LENS+2+Rodriguez

Back to Personal Page Eddie Rodriguez YA Lit Dr. Sherry Transmedial: Monster  In his story //Monster,// Walter Dean Myers seems to have captured the experience of a 16-year-old, African-American, boy named Steve that is on trial for murder and may never see his freedom again. The story is far from the usual tale assigned in high schools and could really spark some interest in students. The main character, Steve Harmon, wants people to know his experience through this terrifying ordeal so he has the idea to write everything that happens as if it were a movie. So actually making this book into a movie could be very functional as well as helpful while teaching it. In my own classroom I could even incorporate the idea of having groups in my class act out important scenes and eventually put them together to play out the book as the students understood it. Both definitely have their positives and negatives but there is no negative about learning and using different methods to teach.  Making a movie out of this book could be a huge help for visual learners in the classroom. I feel like watching a film version of a book after reading it can be quite enjoyable and can even clear up some questions that students may have had. Of course some details may be lost in translation but that’s always a problem with “transmediation.” Throughout the book Myers says exactly where the scene takes place and who is speaking. But if this were taken a step further and made into a movie the students wouldn’t have to just imagine the scenes because they could see them and listen to the actual conversations more. Scenes where dialogue is diverse amongst characters could be more easily comprehended if students were to actually see it in a film. I know when I was reading the book I had to think about who all the characters were once the dialogue started to jump around. This could help by also showing how each other the characters would actually talk to on another. Starting on page 223, Steve is on stand and is questioned by his lawyer and the prosecution. We could see that the prosecution could be trying to evoke some doubt for the jurors and that his lawyer is trying to make a point. Being emotionally involved can make everything so much more beneficial. By using the movie, the students could also see the jail experiences that Steve was talking about in journals and could possibly catch more of an emotional reaction to the graphic images depicted. The movie would definitely make everything more clear for the students if it was made correctly. Some students just can’t picture what they read so they are reading words without attaching a mental vision and their attention and retention is at a minimum, so a film version could really work better than reading for some students. The conversation with inmates about truth on page 221 would even be interest to see acted out with emotion, tone, and facial expressions. There are a lot of benefits about showing these types of things. This would be something that I would show after my class has completed the book but I would have to address some issues that the film would create.  Having students sit down and watch //Monster// (the film) may be beneficial but movies may cause numerous problems when dealing with high school students. When a high school student hears the word “movie” in a classroom they may just shut off and think of it as naptime. But thanks to the topic of the book/movie it will hopefully hold enough attention to keep their heads up. Also, the book is written from just Steve’s perspective. The film maker would have to decide if they would keep that the same. From Steve’s view the story may be more construed and the makers would have to worry about making it Steve’s version or just the crime and trial. Along with that the makers may actually have to show the crime taking place which may place bias on the audience because they may have to show his involvement, or lack thereof, in the crime. That is an important piece in the text and needs to be translated to film carefully. And my students will be less engaged mentally by just watching and seeing the scenes and experiences instead of reading and imagining. Imagining is definitely a higher level process. Regardless of the problems with the movie version could bring, the students will have already read the book and this is just one more way for them to learn the story and become engaged more.  A great idea to really get my class involved would be to have them act out important scenes in the book as a play. I would divide them into groups and assign them scenes, or even possibly have them work out who can do what amongst themselves as I mediate. This way all the students have to become kinesthetically involved and can help one another work through any confusion of what actually happened. Students would have to work as a team to visualize Steve’s ordeal and play it out as the book has it. By the end of that, I could have them act their groups scenes out in chronological order and see if they can act the book out with important scenes and still get the impact of reading or watching. Seeing the groups act out scenes like Steve on the stand, the truth discussion, debating what is guilty, or even the crime would create conversation and interest with all the students. I believe group work with leniency would be important here to see what they think is important and to observe how they understood all of the events.  Teaching this book would be great for young adults, and using different approaches to go through it could be extremely effective. The transmediation will have some bumps while starting but should work out quite well with using the movie and acting out the book as a play type of project. The more learning styles are involved the more learning can take place. The only constrain that most curricula may have would be a time constrain. Meaning that we may have too much other material to cover to spend this much time on one book but if it would be possible I would try these things.