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Literature Adaptations: Film and TV Series (Rhiannon Farr)

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Literature Adaptations: Film and TV Series (Rhiannon Farr)

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Throughout this article, Fong addresses Charles Dickens story Great Expectations that had been turned into a film and a short TV series (3 episodes that were 60 minutes long). Within her argument, she discusses the differences between the movie and the TV show and how they stay (or stray) from the plot of the book.

Though I have not read this Dickens tale (or others, to be quite honest with you), she does mention-- briefly-- two that I do recall watching: Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. These got me thinking...What other adaptations have I seen that made an impact on me at a high school level?

There's one instance that I recall as a student in high school, watching The Great Gatsby and discussing whether or not it was a good adaptation with my classmates. Some people enjoyed it, some did not. One of my classmates specifically said he didn't enjoy it because of the fact that there was modern music within the movie, instead of music there would be in the 1920s. Then, as a rebuttal, another classmate stated she enjoyed it for that reason and that the directors/producers probably used that kind of music as a way to show us (the audience) that they would listen to whatever was popular, like we would.

This discussion and being able to reflect on it now was important. Why do directors and producers of movies and television shows make specific decisions? Why did they use modern music (like Beyonce and Jay-Z) instead of old-timey 1920s music? Why are we placing and remaking plays, novels and literature and putting them in modern eras?

If you haven't seen it already, one film adaptation that keeps it pretty on-brand is Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing. I saw (and read) this in my Shakespeare class during my undergrad and it shaped who I am today. I loved it so much!

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Our students after writing their papers for 2 minutes. 

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Jennifer Page's "Digital Tools, New Media & The Literature Survey" 

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Jennifer Page's "Digital Tools, New Media & The Literature Survey" 

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Jennifer Page notes that presenting an early British Literature survey can be daunting for both educators and students. She notes that the issue with a literature survey is there can be so much literature to cover and the result is that students will rarely develop a deeper, more detailed understanding of a works' significance (133). Using Seymour Papert's theory of constructionism, which provides an alternate pedagogical approach, and constructivism's "building upon knowledge structures" at its core, Page wanted to construct a class that encourages student ownership of an aspect of a subject. Students would construct or generate something, a digital gallery, instead of a traditional research essay. The issue with a research essay is that students don't become attached or develop a deeper interest. Page hoped that her assessment would have the following:
1. be more engaging and creative for students whose entire lives are immersed in media;

2. require students to assess their knowledge about course content as they generated unique narratives about a specific work or issue; and

3. help me better understand students’ learning processes and their ability to create connections between literature and culture.
Thus, the "Digital Curation Project" was established. Page does establish requirements for the multi-media project, but allowed students free reign on the topic of their choosing as well as the digital media that they could present their information on.

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"Errant Pedagogy in the Early Modern Classroom, or Prodigious Misreadings in and of the Renaissance" by Melissa J. Jones (Rhiannon Farr)

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"Errant Pedagogy in the Early Modern Classroom, or Prodigious Misreadings in and of the Renaissance" by Melissa J. Jones (Rhiannon Farr)

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Romeo "butt-love":

1. Inspires closer reading as students must listen intently for punny language.

2. Different meanings of this misreading come up as important:

"...Alliteration of 'Rs in Romeo and Rosaline's names, and in the name as well as image of the rose, are consonant with the play’s repeated references to the 'open-arse,' a consonance— or assonance— that exposes a deep undercurrent of male and female anal eroticism" (122).

In modern relevance, it refers to "admiration" of the butt "as an emblem of feminine beauty" (122).

3. Challenges us to think about racial politics within Romeo and Juliet as fetishization of body parts differentiate between black woman and white women, even if there wasn't racial distinction within the play.

Sex? In a Sonnet?

1. Philip Sidney's Astrophil and Stella, a sonnet filled adventure that covers history, politics and love.

2. Jones uses Sonnet 69 to discuss sex and consent.

Also discusses Stella's role within the situation.

3. There isn't a historical event or relevancy to the number 69, nor is there a specific reason as to why the poem (which is about sex), to be linked to what we, as modern readers, consider a "sexual" number.

4. Jones' asks what a "69" poem would look like, be about, and how it would be constructed in sonnet form-- reminding students that sonnets have a specific format to follow.

Classroom "Malapropism"

1. Mistakes are bound to happen but Jones' encourages educators to "clarify what we’re aiming for from the start" (127), considering once students are lost-- it is more difficult to unbind them from their confusion (especially in early modern literature).

2. No to disciplining these lost souls-- our duty is to clarify and make clear this information not only for the content but for the students (127).

Loose Ends

1. Allow students to partake in creative assignments that make them actively reflect and analyze how the literature is affecting them.

2. Jones gives creative assignment examples on specific literature she teaches that we saw throughout her chapter.

One I really enjoyed was titled "Shake It Up" where students collaboratively rewrite a Renaissance love poem in modern diction (128). I think this is such a fun example of how to utilize collaboration, imitation, and creativity. This assignment would do well in other poetry units as well, as you could take potential lesson plans and switch it out for how you would like students to write the poetry that time.

