As a participant in the 'From Literacy to Multiliteracies' research project, Amy Hughes, the teacher-researcher involved in this project, chose to focus on how secondary English students engage in critical literary analysis, specifically the writing of the literary essay. The close reading and analytical skills students require to achieve successful literary analysis often present a major challenge for them, even at senior levels. In the year of the study, Amy was working with a class of thirty (30) Grade 11 students who displayed different degrees of ability, interest and ease with regard to critical literary analysis. Over her years of teaching experience, Amy had frequently seen students read a story once and jump too quickly into the task. As a result, it was not uncommon to get papers which, although required to be analytical and critical in nature, simply presented a basic summary. The lack of clarity students appear to have with respect to what is required of them in critical literary analysis leads them to restate plot or trace and list examples of particular elements of fiction such as introduction, initiating action, climax, and denouement, or to simply point out literary devices from the text, rather than deeply engage in the critical thinking and close reading required by the task. This is an all too common error.
Traditionally, the literary essay is taught by having students read the text, with focus questions given to help students interpret the literature and recognize the stylistic techniques employed, followed by a discussion of theme and how it can be supported from the text using such elements as symbol, imagery, character, setting and allusion. This method, which is not without merit, was the one which Amy had employed at the start of her short story unit. While the analytical essays on the selected story were completed by each student in a timely manner, it seemed abundantly clear to Amy, and by the students' own accounts, that many struggled with aspects of the task. She had long felt that in order to create the kind of personal connection to a story that would afford a successful close reading and textual analysis, it was necessary to explore a new way for students to engage with the text. What came about was her decision try a multimodal approach to interpreting literature using the arts: visual, musical and theatrical.
The claim investigated in this project was that by engaging students in a critical literary analysis of literature through an arts-based multimodal perspective, students would achieve a deeper and more critical understanding of the literary work and that this 'artistic' interpretation of the text would subsequently result in a more proficient written critical analysis.
Lord Byng Secondary, is a school on Vancouver's west side. Located close to The University of British Columbia, it is a comprehensive school of some 1200 students in Grades 8 -12. This is a well educated (site provincial exam stats re: years of education) and multi-cultural community which puts a high value on affording students the opportunity to express themselves in a variety of ways, be they academic, athletic, artistic, or social. Actually, Lord Byng Secondary consists of two schools: its main school and its arts-based Mini school. The Mini consists of approximately 350 students, Grades 8 -12, pursuing studies in the arts as well as in the traditional academics which make up the high school experience. The areas of study include visual arts, music, and theatre. Every year 90 new students at the Grade 8 level: 30 in visual arts, 30 in music, and 30 in theatre enter Byng Arts. Students must audition for this programme and academic ability is considered. Students are asked to have good work habits and a C+ average coming in from Grade 7. Once in the school, students who do not exhibit good work habits are put on academic probation pending review; continued poor work habits can result in withdrawal from the Byng Arts programme. As it is not poor academic progress that can result in removal from the programme, but poor effort and work habits, the programme is more readily available to students with limited English proficiency, learning difficulties, and physical disabilities. These students are accepted into the Byng Arts principally upon their artistic talents and promise. Because the classes are in many ways diverse in their composition (music students, theatre students, art students, recent ESL students, learning disabled students and, at times, students with physical difficulties), unifying the students at a common level of interest and ability is an ongoing challenge. Regardless of these very real varaitions across each grade level cohort, the enrichment of the English curriculum is still required. It was in response to these concerns that the idea of this study came to be. The teacher was interested in knowing what, if any, kind of change in written analysis would occur if all the students approached the literary text being studied via their chosen artistic discipline. It was hoped that such an approach to the written word, via another mode in which the student possessed skill and confidence, would facilitate more critical engagement with the short story text and more critical written analysis.
The participants in the study were the teacher, Amy Hughes, Head of the English Department and a well respected and experienced English teacher of 16 years, and a class of 30 English 11, Byng Arts Students. As the teacher had taught almost all of the students involved in this study previously during their Grade 9 Byng Arts English class, a level of trust existed from the outset between students and teacher and amongst the students themselves. Amy felt that as a result of their previously established relationships, the students seemed more willing to follow her into this Literary Analysis study than another group might hav been, especially so early in the school year.
