Great Adaptations: Teaching Dickens Through Literary and Cinematic Adaptations

FAIN: FV-50246-10

Regents of the University of California, Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA 95064-1077)
Marty Russell Gould (Project Director: March 2010 to April 2012)
John O. Jordan (Co Project Director: March 2010 to April 2012)

A four-week seminar for sixteen school teachers on the literary and film adaptations of Charles Dickens's enduring novels, Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol.

Focused on a cluster of films and narrative rewritings of two major Dickens novels (Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol), the "Great Adaptations" seminar will explore the enduring influence of Dickens on the modern imagination. More generally, the seminar will consider adaptation as a cultural practice that expands and enriches readers' understanding of originary texts. A major goal of the seminar will be to help teachers identify new ways to use adaptation in the classroom in order to engage students actively in thinking and writing about literature. Examples will be drawn from a variety of genres, including fiction, film, and drama.