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Page notes that, with any sort of large project, that some students digital curation projects were better than others. She did note the range of topics was interesting and note-worthy. Page was taken back by her own assumptions that students were technologically "savvy" and she quickly discovered that for some students, this wasn't the case. Students tended to rely on familiar-classroom appropriate technology (Powerpoint, Prezi, etc.) (142). Page does wish that she would have spent more time on the presentation aspect of their digital curation projects, but she does overall think it was wholly successful.

I do think that there is so much benefit for students in a technology-driven era of education that we do have students using more "presentation-esque" techniques for larger assessments. I most recently gave my students a choice project (LINK) for The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. And it's a choice for my students because I let them know that any of these projects can be completed in a word document, a Google Slide, on paper, anything. There is no limitations. And students loved it and I certainly noticed more engagement in the assignments. Many students, especially those with learning disabilities, tend to struggle with writing an essay. Each of the choice projects that I create has some sort of writing element to it and that's what was super beneficial this time around. Students still had to write, but it fit best at their academic level and I truly do think that is where we get the most student engagement in. In the aspect of choice.

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Bernard Response to "Great Expectations" 

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Bernard Response to "Great Expectations" 

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I think to add onto Rhiannon's post for "Great Expectations", I think it's so important that our students are also able to recognize the differences as well. When I teach Romeo and Juliet, I show certain scenes back to back with each other from each movie version. I show both balcony scenes, Mercutio's death scene and the suicide/ending. I have students do a three way compare/contrast between the play, and both movies to really understand the various differences between the stories. I don't think there is meant to be a "right" or "wrong" way, when approaching these topics either.

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The chapter begins by giving a brief overview of how teaching literature has changed over the last hundred years. In the past, poetry and drama were the most prevalent; however, after WWII, the novel became the most prevalent (88). As a teacher in Tennessee, I pretty much only taught novels, and my fellow colleagues were the same. Then when I moved to England, the curriculum was much more balanced. For example, one six-week period would be a novel, the next a Shakespeare play, the next poetry, the next short stories, the next non-fiction, and perhaps we would do a second novel later in the year. I remember thinking how good of an idea it is to have this variety, and now when I see colleagues teaching book after book after book, I think about this.

I think it’s interesting how Showalter starts with the skin of the novel when she begins teaching it, looking at the cover, title, and epigraphs first (88). That is a really interesting idea. I feel like I often do the titles at the end of the books when they often have more meaning since students know the story. I also thought it was interesting how Carolyn Heilbrun, a professor at Columbia, “believes that the best training for teaching fiction is writing it” (89). That is very much like how England is since students work on writing in the genres they are reading during each six-week unit. Teaching reading, teaching writing (and actually teaching speaking) are all intermixed; they build off and compliment each other.

Jeff Nunokawa from Princeton explains how he wants to show students how “deep and interesting details they might dismiss” can be (89). I feel exactly the same when I’m teaching. It can be a bit of a problem because there is just so much in so many texts, and I want to show students everything! I could spend days on a short poem or a trimester on a book. There obviously isn’t time for that nor do most students have the stamina to stick with the same text for so long, but it doesn’t stop the fact that I am so excited to show them so much and for them to show me what they notice. Showalter explains something we all know (or learn as new teachers): “everyone who teaches the novel has to reach some compromise between breadth and depth, between history and intensity” (93). Finding that balance is the sweet spot, I think.

There were several great ideas in this chapter regarding teaching fiction. One was by Lisa Berglund who has students spend ten minutes reading eighteenth-century literature by candlelight and then writing by candlelight for ten minutes (93). Nadine Gordimer has students write down what July’s People take with them when they flee and then has the class analyze the themes that emerge from these details. Judith Jackson-Fossett has students identify the roles within Handmaid’s Tale and then explain which role they would choose if they had to (94).

Furthermore, I enjoyed reading Showalter’s objectives and comparing them to my time teaching in England and my current position in Minnesota. Here are her course objectives:

Identify and evaluate the techniques contemporary writers use in their fiction

To locate new works within a historical context and aesthetic tradition

To do close readings of passages from a novel and show their relation to the whole

To analyze (and even imitate) a writer’s style

To compare novels and their adaptations for other media in terms of the narrative conventions of each medium

To form and defend critical judgements about new writing

To analyze the relationship between the business of publishing and the development of fiction in a contemporary context

Finally, I found it interesting how Showalter structures her fiction classes in the same way that fiction is structured: Beginnings, Middles, and Endings. I absolutely love how she has students look at how a range of texts begin and how a range of texts end. I totally want to do that; it’s so good! I’ve always done it with a single text, but I haven’t had students look at, for example, the ending of every major text we read throughout the year. I am going to try to work that into the end of this academic year.

Showalter concludes this chapter by saying, “The afterlife of teaching fiction is the conviction that our courses too are open-ended, cyclical, and that they will begin again, not only with our next semester, but also within the minds of the students who have become devoted readers” (102).

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In this text Walsh shares information about how he structures his course by having, what he calls, a blank survey syllabus. He finds that students get more out of a survey course when he doesn’t choose everything they read. He explains that making students choose some of the texts they study “makes them read, write, and converse better, and it deepens their engagement with literature, and with their own educations.” He adds that it also deepens his own engagement and makes him “read, converse, and teach better” as well (102).

