Category Archives: Teaching Literature

Teaching Literature, Teaching Writing

Teaching Romeo and Juliet: Part Two

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Stanhope: Juliet and her NurseJuliet and her nurse have a very interesting relationship. Students may not be familiar with the concept of the wetnurse, so when I teach Romeo and Juliet, I explain that the nurse was hired by the Capulet family to nurse Juliet, a common practice among wealthy families for centuries. I also explain that the nurse had a child about Juliet’s age who died: “[W]ell, Susan is with God; / She was too good for me” (Act I, Scene 3). Shakespeare doesn’t explain why the nurse is still employed by the family some ten or eleven years after Juliet has been weaned, but I tell students that her role has expanded into a kind of governess. Capulet mentions other children born to the Capulets who have died: “The earth hath swallow’d all my hopes but she” (Act I, Scene 2). It does not make sense that the nurse stayed on to take care of these children; she would probably no longer be able to nurse (unless, that is, she had more children herself; she mentions in Act I, Scene 3 that her husband is now dead). Therefore, the most logical explanation is that she became a part of the extended family and stayed on to be Juliet’s governess.

Act II, Scene 5 provides us with the most insight into the nurse’s relationship with Juliet. The Folger Shakespeare Library has an awesome lesson plan submitted by Sarah Squier of Montpelier High School in Montpelier, Vermont. I alter her plan a bit in order to fit with my own ideas. First of all, download the handout associated with Squier’s lesson plan. You can decide how you want the students to answer the questions in Part A: 1) as homework, 2) with a partner (I suggest Clock Buddies), or 3) as a class. I’ve done it all three ways, and I have no personal preference. It just depends on the mix of students. It is critical that students formulate a thesis and find textual evidence to support it. At this point, Squier suggests that students draft an essay regarding their position; however, I don’t ask students to draft at this point. Instead, I show students two versions of Act II, Scene 5 (Zeffirelli and Luhrmann), and ask them to take notes on anything they notice about the way Juliet and the nurse relate to each other. I have to admit that I prefer Luhrmann’s version in this scene — Juliet and the nurse have a much warmer relationship.

What I have students do next is outline a five-paragraph essay:

  1. Introduction, including thesis about Juliet’s relationship with the nurse
  2. Textual evidence that demonstrates student’s belief about the relationship
  3. Analysis of Zeffirelli’s version
  4. Analysis of Luhrmann’s version
  5. Conclusion, including which version more closely resembles student’s own thesis about the relationship

I love this assignment because it gives students the opportunity to critically analyze the text and also to think critically about the performance of actors rather than passively viewing.

[tags]Romeo and Juliet, Juliet, Nurse, video, Shakespeare, writing assignment, essay[/tags]

Teaching Literature

Teaching Romeo and Juliet: Part One

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Olivia Hussey and Leonard WhitingI love teaching Romeo and Juliet. I have taught this play for seven of the ten years I have been teaching, and the only reason I didn’t do it for those three is that I was teaching pre-K and middle school, and it wasn’t part of either curriculum. Romeo and Juliet might be my favorite piece of literature to teach for two reasons: 1) It has massive appeal for students and makes a great introduction to Shakespeare for 9th graders; 2) I love the language — I have huge chunks of it memorized — and teaching this play affords me the opportunity to teach an author I am enthusiastic about to students who are enthusiastic, too.

Great ideas for teaching this play are not exactly in short supply. I used to swear by Shakespeare Set Free, although in the last few years I have found myself being more selective about which activities that I use from that book. I do, for instance, enjoy having students look at different characters’ thoughts on love and Shakespeare’s “language tricks,” but I do not have them create masks and learn how to do the Pilgrims and Saints dance. I have actually found much more challenging activities at the Folger Shakespeare Library’s website.

The play begins as two servants of the Capulet household, Sampson and Gregory, encounter Abraham (Abra or Abram) in the street. The punny banter between Sampson and Gregory is very much period humor, and I have to say it isn’t the most inviting way to begin (though who am I to question the Bard?). Many staged versions (including the two popular movie versions) cut this scene down significantly. The important part is the fight. I do explain the puns through some notes students take down. Also, and I think this is important, I make sure my kids understand what they’re reading. Yes, even the bawdy parts.

I challenge students to memorize Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech for extra credit. We break the speech down and try to figure out what sort of person Mercutio is. One note about Mercutio: students have trouble with the fact that he is friends with Romeo and still invited to the Capulets’ feast. I explain to them that he is not a Montague — he is kin to the Prince and to Count Paris, and therefore, most likely an important person. Of course Capulet would invite him to the feast.

