Integrating Media and Literature

I took a course as an undergraduate that was all about different adaptations of Shakespeare's plays. One of the most interesting assignments of that class was to look at a film adaptation of one of his plays and compare and contrast then, analyze the Shakespearean influence, and discuss the differences in experiences that reading/viewing each one had to offer. I would love to do an activity like this in my own classroom someday. There are dozens of Shakespearean adaptations out there, but I think it would work well to focus on one play. For example, if I were teaching Taming of the Shrew, I would have the class work in groups to analyze a different media portrayal inspired by the original text. We could all read and study the text in class, and then students could extend their knowledge of the play by comparing it to different media-- one group could view the movie 10 Things I Hate About You, for example, and give a presentation to the rest of the class that includes selected scenes of particular significance, a discussion of the similarities/differences, etc. After all groups have presented on a different media. the whole class could discuss and reflect on the differences in experience that each adaptation elicited. It would be great if we could integrate drama in this unit as well, by either going to see a production of the play or by staging an act or two as a whole class. This might be a nice way to get the students involved and to have them experience different types of media-- it's very different to read lines of a play than it is to read and perform them "on stage." These kind of activities would be useful for a lot of literature, but Shakespeare seems like a particularly effective unit of study during which to integrate film and other media, because there is so much depth to Shakespeare's texts that students might actually get more out of studying them when other media is incorporated.