The Iron Giant – Ted Hughes (British Title: The Iron Man)

If I were using this text in the classroom, I would use it to discuss book-to-film adaptation.  I would have the students read the book, take a quiz on it, and immediately watch the movie. As they are watching the movie I would have them take notes on the differences.  The conversation would start by discussing the biggest differences:  setting, time, addition of a romance plot, etc.  We would then move into what these differences might imply about the different concerns of the cultures in which they were produced. I would make certain that at least three issues were addressed:  stable home with two parents vs. working, single mom; dragon vs. bomb; enemies are aliens vs. enemies are Russians; giant robot lives vs. giant robot dies… there are many other points worth discussing, but these will be some of the main ones.  After all of this, I would introduce the term “ideology” – the book and text that they have compared will give them a good ground to begin talking about ideologies, because the implicit and explicit ideologies of these two versions of the same story are so different. (msg)