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Between Languages: Reading a Film Adaptation

Compare an original story about learning a language after immigration with a film adaptation, evaluating sound, subtitles, pacing, and acting.

Grade 8ELAInteractive · Printable

Aligned toRL.8.7

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Single worksheet
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1 Common Core standard
Printable answer key
13 questions
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Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 8
Subject: ELA
Question types: Multiple choice, Circle the answer, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students judge how faithfully a film adaptation represents a story's characters and experiences.
Students evaluate how subtitles, sound, pacing, and acting affect a film's interpretation.

How to use

Read the story and the fictional film record as two representations of the same events. Have students support evaluations with details from both; no film viewing is required.

Curriculum

Common Core standard covered

RL.8.7

Judge how faithfully a film or live production follows the text or script, and evaluate the director's or actors' choices.

Preview

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Between Languages: Reading a Film Adaptation

Evaluate what a film preserves, changes, and leaves out.

Read Both Versions

Read the original story and the record of its fictional film adaptation. The record describes everything you need to know about the film.

A Sentence of My Own

1During her first week in the United States, Selin carried a folded card with her new address in one pocket and an English phrase list in the other. She had moved from Turkey with her father in August. In Turkish, she could argue, tease, and tell a story with three different endings. In English, she could request a pencil. At school, people sometimes praised her for sentences she would have considered unremarkable at home.

2At lunch, Dalia slid a chair toward her. Selin understood “sit” and “here,” but the rest of the invitation disappeared beneath trays clattering against tables. Dalia waited while Selin arranged an answer. Before Selin finished, another student asked about the empty chair, and the conversation moved on. That evening, Selin wrote “Can you say that another way?” on a fresh card. She practiced it until it sounded less borrowed.

3Over the next six weeks, the card softened at its folds. Selin used the question with a teacher, a neighbor, and a classmate explaining a card game. Sometimes people repeated the same sentence more loudly. Sometimes they found different words. She began understanding jokes a moment before everyone laughed, though she still planned her own replies. At home, her father rehearsed a question for his building manager. Selin listened, then asked him to try it once without reading. He did the same for her.

4One Friday, Dalia asked whether Selin wanted to record a welcome message for students arriving later that year. Selin agreed, then regretted agreeing. On the first attempt, she read from a paragraph Dalia had helped her prepare. Her voice sounded tidy and distant. She deleted the recording. On the second attempt, she forgot a word, stopped, and began again without deleting. She described how confusing lunch could be and suggested asking people to explain things differently.

5Then Selin recorded a Turkish greeting for any future student who might understand it. Her voice quickened; she made a small joke and laughed before translating it for Dalia. “You sound different,” Dalia said. Selin considered this. “You have heard less of me in English,” she answered. Before saving both recordings, she corrected one English sentence but left a pause in another. She put the softened question card back in her pocket. There were other conversations she wanted to enter.

Film Record: A Sentence of My Own

1The film opens with Selin walking into school, touching the cards in her pockets. A caption identifies the move from Turkey to the United States. In a brief phone conversation with a cousin, Selin speaks Turkish rapidly and tells a joke. English subtitles translate the entire exchange. The camera remains on her animated face rather than showing the cousin. There is no narrator explaining what Selin could express before she moved.

2At lunch, the soundtrack gives the audience the words “sit” and “here” clearly, but blends the rest of Dalia’s invitation into overlapping voices and clattering trays. The shot shows Selin watching Dalia’s mouth. Dalia leaves her hand on the empty chair while waiting for an answer. Another student interrupts. That evening, Selin copies a question onto a card. The camera holds long enough for viewers to read it.

3The film compresses six weeks into a sequence lasting less than a minute. Selin uses the card in three locations, with a different shirt and a more worn card in each scene. In the first scene, a teacher repeats a sentence loudly; in the next, a neighbor uses simpler wording. By the third scene, Selin begins her question without looking down. A calendar appears briefly between scenes. The sequence contains no images of Selin practicing with her father.

4The recording scene retains the deleted first attempt and the interrupted second attempt. The actor reads the first version evenly, keeping her eyes on the prepared paragraph. In the second version, she looks toward Dalia, pauses to search for a word, and continues. When she switches to Turkish, her gestures become broader and her speech becomes quicker. The director provides no subtitles for this greeting or its joke. Dalia listens, smiling when Selin laughs. Selin then translates the joke aloud, and viewers hear its meaning at the same time Dalia does.

5The film keeps the exchange beginning “You sound different” and ending “You have heard less of me in English.” It also shows Selin correcting one sentence and saving a recording that includes a pause. In the final shot, she places the question card beside her phone, then puts both objects into her bag. No new scene shows her speaking English without hesitation. The credits begin over the ordinary sounds of students talking outside the recording room.

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