I had already seen the movie for "Twilight", so already had an idea of what to expect in the story. I still enjoyed the book, and had it read in a couple days. It's, or course, a typical love story, with some twists.
Obviously we know that most students are very into these novels. I have to say, however, that I was one of those students who wasn't into the latest series that was out. I remember in High School, all my friends discussing Harry Potter. It was something I just never got into. The same goes for Twilight. It wasn't something that stuck out to me. I think that is something that we have to remember when thinking about using this in a classroom. Although it may seem that most teens are into it, not all of them are.
Before reading the article, I would have said that I probably wouldn't have taught this in my classroom. To me, it didn't seem like there was too much to get out of it other than pure enjoyment. However, I thought the article brought some interesting insights as to how a teacher could use this in a classroom. Rewriting parts of the story, using their own imaginations, I thought, was something that was very interesting. Looking at character development was something else that I thought would be neat to look at. Show students how the characters are described, and what their descriptions could say about other hidden information about them.
I teachers would have to be careful when teaching this novel, though. Since a lot of students have already read it, they may feel inclined to not read it again. Or you could have the students who watch the movie instead (which I know can happen with other novels too). I think we would need to encourage them to read it again, so that they can follow along with what the rest of the class is discussing. They may have missed something that the teacher would like to discuss when they read it for the first time by themselves.
Another thing with this novel, just like Book Thief, is the length. This is not a short novel, and it would take a long time to cover the whole thing. I know we said that for Book Thief, we could just focus on certain parts. Could we do that with Twilight?
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You're right... many students probably wouldn't reread this. But using the movie could be a good way to save time in class---just have them watch it instead of making everyone read it. You can even joke around about how bad the acting is. :-) Also, if you just want to talk about characterization, etc, and most students have read the book, you can talk about how the movie uses clues from the text to create the characters. Students could also talk about whether the filmmakers engaged in close reading habits when creating the film.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious if either reading the entire book or watching the entire movie is useful in the classroom at all? Other than (as you suggested Kayla) for entertainment purposes. I'm not sure I'm convinced yet whether or not this fits in the classroom. I'll be very curious to hear what each of you has to say regarding this.
ReplyDeleteHow can you justify showing a movie without exploring the text that accompanies it? You'd still have to do something with text structure, characterization, etc. to make watching the movie worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteYou are right, the novel is long, but it is not complex. The Book Thief was so intricately woven that it took me over a week to finish as opposed to this book which only took a few hours. Of course, there is something to be said about a book that is so easy to read. It may have good points to it, but maybe it should just be left for fun reading.
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