Integrating Literature, Film, and Theater

The necessity of integrating literature, film, and theater in an English classroom is paramount. All three formats of presentation have become linked in delivering stories, narratives, and novels. It seems like one cannot read a good book or see a play these days without later seeing another version on the big screen. In certain instances, it is even possible to find all three formats for one piece. The importance in studying these formats along with their adaptations, then, is that each adaptation presents its audience with a much different experience. In other words, the mode of delivery matters a great deal, and it is important to educate students on how best to interpret the differences that they encounter between pieces.

A great way of teaching students how to differentiate between their experiences with print, film, and theater is by taking a well known work and studying its various renditions along with the effect created by each rendition. In my own future classroom I would use Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" as a method of illuminating the contrasts in adaptations. By having kids read the play and then view it on both the stage and the screen I would be able to highlight the pros and cons of using each type of format. Obviously, Shakespeare wrote this drama with the intention of having it delivered to the audience through an on stage performance, and this is how the play exists in its most natural form. Therefore, by reading the play shortly after having seen its original intended form, students would be able to identify those dramatic elements that the play loses through reading stage directions and dialogue instead of seeing and hearing these things. Once this has been achieved, I would show my students one of the various film adaptations of the play in order to illustrate the distance created between the audience and the work by the screen itelf. In other words, by watching the play or reading the script one has a certain amount of access to the work that is suddenly taken away when it is transcribed to the screen. These are just a couple of exercises that would work well in helping kids to pick out some important differences between certain forms of media, and starting off with a unit of this type would open the door for more in depth studies of other types of media.

Noting these differences and realizing what seperates each of these three formats from one another is important in helping students make heads or tails of their sensory experiences. In recognizing how each form of presentation influences the audiences interpretations and feelings towards a piece is an extremely powerful thing. It will allow students to develop the ability to critically analyze works of literature, film, and theater, and allow students to pinpoint any biases, preconceptions, or influential techniques contained within these peices. In all, studying the differences between adaptations will grant students the opportunity to analyze their sources of entertainment with a well-trained eye as well as an important amount of awareness.