For all of you who are in Shakespeare as well, you will recognize the spark for this idea from that class. I have found that, when I read something like Shakespeare and then see parts of the movie, it is often a way to clarify some questions and/or confusions that I had about the play from just reading it through. For this reason, I think that it would be a smart idea to show specific clips from the movie version of the book that you are teaching within the classroom to show an important idea or action from the story in another way for the students. Some students have a hard time visualizing action within texts and this could allow for another way that the students could intellectually access the material and make sense of it. This could easily be done with a book like The Great Gatsby. Now, obviously, you would not show the students clips from adaptations that have clearly butchered the movie or show a clip just to show a clip, but show it so that students now have something extra to work off of to put their thoughts into order and make more sense of the reading than they had before seeing the clip.
Has anyone ever seen this in action in a high school classroom and how did it work?
I am currently beginning Romeo and Juliet in my 9th grade classes, and I will be showing a limited number of clips from the most recent adaptation with Leo, in class. I agree that students almost need this visual representation to fully comprehend the plot, setting, characters, theme, and other literary aspects we ask them to evaluate. I am curious to see how my classes react to seeing the movie clips paired with the readings, and I will get back to you as soon as I have that experience.
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