Friday, October 24, 2008

Good teaching week

Well, the LCD Projector has been a really great addition to my classroom. So far, I've mostly just shown scenes from films, but it's so nice and easy that I can't quite believe that it's taken me so long to get one.

One of the lessons I took from Folger this summer was performance = analysis, and analyzing performance is analyzing text. When my guest speaker, Caleen Jennings, visited my classes at the beginning of the month, she read Rose Maxson two different ways - once as heartbroken, once as angry. I keep drawing from that, as we see Lady Capulet's cold distance in the 1968 Zeffirelli Romeo and Juliet, and her boozy flooziness in the 1996 Lurhmann Romeo + Juliet. We examined the Queen Mab speech on our own, then in both film productions. The kids love it and are saying really insightful things. It was a great week.

With my Juniors, I set up the Internet discussion board that I did a little bit last year. I love it and it helps me help them a little more expediently. Their essays came back to them yesterday and the class average was a 54. They need the help but they're getting it. The transition to Junior year English is a big one. They'll be fine.

2 comments:

jackie said...

I used a Folger lesson from the online archive recently that was along the same lines-- thinking of different interpretations for the "nunnery" scene in Hamlet. It went over really well with my juniors, and was a nice lead-up to looking at different filmed version of the Hamlet/Gertrude closet scene later in the week.

Teach Baltimore said...

That's awesome. Hopefully, soon, my lessons will be in the archive.