Archive for September, 2006

Want to make Shakespeare interesting?

Students often begrudge teachers’ comments that they will be studying one off Shakespeare’s plays. Oftentimes students feel that the language is too hard and the material was written too long ago for them to understand. One way to make Shakespeare interesting to students is to have them perform their own parodies. A common theme in Shakespeare’s plays is the world as a stage. In Macbeth, Julius Caesar and As You Like It Shakespeare provides a total of twenty eight lines of parodies regarding this theme (Gibson 136-137). After presenting the parodies to the students haven them write and title their own parody regarding this theme. Students can then volunteer to perform or just read aloud their parody. You can even bring in a video camera and have the students bring costumes to make it a theatrical event! Enjoy!

Published in:Uncategorized |on September 20th, 2006 |Comments Off

Higher Achieving Student’s Galore

           Today’s blog will focus on small ways to make our students higher achieving student in the area of English Language Arts. These are a few tips from Arthur Applebee’s book entitled Toward Thoughtful Conversations: Fostering Discipline-Based Conversations in the English Language Classroom (2000). First, try not to have too much material in a single class period. Too much material may result in you the teacher spoon feeding the students what they need to know. It is important to give the students limited amounts of material so they can create their own interpretations and interact with each and you the teacher on such matters. Second, if there is class discussion on the material make sure that all contributions are “true and accurate”. Lastly, make each day’s material connect with the rest. The curriculum must be related in some way that students can create their own perspective of the whole class. Your students will become higher achieving students who include all the diverse texts read in class to create a higher meaning. I hope these tips will make their way into your classroom someday.

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Published in:Uncategorized |on September 13th, 2006 |Comments Off

Introduction

Hello literature lovers!! This is a site of several helpful blogs that will contain useful information for English Language classes for Middle and High School levels. You can feel free to make comments or ask any questions on the information you find. Thanks and happy blogging!

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Published in:Uncategorized |on September 13th, 2006 |Comments Off