To reiterate, the claim investigated in this project was that by engaging students in a critical literary analysis of literature through an arts-based multimodal perspective, students would achieve a deeper and more critical understanding of the literary work and that this 'artistic' interpretation of the text would subsequently result in a more proficient written critical analysis.
To investigate this claim, there were multiple sources of data collection; i) the class was observed over a five week period time between October 1st and November 14th , 2003 and field notes were taken; ii) the teacher and the students who agreed to participate were interviewed; iii) essay results of pre and post artistic interaction essay results were considered, marked by student number by an unbiased and outside marker; iv) feedback surveys were completed by student participants (anonymity optional) at the close of the study; and v) the teacher's reflections on the results of the study.
At the outset, the student participants quickly agreed to begin their second short story study, knowing that it would result in second essay being assigned and that they would have received no feedback on the first essay. During the class discussion on the day when Amy first introduced the idea of the study and the second essay, the students spoke with her about their concerns regarding the writing of another paper without teacher feedback on the first. Initially, the students sought clarification and concern around why they would not be able to get feedback on their first papers and they asked how they could be expected to improve if they received no mark or feedback. It quickly became clear that the feedback on their first papers was more important to the students than the marks they would receive. The teacher acknowledged their concerns and explained that in order for the study to have validity, that the first and second essays would have to go to an outside marker and that the teacher herself had not read, and would not read or look at the papers until the study's completion. It was made very clear to the students that the teacher appreciated their leap of faith to follow her into the study and that if the essay results on the second paper were a serious concern, that the teacher would certainly not weight that essay in a way that would prove detrimental to the class and their overall grade point average for the term. The student's were satisfied with the response particularly as they would continue to receive the same level of support, feedback and guidance on their essay writing as they always did when such such an assignment was set.
The teacher's traditional approach to literary analysis and the literary essay was to take the students through a series of steps which would culminate in a literary essay based on a thesis devised by the students and in consultation with the teacher. This traditional approach was used by the teacher with the class as they approached, studied and ultimately wrote about the first short story in the unit, 'The Painted Door' by Sinclair Ross. As this short story unit was the first unit for the Byng Arts English 11 (MIEN11) class during the 2003-2004 school year, the teacher used the unit not only for the teaching of the literary essay, which is an extension of other literary analysis work done in the earlier grades, but for review purposes regarding the elements of fiction and literary terminology.
The initial lessons in this unit early in September began with a review and re-teaching, as needed, of the elements of short fiction: Introduction, Initiation, Rising Action, Climax and Denouement. The students were required to take notes from the overhead on each of these elements of the short story structure, along with the following key visual.
(Fig. 1)
Notes on setting (time and place) and character (protagonist, antagonist, and subordinate) were also given. Symbol, imagery and theme are also addressed through definition and example; students begin by applying these terms and devices to the text being studied, 'The Painted Door.' First, Amy introduced the story,' The Painted Door' by Sinclair Ross, to the class. As is her common practice, the first few pages of the story were read aloud in order to engage and 'hook' the class. Students were then required to finish up the reading on their own. Students' homework included not only the reading of the story, but observations around symbol, imagery and theme which students could determine on their first read through the text. Students were also required to locate the elements of the plot chart as they related to the story 'The Painted Door.' Inherent in the task were the following questions: Could the students determine the elements of the introduction? The setting and the characters? Could they form an opinion about the possible effect of such characters in the time and place of the story? Could they determine the point at which initiating action occurs? This is often an interesting point of debate among students and pushes them further into their close reading to justify their position. Could students locate at least five (5) examples of rising action, a climax, and denouement? This homework was checked with a date stamp and completion credit noted in the teacher's mark book at the beginning of the following class.
