Shakespeare <3
That's all I gotta say. Billy is probably one of my favorite people in the world. I don't know why I have such an affinity for him. I read Romeo and Juliet for the first time in 9th grade and fell in love. In 10th grade, we read Much Ado About Nothing and I didn't like it. The next year, we read Macbeth and I was back in love. I think I was the only English major excited to take Shakespeare as an entire course.
Anyway, let's get to the point. While I do looooove my Shakespeare, I don't always find it the easiest thing to understand. I struggle, like the majority of the population, to figure out what the heck he means half the time. (Is a "cousin" really a cousin, or just a friend??) Reading the Manga version of Romeo and Juliet was interesting. Manga/anime isn't really my thing, so I was a little hesitant. Similar to when we read American Born Chinese, I found that I comprehended the story much better through pictures. It still included Shakespearean dialogue, but with the pictures included, you can decipher what is going on, which is really helpful.
Since I'm talking about dialogue comprehension so much, I actually picked an article about that. I believe this is Chapter 2 of Teaching Shakespeare, "Teaching Shakespeare's Dramatic Dialogue." The author, Sharon Beehler, actually does a great job at breaking down the process of understanding Shakespearean dialogue. She mentions a small activity she gives to the students to assist them in the communication process. She gives them a slip of paper with two instructions: 1. Arrange the following words into a logical sentence. (movie, I, you, the, to, go, to, want, with) 2. Determine where you would place the stress in the sentence. Students often have trouble deciding where to place the stress. It requires the student to delve into their own background to help them.
By having students practice dialogue through texts, you're helping them with dialogue in their own lives. They will become "more alert to the importance of the same phenomena in their own lives" (17). This essentially means that students will be able to identify subtexts in conversations and question assumptions through dialogue. Beehler also mentions having the students write alternate scenes which can "help them develop new insights about the communication phenomena in the play" (21). I think this is really brilliant and it can also gauge how well the students are doing comprehending the material.
I think the reason I admire Shakespeare so much is because of my high school teachers. They didn't just dump a play on us and expect us to understand what was going on. We spent quite a bit of time in class (and after school) going over the material and breaking down each scene to make sure we comprehended it. We read A Midsummer Night's Dream in 12th grade and we read it out loud in class, with each person assigned to a different character. In my opinion, this helped me and the class a lot. Text sounds different when you read it out loud versus reading it in your head.
All in all, I hope my passion for Shakespeare carries through my teaching career. I don't want my students moaning and groaning the day I announce we'll be reading Hamlet. Obviously this is a HUGE wish, but a girl can dream, can't she? :)
Monday, March 28, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
I title this blog... "The Most Wonderf-" Oh, hold on I have a text message.
Ok, so let me get this straight, Mark Bauerlein: are you calling me stupid because I can send a text message faster than you? That's what it is, isn't it?
After reading Bauerlein's video and review, I didn't really know how to feel. I think it's a bit rash to call an entire generation "dumb." One thing he said in the video was that he tells his students that they "are not busy," simply because they watch 2 hours and 41 minutes of television a week. I'm gonna be completely honest: I think he's full of crap. For the most part, the only television I watch is a half an hour of the Golden Girls before I go to bed. And I can't even make it through a whole episode before I fall asleep. Five days of that and you have 2 hours and 30 minutes of television. One half hour of my day watching television is not enough to qualify me as stupid, in my opinion. From the time I wake up until the time I watch the Golden Girls, I am constantly on the go. Given the day, I am usually at work and back-to-back classes, accompanied by one or two meetings. In the time outside of that, I am completing homework or extracurricular requirements. I guess I need to sleep and eat, too. Yes, I check my Facebook. Big woop. Haven't you ever heard of a brain break, Mark Bauerlein?
Ok, I've had my fun bashing him. On a more serious note, yes, I agree with him to some extent. I can't say I am fully committed to his argument just yet. I notice much more now after reading Feed and watching his video that most teenagers find it difficult to hold a conversation if it isn't about the latest break-up on Facebook or what happened on tv last night. Let's remember something: we are teenagers. Even though Bauerlein didn't have Facebook back in his day, I find it hard to believe that his generation spent 100% of their time scouring museums and reading the Encyclopedia all day. He must remember that his generation didn't have access to all this technology, either. So doing those things (going to museums, parks, etc) were the norm. Now, we don't need to spend $25 on an aquarium ticket when we can look up videos or pictures of fish on the Internet.
In terms of teaching, Bauerlein's philosophy/argument scares me. I already know how my age group is today and was in high school. If Bauerlein is accurate in his prophecy, then we have quite a job ahead of us. I am already envisioning extensive problems with cell phones, iPods, portable game systems, etc. Maybe I'm not giving my future students enough credit, but generally speaking, that's what I see. Bauerlein obviously isn't giving the rest of us enough credit. Furthermore, he blames "his colleagues" -- the teachers and educators, "mentors" of these students. Does this include him? Of course not. Even though he is an educator, he very carefully leaves himself out of that equation.
As teachers, it is our responsibility to get our students thinking. I know for myself, I want my students discovering new worlds through literature, developing critical thinking skills, relating past stories to present issues, etc. We have to remember that the Internet is a learning tool, not a crutch. We can utilize it when necessary, but shouldn't submit to its every command.
