Final Project Report

For my final project, I created a wiki-unit on A Christmas Carol that would last a little over two weeks. In addition to the novel, various scenes from two wide ranging film adaptations are used, A Muppets' Christmas Carol and Scrooged. The original novel is useful in many ways. It is one of the more popular works from the iconic Victorian author, Charles Dickens, so it would easily fit into an British literature course. Dickens' writings are a great way to introduce a Marxist critical lens. And the majority of students are familiar with the storyline but more than likely do not know the details of the narrative and the lack of enchantment in the plot would allow for a closer reading of the work.

A Christmas Carol is one of the most adapted novels of all time, so it is only right to utilize film adaptations to underscore certain elements of the tale. The Muppets' version is much more closely linked to the original tale. However, the use of the Muppets (and the production by Disney) allows the students to examine and discuss the various changes that are made for the intended audience.

Scrooged on the other hand does not follow Dickens' completely. Rather, Dickens' story is in the backdrop of the movie, and a more modern day (more tangible to the students) adaptation is placed on the tale. The change in the setting from Victorian London, to late 80's early 90's New York City, allows the students to compare the different historical periods.

The novel is broken up into five staves, and that is also how the reading would be assigned. To accompany in class discussions, relevant clips would be shown. I also created some googledocs for students to contribute on character descriptions and vocabulary words. A few of the sections also have discussion forums on the wiki that students would be expected to answer. Also, there is a paper assignment comparing different elements of the book and the adaptations. In addition, there is a group video assignment that would allow the students to create their own adaptation of a scene.

Here is my wiki.

Adaptations of film and literature

In a literature class:
Integrating film into a literature class would allow the students to get a better grasp on the meanings. Not only would it help clarify the storyline, it could also point out some aspects that the students didn't quite catch. Recognizing the differences between the film and the book would circle around limitations. The film has a limited amount of time to get things done in. This means that some of the story lines are withheld, characters are missing, and so on. A film may also add in another piece to make it more interesting (make more money). Students would need to figure out who the intended audience is and such.

In a writing class:
Integrating film into a writing class would be a bit of a reversal of what usual occurs, the book going to the big screen. Here, I would have the students look at clips or short films and try to draw out what a story board would have looked like. They would extract that outline, and then rewrite there own scenarios. Hopefully, it would strengthen their organizing abilities and story building.

My final project demonstrates how to use video clips along with the text to reach many angles for the viewers. To create their own adaptations, I would have the students take a story and move it to their setting (physical setting or historical). This allows the student to both demonstrate an understanding of the original text but be critical of their own time period.