Media and Adaptation: Moving From Medium to Medium without Getting Hurt
| Author: | Nathan Phillips |
|---|---|
| Summary: | Much has been written about using film in English classrooms, and English teachers seem to belong to one of two camps when it comes to the pedagogical value of film. One camp argues for keeping students away from the invasive media that keeps students from reading. The other camp is inherently drawn to the possibilities of pairing film and print texts. Teachers in the second camp recognize that students are much more willing readers of film than they are of written texts, if only because they have so much more practice and familiarity with film texts. And because fictional films offer many similarities to fictional print texts—narrative, characters, metaphors, symbolism, themes, setting, and point of view for example—these teachers hope that viewing might motivate students to learn these important concepts. In this unit, I side with the second camp, believing that a study of adaptations can even make students more interested in reading. Recognizing that English teachers who do use film in their classrooms have the very best intentions—certainly they don’t use it to take up time when they’re unprepared or use it as a reward for good behavior—they still so often turn to this: showing, in its entirety, the film version of a novel or short story that the class has studied together. When it comes to using film in English classrooms, there is, perhaps, not a more common practice and certainly not a more useless one (at least as it is usually done without any effort to “read” the film text as carefully as the print text). Alan Teasley and Ann Wilder, in their seminal book on reading film with young adults, conclude that even teachers who assign students to compare and contrast the film and novel (either in discussion or writing) engage in poor practice, because such comparisons usually boil down to simplistic variations on a relatively few points: (1) “the filmmakers left stuff out” (yes, usually lots of characters and whole subplots have to go in order to whittle the novel down to two hours); (2) “they simplified complex material for the mass audience” (yes, literature is much better at conveying nuances and complexities—especially of characters’ unexpressed thoughts and feelings); (3) “they toned down the controversial material” (as in the near absence of lesbianism in Spielberg’s version of The Color Purple); or (4) “the actors weren’t how we pictured the characters” (perhaps Demi Moore was not our first choice for Hester Prynne). (134) What Teasley and Wilder make clear is that even teachers with the very best intentions go wrong when it comes to using film and literature together. And this isn’t hard to understand. Even film critics and theorists are stuck on the idea of fidelity as centrally important in studying adaptations—that is, Is the film “true” to its source text? As Brian McFarlane, in Novel to Film, writes, “At every level from newspaper reviews to longer essays in critical anthologies and journals, the adducing of fidelity to the original novel as a major criterion for judging the film adaptation is pervasive” (8). McFarlane goes on to suggest that a critical (and I would add pedagogical) focus on fidelity analysis needs to be reexamined. However, McFarlane makes clear that adaptation study shouldn’t be abandoned all together: Given the prevalence of the process, and given that interpretations and memories of the source novel are powerful determining elements in the film’s intertextuality, there is little value in merely saying that the film should stand autonomously. So it should, but it is also valuable to consider the kinds of transmutation that have taken place, to distinguish what the filmmaker has sought to retrain from the original and the kinds of use to which he has put it. (23) Therefore, just because it isn’t easy to pair film and literature together (and learn from the process) doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. In fact, it is vital for students, saturated by media, to learn how to effectively negotiate their way. One key to learning to make their way through pervasive media is recognizing the unique qualities and attributes of each different medium. A study of adaptation is an ideal way to uncover these qualities. Also, connecting film and other media to literature can lead students to discover and become excited about print texts in ways they otherwise might not. This unit aims to provide teachers who desire to use non-print texts in their English classrooms with a way to do that meaningfully. Specifically, the unit is focused on possible methods for students and teachers to work with and learn from and about adaptations, which we’ll define as texts “that arise when a given source text is employed in different media or in different genres” (Buckingham 77). The unit will not only focus on adaptations from print text to film (certainly the most common kind of adaptation for English teachers), but also adaptations involving many other media: newspaper, radio, television, web sites, video games, etc. Because this unit includes multiple media (and not just text-to-film adaptations), I hope teachers of all content areas and grades can find useful material here for their classrooms, though the lessons will apply perhaps most naturally to secondary English/Language Arts teachers. I recognize individual lesson plans may not be valuable to every teacher, so I’ve tried to be flexible in the creation of the plans so that teachers can at least utilize the principles and concepts, adapting the plans to students of various ages and in various content area classrooms. Also, because of their schedule and circumstances, teachers will obviously need to adapt and may want to include their own resources and material in addition to what is suggested here. For example, I teach on a block schedule (with 85 minute periods), so I would have to combine these lesson plans and use them over three or four days instead of seven. Additionally, my lesson plans can only come out of my experience teaching. Therefore, you should know that I teach 10-12 graders at a suburban high school in Utah. What works for me may not work for you, but I hope at least some of it will be valuable. Finally, I’d love any feedback if you use any of this material. |
| Subject: | |
| Objective: | Students will be able to work with and learn from and about adaptations, which we’ll define as texts “that arise when a given source text is employed in different media or in different genres” (Buckingham 77). |
| Main Concepts: | Adaptations: The unit will not only focus on adaptations from print text to film (certainly the most common kind of adaptation for English teachers), but also adaptations involving many other media: newspaper, radio, television, web sites, video games, etc. |
| Curricular Goals: | This unit aims to provide teachers who desire to use non-print texts in their English classrooms with a way to do that meaningfully. Specifically, the unit is focused on possible methods for students and teachers to work with and learn from and about adaptations. |
Lesson Plans
Day 1: Introduction to Adaptations: Different Doesn’t Mean Bad
Students will be introduced to adaptations via Matt Madden’s book 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style. They will start to create adaptations in various media as a way to understand the difference among media and to recognize that each medium stands as “a work of art in its own right.”