Once a preliminary close reading has been performed on the story by virtue of homework completion, the students were led through class discussion around theme and how symbol, imagery and character work in support of theme. Students, working in small groups and large groups as a class, generated possible symbols from the text looking for patterns and repetition which would suggest that a symbol is at work. The teacher touched on allusion to help students see and understand that the snake imagery as described in the snow, can be seen as a reference to Adam and Eve's temptation in the Garden of Eden. This realization of allusion and Biblical symbolism was quickly picked up on by the students and they began to make similar connections to the characters and their actions, making further parallels to the Biblical story of Adam and Eve and the temptation which destroyed what they had. After further discussion, the students were presented with the task of choosing themes in the story which they can defend from the text. Amy reviewed the themes, reminding students that the theme they had chosen should be universal in nature. She then re-visited the process of creating theme statements directing the students away from the one word theme statement and the use of 'the' which implies that there is only one theme in the story: the theme in the story is temptation. Students were also taught/re-taught to include title, author and genre in their opening paragraph so that they were able to create a theme statement more in keeping with the following: A theme in 'The Painted Door' by Sinclair Ross is that temptation can lead to betrayal and, ultimately, the destruction of that which we value. Students were then instructed to turn to the task of essay writing. They had approximately ten (10) days to write this take home paper. Draft deadlines were set and drafts checked by Amy every class to ensure progress and feedback. Classes met every other day, so in ten (10 ) days, students could meet 3 times before the essay were due. Because class time was provided so that students could conference with the teacher and students could engage in peer editing, the assignment consisted of at least two (2), but ideally three (3) drafts plus a final. The results of this first paper on 'The Painted Door' by Sinclair Ross later revealed that seven (7) students achieved an A (86%-100%), fourteen (14) students achieved a B (73% - 85%), and nine (9) students achieved a grade of C+ (67% - 72%). As with the other set of papers in this study, these papers were marked by an outside marker who marked by student number and was unaware of the parameters of the study itself. The results from this first paper, the control paper for the study, are demonstrated in the following graph:
(Fig. 2)
The claim investigated in this project was that by engaging students in a critical literary analysis of literature through an arts-based multimodal perspective, students would achieve a deeper and more critical understanding of the literary work and that this 'artistic' interpretation of the text would subsequently result in a more proficient written critical analysis. The project was done in Term One of the 2003 -2004 school year, and as stated above, one literary analysis paper on the short story 'The Painted Door' by Sinclair Ross had already been written by the students but not marked. The teacher proposed to the class that they enter into the project but that, in so doing, the first essay would not be marked or returned until after a second was written. Both essays, it was decided, would be sent to an outside marker who was unaware of the intermediary step that would be take: the interpretation of the second short story through an artistic interaction.
The second short story to be studied by the students and be the textual basis for the artistic analysis in the pre-writing stage and the second essay, both of which served as the experimental stage of this research study, is Don Bailey's 'A Few Notes for Orpheus.' Similar to the introduction of 'The Painted Door', 'A Few Notes for Orpheus' was introduced to the students in class by the teacher, students were sent home with homework comparable to that required for 'The Painted Door' and analysis and discussion of symbol, imagery, allusion, and theme was begun. In order to assist students in making the connections to allusion, students were taught the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and required to draw comparisons and contrasts between the myth and the short story.They were asked to consider, In what way were the characters, setting and events similar between the two works? Which characters in the story corresponded to which characters in the myth? Which characters acted at different times as Orpheus-type characters in the short story. What objects in the short story parallelled, according to their function and/or importance, objects in the myth of Orpheus? Students focussed on these questions and came prepared for class discussion. After this discussion, the students were presented with an overview of what would constitute the study and project work. (See Appendix A.) The assignment was designed in three parts to allow for a multimodal approach to the text. The teacher felt that students needed a variety of options and avenues through which to show their understanding of the text and to demonstrate their ability to do close reading. Because not all students were naturally strong writers, the hope was that if students were to approach 'A Few Notes for Orpheus' and its connection to the Myth of Orpheus via an artistic medium prior to beginning the literary essay, that deep understanding of task and text could be shown regardless of the essay product. It was hoped, however, that there would be an improved written product in the culminating literary essay, and that this improved written analysis would be evident as a result of having explored the text and myth via the arts first. It was, in short, Amy's intent to explore the connection between the critical analysis of literature through the arts and the impact such a preliminary engagement with the text would have on students' written output, specifically that of the literary essay which requires close reading of a text if critical literary analysis is to be fully realized.
