Adaptive Storytelling, Tales and Tellers.

Overview:

This course is infused with remarkable and distinct narratives that have made it to the silver screen. The first five units are organized chronologically, starting with the 17th century and moving through the 21st century. At least two works of literature from each period are paired with corresponding film adaptations. All units point to where film and literature meet and diverge. Each unit uniquely considers the form and function of the work being studied. The emphasis in the first five units is on the literature, as it takes up the majority of our class time. The final two units focus on the products and process of turning literature into film.

In the sixth unit we work with adapted screenplays. Each of the five weeks in this unit has students reading, analyzing and in various ways responding to a screenplay set in the 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st century. Each week allows students the opportunity to consider the process of adapting a piece of literature into a script, revisit the historical and cultural significance gained from the previous four units, and to differentiate rhetorical characteristics, techniques and styles. This unit has students practicing and paying special attention to formalistic elements of language.

The seventh unit has students hone in on four contemporary writer/directors. Each week students will view a film written and directed by an artist with a unique style and aesthetic. The films to be screened in class have all been adapted from a published piece of literature. Short and relevant segments and scenes by the same writer/director will highlight similar visual patterning, narrative strategies, and cinematic choices.

The writer/directors in unit seven are specifically arranged. Students first unpack the experience of screenwriting and a screenwriter by viewing Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation, which puts the author in his own movie, as he writes the very movie he is in. Moving past Adaptations focus on identity and self, week two concentrates on the implications of audience in Sophia Coppola’s adaptation of The Virgin Suicides. The in-depth look at voyeurism and gender of Coppola’s film bridges the race, class and society issues raised by Wes Anderson’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox. We finish our study of writer/directors on the screen with David Cronenberg’s The Fly. This final auteur has students identifying genre conventions. George Langelaan’s short story “The Fly” is read and compared with Cronenberg’s adaptation.  During the final week, students become screenwriters themselves with a culminating project that draws on the entire course. Students are asked to write an original short film, or adapt a short story for the screen. 

Course Schedule:

Unit I – 17th Century: Restoration, Rivalry & Regret

Week 1: (Day 1-5) Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus

Week 2: (Day 6-7) Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus

               : (Day 8-10) Taylor Hackford’s The Devil’s    

                Advocate

Week 3: (Day 11-15) Shakespeare’s MacBeth

Week 4: (Day 16-17) Shakespeare’s MacBeth

: (Day 18-20) Billy Morrisette’s Scotland, PA

Unit II – 18th Century: Enlightenment, Elation & Escapism

Week 5: (Day 21-25) Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels   

Week 6: (Day 26-7) Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels

            :(Day 28-30) Rob Letterma’s Gulliver’s Travels

Week 7: (Day 31-35) Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy

Week 8: (Day 36-37) Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy

            : (Day 38-40) Michael Winterbottom’s Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story

  Unit III – 19th Century: Industry, Identity & Ideology

Week 9: (Day 41-43) Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

            : (Day 44-45) Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow              

Week 10: (Day 46-50) Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Week 11: (Day 51-55) Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Week 12: (Day 56-57) Lucky McKee’s May

  : (Day 58-60) Herman Melville’s “Bartleby” & Mike Judge’s Office Space

  Unit IV – 20th Century: America, Ambition & Alienation

Week 13: (Day 61-65) Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley

Week 14: (Day 66-70) Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley

Week 15: (Day 71-73) Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley

  : (Day 74-75) Tom Perotta’s Election

Week 16: (Day 76-77) Tom Perotta’s Election

            : (Day 78-80) Alexander Payne’s Election 

 Unit V – 21st Century: Reality, Reason & Rights

Week 17: (Day 81-85) John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt

Week 18: (Day 86-7) John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt

            :(Day 88-90) Sapphire’s Push

Week 19: (Day 91-95) Sapphire’s Push

Week 20: (Day 96-97) Sapphire’s Push

            :(Day 98-100) Lee Daniel’s Precious

Unit VI – The Tales: Setting the scene through the 17th-21st centuries

Week 21: (Day 101-105)  Tom Stoppard and Mark Norman’s Shakespeare in Love(17th)

Week 22: (Day 106-110) Pete Schaffer’s Amadeus  (18th)

Week 23: (Day 111-115) Christopher and John Nolan’s The Prestig (19th)

Week 24: (Day 116-120)  Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood(20th)           

Week 25: (Day 121-125) Sell and Scrutinize (student chosen 21st century script)

Unit VII – The Tellers: Aesthetics, Actions & Auteurs

Week 26: (Day 126-130) Charlie Kaufman: Adaptation

Week 27: (Day 127-135) Sophia Coppola: The Virgin Suicides

Week 28: (Day 136-140) Wes Anderson: The Fantastic Mr. Fox

Week 29: (Day 141-145) David Cronenberg: The Fly

Week 30: (Day 146-150) Scripter Assignment 

Literature in Film – Unit VII: The Tellers - Assignments, Activities and Exercises

1. Quick Queries - Daily short writings on predominant topic of the day. Enables daily practice translating thoughts to the page. The completion of quick queries is visually noted, but not graded.