Day 2: Translation: Finding the Right Words to Work with Adaptations
Students will create self-chosen lists of terminology for the media they are focusing on during the unit. Ideas for choosing and remembering terminology are included here.
Day 3: What I Do Best: Discovering the Strengths and Effects on Audience of Various Media
By “annotating” a chosen medium (utilizing a handout included in the lesson plan), students will discover the unique attributes of that medium. The class will also develop three categories for discussing various media.
Day 4: Doing Business with Adaptations A: Why so many Adaptations? and the Economics of Adaptations
Students will begin to investigate the economic factors associated with the production of adaptations. They will consider the large volume of media productions based no adaptations and prepare to compete in “Film Producer’s Apprentice,” by working with a group to create a marketing plan and an adaptation for their classmates.
Day 5: Doing Business with Adaptations B: Why so many Adaptations? and the Economics of Adaptations
In the completion of the two lessons focusing on the economic factors at play with the creation of adaptations, students will present their marketing plans and adaptation ideas to a group of judges in the “Film Producer’s Apprentice” game. This exercise, and the debriefing afterward, will help students to understand these economic factors.
Day 6: Textual and Contextual Analysis: Much More than Just “What’s different? What’s the Same?”
Moving beyond simple fidelity analysis, students will learn to consider not only the texts when analyzing an adaptation and its source text, but also the context within which each was created. Completing this more comprehensive analysis is important to understanding the complexity of adaptations.
Day 7: Back and Forth: There’s More than One Way to Make an Adaptation, or There’re More than One-Way Adaptations
By looking at Walter Dean Myers’s novel Monster and considering other various source texts and adaptations, students will become familiar with the complex way that adaptations relate to their source texts. Students will create a map from a source text to its various adaptations. Finally, the final project, a student-created adaptation is included in this lesson.
Projects
Adaptation Creation
Students will create an adaptation of a given source text.
Author's Notes:
Below is an annotated bibliography that includes all of the sources I cite in these lessons:
Adaptation Unit Annotated Bibliography
Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1993.
The film Smoke Signals was adapted from Alexie’s book of short stories. The book is a poetic portrait of American Indian life, and the film visually captures that same poetry. Because of its portrayal of American Indian culture and because it was adapted, the book works well in the text/context analysis.
American McGee’s Alice. Video Game. Electronic Arts.
Adapted from Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, video game creator American McGee gives a dark, twisted, and decidedly adult spin on the Alice stories. This older Alice is stuck in an insane asylum and must work to get out by revisiting Wonderland. The source text and this adaptation would work ideally for the media adaptation map from the last lesson.
Anderson, Laurie Halse. Speak. New York: Puffin-Penguin, 1999.
Anderson’s novel was an award winner, and it has also met with great audience reception. The novel tackles the difficult subject of the effects of rape, but does so in a careful way and through a unique narrator who has a hard time speaking. Because so much of the book takes place in the narrator’s head, the film is a great example of an adaptation and would work well for the text and context analysis.
Baum, L. Frank. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. 1900. New York: Oxford UP, 1997.
Baum’s original novel is at once fresh and familiar. Despite the success of later adaptations, the source text still shines and is worth reading. This book is a great one to utilize in the last lesson of the unit, because it has been adapted numerous times into many media.
Bluestone, George. Novels into Film. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1957.
Novels into Film is considered the seminal work on adaptation theory, and Bluestone is still cited today in any discussion of adaptations. The book is useful as a background for teachers. Bluestone includes a theoretical foundation and six case studies.
Boggs, Joseph M. and Dennis W. Petrie. The Art of Watching Films. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004.
One of several introductions to film studies intended for undergraduates included on this list, this book is excellent background material for teachers. Of all the film studies textbooks included on this list, this one has by far the most comprehensive section on adaptations. The information in the adaptation section is useful and worth covering with students. It includes information on the problems with adapting including point of view.
Bordwell, David and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.
In this introduction to film studies text, Bordwell and Thompson dig deep into film as an art form with suggested ways to view, understand, and evaluate films. Like the other textbooks, this is a good resource and includes a vocabulary list that might be helpful during the second lesson.
Buckingham, David. Media Education: Literacy, Learning and Contemporary Culture. Malden, MA: Polity, 2003.
Buckingham’s book offers both theoretical and practical information for teaching media in schools. The strategies included in the book are used throughout this unit, and the theory makes for excellent background information for all teachers of media. Buckingham, even though he has a vendetta against English teachers, offers reasonable and helpful ideas and concepts from his years spent studying and teaching media.
Burkam, Anita L. “Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle.” The Horn Book Magazine 81.5 (Sept./Oct. 2005): 553-557.
Burkam’s essay is an excellent example, for the most part, of the text/context analysis. Before assigning this essay to your students, reading Burkam would be wise. Her essay is not a perfect example of text/context, because she focuses quite a bit on fidelity, but it does show that contextual analysis can change our perception of certain texts. Burkam accomplishes this specifically by focusing on Miyazaki’s anime adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’s original (and British) novel.
