The Paragogy of Adaptation in an EFL Context

Abstract

When I joined the Department of English Language Teaching at Başkent University, Ankara, in 2007, while teaching part-time in the Department of American Culture and Literature, I prepared courses specifically tailored for students with a strong adaptation element.1 I encouraged them to rewrite canonical literary texts in their own words in an attempt to promote close reading, as well as increasing awareness of the sound and the sense of the words. Among the most popular adapted texts were Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poem ‘Beautiful Soup’, and Roger McGough’s children’s poem ‘The Leader’. Through such activities students discovered how literary texts related to their own backgrounds: ‘The Leader’ proved exceptionally popular as a means of questioning the familiar gender stereotypes of the dominant male/submissive female, and thereby helped them cultivate the kind of ‘active literacy’ (to use Thomas Leitch’s term) that promotes creative activity and cultural development.2 In terms of process, the students’ tasks were very similar to those adopted by professional screenwriters working with other creative personnel on a film (directors, actors, producers) to adapt a literary text. While acknowledging the importance of individual imagination, everyone had to accept those common meanings and directions that shaped their intended audiences’ reactions. By such means the students discovered how adaptations evolve through individual control and ownership as well as through group and/or societal interactions.3