Beyond School Breaks: Reinterpreting the Uses of Film in Classrooms

When using film adaptations of children's literature, teachers often limit learning opportunities to comparisons and contrasts of film and text or use movies as rewards. To develop deeper understandings of film adaptations of literature, students must learn that film adaptations do not merely translate a text but rather reenvision it within a particular cultural and historical moment. To move beyond looking at a film's fidelity to the original book and instead realize that the film is a creative work in its own right, students engage in film analysis in which they attend to a film's images, use of color, music, and camerawork and speculate about the consequences of the filmmakers’ choices. In doing so, students develop critical media literacy skills and meet Common Core State Standards. This article offers a SCREEN Guide created by the authors to facilitate students’ film analysis.