Carroll, Lewis. Alice in Wonderland. 1865. New York: Scholastic, 2001.
Carroll’s classic children’s story of Alice’s adventures in Wonderland (a place she finds after following a white rabbit down a hole) has been adapted for film and television many times, but receives perhaps its most daring adaptation in American McGee’s Alice. In the final lesson, Carroll’s story would work very well for the media adaptation map.
Corrigan, Timothy. Film and Literature: An Introduction and Reader. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999.
Corrigan’s reader includes essays that are intended for a university audience. However, there are a couple that are referred to in the lesson plans because they have information that would be useful for teachers. Corrigan draws from a wide variety of scholars over a long period of time, so this book is an excellent overview of film and literature study.
Costanzo, William V. Great Films and How to Teach Them. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2004.
This is what Costanzo calls the sequel to his 1992 Reading the Movies. The book, intended for secondary English teachers, offers an excellent theoretical background followed by case studies. The maturity of the theoretical information is refreshing. This is an excellent resource for all teachers of film.
Cutchins, Dennis. “Adaptations in the Classroom: Using Film to ‘Read’ The Great Gatsby.” Literature/Film Quarterly 31.4 (2003): 295-303.
Dennis Cutchins first suggested to me a need for more materials on using adaptations in the classroom. This article offers one method for using adaptations. Cutchins suggests using a film version of Great Gatsby to uncover the unique properties of good literature exemplified in Fitzgerald’s novel. See the lesson on other connections for more on this.
Epstein, Edward Jay. The New Logic of Money and Power in Hollywood. New York: Random House, 2005.
Epstein’s book chronicles the economic picture of Hollywood today and debunks the myth of movies making huge profits from their box office numbers. This book will give teachers an excellent insight into the economics of film production and the ways that the market affects the creation of adaptations. The first chapter of Epstein’s book can be read at his web site: http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/prologue.htm.
Epstein, Edward Jay. “The End of Originality: Or, Why Michael Bay’s The Island failed at the Box Office.” Slate.com 6 Feb. 2006. 10 May 2006
Epstein, who writes a semi-regular column for Slate.com called “The Hollywood Economist” (archives available at http://www.slate.com/?id=2077581&qp=42994) and wrote The Big Picture: The New Logic of Money and Power in Hollywood offers insight into the economics controlling the movie industry. This article is an excellent one for students to read (see Lesson 4), and Epstein’s Slate.com column also offers a great deal of helpful background information for teachers.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. 1925. New York: Scribner’s, 1991.
There have been several adaptations of this classic novel. Because of its literary merit, it makes for a great film-text pair for text and context analysis. Dennis Cutchins (see above) suggests that a film version can help uncover the literary secrets locked in the novel.
Frankenstein. Dir. James Whale. Perf. Colin Clive, Mae Clark, and Boris Karloff. DVD. Universal Studios, 1931.
Whale’s film, though not the first adaptation of Shelley’s novel, has certainly had the most lasting effect on our perceptions and assumptions about “Frankenstein.” The film is interesting to study because of this dissonance between film and print text and the context out of which each was created.
Giannetti, Louis. Understanding Movies. 9th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002.
Like the Boggs and Petrie book and the Thompson and Bordwell book, Giannetti aims to give readers a solid foundation in beginning film studies. As a background source for teachers, these books are invaluable resources. Students, however, will probably not be able to digest this book (particularly if given large reading assignments).
Golden, John. Reading in the Dark: Using Film as a Tool in the English Classroom. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2001.
John Golden’s book is the most recent film text published by NCTE specifically for English teachers. Golden is witty and insightful, and he offers not only general strategies for using films in English classrooms, but specific films that will work well. His thesis, that films require reading in the same way that print texts do is an important one for English teachers to understand when using film or any other media in the classroom.
The Great Gatsby. Dir. Jack Clayton. Perf. Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Bruce Dern, and Sam Waterston. Adapted by Francis Ford Coppola. Paramount Pictures, 1974.
In a 2003 article (see above), Dennis Cutchins suggests using this film as a means of uncovering the literary aspects of Fitzgerald’s novel. The film versions of Great Gatsby have all been box office and critical flops. An analysis of the text and context of these adaptations would prove very beneficial. Perhaps some advanced students could be urged toward this novel and film.
Hade, Daniel D. “Curious George Gets Branded: Reading as Consuming.” Theory Into Practice 40.3 (Summer 2001): 158-165.
This article and the next one on the list are companion pieces to what the students are learning in the last lesson about the interplay of source texts and adaptations. Hade claims that with only a few large companies controlling book publishing and other media, reading and books have been turned into commodities like anything else.
Hade, Daniel. “Storyselling: Are Publishers Changing the Way Children Read?” The Horn Book Magazine 78.5 (Sept./Oct. 2002): 509-517.
See above.
Howl’s Moving Castle. Dir. Hayao Miyazaki. Buena Vista, 2004.
Miyazaki’s adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’s novel is an excellent film for the text/context analysis. See Anita Burkam’s Horn Book review as an example of contextual analysis that makes for interesting study and discussion—in particular, because Miyazaki’s film is a Japanese anime adaptation of a British novel created almost twenty years after the source. Also, Miyazaki’s films will not have been seen by most students (although Miyazaki is a cultural icon in Japan and an Academy award winner in the United States), which always makes for more interesting in-class viewing.
