Finding non-traditional high school literature studies is not easy.
You know I’m always searching for ways to adjust curriculum for my son. His Autism forces me to be flexible and creative, or at least find resources that are. Literature and writing are his areas of biggest struggle. We incorporate media so that he can be successful.
When my daughter P was still homeschooling, we used Movies as Literature for half a year, to get her through the literature hurdle. She had ADD and while she enjoyed reading, she would drift off to other things when she needed to be getting through her literature.
Using movies was a great solution for her. She did well with the writing assignments, and it was a good experience for her. She ended up enjoying movies that she never would have chosen for herself.
I stumbled upon another literature with movies program, so I wanted to share it with you.
MovieLit is designed to enable students to gain access to some of the best quality literature by studying movies. MovieLit includes some movies I wished were in Movies As Literature. The curriculum includes a Student Handbook and a Teacher’s Handbook. Discussion questions, essay questions and tests are all included.
As with my MAL post, below is a complete listing of the movie titles used by MovieLit, with links to them on Amazon. The links with either be 1) Amazon Instant Video links, to rent or buy online or 2) DVDs. All are available to rent from Netflix as well.
MovieLit has a list of required movies, and a list of optional movies.
The optional movies aren’t exactly optional; you choose six of them to study. Personally I am interested in the optional ones!
The required movies were chosen for the essay skills covered through the literary elements.
The optional movies all cover the same basic skills, so are interchangeable. Choose the 6 that will best appeal to your student.
10 Required Movies:
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Our Town by Thornton Wilder
A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Optional Movie Titles (student chooses 6):
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare
Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
The Chronicles of Narnia (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) by C. S. Lewis
Final Project:
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
