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Adaptation,
Appropriation, and Design Project
A
project designed for "The Naked Truth" Learning
Community at West Texas A&M University (see link at left
for more information on the learning community.) Students
are asked to take a play, novel, or poem they've read in English
2333 and produce a creative project in which they adapt, appropriate,
or design around a central character, plot, theme, or symbol
in the work. This project builds on two things: 1) the skills
students have learned in Theatre 1301 about creative process
and the relationship between the textual and other artistic
mediums; 2) discussions over the course of the semester in
English 2333 about adapting or designing around literary texts.
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Teaching
with Technology
I have begun developing multimedia course materials using
Power Point and Camtasia. These materials range from brief
tutorials on matters of grammar and mechnics to half-hour
videos explaining and illustrating course assignments and
projects. I use these primarily as a supplement to the class,
uploading these materials onto our course webpages (created
via ANGEL), sometimes as PowerPoint presentations, but more
often than not as Flash video. The benefits of such materials
are obvious: rather than a one time explanation in class,
students can review the material as many times as necessary.
Please contact me via email
if you are interested in viewing some of these materials.
Gods
and Monsters: Using Appropriations in the General Education
Literature Classroom
I have developed teaching units for Frankenstein, Faust,
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Heart of Darkness
that ask students to engage actively with the processes of
appropriation and adaptation of literary works--film, television,
musical, literary. This strategy is particularly useful in
the general education classroom, a setting where students
are sometimes unclear as to why the core curriculum is of
value and what role literature plays in the core. By teaching
adaptations alongside the original works, students see the
ways that texts relate to one another in intimate and provocative
ways, as well as the ways that storytellers in multiple mediums
work with particular literary figures: the (Byronic) hero,
the mad scientist, the dangerous alchemist, the imperialist
explorer.
For
example, we spend four class periods discussing Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein. At each class meeting, we watch a brief
clip from the 1994 Kenneth Branagh version of Frankenstein,
using it both to reinforce conclusions we have already drawn
as well as challenge our ideas. After we have concluded the
novel, we devote a class day to working with four other appropriations
and adaptations of the Frankenstein story (see Frankenstein
Filmography
for more). By the time we have concluded, students see Frankenstein
not as a relic of literary days gone by, but rather as an
iconic text still very much alive in our cultural consciousness
and popular media.
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Teaching
Research Skills
The ability to perform innovative, substantial research gives
students a tremendous edge, not only in academia, but also in
life after college. So I design projects that require students
to perform rigorous, creative research and present their findings
in ambitious ways: in addition to standard academic essays,
students produce websites, handouts, brochures, posters, and
oral and multimedia presentations. I work closely with reference
librarians designing the introductory lessons and library orientations
in order to maximize my students' exposure to the latest Main
Library offerings, both print and electronic. I strive to teach
my students that the craft of research can enhance both their
academic and professional careers as well as their lives as
productive, responsible, engaged citizens. |
- "There
Are At Least Two Sides to Every Story . . . And Usually
More." Research Project for English 1101 at The
University of Georgia. Project requires students to select
one event or group that has figured prominently in recent
news, track down a number of media representations of that
group/event (popular news magazine, scholarly text, TV broadcast,
radio broadcast, national newspaper, local/regional newspaper,
alternative newspaper), and analyze the various interpretations
and presentations of the event. Past topics have ranged
from Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain's suicide to the debates
over cloning to J.F.K.'s assassination. Through the process
of developing this paper, the students recognize and analyze
bias in print and other media; they distinguish power from
reliability when evaluating the news media; and they understand
mediation as a textual process. Students then create a WWW
portfolio to display their findings. Presenting their work
online fosters basic skills in creating and managing web-based
texts, including introductory knowledge of HTML, and a reevaluation
of their ideas about audience, for students' work can now
be read and evaluated by anyone with access to a computer
and a modem.
- "Creating
Literary Personas." Research project for English
1102 at The University of Georgia. The project centers on
evaluating websites dedicated to a well-known literary figure,
compiling an annotated bibliography assessing the websites,
and then designing an alternative media representation of
this literary figure: a flyer, a brochure, a newsletter,
or a website. Students often come to introductory literature
courses with the misunderstanding that the writer equals
the writing; because Sylvia Plath, for example, took her
own life, all of her poetry must therefore be about suicide.
This project aims to complicate and enrich students' understanding
of how literary reputations are created by media and scholarship,
asking them to not only evaluate websites, popular sources
of undergraduate (mis)information, but also by asking them
to engage in a similar "myth-making" process as
they create their own presentations of who the writer is
and is not, and by extension, what the writings are and
are not. See project
created by Justin Moseley at the University of Georgia.
- "How
Many Ways Can You Interpret Frankenstein? or, Investigating
Literary Criticism."
Research project for English 2320, a second-year survey
course of British literature at The University of Georgia.
English students generally are not exposed to scholarly
literary criticism until late in their careers, often not
until a 4000-level courses. Because of my dedication to
teaching research skills and providing opportunities for
undergraduate research, I integrated a project that allows
second-year students to explore a writer and work of interest
to them, to present their findings in an annotated bibliography
and short paper that demonstrates the their understanding
of and engagement with the argument(s) and critical text(s)
through a synthesis of analysis and description, and then
to create a presentation for their classmates detailing
their findings. We use the insights students gain from their
research to shape our class discussions, and students are
free to use their findings in later research papers during
the semester. I have encouraged students to submit their
work and findings to undergraduate conferences, including
the UGA CURO symposium.
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Special
Topics Course on Contemporary American Feminism
In Spring 2000, I proposed a Special Topic English 1101 that
was approved by the First-Year English Committee and slated
for Fall 2000 at The University of Georgia (original
proposal available here; requires Adobe Acrobat Reader).
One of the primary departmental objectives for English 1101
is that students will learn "to use critical thinking
skills and strategies to recognize the difference between
opinion and evidence." To meet this objective, the class
I proposed allowed students to immerse themselves in a subject,
Contemporary American Feminism, rife with contradictory opinions
and evidence. By focusing on a feminist agenda, we were able
to explore contemporary issues through a common lens, thereby
allowing multiple occasions for lively debate and exchange
of ideas. Over the course of the semester, students reexamined
their preconceived notions of what "feminism" is
in both a historical context and a contemporary one through
classroom discussion, individual writings, and collaborative
projects; they developed a cultural vocabulary which would
prove useful to them not only in First-Year Composition, but
sociology, psychology, business, history, etc.; and they came
to an understanding of their individual "voices"
as writers through the preparation of four standard academic
essays, a
research project, and a
website hosted on the UGA web server. Course
website available.
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last
updated October 2007
©2007 Monica Smith
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