Ihimaera, Witi. The Whale Rider. Orlando: Harcourt, 1987.
Ihimaera’s novel inspired the 2002 film that debuted at Sundance. The novel is a good pairing for the book-film text and context lesson, because it is short and features an adolescent protagonist. Also interesting is the way the whales are depicted in the novel. Comparing the depiction of the whales in book and film would be a good way to show the strengths of film and print texts in the third lesson.
Jones, Diana Wynne. Howl’s Moving Castle. New York: Greenwillow-HarperCollins, 1986.
Diana Wynne Jones’s reputation as a superb fantasy writer for children and adolescents is well established. She didn’t need a film version of this novel to extend that reputation. However, it probably did just that. More important for us, however, than becoming familiar with the novel is analyzing it in the text/context analysis when paired with Miyazaki’s film. Also, see Anita Burkam’s Horn Book essay about the two.
Lara Croft Tomb Raider. Video Game. Eidos Interactive.
This video game, featuring a sexy adventurer in search of ancient artifacts, fits into our study of adaptations, because it has been adapted into a film (with Angelina Jolie as the title character). The game could be used in the final lesson of the unit where students map media adaptations.
Madden, Matt. 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style. New York: Chamberlain, 2005.
Madden takes his inspiration from Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style, in which Queneau relates the same narrative ninety-nine times, each time in a different style or genre. Madden does the same thing, only his tellings are all visual—specifically, they are comics. This text works wonderfully as an example of adaptation, because it retells the same narrative, but it also offers an excellent look at the unique attributes of various genres. Additionally, the book is just plain fun to read.
Maguire, Gregory. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. New York: ReganBooks-HarperCollins, 1995.
Maguire’s book takes us back to Oz, only this time there’s a back story to explain the behavior of the Wicked Witch of the West. This adaptation of Baum’s novel was turned into a successful Broadway musical, and the layers of adaptations starting with Baum’s original story make for interesting study in the last lesson.
McFarlane, Brian. Novel to Film: An Introduction to the Theory of Adaptation. Oxford: Clarendon, 1996.
McFarlane’s book briefly outlines previous work in the theory of adaptation, then moves to suggest that adaptation theory must move away from fidelity analysis to a more complex examination of the interplay between film and source text. McFarlane believes this can be done more scientifically than it has been done previously. After this brief introduction, McFarlane includes five case studies in depth.
McQuade, Donald and Christine McQuade. Seeing & Writing 2. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003.
This undergraduate composition text aims to use students’ familiarity with visual culture to improve their reading and writing of many other kinds of texts. It is a fabulous resource full of many visual and verbal examples that will apply to students and help them to become better readers and writers. For the purposes of this unit, Appendix B: “On Reading Visual and Verbal Texts” is particularly useful. It is filled with reading guides for texts ranging from an image or an advertisement to a short story or an essay.
Muller, Valerie. “Film as Film: Using Movies to Help Students Visualize Literary Theory.” English Journal 95.3 (2006): 32-38.
Like other resources listed here, Muller claims that films should be read as seriously as any print text. This is obviously a critical framework of my unit. She suggests specifically that films can teach students literary theory. See the lesson plan on other connections for the possibility of doing this. Additionally, Muller includes a good resource for film terminology.
Myers, Walter Dean. Monster. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.
Myers’s novel is one of the very best examples of a text influenced by film. Though not an adaptation exactly (the story comes originally from this novel), the book exhibits the kinds of influences back and forth discussed in the unit. The novel is written alternately as journal entries and a film script by the sixteen-year-old protagonist, Steve Harmon, who is on trial for felony murder.
Naremore, James, ed. Film Adaptation. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2000.
Naremore’s collection of essays dealing with the current state of adaptation theory is good background material for teachers. However, if teachers don’t have time to read the whole book, the introduction offers an excellent state of affairs and also points to questions that have yet to be answered and work that has yet to be done. Naremore’s ideas are central theoretical grounding for my unit.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Dir. Gore Virbinski. Perf. Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley. Walt Disney, 2003.
This film, based on a Disney ride, and for which Johnny Depp was nominated for an Academy Award, is an excellent film to map on the media adaptations map. Because it’s adapted from a ride, it makes for good discussion when the maps are created and distributed.
Sebranek, Patrick, Verne Meyer, and Dave Kemper. Writers Inc. Wilmington, MA: Great Source, 2000.
Writers Inc is a fabulous resource for high school teachers hoping to improve student writing and make the writing process easy to understand. The book is written in student-friendly language, and it is meant to be used by students while they are writing. For the text/context analysis, this book’s information on writing analysis might be very helpful.
Seger, Linda. The Art of Adaptation: Turning Fact and Fiction into Film: How to Transform Novels, Plays, and True-Life Stories into Screenplays. New York: Holt, 1992.
I haven’t used Seger’s book for its intended purpose, but it looks like an interesting how-to for any writer interested in adapting a source text to the big screen. What I have used Seger for is her statistics about the business aspects of adaptations. The list of Academy Award winners and the source for their screenplays is illuminating (see Lesson 4 for a way to use this list).
