Adaptation: Literature, Film and Society

Teaching Strategies

This unit requires students to actively and orally participate in group or partner discussion. It involves writing using graphic organizers, and learning and using new terminologies when reviewing or analyzing a film.  Students will be watching a film, reading a book, and doing research as an extension as they seek more information. Some of the following strategies will be used to make the unit more effectively delivered and to promote the use of cooperative learning/ differentiated learning.

Explicit Instruction (I do, We do, You do Model)

This model is considered a gradual release from modeling to independent practice.  This strategy has been proven to be effective when delivering a lesson.

I Do is a phase where the teacher tells and shows (model) what students need to do and how they do things. This phase is important especially for students who are visual learners. It is the effective and efficient learning process for students to grasp what they should do and be able to do.

We do is next phase of the learning process. This is also an important phase where the teacher is involved with the students by doing things together. The teacher is a support and guides the students to ensure that he learning of the objectives is taking place.

You do is the last phase where the students will work independently and demonstrate the work they are assigned without the teacher’s help. This phase helps the teacher check for understanding and see if there needs to be a re-teaching.

The teacher will demonstrate through explicit instruction how to analyze film adaptions with a literary text. 

Graphic Organizer

Graphic organizers facilitate a process that allows students to construct meaning, and they are better able to organize their understanding in visual and mental images. The ELL students or ESS student learn best by use of graphic organizers.  Graphic Organizers will be used to identify the elements of the story. The elements of a story are the characters, setting, beginning, middle, end, the problem and solution.  The form can be a simple organizer that the students can draw pictures in or even write a short paragraph in which they identify those parts. Another graphic organizer that would portray the characters’ trait will be of use: a silhouette of Pocahontas would be great to use. Students will be writing on the inside of the image. An organizer that will display the timeline and events of Pocahontas’s life would give the students a visual image. Students would gather information and plot it on a timeline, a strategy used to gather information on a historical figure and to compare and contrast the characters’ traits as seen by a set of different resources (film to book) through the use of T-charts. 

Cooperative Learning

Students will be involved in a group discussion of 4 to 5 students to complete the graphic organizer as well as in analyzing the character’s traits and factual findings, or simply in discussions.  Students will also be involved in think pair during the assignment of readings. Students will retell a book or paragraph they read about Pocahontas to another partner-- students will work in pairs in this strategy.  This strategy forces the students to be accountable and is supportive to their learning. Furthermore, students will learn in whole group settings at times when the story is read by the teacher or when they have to view the film.  

Visualization 

Students will be exposed to images through picture books and video (the Disney film Pocahontas), and images suggested by their own minds while reading sentences of a text. This helps students to see images without having to struggle and is helpful, especially for younger elementary students. Visual aids also help students see the picture much more clearly so they have a better comprehension of the story.

Technology in the classroom

Use of DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) players or Eno board (like a smart board) will be used to show clips of the DVD or the full version of the film. An Eno board is an interactive board that allows students and teachers to engage in the lesson. Use of Eno board will make learning visual for students. The documentary camera will be an additional tool to use when showing students how to complete graphic organizers. During the viewing of the film, there will be some clips or images shown to discuss the characters’ traits, the film’s adaptation, and discuss the translation of the book onto film. 

Vocabulary Development

It is important that when learning to analyze a film, one learns to define and use the terminology that goes along with films, so students will also be involved in learning the basic and general terminologies when analyzing a film.  This is to prepare the students to understand the film’s adaptation from a novel or text. Adaptation as defined by Brigitte in our Yale National Initiatives states that “Adaptation allows a story to travel from one medium to another medium.”  With the use of technology, the story is either restored, change or saved through images or visual images (animation or film). She further states that adaptation is a displacement of the original work into a new work. When analyzing a film we use words that refer to staging, use of lights or colors, music, the camera’s position, the character, as well as the elements of a literary text, and the mood and tone of the images.⁸ Below you will find a list of terminologies that I will be using with my third grade class when questioning and previewing films and literary texts.

film

adaptation

camera position

loosely

producer/author

shots

special effects

literal

faithful

text

Close-up

characters

traits

takes

animated

setting

historical figure

hero

villain

angle

Emotions

lighting

high and low angles

realistic/faithful

cinematic/theatrical

There are other words that can be used for upper grades, words such as abstract, expression, lens, etc.  Since this unit is geared for third grade, simple words will be used in order to get a better understanding of the author and director of the film. The students will be taught using a graphic organizer, such as the four corners to learn the vocabulary words. This will be one strategy they will learn to help them become independent learners of vocabulary.

Using these vocabulary words during the discussion is very important.  Although it may seem that some of these words are beyond the third grade students, using drawing, and actively participating using the words will help students understand them. The use of TPR is another strategy that can be incorporated when learning vocabulary words.  Total Physical Response (TPR) is a method used to teach students, especially English language learners, to pick up on the use of vocabulary. With this method that the students are able to pick up on vocabulary words and comprehend and use them. Students will use these terminologies when analyzing the films and literary text.

Guided Reading and Shared Reading

The third grade class at Tsaile Public School is not all at grade level. I will be using guided and shared reading to reinforce learning to read as well as learning to comprehend the text. This is to help students use reading strategies and become better readers without the frustration of reading. Further, the shared reading strategy will be utilized. This strategy is where I will be reading for the students and modeling for them. Anchor charts will be used while reading to help with comprehension.  This will help students to grasp important information about Pocahontas.  I will be reading an article or clips from a book to help students gather more information about Pocahontas.