Giving Guidance on "The Giver"

As young people line up to see this summer’s movie, The Giver, HGSE doctoral candidate Tracy Elizabeth, Ed.M’10, hopes adults take advantage of the book and film’s many teachable moments. Elizabeth, along with Professor Robert Selman, developed “The Giver” Educator’s Resource Guide that helps adults and teachers bridge the gap between book and film for young people.

The movie adaptation of author Lois Lowry’s 1993 bestselling dystopic novel, The Giver, about a utopian society that becomes dispelled, was released nationwide in theaters on August 15.

“It’s a dark movie and book,” Elizabeth says, noting that despite criticism of the movie and book (which has been banned from some classrooms across the United States), there are deeply enriched ethical and civic themes that open doors to ideas of empathy, compassion, and civic engagement, as well as opportunities for deep content comprehension and analytical reasoning.

It was almost a year ago when Walden Media reached out to Elizabeth and Selman about working on a resource guide for the film. They spent months reflecting on the screenplay before creating “The Giver” Educator’s Resource Guide — available free for download via Walden Media — which provides a theoretical framework on the narrative in the book and film. The guide focuses on three aspects of the film: education to inspire critical thinking and deep comprehension; ethics to promote dialogue and reflection; and entertainment to promote creativity and character identity.

Elizabeth describes the resource essentially as a “buffet” of activities for teachers, homeschoolers, parents, or even adult caretakers to choose from based on their needs, whether to fit a lesson plan, time availability, or even Common Core standards.

Elizabeth describes the resource essentially as a “buffet” of activities for teachers, homeschoolers, parents, or even adult caretakers to choose from based on their needs, whether to fit a lesson plan, time availability, or even Common Core standards.

“You can watch the movie and spend quality time discussing the salient themes,” she says. For example, The Giver guide can be useful for helping youth comprehend complex ideas such as the ethical implications of euthanasia or suicide, and the role of government and rules.

Though it is not unusual to use movies in the classroom, there has been little research about the role such media plays in curriculums. This fall, Elizabeth will use “The Giver” Educator’s Resource Guide’s implementation in seven middle school classroom curriculums across three states to explore how exposure to the shared narrative of a book and film inspires adolescents’ propensity for social reflection and civic engagement, as well as motivation to read and engage in classroom learning activities. (See Harvard Ed. magazine’s upcoming Winter 2015 issue for more on this work.)

When Elizabeth first arrived at HGSE as a Risk and Prevention Program (now Prevention Science and Pracatice) student, the South Carolina native admits she hadn’t given much thought to how movies and other resources could aid the classroom. Though as a reading specialist in low-income communities, Elizabeth did often used “book circles” with her students to engage in deep conversations centered on children’s books. She used films to reward for students finishing the books, an educational activity that provided students with opportunities to compare the shared narrative across the two forms of media. 

After earning her Ed.M., where she worked with Selman on observing classroom discussions around books, Elizabeth returned to public schools as an instructional specialist. In this role, she trained teachers about how to activate student’s analytical thinking skills on everything from books to math. “Classroom discussions are powerful ways to get kids talking to each other about deep concepts,” Elizabeth reminds. “The less a teacher’s voice is involved in a discussion, the better.”

“Classroom discussions are powerful ways to get kids talking to each other about deep concepts. The less a teacher’s voice is involved in a discussion, the better.”

Since returning to HGSE, Elizabeth has worked on many research projects, but it wasn’t until Selman approached her last year about writing an educational resource for another Walden Media film, The Watsons Go to Birmingham, that she became passionate about transmedia — the translating of one form of media to another. It’s now the focus of her work and dissertation.

“Given that adolescents seem to be spending less time with books and more time with screens, it is our responsibility as educators to figure out how to access academic and social skills,” Elizabeth says. “I think there is a lot of untapped potential in the bridge between books and movies.”

Though there is a history of research about the translation of video games to movies and television shows to websites, Elizabeth admits that surprisingly there is not a lot of research about books-to-film transmedia as educational tools.

“There is an abundance of teachable moments in film. It hurts to hear critics or parents say that a movie is no good. I think, ‘Wait a minute, your child just spent 90 minutes in the theater.’ People need to think about what the silver linings are in movies,” she says. “You can use the film as a launch pad for conversations that wouldn’t otherwise happen. Chances are good that a child is thinking and wondering about these complex topics when he leaves a film. How beneficial, from both an academic and social standpoint, would it be for kids and parents or educators discuss these things together?”