Seussical: The Musical. Composed Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. Decca, 2001.
In this musical based on Dr. Seuss’s books, the Cat in the Hat comes alive to narrate a story involving some of Seuss’s most beloved characters. As an adaptation that combines many works into a new medium, this is an excellent site for investigating the complex relationship of source text and adaptations (see Lesson 7).
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. New York: Penguin Classics, 2003.
Shelley’s novel is ideal for adaptation study, especially because so many version for stage and screen have been adapted from this classic gothic novel. The novel is also interesting to read and compare its depiction of the monster to the modern-day assumptions about “Frankenstein.” The text and context are rich with material for adaptation study.
Smoke Signals. Dir. Chris Eyre. Perf. Adam Beach, Evan Adams, Irene Bedard, Gary Farmer, and Tantoo Cardinal. Screenplay Sherman Alexie. DVD. Miramax, 1998.
The screenplay for this adaptation of Sherman Alexie’s short story was written by Alexie himself, and it was the first film written, produced, and directed by Native Americans. Because it’s based on a short story and includes a culture that likely won’t be familiar to most students, this would work well for the text/context analysis.
Speak. Dir. Jessica Sharzer. Perf. Kristen Stewart. DVD. Showtime, 2004.
Sharzer’s fabulous adaptation of Laurie Halse Anderson’s gripping debut novel works well as a film-text pair in the textual and contextual analysis lesson. This film is particularly useful, because most students will not have read it and it is based on an award-winning young adult novel.
Teasley, Alan B. and Ann Wilder. Reel Conversations: Reading Films with Young Adults. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1997.
Reel Conversations is the seminal text in young adult film studies. Teasley and Wilder are cited in nearly every article on the subject, and their hesitation to pair film and text for the sole purpose of watching the film version of a novel is a major theoretical framework for this unit. Teasley and Wilder offer suggestions for using film across the curriculum, and this book is a mandatory resource for any teacher dealing with film in his or her classroom.
Thompson, Kristin. “‘Novel, Short Story, Drama: The Conditions for Influence’ from The Classical Hollywood Cinema.” Film and Literature: An Introduction and Reader. Ed. Timothy Corrigan. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999. 255-261.
This excerpt from The Classical Hollywood Cinema, included here in a shortened version, is ideal background material for teachers to be familiar with during the business and adaptation lesson plan. The article points out the back-and-forth influence of films and literature throughout history.
Whale Rider. Dir. Niki Caro. Perf. Keisha Castle-Hughes, Rawiri Paratene, Vicky Haughton, and Cliff Curtis. DVD. Columbia TriStar, 2002.
New Zealand director Niki Caro’s adaptation of Witi Ihimaera’s short novel deservedly garnered many awards and nominations. Students will connect to this film because of its adolescent protagonist, and the short source text makes for a nice choice in a film-text pair (see textual and contextual analysis lesson).
Wicked: 2003 Original Broadway Cast. Composed Stephen Schwartz. Perf. Kristin Chenoweth, Idina Menzel, and Wicked: A Musical Pit Orchestra. Cond. Alex Lacamoire and Stephen Oremus. Decca, 2003.
Adapted from Maguire’s book by the same name, this hit musical gives the back story of Glinda (the Good Witch) and Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) before Dorothy came on the scene in Oz. The last lesson offers a way to investigate the multiple adaptations at play with the Wizard of Oz story.
The Wizard of Oz. Dir. Victor Fleming. Perf. Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Billie Burke, and Margaret Hamilton. DVD. MGM, 1939.
The original film version of L. Frank Baum’s novel is a classic and one that students will have seen. However, they probably will not have read the source text nor seen the musical. There are, of course, many other adaptations of Baum’s story (animated television shows, other films, other books, etc.), and this is only one that would be interesting to investigate in terms of the complex relationship of adaptations and source text (see Lesson 7).
Adaptation Unit Annotated Bibliography
Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1993.
The film Smoke Signals was adapted from Alexie’s book of short stories. The book is a poetic portrait of American Indian life, and the film visually captures that same poetry. Because of its portrayal of American Indian culture and because it was adapted, the book works well in the text/context analysis.
American McGee’s Alice. Video Game. Electronic Arts.
Adapted from Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, video game creator American McGee gives a dark, twisted, and decidedly adult spin on the Alice stories. This older Alice is stuck in an insane asylum and must work to get out by revisiting Wonderland. The source text and this adaptation would work ideally for the media adaptation map from the last lesson.
Anderson, Laurie Halse. Speak. New York: Puffin-Penguin, 1999.
Anderson’s novel was an award winner, and it has also met with great audience reception. The novel tackles the difficult subject of the effects of rape, but does so in a careful way and through a unique narrator who has a hard time speaking. Because so much of the book takes place in the narrator’s head, the film is a great example of an adaptation and would work well for the text and context analysis.
Baum, L. Frank. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. 1900. New York: Oxford UP, 1997.
Baum’s original novel is at once fresh and familiar. Despite the success of later adaptations, the source text still shines and is worth reading. This book is a great one to utilize in the last lesson of the unit, because it has been adapted numerous times into many media.
Bluestone, George. Novels into Film. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1957.
Novels into Film is considered the seminal work on adaptation theory, and Bluestone is still cited today in any discussion of adaptations. The book is useful as a background for teachers. Bluestone includes a theoretical foundation and six case studies.
