1.
Michele R. Acosta
Writing Sample: Scholarly Article
(2004)
Beyond Curriculum #1:
A Literary Analysis Project that Reaches the Multiple Intelligences
Teaching with the multiple intelligences in mind is an admirable goal—and a difficult one.
How do you effectively incorporate the multiple intelligences, meet the requirements of your
school's curriculum, and make sure that your students are developing their verbal-linguistic
and logical-mathematical intelligences all at the same time?
In most cases, the answer is: you don't—at least not all at the same time. With careful
planning, teachers can create a balance in their lesson plans so that they accomplish all
three of these goals over a period of time. Teachers who try to accomplish this feat every
day will burn themselves out and will probably succeed in entertaining their students rather
than teaching them.
Every once in a while, an assignment has the ability to meet all of these requirements, and
better yet, has the potential to reach all of the multiple intelligences (as opposed to two or
three). The Performance Adaptation Project is my personal favorite because my students
were so deeply engaged in the process. I watched students who very rarely participated in
class exchanging ideas, helping to decide what music best suited a particular scene, or
whether or not Brutus had to die in order to fulfill the theme of the play.
The Performance Adaptation Project is a writing assignment that encourages students to use
non-traditional skills and talents to respond to literature. The purpose of the writing
assignment is to assess the skills learned during the unit and to foster a deeper
understanding of the literature through extended analysis and discussion. Students are
organized into groups of approximately five or six and are asked to adapt a work of literature
according to a specific theme. I provide suggestions, but also allow students to select their
own themes. When presenting the project, I use Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol as an
example since most students are familiar with it. Adaptations of this classic include old black
and white film versions, cartoons like The Flintstones and Mickey Mouse, and modernized
versions made for TV and film.
Several ready-to-use handouts guide the groups of students through the analytical process.
Once the analysis is complete, the students write their own scripts, create their own
costumes, sets, props, and sound effects, and finally present their adaptations to the class.
Some students choose to stage live performances, while others video tape their
performances. Each performance is evaluated by the audience as well as by the performers.
In the past, my students have adapted Shakespeare's Julius Caesar using the following
themes: a super-hero theme, teenage conflicts using stereotypical social groups, Disney
films, etc.
In addition to the traditional verbal-linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences used to
write about and analyze literature, this writing assignment asks students to call upon the

2.
Michele R. Acosta
spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, and interpersonal intelligences. The self-evaluation used
at the end of the project even incorporates the intrapersonal intelligence.
This writing assignment is particularly well-suited to Shakespeare's works, but it will work
successfully with other dramas as well as other types of literature.
I have had more success with this project than any other I have ever attempted. The
students love it and the quality of their work demonstrates a far greater understanding of the
literature than they would have otherwise achieved. It requires a bit of work to arrange, but it
is well worth the effort.