2. Cultural Connections – Lecture and discussion on the significant aspects of culture in which the piece was produced. Essays, diaries and letters are used to draw the connections.

3. Lyric Linker - A music video is played and the lyrics are provided for analysis. The song and video will have themes or content relevant to the studied works.

4. Workshop – Students are given time to work as groups, peers or individually on major writing assignments throughout the course.

5. Aural Analysis – Sensory work that examines how sound functions in a text or a film. Students consider how sound is created for the stage or film in relation to it’s codification on the page.

6. Real Time Relevance – Discussion topics that relate to events and concerns of the present day. The topics link thematically or contextually with the assigned literature.

7. Bringing it Home - Tasks and discussion related to personal experience or knowledge. Includes computer research.

8. Intertextual Inspection – In class readings of closely linked pieces of literature to our primary material. Involves questions and activities drawn from the relationship between the two works.

9. Desperately Seeking – Critical character analysis and creative writing assignment examining social deficiencies.

10. Bio Feed – Instead of lecture, students investigate authors/writers/directors at the computer lab. Depending on the author, the focus of the research shifts, but students are expected to gather information to share with the class in the latter half of the period.

11. Inference Initiative - A supplemental reading exercise allows students to practice making intellectual leaps from what they see to what details might suggest. There are thematic, tonal and contextual bridges to be made between the primary and secondary texts.

12. Monster Smash – In pairs, students construct their own monstrous creation with words. The creative assignment forces students to compromise and listen to their partners when designing. The class will rank and categorize monsters as a whole.

13. Form and Function – Lecture and discussion based on formalist elements of the text. Students will consider genre and figurative language as they read.

14. Character Confessionals - Perspective-shifting assignment. Students must write 3 sentences through the eyes of one of the characters shedding light on their personality or experiences derived from the assigned reading. They must then read their confession aloud to the class.

15. Grammar Radiation – As grammar can be tedious for some, we will study it via scripts. Worksheets are given on days we screen films to be completed as homework.

Unit VII: The Tellers - Weeks 39-40 – 50 minute periods

Lesson Plans (ISBE standards, daily writing prompt, objectives/activities/implementation, homework)

Day 141:

3.C.5a  Communicate information and ideas in narrative, informative and persuasive writing with clarity and effectiveness

5.C.5a  Using contemporary technology, create a research presentation or prepare a documentary related to academic, technical or occupational topics and present the findings in oral or multimedia formats.

Quick Query(6-7 min): What does it mean to be human?

Bio Feed(40 min: 20 min at lab/20 min class discussion): David Cronenberg - Instead of lecture, students investigate authors/writers/directors at the computer lab. Students will focus on the synopses of Cronenberg’s many films. Students should research his background as well. Students are expected to gather information to share with the class in the latter half of the period. The class will discuss their expectations of his film and establish that he is a “body horror” auteur.

Day 142:

3.C.5a  Communicate information and ideas in narrative, informative and persuasive writing with clarity and effectiveness

4.A.5b  Use techniques for analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of oral messages.

Quick Query(6-7 min): Discuss your own personal ambition. How far would you go to get what you want?

Screening(40 min): David Cronenberg’s The Fly

Homework: Grammar Radiation – punctuating monologues. (see worksheet)

Day 143:

3.C.5a  Communicate information and ideas in narrative, informative and persuasive writing with clarity and effectiveness

4.A.5b  Use techniques for analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of oral messages.

3B.4b  Produce, edit, revise and format work for submission and/or publication (e.g., manu­script form, appropriate citation of sources) using contemporary technology.

Quick Query(6-7 min): Write about what Seth Brundle’s transformation could be a metaphor for.

Screening(35 min): David Cronenberg’s The Fly

Grammar Radiation(7-8 min) – Correct monologue worksheets as a class

.