Boggs, Joseph M. and Dennis W. Petrie. The Art of Watching Films. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004.
One of several introductions to film studies intended for undergraduates included on this list, this book is excellent background material for teachers. Of all the film studies textbooks included on this list, this one has by far the most comprehensive section on adaptations. The information in the adaptation section is useful and worth covering with students. It includes information on the problems with adapting including point of view.
Bordwell, David and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.
In this introduction to film studies text, Bordwell and Thompson dig deep into film as an art form with suggested ways to view, understand, and evaluate films. Like the other textbooks, this is a good resource and includes a vocabulary list that might be helpful during the second lesson.
Buckingham, David. Media Education: Literacy, Learning and Contemporary Culture. Malden, MA: Polity, 2003.
Buckingham’s book offers both theoretical and practical information for teaching media in schools. The strategies included in the book are used throughout this unit, and the theory makes for excellent background information for all teachers of media. Buckingham, even though he has a vendetta against English teachers, offers reasonable and helpful ideas and concepts from his years spent studying and teaching media.
Burkam, Anita L. “Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle.” The Horn Book Magazine 81.5 (Sept./Oct. 2005): 553-557.
Burkam’s essay is an excellent example, for the most part, of the text/context analysis. Before assigning this essay to your students, reading Burkam would be wise. Her essay is not a perfect example of text/context, because she focuses quite a bit on fidelity, but it does show that contextual analysis can change our perception of certain texts. Burkam accomplishes this specifically by focusing on Miyazaki’s anime adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’s original (and British) novel.
Carroll, Lewis. Alice in Wonderland. 1865. New York: Scholastic, 2001.
Carroll’s classic children’s story of Alice’s adventures in Wonderland (a place she finds after following a white rabbit down a hole) has been adapted for film and television many times, but receives perhaps its most daring adaptation in American McGee’s Alice. In the final lesson, Carroll’s story would work very well for the media adaptation map.
Corrigan, Timothy. Film and Literature: An Introduction and Reader. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999.
Corrigan’s reader includes essays that are intended for a university audience. However, there are a couple that are referred to in the lesson plans because they have information that would be useful for teachers. Corrigan draws from a wide variety of scholars over a long period of time, so this book is an excellent overview of film and literature study.
Costanzo, William V. Great Films and How to Teach Them. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2004.
This is what Costanzo calls the sequel to his 1992 Reading the Movies. The book, intended for secondary English teachers, offers an excellent theoretical background followed by case studies. The maturity of the theoretical information is refreshing. This is an excellent resource for all teachers of film.
Cutchins, Dennis. “Adaptations in the Classroom: Using Film to ‘Read’ The Great Gatsby.” Literature/Film Quarterly 31.4 (2003): 295-303.
Dennis Cutchins first suggested to me a need for more materials on using adaptations in the classroom. This article offers one method for using adaptations. Cutchins suggests using a film version of Great Gatsby to uncover the unique properties of good literature exemplified in Fitzgerald’s novel. See the lesson on other connections for more on this.
Epstein, Edward Jay. The New Logic of Money and Power in Hollywood. New York: Random House, 2005.
Epstein’s book chronicles the economic picture of Hollywood today and debunks the myth of movies making huge profits from their box office numbers. This book will give teachers an excellent insight into the economics of film production and the ways that the market affects the creation of adaptations. The first chapter of Epstein’s book can be read at his web site: http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/prologue.htm.
Epstein, Edward Jay. “The End of Originality: Or, Why Michael Bay’s The Island failed at the Box Office.” Slate.com 6 Feb. 2006. 10 May 2006
Epstein, who writes a semi-regular column for Slate.com called “The Hollywood Economist” (archives available at http://www.slate.com/?id=2077581&qp=42994) and wrote The Big Picture: The New Logic of Money and Power in Hollywood offers insight into the economics controlling the movie industry. This article is an excellent one for students to read (see Lesson 4), and Epstein’s Slate.com column also offers a great deal of helpful background information for teachers.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. 1925. New York: Scribner’s, 1991.
There have been several adaptations of this classic novel. Because of its literary merit, it makes for a great film-text pair for text and context analysis. Dennis Cutchins (see above) suggests that a film version can help uncover the literary secrets locked in the novel.
Frankenstein. Dir. James Whale. Perf. Colin Clive, Mae Clark, and Boris Karloff. DVD. Universal Studios, 1931.
Whale’s film, though not the first adaptation of Shelley’s novel, has certainly had the most lasting effect on our perceptions and assumptions about “Frankenstein.” The film is interesting to study because of this dissonance between film and print text and the context out of which each was created.
Giannetti, Louis. Understanding Movies. 9th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002.
Like the Boggs and Petrie book and the Thompson and Bordwell book, Giannetti aims to give readers a solid foundation in beginning film studies. As a background source for teachers, these books are invaluable resources. Students, however, will probably not be able to digest this book (particularly if given large reading assignments).
Golden, John. Reading in the Dark: Using Film as a Tool in the English Classroom. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2001.
John Golden’s book is the most recent film text published by NCTE specifically for English teachers. Golden is witty and insightful, and he offers not only general strategies for using films in English classrooms, but specific films that will work well. His thesis, that films require reading in the same way that print texts do is an important one for English teachers to understand when using film or any other media in the classroom.