Originally, Amy designed the three part task without the partner option for Part I and Part II. She revisited this notion and changed to a partner option section of the assignment.
[She] felt this would give students less anxiety AND an opportunity for sharing ideas as they created their artistic interpretation of the text (Amy Hughes, Multi-literacy Journal Entry, 28 October, 2003).
One of the other key reasons for affecting this change had to do with the project timeline; it was felt that were each student required to execute each part of the assignment independently that the project would extend beyond a reasonable length of time. Given this, and the important critical thinking time that shared work and discussion might yield during the creation of the artistic interpretation, it seemed only logical to Amy to alter the requirements of the project in this way. It was at the same time that the Theatre Option was revised. Originally the option involved writing a script based on the short story and included the option to act out said script, but this was changed to a Radio Play based on the text. This change, like changes noted above, was partly based on time constraints. It was felt that a Radio Play would expedite the presentations, diminish wasted class time around preparation set up (as it would only be a matter of introducing the Radio Play and playing the tape for the class), but most importantly, it was felt that a Radio Play format would force students to pay much closer attention to word choice and detail. If the performance were pre-recorded, as is the case with a Radio Play of this nature, there would be no chance for adlibbing, a mode that theatre students often fall back on when nervous or hoping to give the class what they feel their theatre persona is; those with a 'comedic bent' have been known to overact in such class presentation situations. Because students choosing this option would not be able to rely on their physicality as actors in front of their peers who knew them as performers, they would instead have to bring the mood, tone and character elements to life via the script they had created using their words as well as those from the text, the sound effects they chose, and their vocal characterization. The last change the teacher made to her original assignment was to remove the essay option in Part III about 'Significance of Title'. The teacher felt that Theme and Character were more directly relevant to what the students were to be focussing on in Parts I and II.
The following graph (Fig. 3) represents the grades achieved by the participants on the second essay of the study, the critical literary analysis of Don Bailey's 'A Few Notes for Orpheus.' Six (6) students achieved a grade of A (86% -100%), seventeen (17) students achieved a grade of B (73% - 85%), five (5) students achieved a grade of C+ (67% - 72%) and two (2) students achieved a grade of C- (50% - 59%).
(Fig. 3)
The next graph (Fig. 4) shows a task comparison between the first critical literary analysis, the traditional paper written on Sinclair Ross's 'The Painted Door,' and the paper on 'A Few Notes for Orpheus' which was written after the participants engaged in the integrated arts approach to literature.
(Fig. 4)
In comparing the results of the control essay on 'The Painted Door' with that of the essay completed after a multimodal perspective on the text of 'A Few Notes for Orpheus', the following observations can be made. After engaging in a critical literary analysis of Don Bailey's short story using either visual art, music or theatre, the students' subsequent literary essay results reveal a decrease by one (1) in the number of A's achieved, an increase by three (3) in the number of B's achieved, a decrease by four (4) in the number of C+'s achieved, and an increase from zero (0) to two (2) in the number of C- grades achieved. In addition to the essay component to the study, students were required to present and explain their artistic analysis of the story 'A Few Notes for Orpheus' to the class. Students alone, or with their partner if applicable, explained their artistic analyses of the text. Visual artists explained how and why they chose their materials and, for example, the use of layout, placement and use of colour to reflect their understanding of the text. Similarly, students who chose to do a musical interpretation of the text played their musical selections, either on audio tape or compact disk, for the class and likewise explained their rationale for their choices. Musical interpretation work relied heavily in capturing mood, tone and theme. Finally, the one student who chose to do the radio play option presented her project. This student used audio tape to address her goal of trying to better understand character in 'A Few Notes for Orpheus' through performance, internalizing character and working with sub-text.
