Quizzes

You will take weekly quizzes on the reading and film screenings. These quizzes are designed to assess your progress in learning the material, not as a trap. Quizzes will be held every Monday and will be held at the beginning of class, so do not be late. Missed quizzes will be handled on a case by case  basis after discussion with me. Your quiz grades are part of your overall participation grade.

Film Analysis

Each of you will write a short paper of 3-5 pages on the literary adaptation of your choice (aside from those on the syllabus). Essays should analyze the choices made within the adaptation process, deriving the source and meaning of those choices as well as the formal and cultural impact of those choices. These are NOT film reviews. Arguments must be grounded in adaptation theory and supported with specific examples from the book and the film.

Film analysis Assignment Sheet

Teach a Scene

Throughout the semester, each of you will be responsible for kick-starting the day’s discussion by “Teaching a Scene.” These are mini presentations in which a student will choose a scene from the adapted novel/film and present their analysis to the class. The presentation catalysts should last no more than 10 minutes and should cover salient features of the adaptation in order to provide a starting point for our class discussion. The presentation should include 2-3 important adaptation choices and an analysis of those choices using any relevant adaptation/film theory to support their argument. Students may choose their own teaching style/method so long as the content meets the assignment’s requirements. Students will be assigned dates during the first two weeks of the semester. Prior to the presentation, students will submit proposals with three options and background material.

Tweet your notes

We will approach our reading/screening notes a bit differently in this class and crowd-sourcing our commentary during the note taking process. This will allow us to quickly identify common threads that are occurring in our readings/screenings. It will also help to keep you on track with reading and screening responsibilities. This is how it works:

While reading the text and screening the film, students will live tweet their notes. We will use several course hashtags to organize the tweets which will then be used to develop our course discussions. The notes themselves will not be graded, however, students will be required to have at least 5-10 tweets/text assignment and 5-10/film, spread out over the length of both the book and the film (ex: you can’t tweet 10 things about the opening chapter and nothing else). Tweets should be substantive in content and not review material (for example – “this is hilarious” will not count towards your quota, however something observational like “the setting is remarkably darker in the film than in the book” will count.

You may still read and watch on your own time, however, all notes should be tweeted by the scheduled class in which that reading/watching is due. You may certainly maintain a regular notebook if you’d like, but your grade will come from the tweeted material.

Your tweets will be assessed on the level of engagement and the quality of the intertextuality of class material and reading assignments with the novels and films.

You must have a twitter account for this assignment, however, you may create a twitter account that is solely for class use (I don’t expect you to use your personal account if you don’t want to). You may keep this account private so long as your settings allow the class to see your work.

Midterm & Final Project

At the end of the semester, you will produce your own adaptation of a short story. Early in the semester, you will pull a short story out of a hat. At least three students will have the same story. For the midterm, you will each individually write a treatment for a film adaptation of that story. In the treatment, you will explain your idea as well as write a more theory-related piece explaining your choices. After the midterms have been graded, you will meet with the other class members who share your story assignment. Amongst yourselves, you will vote on the treatment  that you like the most and create the actual adaptation (you may also choose the best bits of multiple treatments). The final projects will be showcased during our final exam period on December 9 at 11 a.m.