USING AUSTEN FILM ADAPTATIONS: A NOVEL APPROACH

Inspired by Jane Austen and continued by MASTERPIECE on PBS, Sanditon returns to our screens today in the U.S. (tomorrow in the UK).  The award-winning drama series has aired numerous Austen adaptations on American public media. In this issue, Cyrisse Jaffee and Gay Mohrbacher, from PBS LearningMedia, share how you might use these films to support your literacy work:

Teaching the “Classics” including Austen 

We know the traditional literary classics are becoming less and less accessible to today’s students. The language can be daunting, the sentence structure complex, and the characters seem to espouse old-fashioned values and face out-of-date dilemmas.

Leaving behind the debate—for now—of what is a classic and how we should define (or redefine) the literary canon, there is still a place for Austen, Dickens, Hardy, etc. in our secondary curriculum. Digging a little deeper, the themes and topics their books explore are in fact relevant today: love, marriage, money, gender roles, power, coming-of-age crises. So how do we help reinvigorate English Language Arts instruction and enable students, including those who are reluctant or less-skilled readers, to embrace these texts?

MASTERPIECE on PBS: A Quick Look

MASTERPIECE (formerly MASTERPIECE THEATRE) on American public media (PBS) has offered award-winning film adaptations of literary classics for over 50 years. For many, it’s the gold standard, combining top-notch acting with superb costumes and settings, and brimming with historical authenticity. Today, the interplay between books and films continues to grow, with students anticipating how their favorite novel will be translated onto the screen or discovering the original book after seeing the film. Any educator who has seen students excitedly debating the merits of book vs. film can attest to the power of combining both.

We know that often the best way to introduce students to a work of literature or enhance their understanding of it, is to watch the film. For today’s students, raised in a media-saturated environment, films help make the work more relatable and less intimidating. In fact, many students may feel more comfortable talking about films than books. MASTERPIECE offers the added benefit of helping students understand what is gained and what is lost when adapting literature. Film is thus not just an adjunct to literature, but a medium that can improve students’ understanding of literary conventions, such as character, theme, setting, and point of view. And by learning film’s language and techniques—from close-ups to wide angles to storyboarding—students are better equipped to approach all media with a more critical and thoughtful mindset. 

The MASTERPIECE Collection on PBS LearningMedia

You don’t need to show an entire film to effectively use it—select clips can work exceptionally well. Luckily, clips of key scenes from some of MASTERPIECE’s most popular adaptations are available to stream on PBS LearningMedia, a free and trusted platform providing digital media resources for K-12 teachers across all subjects. Teaching tips, activities, discussion questions, background essays, and author bios accompany the streaming video. In the U.S., more than 1.6 million teachers have registered access to more than 100,000 digital resources available from PBS programs like NOVA, Frontline, and MASTERPIECE.  

In the MASTERPIECE Literary Drama Collection, you’ll find resources for book-based adaptations ranging from The Diary of Anne Frank to Great Expectations to Jane Eyre. The MASTERPIECE-produced versions of Austen’s Emma, Sense and Sensibility, and Sanditon are also in the Collection. (Since MASTERPIECE has not produced recent adaptations of other Austen works—including the often-taught Pride and Prejudice—those titles are not now in the collection.) 

Before, During, and After Viewing

Generally, three short clips are provided per title. To fully appreciate the significance of each, students are carefully guided as they watch.

The “Before Viewing” section offers background information and discussion questions about the author, time period, characters, setting, etc. Students may be asked to create a K-W-L-type chart (Know—Want to Know—Learned) to uncover gaps in their knowledge or dispel stereotypes. (They’ll return to the chart later to update/correct it.) Other pre-viewing explorations give context to the story. For Emma, students read an essay about Jane Austen, then explore terms and labels given to unmarried women and contrast them with terms for unmarried men. Before watching a clip from Sanditon, students discuss whether unfinished literary works should be published as is or not at all.  

As they watch, students are guided to look for different aspects in the film and/or the story, such as flashbacks, the use of narrator, setting, first impressions of a character, choice of dialogue, the mood created by music or lighting. Students’ observations are then used as a basis for discussion after watching.

In addition, the “After Viewing” section expands the conversation with thought-provoking questions and topics for further research, debates, writing assignments, and more. Why, for instance, does the film version of Sense and Sensibility include a romantic scene at the end which wasn’t in the book? For Sanditon, why did the filmmakers choose to make the character of Miss Lambe such an important part of the narrative? 

The MASTERPIECE resources also help connect these classics with contemporary issues, offering activities that transform “timeless” topics and literary archetypes into timely social media posts and profiles, user-generated media content, and talk-show guests. New resources are continually added to the MASTERPIECE Collection based on what is being broadcast in the U.S. 

There are many ways to use these free PBS LearningMedia resources in your literacy mentoring work. Partner with the English Language Arts curriculum coordinator to regularly integrate film as a useful teaching tool, rather than a Friday afternoon “treat.” Knowing the typical problems or roadblocks students encounter with your school’s Language Arts curriculum, use the MASTERPIECE resources to tackle some of those issues. If you oversee an afterschool book club, consider turning it into a book-and-film club. Explore the rich collection of Literary Drama from MASTERPIECE and see how you might take advantage of it!

©️Cyrisse Jaffee and Gay Mohrbacher. Jaffee is a former public librarian in the Boston area who also developed the MASTERPIECE educational materials for PBS LearningMedia. Mohrbacher conducts educational outreach for the MASTERPIECE series on PBS.

Check out our latest YouTube video where Justin Young, lead writer and executive producer of MASTERPIECE Sanditon, talks with our founder, Caroline Jane Knight.