"Good morning! Turn to Act II Scene 1 on page 234. I'm going to push play on the CD, let's listen to a few lines..."
(Actors performing while students follow along for about 30 seconds. Pause CD.)
Me: "Ok, what just happened there?" (The same 2-3 students telling me the plot.) "Great! Let's continue on..."
Once in awhile, I would have the students act out a scene or two... but that usually led to monotone recitations and awkward moments helping students pronounce words.
I think many people would relate to these methods. In essence, I was a human Cliff's Notes, regurgitating the plot to the point that we only studied the surface of the story. I usually had the same 2-3 students respond, and when I called on other students I usually got a response that went something like, "I have NO idea what they are talking about!"
We were studying the play a mile wide and an inch deep. That is how my teachers in high school taught me Shakespeare, so that must be the best way. Right?
This year, my English II colleague Blake Revelle and I decided to try something completely different when we taught Julius Caesar. With the onset of the Common Core State Standards, we asked ourselves: "What is more important: That our students know all of the plot details of Julius Caesar, or they know how to read, write and talk about a complex text, no matter what text it is?"
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| An inch-wide, and a mile-deep |
Our mantra became, "We will teach an inch-wide and a mile-deep."
We decided to go deeper into fewer scenes. Students weren't going to get as much of the plot, but that was not our goal. The text just served as a vehicle to teach concepts in reading, writing and speaking that would prepare them for college and their career.
Going into the unit, we decided to only focus on four of the speeches from the play. We spent about a week studying each piece, and we had our students read & annotate the speeches, write about them, then discuss them through a Socratic Seminar.
We kept it simple: Read it. Write about it. Talk about it.
Each week followed a consistent schedule:
Monday
- Explain what happened in the plot since the last speech we studied. Video SparkNotes was a great resource for this.
- View a video performance of the speech we were going to study
- Read/annotate the speech. Students circled key terms and underlined claims.
- Chart the text: In the left margin, write what the author is SAYING (summarize). In the right margin, write what the author is DOING (analyze).
- Timed writing assignment - using templates.
Friday
- Socratic Seminar
1. Cassius' speech to Brutus (I.ii)
Text for annotation
Writing template
2. Brutus' soliloquy (II.i)
Text for annotation
Writing template
3. Brutus' funeral speech
Text for annotation
4. Antony's funeral speech
Text for annotation
5. Synthesis paper
Graphic organizer to answer the question: "Who delivered the more effective speech: Mark Antony or Marcus Brutus?"
- Students developed this into a 2-3 page argument, citing the text and backing up their claim.
- In past years, students would say things like, "I don't understand Shakespeare. It is written in another language." The close reading strategies taught them to closely analyze what they DID know about the text, and make their own inferences.
- All students were engaged. They could not just sit back and let other people answer the questions. They had to dig into the text, summarizing, making inferences, asking questions. This definitely ups the rigor in studying Shakespeare.
- Students did not rely on me to tell them the plot. It became completely self-driven, with the students asking and answering their own questions.
- In the course of a six weeks, we wrote two short papers and one longer paper. The quality of these papers were the best I had ever seen. The templates served as a guide to help their thinking, and it went far beyond plot and surface-level thinking.
- Students gained confidence in analyzing complex texts. I equate it to lifting weights: In order to get stronger, you have to lift heavier weight. Now that they can read and analyze Shakespeare, other readings will seem easy.
How have you begun to modify your units to fit the Common Core State Standards?
Nice lesson!
ReplyDeleteHi! I came across your post on Pinterest, and am completely inspired to try something similar in my freshmen and senior English courses. Is there any way you would be able to pass along the writing templates you and your colleagues used as well? Thanks so much and great planning!
ReplyDeleteOops! Just noticed the links. Thank you for the upload!!
ReplyDeleteThere are a variety of ways to teach Shakespeare. The most effective ways, as I have learned through my own research as well as taking a teaching Shakespeare class, are through active participation. Shakespeare wrote plays. Why is it that many teachers expect students to be able to sit and completely understand the language if the language is meant to be seen? Monotonous readings come from not enough practice or knowledge on what a performance entails.
ReplyDeleteLet me ask you: do you teach subtext while reading Shakespeare? How about inflection? Have you ever had your students imitate the way YOU read Shakespeare aloud? Do you begin your class with a kinesthetic warm up that builds a sense of community in your classroom?
Sure, I bet that your students are thinking about the language of the speeches that you assigned, but what if they were to encounter another one of Shakespeare's texts, would they be able to understand the language then?
Check out the Foldger's library. Even something like the Cambridge edition of a Shakespearean play can prove very helpful: http://amzn.to/U4UmWA .
Thanks for sharing your journey. I'm an academic coach at a 10-12 high school in Arkansas, and yesterday, I met with our English 10 teachers to plan our third quarter unit. We read your blog post, using it to launch a conversation about how we've traditionally approached Shakespeare and what changes we need to make to address the the kinds of close reading and evidence-based writing Common Core demands. I'm wondering if you might have any student papers you'd be willing to share. It would help us (and our students) to see some models.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering about the graphic organizer for your synthesis paper. What do the abbreviations mean (CD & CM) and how do you define rhetorical strategy?
ReplyDeleteI have used some of your close reading strategies in my classroom. I haven't graduated to reading only certain speeches from the play, however (we still used a parralel text to read in my class). Instead of asking plot summary questions, I had students ask questions on a password protected discussion board. We talked about different types of questions and how to formulate them, and the students led their own virtual discussion about the text. Thank you so much for generously publishing your ideas.
Joy March 5, 2013 at 2:07 PM
ReplyDeleteHave you seen Gleeditions Shakespeare -- www.gleeditions.com? The online texts promote close reading like nothing else I've ever seen, annotating for vocabulary, plot, characters, setting, POV, style, and themes, showing how rich a single passage is. There's also a library of acclaimed video clips (https://www.gleeditions.com/video_index.asp) on the site (for all the plays!), a really useful feature when it's time to "view a video performance" of a passage we're going to study.
Could you explain "charting a text" in a bit more detail, please?
ReplyDeleteMartha: Great question. Charting is actually a buzzword for writing in the margins. You just define what will be written in the left and right margins. Thank you for the question!
ReplyDelete