The first significant writing assignment I do is a compare/contrast essay (can be a full essay or a one-paragraph essay). We read the famous Balcony Scene (Act II, Scene 2) together. Then students make a compare/contrast graphic organizer. In order to do this activity, you must have two versions of Romeo and Juliet on DVD or VHS.  Personally, I think it is great to show the BBC’s version starring Patrick Ryecart and Rebecca Saire (1978). Frankly, the Balcony Scene in this version is passionless and boring. It makes for a great contrast against Franco Zeffirelli’s excellent version starring Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting (1968). The BBC version is not as widely available, however, as Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 version starring Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio. A comparison between Zeffirelli and Luhrmann’s versions works very well; Zeffirelli’s is true to the spirit of the play’s setting, while Luhrmann’s is actually more faithful to the text. Some students notice this, but most will need your guidance to pick up on that. I need to take a moment to say I absolutely detest the fact that Luhrmann’s Balcony Scene takes place mostly in a swimming pool.

Using their graphic organizer, students list everything they notice while watching Zeffirelli’s film — set, costumes, lines spoken, actor’s choices (emphasis, blocking, etc.) — in the first column. In the second, they do the same for the Luhrmann film. The lower half of the graphic organizer is for noting similarities and differences between the two. Students then have a good plan for creating a compare/contrast essay. The organizer helps them focus, I think.

This idea was adapted from Shakespeare Set Free: Teaching A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth.

A bonus for the curious — if you have ever wondered what became of the actors in Zeffirelli’s version, you can learn about it on my personal blog.

[tags]Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare, Franco Zeffirelli, Baz Luhrmann, compare/contrast essay, Balcony Scene, YouTube[/tags]

Teaching Grammar, Teaching Literature

Selecting Texts

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My department is engaged in textbook selection right now. I’m fairly certain that we have decided which textbook company we would like to work with; however, I think we still need to pin down which peripherals we will order to supplement and exactly which books in the series we will use. I won’t tell you which ones we decided on here, but I will tell you two things that troubled me about this process.

First of all, my department head contacted Holt so that we could examine their series Elements of Literature. I have used this series in the past and really liked it. Unfortunately, they are not very interested in obtaining business from our school. They did not reply to my department head’s queries to visit our school and share their series with us. They did send samples of their ninth grade text. I was not very impressed with it, if I may be honest. We are a small school, and it is probably true that their energies might be better directed toward serving large districts; however, we did feel slighted. My department head and I discussed Holt’s lack of interest in selling books to us and determined that we would not be buying books from them.

Second (and I won’t tell you who), one textbook company admitted that its latest version of the textbook series was “dumbed down” for NCLB. My department head and I compared this version with the previous version, and it is indeed true. The questions are not as challenging. If NCLB is the reason why the texts were “dumbed down,” then one has to wonder what this law is accomplishing. If textbook companies are “dumbing down” selections and questions in order to help schools meet the requirements of NCLB, are the kids really benefitting? Isn’t the idea of NCLB to raise standards, not lower them? Keep in mind that the textbook salesman told my department head himself why the books were less challenging. We examined them for ourselves and determined this was, indeed, true.

What do you look for in a textbook? As much as we repeat the old saw that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, I have to admit I find books that have appealing covers and pictures inside, as well as a pleasing layout, grab my attention. I think the students like them better, too. Let’s face it, the eye candy is part of the package. We are teaching the post-MTV generation, and material has to be eye-catching. Is this a concern for you when you select books? I am, of course, not saying that we don’t examine the material to make sure the selections are appropriate, varied, and correlate with standards.

I feel good about the selection we made. I have worked with these books before, and I think the students will like them better than our current texts (which, by the way, are currently out of print and increasingly harder to find). Once details are final, and our principal approves our choice, perhaps I will fill you in.

What do we need to do to get Warriner’s back in print? Will begging work?

[tags]language arts, textbooks, textbook selection[/tags]

Teaching Literature, Teaching Writing

Civil Disobedience

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For seven of the ten years I have taught, I have taught American Literature. I feel a close kinship with the subject, and I can almost plan for that class in my sleep now. I change up things a little bit each year because each class is different, but some constants remain. I have to admit that I have this “thing” about where I should be in terms of chronology. To be teaching Romanticism right now makes me nervous because my internal American literature clock tells me I should be moving into the twentieth century at this point.

