Open Culture has just published a list of seventeen classic stories that have been turned into animated videos that are now available on the web. A few of the items in the list I had seen before, these Shel Silverstein stories for example, but others were new to me…
OK, I am ready to be branded a geezer stuck in the past but I just have to say it. There is something terribly decadent in making animated cartoons out of literary classics. It is also inefficient when, for example, the 8-minute clip on Oedipus took a hundred people two years to make! And it starred vegetables! In my opinion this kind of thing belongs in the category of pop-art and should be shunned by serious educators.
What motive is behind consumer demand for this kind of stuff? The only one I can think of is a desire for facile cribs by students who are required to read the real thing but don’t want to make the effort.
I would like to hear some teachers’ opinions on this.
Jim,
Apologies it took me so long to respond. It’s end of the year time and everything is a bit crazy.
As a teacher, it’s all about what you want to do. I don’t think you will find an educator that would use these tools in lieu of having students read. Generally, it’s about incorporating various tools and media to help students understand material. A 14 year old, for example, will not understand Hemingway the same way that a grown-up would.
I primarily posted this in conjunction with my Digital Story lesson plan. I had a student who did an 11 minute summary of the Iliad (so creative, just a few stories down). There is a section in the article about students making shorts of the books they are reading.
Ah, Jennifer, you and I usually agree on topics but this is an exception. Just because some literature is considered classic and “great” does not in my opinion make it appropriate for younger readers. I submit that children lack the life experience, much less the brain maturity, to appreciate even the basic plots of most of the literature here, and not only that but I think there is a good chance by using them that you will implant a contempt for such works later on in life. The basic plots here are misleading when taken out of the context of the authors’ subtleties. Shakespeare, Oedipus, Kafka? This is deep stuff and to trivialize it with animated fluff is, I think, to trivialize it. You do recognize these limitations but I fear you don’t recognize the effect. Shel Silverstein is likely OK but even Emily Dickinson is on my challenging list. I hope you will reconsider your opinion.