Engish 1B: Extra Credit Options |
English 1B Extra Credit Options: Each extra credit assignment is worth a maximum of 30 points. Completing an extra credit assignment does not guarantee that you will receive full credit on the assignment. You may complete up to three extra credit assignments. Extra credit assignments will count toward your Reading Journal scores.
Option #1: Write a Review
Each assignment must be 2-3 pages long, double spaced, and adhere to MLA citation and formatting standards. You must also use direct quotations from the original and/or adaptation that you view to support the arguments being put forth.
You should write the review as if you were writing for a newspaper and provide a judgment about the adaptation (successful/unsuccessful? accurate/inaccurate? etc.). As such, you should think about the adaptation you watch or read in two ways:
1) How successful the adaptation is overall. What have the writer or director, actors, and creative team done that has made the adaptation either a success or a failure (or something in between)?
2) The adaptation's relationship to the original. How is it an accurate/inaccurate portrayal of the original? Were any interesting choices made that affected your understanding of either the original or the adaptation? For instance, was the story modernized? For instance, did you watch a version of Hamlet that was set in the 20th century instead of Shakespeare's late 16th/early 17th? If so, did this enhance or detract from your understanding in any way? Or did a minor character become a major character in the adaptation? What was the effect?
Assignment options:
1.Watch a film adaptation, live performance or video taped live performance of any work read in this course and write a review of the film/stage adaptation.
2. Watch an adaptation of a work that we did not read if it was written by an author that we read (ie. another work by Shakespeare, like King Lear on film). Since you may not be familiar with the original work if you pick this extra credit option, instead of addressing how successful the adaptation was (if you cannot), you should focus on what you felt the major themes being put forth by the adaptation were and how successful you think the film was in conveying those themes. You should also address how the themes you identified in the adaptation relate to the rest of the course. (ie. How can you relate this work to something else you read this semester?)
3. Watch a film about any figure, event, or time period related to this course. This film could be an artistic/dramatic film or a documentary film. For your review, you should focus on how accurate a portrayal of the figure, event or time period the film presents. How does the film enhance your understanding of the time period and/or materials covered in this class?
4.Read any literary adaptation (such as a comic book, or spinoff novel, etc.) of a work we read this semester and write a review.
You should write the review as if you were writing for a newspaper and provide a judgment about the adaptation (successful/unsuccessful? accurate/inaccurate? etc.). As such, you should think about the adaptation you watch or read in two ways:
1) How successful the adaptation is overall. What have the writer or director, actors, and creative team done that has made the adaptation either a success or a failure (or something in between)?
2) The adaptation's relationship to the original. How is it an accurate/inaccurate portrayal of the original? Were any interesting choices made that affected your understanding of either the original or the adaptation? For instance, was the story modernized? For instance, did you watch a version of Hamlet that was set in the 20th century instead of Shakespeare's late 16th/early 17th? If so, did this enhance or detract from your understanding in any way? Or did a minor character become a major character in the adaptation? What was the effect?
Assignment options:
1.Watch a film adaptation, live performance or video taped live performance of any work read in this course and write a review of the film/stage adaptation.
2. Watch an adaptation of a work that we did not read if it was written by an author that we read (ie. another work by Shakespeare, like King Lear on film). Since you may not be familiar with the original work if you pick this extra credit option, instead of addressing how successful the adaptation was (if you cannot), you should focus on what you felt the major themes being put forth by the adaptation were and how successful you think the film was in conveying those themes. You should also address how the themes you identified in the adaptation relate to the rest of the course. (ie. How can you relate this work to something else you read this semester?)
3. Watch a film about any figure, event, or time period related to this course. This film could be an artistic/dramatic film or a documentary film. For your review, you should focus on how accurate a portrayal of the figure, event or time period the film presents. How does the film enhance your understanding of the time period and/or materials covered in this class?
4.Read any literary adaptation (such as a comic book, or spinoff novel, etc.) of a work we read this semester and write a review.
Option #2: Be the Teacher
For this assignment, you should select and read a work of drama, fiction or poetry that we DID NOT read in this class but could be assigned as a reading in future classes. This assignment will have two parts:
- Write a 2 page mini-analysis that identifies what Literary Devices discussed in the class could be taught by using this work. In other words, you may read The Hunger Games as an example of dystopian fiction and identify some themes of the work, symbols contained within the work, or characterizations of the protagonist and/or antagonist, etc. You could then argue that the book, short story, poem, graphic novel or other written work could be used to teach the concepts that you have identified within it. Make sure you actually analyze HOW the author makes use of literary devices and not just that the work contains literary devices!
- Come up with 3 Reading Journal questions that could be asked about the work and then answer them.