Day 144:

3.C.5a  Communicate information and ideas in narrative, informative and persuasive writing with clarity and effectiveness

2.A.5c  Analyze the development of form,

Quick Query(6-7 min): What images or scenes do you remember most? Explain why they resonate with you.

Form and Function(20 min): Genre – Horror

Purpose: emotional effect on audience, shock, disgust, repel, breach of nature,   Character Convention:  threatening, unnatural monster.

Themes: limits of human knowledge, fear of environment, disintegrating family

Iconography: dark buildings, shadows, heavy make-up

*brief clips from Cronenberg’s Existenz, Videodrome and History of Violence.

         *Class identifies and discusses how The Fly adheres to or skirts the horror genre.

Monster Smash(20 min): In pairs, students construct their own monstrous creation with words. This invention assignment forces students to compromise and listen to their partners when designing. The class will rank and categorize monsters as a whole.

Day 145:

3.C.5a  Communicate information and ideas in narrative, informative and persuasive writing with clarity and effectiveness

2.A.5a  Compare and evaluate oral, written or viewed works from various eras and traditions and analyze complex literary devices

2.A.5d  Evaluate the influence of historical context on form, style and point of view for a variety of literary works

Quick Query(6-7 min): Characterize David Cronenberg’s style.

Intertextual Inspection(30 min): George Lagallean’s “The Fly”

         -Who was the original audience for “The Fly?”

         -How do the characters in the movie and short story stack up against one another?

         -Compare the ending of the two works.

         -Cronenberg is remaking The Fly again. What could he have done differently?

         -Does the story have a greater impact or value as a text or a movie?

Cultural Connections(10 min): 1980’s – “Venereal horror”/AIDS epidemic

                                               -Right to life debate & animal ethics

Day 146:

3.C.5a  Communicate information and ideas in narrative, informative and persuasive writing with clarity and effectiveness

2.A.5c  Analyze the development of form and purpose in literature

Quick Query(6-7 min): Who is the audience for your short film? What is the genre?

Form and Function(40 minutes)Review principles of narrative construction:

-Plot vs. Story: The explicit vs. the implicit.

- Cause and Effect: connecting events via characters, disasters, events.

-Time: chronological, non-linear, flashbacks/forwards; temporal order, duration and frequency

-Space: setting, locales.

Day 147:

3.C.5a  Communicate information and ideas in narrative, informative and persuasive writing with clarity and effectiveness

3.B.4c  Evaluate written work for its effectiveness and make recommendations for its improvement.

Quick Query(6-7 min): Describe the setting and time period of your short film.

Workshop(40 minutes): In groups of four, students will take turns reading the drafts of their short films. When listening to each other, students are expected to write down two qualities they appreciated and three aspects that need improvement.

Day 148:

3.C.5a  Communicate information and ideas in narrative, informative and persuasive writing with clarity and effectiveness

3.B.4c  Evaluate written work for its effectiveness and make recommendations for its improvement.

Quick Query(6-7 min): Describe the main character in your short film.

Workshop(40 minutes total): In pairs, students will review the feedback they received the day before in their larger groups. They will choose one or two pieces of advice given the previous day to follow through on with the aid of their partner. Each student will have between 15-20 minutes on their respective issue.

Day 149:

3.C.5a  Communicate information and ideas in narrative, informative and persuasive writing with clarity and effectiveness

3.B.4c  Evaluate written work for its effectiveness and make recommendations for its improvement.

Quick Query(6-7 min): What is the central message or idea of your short film?

Workshop(40 minutes): Individual writing period at the computer lab. Students have the opportunity to conference with me if they have any pressing concerns. While at the lab, students are to polish their short films to be turned in the following day.

Day 150:

4.A.5b  Use techniques for analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of oral messages.

4.B.5b  Use speaking skills to participate in and lead group discussions; analyze the effectiveness of the spoken interactions based upon the ability of the group to achieve its goals.

Screening(17 minutes): Short-film Logorama

Class Query(25 min): Why did Logorama win best animated short film at the Oscars? Draw upon the entirety of the class to justify whether it deserved the honor or not. We will break down the elements of the short film that worked and didn’t.

Day 142 Homework:

Grammar Radiation – The Fly

Insert the punctuation in these monologues from the film.