So why am I pushing related readings into my curriculum, knowing it will stretch Romanticism even longer? I decided that instead of “covering” literature, I would just make sure that the trip was interesting and enjoyable. So I taught a piece of literature I had longed to teach for some time — Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” We had just read our textbook’s excerpt from Civil Disobedience. I mentioned what we were studying to one of our history teachers, and she sent me a Gandhi bio and some quotes. So we spend perhaps a week reading the words of King and Gandhi on top of the time we had already spent reading Thoreau. I decided we could make this into a good paper, but I felt like my students might need some help to formulate an outline for this paper.

First of all, I decided students would most easily be able to write either a compare/contrast paper or a cause/effect paper. Because we had already written compare/contrasts and students needed more practice with cause/effect, I chose that angle. Next, I assigned students to study Thoreau’s essay and King’s letter for similar strands or “concepts and ideas” for homework.

When students came to class the next day, they were ready to work with partners. Using my clock buddy system, I had students pair off and compare their findings from their homework. Students were given a chart where they could record quotations from Thoreau, King, and Gandhi. I didn’t reproduce it here because it is very simple to make. Essentially, the chart has four columns and several rows. The row along the top of the four columns reads: “Concept/Idea,” “Thoreau,” “King,” “Gandhi.” After students had quotes for three concepts, we came together as a class and shared our findings.

My students found quotes from each author on the topic of unjust laws, civil disobedience, nonviolent social protest, etc. Students added the ideas from other students to their charts. I asked that students create a thesis statement centered around the idea that Thoreau’s ideas influenced civil disobedience as practiced by Gandhi and King, using quotes as evidence.

We are still in the midst of writing the essays, but I think the connections students made to Thoreau were much deeper as a result of examining his influence than they would have been if I had simply breezed through Transcendentalism on the way to Realism.

[tags]Transcendentalism, Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi[/tags]

Teaching Literature

Miss Emily and Walt Whitman

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I am taking Mr. Teacher’s advice and posting about some of the lesson ideas you can find on the handout page.

Arguably the two greatest American poets of the nineteenth century were Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, yet two more disparate poets would be difficult to find. For instance, Whitman wrote in free verse, while Dickinson preferred such rigid meter that most of her poetry can be sung to the following tunes: “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” the theme song for Gilligan’s Island, and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Try it. By the way, the reason for this is that Dickinson wrote in hymn meter. That means hymns like “Amazing Grace” will work, too.

Many years ago, I traveled to Atlanta with Gerald Boyd, who was then not the Language Arts Coordinator for the whole state of Georgia, but just for our own Houston County (pronouced not like the city Houston, but like the word house + ton — no, I don’t know why). He took English teachers from two of the other high schools — I represented Warner Robins High, while the two others came from Perry High and Northside High. We were being introduced to a program called Pacesetter English, potentially to determine whether Houston County should adopt it.

I can no longer remember the names of these teachers, but I adapted an offhand comment that the teacher from Perry made about teaching Whitman and Dickinson into a project that has been successful for years.

Download Handout (pdf)What would happen if Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson went on a blind date? For this creative writing assignment, students are asked to put themselves in the role of a matchmaker who is arranging a blind date between Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. The student’s composition should record the results of the date. Where did they go? What did they do? What did they say to each other? Did they make a “love connection“? Students had to integrate five lines of poetry from each poet seamlessly as part of the conversation between the poets. For example, many students who choose to depict Whitman as egomaniacal like to use the line “I celebrate myself…” when Dickinson asks him what he likes to do for fun.

Most students tend to determine that the poets are too different to make a lasting connection. It is up to your discretion as to whether you as a teacher want to get into Whitman’s homosexuality or speculation about Dickinson’s possible homosexuality. It depends upon your students. I also ask students to bold or otherwise draw attention to the lines of poetry so I can catch them more easily. This activity asks students to reach into poetry and think about what it means, to learn about two writers based upon their poetry, and to create a piece of polished creative writing about the two poets.

You can download the handout in either pdf or rich text format. Have fun!

Update: Confidential to the angry student in Chapel Hill, Tennessee who is not happy that I shared this idea because now he/she has to write a two-page paper about it: I direct you my policies and offer hope that you can get past your attitude problem and have fun with the assignment (and make a good grade).

Second Update: O, student who likes pie, You have got to be kidding me.  You are asking me for help after the comment you tried to leave me yesterday?

