My year 11 Extension class is doing a course called ‘Text-Value-Culture’, and last term we read ‘The Odyssey’ and talked about the way this story has been appropriated by different writers for different purposes. This term each of the students has chosen a pre-WW2 text and a couple of appropriations to study.
You can read about what the students are doing on our Class Ning.
Some of the students have expressed an interest in finding people from outside our classroom who share their interest in a particular text. Shannon is exploring Poe’s ‘The Raven’. Tom is looking at how the story of Tarzan has been adapted by different cultures. Will started with the story of Heloise and Abelard, and that has taken him to a poem by Alexander Pope and the film ‘The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’. And Michael is reading The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
If you are interested in reading what these students have written about their texts, then feel free join our Ning and to join the conversations.
Birds fly, fish swim 
Hi Steve,
There may be some interesting overlaps with the work going on in my IB English A1 course. You can check the class blog here—
http://www.EricMacKnight.com/a1
—and let me know at ericmacknight AT mac DOT com if you and your students are interested.
Cheers,
Eric
Let your students know that I’ll be lurking about these today and tomorrow. Hopefully, I’ll post something when I’ve got more time.
Good stuff and great examples for my own classroom!