plan based on the manifesto: http://designerlessons.org/2012/01/03/picture-based-student-centred-natural-english-dogme-tech-free-lesson-plan/
[…] first learned of The Holstee Manifesto video from Sandy Millin’s Blog (Almost Infinite ELT Ideas) last year. I decided to try and adapt my take on using the video back then, with my high-school […]
[…] The Advantages Of Being A Woman Artist 1988 Guerrilla Girls null Purchased 2003 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/P78796 This is a very powerful manifesto, telling you to live your dream, and be happy in everything you do. This has inspired me to do something relating to people being happy, for everyone has the capacity to be happy. Also I find the text very powerful and will want to use some text in my manifesto. https://infiniteeltideas.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/holstee-manifesto/ […]