Nevertheless, my advice is that if your teacher wants you to do the same thing I asked my students to do, you just need to write a story.  Think of where you would like to see them go.  What restaurant?  What would they talk about?  Read their biographies, which should be in your textbook and online.  You could have them go mini-golfing.  Maybe they would go to a poetry slam and poke fun at the mediocre poets there.  Maybe they could go to Burger King and Emily could down five whoppers.  The sky is the limit.  When you revise, put in some lines of their poetry in their dialogue.  For instance, Walt might tell Emily that she’s weird for always wearing white.  Emily could counter with, “Much madness is divinest sense.”  Something like that.  You can actually have a lot of fun with this assignment.

In the future, you might want to remember you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Teaching Literature

If a Body Catch a Body…

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It’s that time of year again. We did long chapters on phrases and clauses from Warriner’s, and we only have two weeks before finals. It’s a good time for a high-interest short novel. It’s a good time for The Catcher in the Rye. I introduced the novel today, of course telling my students about Mark David Chapman and John Hinckley, Jr. I also told them about the oddy reclusive author. The students complained. I can’t read a whole book in two weeks! I hate reading! I don’t want to read a book. There isn’t even a summary on the back of this book. Why is the cover so plain? You’re killing us, Mrs. Huff. I said, Calm down! Give this one a chance. You’ll like it; just wait.

I always like to start any book by reading aloud, so I cleared my throat and read, “The Catcher in the Rye… Chapter One… If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

As I continued reading I looked around the room. One by one, I could see J.D. Salinger winning them over. Each nose stuck firmly in this plain book with its unobtrusive cover, eyes scanning the page as I read aloud. Utter quiet. No one surreptitiously checking the clock. At the end of the period, I closed the book and asked the students to finish chapter two. I could be wrong, but it sure looked to me as though not one of them noticed the end of the period had come.

I love teaching this book. Thanks, Mr. Salinger.

You can read more about my experiences teaching this book in the past at my personal blog.

Recommended Reading, Teaching Literature

Boys (Don’t) Read

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Boy ReadingThe other day, one of my students made a special trip to my classroom to give me a folded newspaper clipping. He asked me if I had read the paper — and as I’m remembering it, I can’t recall the day he asked about — and I hadn’t, so he shyly handed me the article. If you have never been a teacher, you probably don’t realize how touching such a gesture is. It says that the student was thinking about me and thought something would interest me. It says also that it interested him, and he wanted me to know it. I can’t find the article at the AJC’s website, but I did find it here.

The gist of the article is nothing new to educators. Boys need to be enticed to read more than girls. If you are looking for good guy books, try Jon Scieszka’s site Guys Read. I told the boy who gave me the article that I think he will like our next novel — The Catcher in the Rye. A more quintessentially guy book would be hard to find. I think it will be fun to read with that class, which is predominantly male.

Image via BBC.

Teaching Literature

Julius Caesar

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A favorite resource of mine, the Folger Shakespeare Library, is somewhat skimpy on lesson plans for Julius Caesar. I have only taught this play once before, earlier in my career. I don’t remember that anything I did then was in any way spectacular, memorable, or brilliant, and I would really like my current students to have a different experience. If you know of resources or have ideas of your own, I would love to hear them.

Teaching Literature, Teaching Writing

Vocabulary Cards

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I was not really happy with how vocabulary instruction went in my classes last year. Our school purchases really good consumable vocabulary textbooks, but I had the feeling that my students’ grades were impacted too much by vocabulary. In some cases, students who did really well on vocabulary quizzes and always did the workbook exercises had inflated grades, and students who were otherwise good students, but struggled with some aspect of the vocabulary assignment, had grades that I didn’t feel accurately reflected their progress in English.

I knew I wanted to do something different this year. I was going to go with Jim Burke’s idea of vocabulary squares, but I ultimately decided the squares were too small and the students would balk at using them. Even if I told them to create their own large squares, it just seemed too cumbersome. Of course, perhaps some would argue that what I did instead was cumbersome, but I’m pleased with the results. I adapted Jim’s idea into vocabulary cards. Now, I know there is nothing new under the sun, and someone else probably does the exact same thing, but I figured I’d share anyway, and maybe you’ll get a cute handout out of it if you like the idea.

First of all, I ask students to buy 3×5 ruled cards. On the blank side, they write the word and a drawing, symbol, or icon that helps them remember it. I have twins in my class that drew pictures of each other for “petulant,” which made me smile when I graded their vocabulary. On the ruled side, students give the etymology, part(s) of speech, definition, synonyms, and use the word in a sentence.

I gave them a handout modeling the process, which you can download here: Vocabulary Instructions. It has a permanent home on my Handouts page, also.