After reading Bauerlein's video and review, I didn't really know how to feel. I think it's a bit rash to call an entire generation "dumb." One thing he said in the video was that he tells his students that they "are not busy," simply because they watch 2 hours and 41 minutes of television a week. I'm gonna be completely honest: I think he's full of crap. For the most part, the only television I watch is a half an hour of the Golden Girls before I go to bed. And I can't even make it through a whole episode before I fall asleep. Five days of that and you have 2 hours and 30 minutes of television. One half hour of my day watching television is not enough to qualify me as stupid, in my opinion. From the time I wake up until the time I watch the Golden Girls, I am constantly on the go. Given the day, I am usually at work and back-to-back classes, accompanied by one or two meetings. In the time outside of that, I am completing homework or extracurricular requirements. I guess I need to sleep and eat, too. Yes, I check my Facebook. Big woop. Haven't you ever heard of a brain break, Mark Bauerlein?
Ok, I've had my fun bashing him. On a more serious note, yes, I agree with him to some extent. I can't say I am fully committed to his argument just yet. I notice much more now after reading Feed and watching his video that most teenagers find it difficult to hold a conversation if it isn't about the latest break-up on Facebook or what happened on tv last night. Let's remember something: we are teenagers. Even though Bauerlein didn't have Facebook back in his day, I find it hard to believe that his generation spent 100% of their time scouring museums and reading the Encyclopedia all day. He must remember that his generation didn't have access to all this technology, either. So doing those things (going to museums, parks, etc) were the norm. Now, we don't need to spend $25 on an aquarium ticket when we can look up videos or pictures of fish on the Internet.
In terms of teaching, Bauerlein's philosophy/argument scares me. I already know how my age group is today and was in high school. If Bauerlein is accurate in his prophecy, then we have quite a job ahead of us. I am already envisioning extensive problems with cell phones, iPods, portable game systems, etc. Maybe I'm not giving my future students enough credit, but generally speaking, that's what I see. Bauerlein obviously isn't giving the rest of us enough credit. Furthermore, he blames "his colleagues" -- the teachers and educators, "mentors" of these students. Does this include him? Of course not. Even though he is an educator, he very carefully leaves himself out of that equation.
As teachers, it is our responsibility to get our students thinking. I know for myself, I want my students discovering new worlds through literature, developing critical thinking skills, relating past stories to present issues, etc. We have to remember that the Internet is a learning tool, not a crutch. We can utilize it when necessary, but shouldn't submit to its every command.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
WARNING: Explicit Content
My biggest question this week after going through the reading material is this: Who gets to decide if a book is censored or not? Overbearing parents? Frightened superintendents? Cautious co-workers? Who?
As I read Noll's article (Ripple Effect), I found myself getting slightly more and more frustrated. When I'm teaching, I don't want to live in fear of literature, and I don't want my students to either. By schools censoring books, that's exactly what we're doing. I feel like administrators are afraid of these books because they do exactly what they should do: make students question and learn and think. If they're going to frown upon learning, then maybe they should just close down their school?
I guess I'm just a little perturbed right now. Obviously with any job, there are going to be restrictions. However, in this case we aren't restricting ourselves as "workers"; we are restricting the students as learners and that completely defeats the purpose of our jobs. I read The Catcher in the Rye in high school and I cannot tell you one student who reacted negatively just because we read that book in 9th grade. So young, so vulnerable, how dare they learn about people from all walks of life? That's just silly! The more we restrict what kids can read, odds are that they'll find a way to read it anyway if they really want to. And that's perfectly fine with me. I want to them to branch out and discover new worlds through literature.
On another note, Feed. I lost my driver's license over break and started reading this while waiting for an hour and a half at the DMV. It took me a while to understand what was going on. On the very first page, Titus begins telling the story and says, "Link Arwaker was like, 'I'm so null,' and Marty was all, 'I'm null too, unit,' but I mean we were all pretty null, because for the last like hour we'd been playing with three uninsulated wires that were coming out of the wall" (3). I read over this sentence probably about 5 times. I didn't understand why they were saying "like." I obviously use this in conversation more than I should and it was completely strange seeing it like that in a novel. Also, some of the words they use to describe things just made me laugh. Especially "meg," which I'm assuming is for mega. I actually think I let this slip out in conversation the other day. Ut oh! Seriously, though, pretty interesting novel. Its conventions are atypical of a "novel," but I think that's what makes it work so well.
As I read Noll's article (Ripple Effect), I found myself getting slightly more and more frustrated. When I'm teaching, I don't want to live in fear of literature, and I don't want my students to either. By schools censoring books, that's exactly what we're doing. I feel like administrators are afraid of these books because they do exactly what they should do: make students question and learn and think. If they're going to frown upon learning, then maybe they should just close down their school?
I guess I'm just a little perturbed right now. Obviously with any job, there are going to be restrictions. However, in this case we aren't restricting ourselves as "workers"; we are restricting the students as learners and that completely defeats the purpose of our jobs. I read The Catcher in the Rye in high school and I cannot tell you one student who reacted negatively just because we read that book in 9th grade. So young, so vulnerable, how dare they learn about people from all walks of life? That's just silly! The more we restrict what kids can read, odds are that they'll find a way to read it anyway if they really want to. And that's perfectly fine with me. I want to them to branch out and discover new worlds through literature.
On another note, Feed. I lost my driver's license over break and started reading this while waiting for an hour and a half at the DMV. It took me a while to understand what was going on. On the very first page, Titus begins telling the story and says, "Link Arwaker was like, 'I'm so null,' and Marty was all, 'I'm null too, unit,' but I mean we were all pretty null, because for the last like hour we'd been playing with three uninsulated wires that were coming out of the wall" (3). I read over this sentence probably about 5 times. I didn't understand why they were saying "like." I obviously use this in conversation more than I should and it was completely strange seeing it like that in a novel. Also, some of the words they use to describe things just made me laugh. Especially "meg," which I'm assuming is for mega. I actually think I let this slip out in conversation the other day. Ut oh! Seriously, though, pretty interesting novel. Its conventions are atypical of a "novel," but I think that's what makes it work so well.
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