A member of a Linked in professional forum asked about teaching with movies. Which novels have the best movies to use in teaching. Here is what I wrote as a comment, which shows how I came to an idea for using a fiction text in English 1101.
I wrote: The best book that is also a wonderful movie is a Clockwork Orange. Unfortunately, there is no movie version of the original British version of the text. Burgess argues that the British version is the only real novel, because it has a real resolution, and not just a Hollywood ending (in the text). American publishers disagreed, and he wanted to get paid, so they cut the 21st chapter and hence this was never shown on the film. Burgess explains this on the audio version of the book, which I highly recommend to actually hear the anti-language of the characters. I think I saw a clip of Clockwork Orange in a psychology class once, but I have never taught it my self as an English teacher. It may be a little violent for high school, but many students haven't seen movies from the 1970s.
I have taught One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Kesey) and the movie is excellent too, but quite different and is interesting to investigate point of view. I had students re-present the book using different themes (job related). One group was "The Entertainment Industry" and they made a music video of a Brittany Spears parody they wrote called "I'm sick."
Back to Clockwork Orange: re-making the end of the movie to include the last chapter would be an awesome activity for a Lit class. Also, the discussion about how publishers and their hegemonic power changed the story...that is a good one too. Lastly, a clip of the movie and text would be useful to teach how one's dialect shapes and is shaped by one's identity. In the last chapter, the protagonist comments on the way his friend (droog) has started to speak like an adult (and how he feels about that). I think I have just convinced myself that I could use the last chapter for my First Year Writing class.
I love how your post ended up being an argument for why it would be cool to re-make the ending of the movie using the last chapter. Nice meta thinking!
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I, Laura Redden, am a happy and willing participant of the Summer Writing Institute at UNCC.