The Great Gatsby. Dir. Jack Clayton. Perf. Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Bruce Dern, and Sam Waterston. Adapted by Francis Ford Coppola. Paramount Pictures, 1974.
In a 2003 article (see above), Dennis Cutchins suggests using this film as a means of uncovering the literary aspects of Fitzgerald’s novel. The film versions of Great Gatsby have all been box office and critical flops. An analysis of the text and context of these adaptations would prove very beneficial. Perhaps some advanced students could be urged toward this novel and film.
Hade, Daniel D. “Curious George Gets Branded: Reading as Consuming.” Theory Into Practice 40.3 (Summer 2001): 158-165.
This article and the next one on the list are companion pieces to what the students are learning in the last lesson about the interplay of source texts and adaptations. Hade claims that with only a few large companies controlling book publishing and other media, reading and books have been turned into commodities like anything else.
Hade, Daniel. “Storyselling: Are Publishers Changing the Way Children Read?” The Horn Book Magazine 78.5 (Sept./Oct. 2002): 509-517.
See above.
Howl’s Moving Castle. Dir. Hayao Miyazaki. Buena Vista, 2004.
Miyazaki’s adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’s novel is an excellent film for the text/context analysis. See Anita Burkam’s Horn Book review as an example of contextual analysis that makes for interesting study and discussion—in particular, because Miyazaki’s film is a Japanese anime adaptation of a British novel created almost twenty years after the source. Also, Miyazaki’s films will not have been seen by most students (although Miyazaki is a cultural icon in Japan and an Academy award winner in the United States), which always makes for more interesting in-class viewing.
Ihimaera, Witi. The Whale Rider. Orlando: Harcourt, 1987.
Ihimaera’s novel inspired the 2002 film that debuted at Sundance. The novel is a good pairing for the book-film text and context lesson, because it is short and features an adolescent protagonist. Also interesting is the way the whales are depicted in the novel. Comparing the depiction of the whales in book and film would be a good way to show the strengths of film and print texts in the third lesson.
Jones, Diana Wynne. Howl’s Moving Castle. New York: Greenwillow-HarperCollins, 1986.
Diana Wynne Jones’s reputation as a superb fantasy writer for children and adolescents is well established. She didn’t need a film version of this novel to extend that reputation. However, it probably did just that. More important for us, however, than becoming familiar with the novel is analyzing it in the text/context analysis when paired with Miyazaki’s film. Also, see Anita Burkam’s Horn Book essay about the two.
Lara Croft Tomb Raider. Video Game. Eidos Interactive.
This video game, featuring a sexy adventurer in search of ancient artifacts, fits into our study of adaptations, because it has been adapted into a film (with Angelina Jolie as the title character). The game could be used in the final lesson of the unit where students map media adaptations.
Madden, Matt. 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style. New York: Chamberlain, 2005.
Madden takes his inspiration from Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style, in which Queneau relates the same narrative ninety-nine times, each time in a different style or genre. Madden does the same thing, only his tellings are all visual—specifically, they are comics. This text works wonderfully as an example of adaptation, because it retells the same narrative, but it also offers an excellent look at the unique attributes of various genres. Additionally, the book is just plain fun to read.
Maguire, Gregory. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. New York: ReganBooks-HarperCollins, 1995.
Maguire’s book takes us back to Oz, only this time there’s a back story to explain the behavior of the Wicked Witch of the West. This adaptation of Baum’s novel was turned into a successful Broadway musical, and the layers of adaptations starting with Baum’s original story make for interesting study in the last lesson.
McFarlane, Brian. Novel to Film: An Introduction to the Theory of Adaptation. Oxford: Clarendon, 1996.
McFarlane’s book briefly outlines previous work in the theory of adaptation, then moves to suggest that adaptation theory must move away from fidelity analysis to a more complex examination of the interplay between film and source text. McFarlane believes this can be done more scientifically than it has been done previously. After this brief introduction, McFarlane includes five case studies in depth.
McQuade, Donald and Christine McQuade. Seeing & Writing 2. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003.
This undergraduate composition text aims to use students’ familiarity with visual culture to improve their reading and writing of many other kinds of texts. It is a fabulous resource full of many visual and verbal examples that will apply to students and help them to become better readers and writers. For the purposes of this unit, Appendix B: “On Reading Visual and Verbal Texts” is particularly useful. It is filled with reading guides for texts ranging from an image or an advertisement to a short story or an essay.
Muller, Valerie. “Film as Film: Using Movies to Help Students Visualize Literary Theory.” English Journal 95.3 (2006): 32-38.
Like other resources listed here, Muller claims that films should be read as seriously as any print text. This is obviously a critical framework of my unit. She suggests specifically that films can teach students literary theory. See the lesson plan on other connections for the possibility of doing this. Additionally, Muller includes a good resource for film terminology.
Myers, Walter Dean. Monster. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.
Myers’s novel is one of the very best examples of a text influenced by film. Though not an adaptation exactly (the story comes originally from this novel), the book exhibits the kinds of influences back and forth discussed in the unit. The novel is written alternately as journal entries and a film script by the sixteen-year-old protagonist, Steve Harmon, who is on trial for felony murder.
Naremore, James, ed. Film Adaptation. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2000.
