As a former homeschooler and (prayerfully) as a future homschooler, I often think about what I want to teach my children. What curriculum will I use - if any? What books do I want my children to read? What history to I want them to know? What should I learn more about now to help guide them later?Do y'all think about this?
For my Adolescent Fiction class at WVU, we were assigned Beowulf. But not the one you think. :P I had the pleasure of reading the graphic novel... Here are my thoughts.
Gareth Hinds’ Beowulf could be an integral part of a multi-media English curriculum. While Beowulf is the oldest epic of the English language and is revered by many teachers, it often remains inaccessible to students. Incorporating film, music, and art (such as graphic novels) would help students to appreciate the great poem that is Beowulf.
Hind’s Beowulf follows the original poem very faithfully. Aware of the hideous monster Grendel, Beowulf of the Geats arrives at the homeland of the Danes to destroy the beast. In a heroic struggle, he kills Grendel. However, his fight is not yet over; Beowulf goes on to battle Grendel’s mother and the dragon before his tragic death. Hind’s Beowulf traces Beowulf’s journey, but his audience is quite different from the original poem’s audience. Fans of comic books and graphic novels will be entertained by Gareth Hinds’ Beowulf. Even studious, stodgy English students may find themselves surprised by how much they appreciate Hinds’ graphic version.
Graphic novels never cease to surprise me; I am a word-oriented person, yet I am always captivated by the beauty of the artwork. Imagination is a wonderful gift; readers can create their own images to go with the story. The greatest strength of the graphic novel is the imagination of the artist on the page. Even the font of the text can be inspiring. While reading, I especially loved Beowulf’s fight with the dragon. Seeing the elderly Beowulf stand up for his people really makes the text come to life.
Drawn to the battle sequences, young men are will appreciate Hinds’ graphic version of Beowulf. Young women of diverse tastes (like me) will admire Beowulf despite its gore. Visually appealing, Hinds’ Beowulf is exciting because it is new and different. Most young adults will never get the chance to read a graphic novel in the “standard” English classroom. Perhaps the “standard” English classroom needs to change.
When I was a young teenager, I read voraciously; I also watched an abundance of films. A fair part of these films were adaptations of novels I had read or wanted to read. The films inspired me to read more. Comparisons between the novels and the films made for great discussions. While the text should still be the most important element of the English literature classroom, many types of media could enhance and enrich our understanding and appreciation of the great works of literature.
So what do you think? Is a multi-media approach appropriate? Or should we stick to the text alone?
2 comments:
No one ever replied to this? Gasp and bummer.
I think people need to be challenged to understand language and ideas that lie beyond the normal range of what they encounter, but I agree that Beowulf is pretty closed to most young people, even when it's translated into modern English. Ancient and medieval peoples have something to offer us because they've contacted the same God-created natural order that we have, but they usually encountered it from a different mindset than our own, and certain helps have to be employed to aid understanding. Even the Scriptures' proper meaning is sometimes hidden to us by our modern prejudices.
Generally, I would feel more comfortable making children "earn" the right to see the film adaptation, on the condition that they read the book first. But the universal pattern that learning takes at its core is one of graduated steps from where the child is, to where we mean to take him. We give him something that he is only slightly less probable to do on his own, something that seems to suit his natural interests, and use that to nudge him toward something that started out as even less probable, but which now may fall within his range of possibilities. And all proceeds in the direction of knowledge that, if the curriculum is planned wisely, will serve him well in mature adult life.
Sometimes the film adaptation tickles our curiosity, so that we are driven to read a book we wouldn't have touched or even known about otherwise. And sometimes the colorful picture that the film paints for us can make reading the novel easier. For example, I starting read The Lord of the Rings after I saw The Fellowship of the Ring but only two months before the release of The Two Towers (or The Treason of Isengard, if you want to be snobbish ;-) ). As I finished the TFotR portion of the book, I found it hard to slog through TTT because it was difficult for me to imagine all of the settings and new characters. Seeing TTT shortly thereafter made my reading that installment much easier.
But one of the weaknesses in public education is, I think, that English teachers universally show novel first, then book. Aside from the strengths of individualized education, this public-school program has the order backwards for what is more functional for most students. And no "comparisons between the novels and the films" are really encouraged: public school teachers usually treat the opportunity to show a film as a break from their work, not the learning experience it really ought to be.
^ Intended to say that public-school teachers often present students with the novel first, then the MOVIE.
Sorry. Sleep deprivation makes me sloppy.
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