The following graph (Fig. 5) shows student achievement on the oral presentation and explanation of the artistic analysis and interpretation of the text. Seventeen (17) students achieved A's (86% or higher) and fourteen (14) students achieved B's (73% - 85%) on this section of the project.
(Fig. 5)
The results of the comparison of the two conditions are interesting. The second condition did not yield higher marks on the written form and did not reveal greater success for the students. What was very impressive however was the students oral presenation discussing their interpretations of the verbal texts through other modes. The marks reveal a very high quality of thought and well articulated verbal ability to realize that thought orally. According to Amy, "The students' responses to the survey and their written reflections, also reveal interesting insight about the students' perceptions of differences in learning in the two conditions that the grades do not reveal."
An analysis of the student surveys and reflections follows in the next section. These comments also reveal interesting insights into the students' perceptions and insight of working across the two conditions.
The data analysis for the student surveys and written reflections was undertaken collaboratively by the teacher-researcher, Amy, and the university-researcher, Margaret; it proceeded through three (3) phases.
Before reporting on the major themes to emerge, an overview of the forms students chose as their means of response and artistic interpretation were given. Of the three options (music, art, and theatre) available to students, by far the majority chose visual art (n = 23) or some combination of visual art and music (n = 3), three students chose music alone as an option (n = 3) and one student (n =1) interpreted the story the theatrical form of an audio taped radio play. A wide variety of visual media were used including paintings (oil, acrylic and water colour were represented), pencil drawings, sculptures, and three dimensional conceptual art pieces. In addition, collages and photography were also used. The mixed media included painting and music, sculpting and music and the radio play which used musical effects. The quality of the art produced was uniformly very high and the students were very impressed with the collective talent and ability of this cohort, as were we.
Turning to the data analysis, as outlined above, data were analysed inductively and recursively to find major themes. Four major themes emerged: interpreting texts from multiple perspectives; student investment in the task; deep understanding; and ability to transfer insights and understanding to future work. Student investment in the task and deep understanding were so fused in the students comments that we have reported them in a single section.
Almost all of the students surveyed commented on how approaching the literary analysis through the arts had provided them with an opportunity to 'read' the text from different perspectives, perspectives which they believe they would have been unlikely, or certainly less likely, to have seen if they had not been working individually and collectively from a multi-modal perspective. Below are some represenative comments from students using different modes:
I gained a greater understanding in Jake's transformation because I was reading small portions of the text repeatidly (sic) which actually brought out more meaning each time. Also writing an explanation for my selections forced me to anyalize (sic) why they helped to prove Jake's transformation. (Student #7, Radio Play)
When you study something from a new angle and approach, you see things you wouldn't normally see just by doing it in writing. You see new ways of observing the themes and mood through different mediums. (Student #9, Art and Music)
This helped me because I really explored the text to look for creative ways to show this in art and there for (sic) knew more about the symbols, metaphors and theme of the story.(Student #11, Art: statue from clay).
Approaching literature through the arts really did help me understand many things from the text. Not necessary (sic) the story itself, but some internal things such as the emotional, psychological side or view of humans. (Student #20, Art: drawing in oil pastel with 3-D effects)
When I first read the text I thought it as a rather dull story yet art made me have to get into what the character was feeling and helped a lot.. (Student #21, Art: diorama with clay characters in a scene)
The students not only reported gaining insight into the text as a result of their own multi-modal interpretations of the literature, they also reported that they learned from their classmates and their own presentations. The opportunity to view project presentations and hear the interpretations of the text as executed and explained by their peers along with the opportunity to articulate the thinking represented in their project work, appeared to provide students with a broader set of interpretations and fodder for further enquiry and discussion as a class. This is a sample of what the students reported: "When other student explain their art project. I get to pick up things that I did not see when I was reading the text." (Student #6). "This project helped me a lot, as I viewed projects from other people's perspective. I understood and saw how others viewed specific parts of the story." (Student #5). "It helped me to get feedback from others in the class, and by conveying a character through visual arts, it made me see her in a different way." (Student #1). "It was hard in a way that just by looking [at] my peers' projects and explanations, there are so many different subjective views, it was hard for me to pack everything that I agreed and liked in an organized essay." (Student #20). "Creating that poster then being able to answer questions, explain my ideas and relate them to one another helped me understand more of the story." (Student #15).