Walsh explains that when considering The Norton Anthology of American Literature 1820-1865, “it is safe to assume that most students read only what they have to, leaving vast stretches of territory untouched” (106). However, when students have to look for a piece to include in the syllabus, they “read independently and actively, browsing in a way they rarely do if the teacher chooses all the readings” (107). When I thought about having students choose, my initial thought was that they will pick works that are short, easy, or ones they already have a pretty good knowledge of. However, Walsh notes that oftentimes it “turns out that the waters they [students] thought were shallow and still are deep and moving” (107). Wow! How true! I have found the same thing when I sit down and prepare to teach texts that I am already familiar with. I find that there is so much more in them than I ever even knew. In his course, each student (or group if classes are large) is responsible for helping to teach whatever text they chose. Similarly to what I have found with myself, Walsh explains how “research has shown that we learn deeply both not only when we actually teach, but also when we prepare to do so. A recent study showed that simply the expectation of teaching ‘enhances learning and organization of knowledge’” (109). As a result, the blank survey course helps deepen students’ investment and learning because of their ability to select texts and teach them to others.

Overall, according to Walsh, it is all about trust. This approach requires that we trust our students with the responsibility of co-creating and co-teaching a course. It also requires that we trust ourselves to tackle texts that we may not be as knowledgeable about. Finally, it requires that we “trust literature’s power to connect to students even before we offer our guidance to them” (112).

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Does anyone else remember doing "simulations" in middle school/Jr high social studies classes? Where you were assigned a historical character in a historical moment and had to act it out? I was on the President's council arguing the US should NOT drop the atomic bombs on Japan. I also, somehow, was a Spanish diplomat in another simulation, arguing the US should NOT enter into the Spanish-American war.

I hated them. Mostly because history had already been written; the decisions had already been made. I was going to "lose" the simulation, or, if I didn't, it felt fake because history had already played it's course.

So, I started this chapter with some hesitancy, until I got into it and realized the creativity, authenticity, and agency that Ferretti illustrates through "Reacting" games. Similar to the middle school simulations, students engage in a game, "set in past historical periods, in which [they] take on the roles of authentic people who lived during those times." Student work is informed, but not dictated by historical texts, and they immerse themselves in the roles of the characters to play out a task, trying to achieve their goal. The main example in the text is trying to convince the Queen's Privy council that Richard III should be licensed over Doctor Faustus. Because this exact argument didn't necessarily take place, students have much more freedom in the game and, Ferretti explains that this kind of Reacting game "does not rely upon the recreation of one historical moment and its time-honored arguments" (92). Instead, the creation is much more of a performance rather than a recitation (Did anyone else recreate the Dred Scott supreme court case that led to the Fugitive Slave Act? Ugh).

In fact, Ferretti writes this really compelling claim: "Students must be willing to shift their conceptualizations of themselves from diligent note-takers to informed action takers" (88). I was so struck by the design of the pedagogy I had dismissed from my middle school experience--because that IS what we want from students ultimately. To move from passive to active creators is crucial to their growth and agency.

The chapter obviously focuses on older students, and also describes some of the challenges to doing this kind of game-play, but something I definitely connected to as a teacher of younger students is that Ferretti says that "students begin to encourage each other in the game, and their collective success as a group sparks more energy and success" (95). I just love that kind of positive energy, and a frequent saying in my classroom is "invest in each other's success!" and while I don't necessarily see a game happening in my classes anytime soon....I'm curious to learn more and see if there are examples out there to go with the texts I teach.

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Reader Response for Critical Readers (Jaci)

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Reader Response for Critical Readers (Jaci)

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This NCTE article pairs well with the "Blank Survey Syllabus" that Jennifer wrote about. I think, if anyone hadn't read both and needed to pick, the "Blank Survey" is probably a stronger article, but, as a person who does and loves reader response, both as a student and teacher, the Tucker piece is quite affirming.

First, because it's about RR, you'd hope that Louise Rosenblatt would show up, and she DID, bless her heart :) Tucker quotes Rosenblatt saying, "a poem is
what the reader lives through under the
guidance of the text and experiences as
relevant to the text” (qtd. in Murfin 253). Classic Louise.

Besides valuing the experiential and personal aspects of literature, something I appreciate about Tucker's article is that she  really illustrates how Reader Response activities can get students more active in working with, playing with, and interacting with texts, not dissimilar to the Ferretti chapter in Dujardin. Tucker also argues that RR communicates to students that they ARE critical readers whose perspective and observations matter. I think that's one of the most significant hang-ups I encounter with trying to get students to be brave in their INTERPRETATIONS of a text is that they should look to an "expert," whether me or a professional source to give the meaning of a text, completely forgetting that they are experts the moment they read because no one else reads exactly what/how they do.

The activities given as examples in the article are quite high-school friendly, and, I would guess, most of us have done either as teachers or students. So, while not "new" information, seeing it all laid out like this was reassuring and helps remind us of why we do what we do when we ask students to reflect, react, engage, and create based on their personal readings.