Naremore’s collection of essays dealing with the current state of adaptation theory is good background material for teachers. However, if teachers don’t have time to read the whole book, the introduction offers an excellent state of affairs and also points to questions that have yet to be answered and work that has yet to be done. Naremore’s ideas are central theoretical grounding for my unit.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Dir. Gore Virbinski. Perf. Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley. Walt Disney, 2003.
This film, based on a Disney ride, and for which Johnny Depp was nominated for an Academy Award, is an excellent film to map on the media adaptations map. Because it’s adapted from a ride, it makes for good discussion when the maps are created and distributed.
Sebranek, Patrick, Verne Meyer, and Dave Kemper. Writers Inc. Wilmington, MA: Great Source, 2000.
Writers Inc is a fabulous resource for high school teachers hoping to improve student writing and make the writing process easy to understand. The book is written in student-friendly language, and it is meant to be used by students while they are writing. For the text/context analysis, this book’s information on writing analysis might be very helpful.
Seger, Linda. The Art of Adaptation: Turning Fact and Fiction into Film: How to Transform Novels, Plays, and True-Life Stories into Screenplays. New York: Holt, 1992.
I haven’t used Seger’s book for its intended purpose, but it looks like an interesting how-to for any writer interested in adapting a source text to the big screen. What I have used Seger for is her statistics about the business aspects of adaptations. The list of Academy Award winners and the source for their screenplays is illuminating (see Lesson 4 for a way to use this list).
Seussical: The Musical. Composed Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. Decca, 2001.
In this musical based on Dr. Seuss’s books, the Cat in the Hat comes alive to narrate a story involving some of Seuss’s most beloved characters. As an adaptation that combines many works into a new medium, this is an excellent site for investigating the complex relationship of source text and adaptations (see Lesson 7).
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. New York: Penguin Classics, 2003.
Shelley’s novel is ideal for adaptation study, especially because so many version for stage and screen have been adapted from this classic gothic novel. The novel is also interesting to read and compare its depiction of the monster to the modern-day assumptions about “Frankenstein.” The text and context are rich with material for adaptation study.
Smoke Signals. Dir. Chris Eyre. Perf. Adam Beach, Evan Adams, Irene Bedard, Gary Farmer, and Tantoo Cardinal. Screenplay Sherman Alexie. DVD. Miramax, 1998.
The screenplay for this adaptation of Sherman Alexie’s short story was written by Alexie himself, and it was the first film written, produced, and directed by Native Americans. Because it’s based on a short story and includes a culture that likely won’t be familiar to most students, this would work well for the text/context analysis.
Speak. Dir. Jessica Sharzer. Perf. Kristen Stewart. DVD. Showtime, 2004.
Sharzer’s fabulous adaptation of Laurie Halse Anderson’s gripping debut novel works well as a film-text pair in the textual and contextual analysis lesson. This film is particularly useful, because most students will not have read it and it is based on an award-winning young adult novel.
Teasley, Alan B. and Ann Wilder. Reel Conversations: Reading Films with Young Adults. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1997.
Reel Conversations is the seminal text in young adult film studies. Teasley and Wilder are cited in nearly every article on the subject, and their hesitation to pair film and text for the sole purpose of watching the film version of a novel is a major theoretical framework for this unit. Teasley and Wilder offer suggestions for using film across the curriculum, and this book is a mandatory resource for any teacher dealing with film in his or her classroom.
Thompson, Kristin. “‘Novel, Short Story, Drama: The Conditions for Influence’ from The Classical Hollywood Cinema.” Film and Literature: An Introduction and Reader. Ed. Timothy Corrigan. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999. 255-261.
This excerpt from The Classical Hollywood Cinema, included here in a shortened version, is ideal background material for teachers to be familiar with during the business and adaptation lesson plan. The article points out the back-and-forth influence of films and literature throughout history.
Whale Rider. Dir. Niki Caro. Perf. Keisha Castle-Hughes, Rawiri Paratene, Vicky Haughton, and Cliff Curtis. DVD. Columbia TriStar, 2002.
New Zealand director Niki Caro’s adaptation of Witi Ihimaera’s short novel deservedly garnered many awards and nominations. Students will connect to this film because of its adolescent protagonist, and the short source text makes for a nice choice in a film-text pair (see textual and contextual analysis lesson).
Wicked: 2003 Original Broadway Cast. Composed Stephen Schwartz. Perf. Kristin Chenoweth, Idina Menzel, and Wicked: A Musical Pit Orchestra. Cond. Alex Lacamoire and Stephen Oremus. Decca, 2003.
Adapted from Maguire’s book by the same name, this hit musical gives the back story of Glinda (the Good Witch) and Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) before Dorothy came on the scene in Oz. The last lesson offers a way to investigate the multiple adaptations at play with the Wizard of Oz story.
The Wizard of Oz. Dir. Victor Fleming. Perf. Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Billie Burke, and Margaret Hamilton. DVD. MGM, 1939.
The original film version of L. Frank Baum’s novel is a classic and one that students will have seen. However, they probably will not have read the source text nor seen the musical. There are, of course, many other adaptations of Baum’s story (animated television shows, other films, other books, etc.), and this is only one that would be interesting to investigate in terms of the complex relationship of adaptations and source text (see Lesson 7).