How to Use Disney Movies to Teach Literary Analysis in Middle School
Middle schoolers have a reading motivation problem, and it’s rarely about ability. It’s about buy-in.
Ask a room of sixth graders to analyze theme in a short story they’ve never heard of, and you’ll get blank stares and minimal effort. Ask them to compare The Lion King to Hamlet, and suddenly everyone has an opinion. The skill you’re teaching doesn’t change. The willingness to engage with it does — and that willingness is most of the battle.
Start With What They Already Know
The films your students grew up with are, without exaggeration, some of the best “anchor texts” available for literary analysis. They already know the plot, the characters, and the ending. That familiarity does something a brand-new text can’t: it frees up cognitive space for actual analysis, instead of burning the whole class period just getting everyone caught up on what happened.
Once the movie is the known quantity, you can introduce the source material as the new information — and the gap between the two becomes the lesson.
The Comparison Method
The approach that works best is simple to describe, even though it takes real preparation to run well: pair the film with its original source, scene by scene, and ask students to identify what changed and why.
- What stayed the same? Usually the core plot skeleton — a starting point that keeps students oriented.
- What got cut, added, or softened? This is where the real analysis lives. Every change was a choice, made for a reason.
- Why do you think that choice was made? Audience, era, runtime, tone — there’s rarely one right answer, which makes for genuinely good discussion instead of a worksheet with one correct box to fill in.
This is exactly the structure behind every chapter of Once Upon a Source, and it’s also the backbone of the full 24-week curriculum — a movie your students already love, paired with the fairy tale, myth, or novel that inspired it.
Three Ready-to-Use Discussion Questions
The Lion King & Hamlet
- Both stories feature a murdered father, a usurping relative, and a prince in exile. Why do you think the filmmakers chose to keep this structure while changing almost everything else?
- In Hamlet, nearly everyone dies by the end. In The Lion King, Simba’s ending is much happier. What effect does that change have on the story’s message?
Cinderella: Perrault vs. Grimm
- Perrault’s version gives us the glass slipper and fairy godmother; the Grimm version is darker and more violent. Which version do you think the Disney film is closer to, and what evidence from the film supports your answer?
Mulan & The Ballad of Hua Mulan
- The entire original source is just 31 lines of poetry. What does the film add that isn’t in the original — and what do those additions tell you about what a modern audience expects from a story?
Where This Fits the Standards
This approach lines up naturally with several Common Core ELA strands for grades 6-8:
RL.6-8.1 RL.6-8.2 RL.6-8.3 RL.7.7 W.6-8.1 / W.6-8.2 SL.6-8.1
Citing textual evidence, determining theme, analyzing character and plot choices, comparing a written work to its filmed adaptation, writing evidence-based arguments, and running a genuine collaborative discussion — all of it fits inside a single comparison lesson, without the class ever feeling like a lecture.
Try a Free Sample Chapter Handout
See the full comparison format, discussion questions, and writing prompts before you commit to a license.