Between page and screen: teaching Wuthering Heights to ELT students

ABSTRACT

The teaching of literatures in English is often centred upon pedagogic models where the literary text is approached as the primary source of meaning. These pedagogies tend to foreground traditional forms of literacy whose ultimate goal is to develop learners’ reading and writing skills, while fostering a respectful attitude towards the literary canon. The increasing dissemination of new digital media and their impact on how we communicate call for a pedagogy that takes account of multimodal processes of meaning making by which literary works are made to signify. Drawing on theoretical developments in such disciplines as Multiliteracies and Adaptation Studies, this article puts forward a didactic sequence for teaching Wuthering Heights to students pursuing English Language Teaching (ELT) programmes in higher education contexts where English is used as an additional language. Aimed at developing students’ literary literacy, this model consists of several tasks in which both the novel and screen adaptations of it are deployed as sources of meaning. Reconfiguring traditional conceptions of literacy, the juxtaposition of literary text and film as a method to teach literary literacy promotes the development of interpretive and pedagogic skills ELT learners need to become active makers of meaning and competent teachers of English.

KEYWORDS:

• Literary literacy
• Wuthering Heights
• literature and English language teaching
• multiliteracies
• adaptation studies

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for Media Practice and Education for their constructive comments on an earlier version of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For a review of the New Criticism movement, see: Castle (2007, 122–128); Eagleton (2008, 38–46).

2 Coined by Bolter and Grusin (1999), the term ‘remediation’ refers to the transformational process by which one medium is represented through another medium. In drawing attention to the reciprocal processes of medial refashioning, the notion of remediation breaks away from ontological conceptions of media forms, and instead, aligns with the post-structuralist notion that texts are plural entities whose meaning can never be traced to a single centre or origin.

3 For more on von Glasersfeld’s notion of Radical Constructivism, see: von Glasersfeld (1983, 1–17; 1991, 12–29).

4 For more on the reasons for incorporating literature in the ELT classroom, see: Collie and Slater (1987, 5–8); Maley (2001, 180); Paran and Robinson (2017, 14).

5 E-book studies (Larson 2008, 122) reveal that software like Adobe Reader and gadgets such as E-book readers offer us search and editing resources that ‘support comprehension and strengthen both aesthetic and efferent reader response’ (Larson 2010, 15–16).

6 Bakhtin’s influence cuts across different disciplines, including Literary Studies, Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, and Film Studies, to name a few.

7 Logocentrism is a term coined by Derrida in his seminal work Of Grammatology (1976). In general terms, it refers to a belief in fundamental truths and original meaning. Logocentrism becomes conspicuously manifest in traditional literary criticism, where the written text is presumed to contain originary meanings. By drawing attention to how the logos is deeply embedded in language – which in turn is grounded in an interplay of difference and deferral – Derrida’s ‘deconstruction’ calls into question the logo’s function as the origin of truth and meaning.

8 Kress (2010, 21) defines modes as ‘semiotic resources which allow the simultaneous realisation of discourses and types of (inter)action.’

9 Suggested passages: Lockwood’s depiction of wuthering heights – ‘Wuthering Heights is the name of … ’ (Brontë 2014, 2) – and Heathcliff – ‘Mr. Heathcliff forms a singular … ’ (Brontë 2014, 4).

10 See Hazette (2005, 32–325) for a list of film and TV adaptations of Wuthering Heights.

11 For more on Arnold’s film, see: Hazette (293-302).

12 Suggested readings: the chapter ‘Backgrounds’ from Parmond Nayar’s A Short History of English Literature (2009, 237-248); and the introduction to Shea and Whitla’s book Victorian Literature (2015, 1–17).

13 For more on the classic British serial, see: Troost (2007, 78–82).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paulo da Silva Gregório

Paulo da Silva Gregório is an Assistant Professor in English at Universidade Federal de Jataí (Brazil). His current research interests lie in Shakespearean performance, teaching English language literatures to multilingual speakers of English, and Adaptation Studies. He has published articles and book chapters mainly on Shakespearean performance and adaptation, both in English and Portuguese. His recent publications include: “Rei Lear: Texto, Performance e Adaptação” (2021); “Beyond the Absurd: Beckettian Tragicomedy Recast in Adrian Noble's King Lear” (2020); and “Devouring Shakespeare in North-eastern Brazil” (2019).