The Rhetoric DiariesWriting · Technology · Belonging
Selected teaching case

Literature and Adaptation

A public teaching case on using close reading, adaptation, imitation, and reflection to make literary interpretation and rhetorical choice visible.

Literature sequence · Ongoing classroom practice

This sequence treats literary study as an opportunity to connect careful reading with making. Students first establish an interpretation from textual evidence, then confront how meaning changes when a work moves across audience, medium, form, or voice.

Sequence logic

Read closely, adapt deliberately, reflect critically

Close reading establishes attention to language, form, imagery, pattern, and context. The adaptation project asks students to reimagine a work for a new medium or audience, making the consequences of their choices visible. An imitation portfolio then brings creative practice and literary analysis together: students experiment with formal decisions and explain how their work responds to what they have studied.

Projects

Three connected assignments

  • Literary Analysis: Close Reading: Students build an interpretation from patterns in language, form, imagery, and context.
  • Adaptation Project: Students reimagine a literary work for a new medium or audience and explain its rhetorical consequences.
  • Creative and Critical Project: Imitation Portfolio: Students create an imitation portfolio and use critical reflection to explain their formal and rhetorical choices.
What students practice

Interpretation is a form of decision-making

The sequence asks students to support interpretive claims with textual evidence, make deliberate choices about audience and form, and explain the stakes of those choices. Creative work is not treated as evidence of personal disclosure or as an escape from critical work; it becomes another way to understand how texts produce meaning.

Public boundary

A case, not a course archive

This page provides a public overview of the instructional design. Individual student work, private feedback, grades, and internal course materials remain private.