This section of the study, in which students had to articulate their rationale for their art and explain how thei art represented an analysis of the short story 'A Few Notes for Orpheus,' proved an integral part of the overall project. By verbalizing what they had artistically interpreted from the text, a further depth of understanding was explored, internalized and communicated by the students. They clarified for themselves what their analyses of the text were and succeeded in providing a broad array of textual analysis for their peers to consider and discuss. The impressive variety in the presentations and interpretations of the text provided all the students with an expanded pool of analytical possibilities to serve as material for their culminating literary essay which would require critical close reading and analysis of the text.
The majority of the thirty (30) students involved in this case study reported that the multi-modal approach to literature and the activities associated with this case study resulted in their becoming more engaged with the text and the task of close reading and analysis than was their norm. As the following quotations illustrate, the students claimed that they not only enjoyed the process of interpretation more, but were more deeply invested in the task and more engaged in the re-readings of the text required in order for them to express their ideas artistically. Here is a represenative selection of students' reflections:"I think it helped me learn how to look for deeper meaning in the story and how to express them more effectively." (Student# 2). "It helped me realize how to extract an overall theme from a story, rather than examining is on a lighter level." (Student #3). "It gives me a bit more confidence, knowing that I now have more options that just words.' (Student #4). "[It helped] me to understand the text more, and gave ideas for future works and how to approach it." (Student #8). "I discovered new ways of thinking that I wouldn't normally have found in just a literary essay." (Student #9). "The project forced me to dig into the text." (Student #12) "[N]ew ideas came that I never would of (sic) thought about if I were to only read the story and write about it." (Student #13). "I felt ... more confident with the story itself" (Student #17). And finally:
Being able to put part of the story or a character on a piece of paper helped me to learn more. Creating that poster then being able to answer questions, explain my ideas and relate them to one another helped me to understand more of the story, and having this new understanding it helped me to write the essay. ( Student # 4).
Overall, Twenty-seven of the thirty (27 / 30) students stated that this approach to the literary essay was 'easier', one out of thirty (1 / 30) stated that, 'nothing' about this approach was necessarily harder or easier (Student #3), and two out of thirty (2 / 30) students stated that the multimodal approach was 'harder'.
What struck us as highly significant was that when asked if this project helped them overall 'as a learner', thirty out of thirty (30 / 30) of the students answered in the affirmative and declared that their analytical study of literature was improved as a result of this project. The fact that this process required for the multi-modal approach was not perceived as 'easy' by all, does not diminish the fact that in the end all of the student participants in this case study felt that they benefited from this approach to critical literary analysis through the arts.
One further theme that emerged from the study was what the students discovered about themselves as learners in this context. They learned both some of the limitations of the ways they had previously approached the task of writing the critical essay and the project also helped them to determine what they might do differently in the future. Below is a sample of student learnings:
This [project] helped me to understand that I need to spend more time to think about the story and less time writing the essay. I should rush into things too quickly. (Student #29)
It showed me that there are easier ways to tackle an essay then (sic) just jumping right in. I found it really helps me if first I visualize it and maybe before my next essay I'll draw a quick sketch of the characters to get my brain working. (Student #21)
I learned that I really can better understand a story and interpret and explain my ideas if I approach it first through my art work before. (Student #9)
I realized that I had not been paying enough attention to the little details in the stories and that some of these things are important. I could see that in the details are a lot of the information you must pay attention to if you want to get the depth of that character, reading for detail for the drawing helped me see that. ( Student #15)
Conversely one student reported:
I found that examining the text through art helped me focus on the bigger picture. I realized I have been focussing too much on the small details of the text and I found myself now focussing on exploring a greater meaning or lesson that the author is trying to convey inside the story (Student #24)
Informally, many of the students reported to both Amy and the university -researcher, that they had found the process of being asked to reflect on their learning during the project a very valuable one.