So I asked the computer if it improved me and it said it

didnt know what I was talking about And thats made me

think very carefully about what Ive been feeling and why

And Im beginning to think that the sheer process of being

taken apart atom by atom and put back together again why

its like coffee being put through a filter Its somehow a

purifying process Its purified me its cleansed me And I

tell you I think its going to allow me to realize the

personal potential Ive been neglecting all these years

That Ive been obsessively pursuing goal after goal

Youre afraid to dive into the plasma pool aren't you

Youre afraid to be destroyed and recreated aren't you

Ill bet you think that you woke me up about the flesh

dont you But you only know society’s straight line about

the flesh You cant penetrate beyond society’s sick gray

fear of the flesh Drink deep or taste not the plasma

spring You see what Im saying A deep penetrating dive into the plasma pool

A fly got into the transmitter pod with me that first time

when I was alone Uh the computer got confused there

werent supposed to be two separate genetic patterns and it

decided to splice us together It mated us me and the fly

We hadnt even been properly introduced My teleporter

turned her into a gene splicer And a very good one Now Im

not Seth Brundle anymore Im the offspring of um Brundle

and housefly

I think we must chronicle the life and times of Brundlefly

dont you At the very least it should make a fabulous

Childrens book You seem tired You got me there How does

Brundlefly eat Well he found out the very hard and painful

way that he eats very much the same way a fly eats His

teeth are now useless because although he can chew up solid

food he cant digest it solid food hurts So like a fly

Brundlefly breaks down the solid with a corrosive enzyme

pleasurably called Vomit drop He regurgitates on his

food it liquifies and then he sucks it back up You ready

for a demonstration kids Here goes

Enan Heneghan

  Assigned Day 126 – Due Day 150

Scripter Assignment

Write a short film between 15-20 pages. Choose either:

1. Original

                                                 i. Use your imagination and personal experience to write a script that encompasses the ideas, knowledge and understanding accumulated through the course.

1. Adaptation

                                                 i. Pick a short story that isn’t already a movie and adapt it for the screen.

                                                ii. You can also script a sequel, prequel or “rewrite” of a course text.

The script should integrate understanding gathered from course readings and discussions:

Themes                Allusions                              Characterizations

Plot points                Critical lenses                       Guiding questions

Alternate readings     Structural principles              Applicable quotes

Characters can be completely fictional and/or real people. For characterizations use:

Teachers                         Friends                                           Family

Girlfriends                      Boyfriends                                    Exs

Enemies                                    Co-workers                                   Imaginary friends

Inanimate objects                    Pets                                                 Cyber Friends

All cinematic genres are acceptable. Blending a minimum of two genres is necessary.

Tragedy                      Black Comedy                              Science Fiction

Suspense                         Spoof                                              Horror

Adventure                      Documentary                                Mockumentary

Coming of Age               Buddy Comedy                             Romance

Incorporate three additional literary forms in the script itself.

Text Messages          Facebook Page                  Poem

Emails                      Monologue                           Advertisement

Love letter                Lists                                     Personalized Plates

Provide two additional script supplementals to accompany the main work.

Pitch            Deleted Scene           Alternate Ending

Summary     Making Of                Original Music/Soundtrack

Poster           Storyboard            Casting Sheet

Recording     Costume designs       Shooting locations photographs

Script Assessment

Criteria:

Applied understanding/content

         I.  Thematic integration                                1      2      3      4      5

                     -Successfully identifies and incorporates at least 3 prevalent themes in the course

         II. Textual references                        1      2      3      4      5         

                     -Minimum of 5 appropriate titles, characters, authors or allusions from texts

         III. Critical Accuracy                        1      2      3      4      5

                     -Comprehends and accounts for literary significance of integrated course topics.

Genre application

         I.  Narrative genre blending               1      2      3      4      5

                     -At least 2 narrative genres present and identified through use of conventions.

         II. Embedded literary forms               1      2      3      4      5

                     -Minimum of 3 different genres within script itself

         III. Supplemental genres                   1      2      3      4      5

                     -2 additional movie genre subsets included.

Mechanics/presentation

         I. Format                                          1      2      3      4      5

                     -Standard Final Draft format used or mimicked.

         II. Grammar/spelling                         1      2      3      4      5

                     -Proofread for formalistic errors.

         III. Length requirement                    1      2      3      4      5

                     -Meets the page requirement

Creativity

         I.  Originality/Adaptability                1      2      3      4      5

                     -Is it fresh, interesting, marketable, relatable, insightful?

         II. Presence of author in script           1      2      3      4      5

                     -A sense of individual style emerges from the script.

         III. Characterizations/dialogue           1      2      3      4      5

                     -Varying personalities, perspectives, voices, vocabularies, motives