Film MFA: Adaptation

In this advanced writing workshop, students will examine and practice screen adaptation through written assignments, workshop discussions and lectures.  Each student will choose a short story and a novel to adapt.  Over the course of the semester, students will adapt the short story twice:  once transposing, once transforming.  They will also prepare a written treatment in which they develop their take on the adaptation of the novel. The guiding questions for the course:  How does film narrative differ from prose narrative?  What transformations, accomodations, and outright trickery are required to render a preexisting narrative into a screenplay?