Amy found that by affording the students an opportunity to take a multimodal perspective to the critical analysis of literature, they exhibited, as evidenced by their oral presentations and discussions, better close readings of the text and demonstrated greater confidence in engaging in literary analysis. During this study, a heightened investment in the literary text was observed and a critical literary analysis was successfully undertaken by all thirty (30) students through visual art, music or theatre. Student confidence was carried into the writing of the literary essay on Don Bailey's short story 'A Few Notes for Orpheus' and, although not all students exceeded the results of the control essay on Sinclair Ross's 'The Painted Door,' the project succeeded in providing all students with the opportunity to produce critical analysis in ways other than and including the literary essay form. Some of the students whose scores decreased in the condition 2 (the multimodal condition) did give unsolicted and interesting prespectives on why that might have been so in their particular case:
I gained a greater understanding of Jake's transformation and character, but the new concepts I found hard to express on paper. I received a lower mark on the 2nd essay, I think because my ideas were more complex I had trouble expressing them clearly.( Student #16)
I found it harder to write this easy and it might have affected my mark in a way that just by looking at my peers projects and explanations, there are so many different and subjective views, it was hard for me to pack in everything that I agreed with and liked in an organized coherent essay. (Student #20)
However, regardless of essay scores, as a result of using a multimodal perspective to interpret the story, all students were able to engage with the text of 'A Few Notes for Orpheus' and make and convey meaning of the story's characters, symbols, metaphors and allusions. From this by the students' own account 'deeper understanding ' of the text via the students' artistic interpretation of the literature, Amy observed that even those students who faltered in their written expression due to continuing English as a Second Language issues, or in some instances 'identified' learning difficulties, were able to succeed and perform mature and thoughtful analysis of a literary text. Overall, this multimodal approach to the critical analysis of literature appeared to allow students additional routes into the themes and elements of the short story studied, improve student connection to and comprehension of the text, and yield a written analysis which revealed maturely handled depth of discussion and analysis both emerging and successfully executed. Students overwhelming found this approach to literature a useful and positive experience, one that Amy will design and research in literature projects for her students in the future.
This is a THREE part assignment. Parts I and II may be done with a partner. Part III, the essay, is not to be done with a partner; it is an individual responsibility.
Part I: Using either music, art or theatre you will demonstrate your understanding of one or more of the following: character, setting, mood and tone.
Part II: To accompany Part One of the project, provide a 250-350 word write-up explaining why you have approached Part One as you have and what your choices reveal about A Few Notes for Orpheus and how, if at all, your artistic approach to the text provided a greater depth of understanding.
DUE DATE for Parts I and II: Friday November 7th, 2003 Approximate value for Term 1 = 15%
Part III: In a well written response of approximately six paragraphs, and with reference to the text, discuss a character or a theme in A Few Notes for Orpheus.
DUE DATE for Part III: 14th November, 2003 Approximate value for Term 1 = 25%
Part ONE options:
a) Music: Imagine this story, A Few Notes For Orpheus, has been made into a movie. It is your job to score it. How would you select the appropriate music to reflect mood, tone and character emotion? Select a scene from the short story and score it as if it were a movie. You will be required to bring in your music and explain your decision to the class. You need to be able to explain the mood, tone and pacing, etc of the music.
b) Art: Imagine you have been asked to represent character from the short story, A Few Notes For Orpheus, in a visual medium. For example, you might choose painting, drawing, sculpture or any other medium you feel will meet the task. You will be required to capture both the internal and external nature of the character upon whom you focus. You will be required to bring in your artwork and explain your artistic decisions and representations to the class. You need to be able to explain why the medium you have chosen is best suited to capturing the nature of the character you have chosen.
c) Theatre: Imagine you have been asked to script this short story, A Few Notes For Orpheus, as a radio play. Select a scene within the story which you feel reveals an important aspect of one of the characters and script it. You will be required to capture the character and his/her conflicts in a short, scripted scene of 3 pages and record the scene for the class. You need to be able to explain to the class why you have chosen the character you have and why you have chosen to script the scene as you have. You must present the script to the class as a recorded radio play scene and play the tape as your class presentation.