A few weeks ago I wrote about how I had found myself spoon feeding Shakespeare into the wily minds of my students by giving them my own analysis instead of making them look at the text and decide for themselves what it was saying. Since then I have not stood at the front and made a single lecture.
I tried it the very next day after posting to this blog. I was so nervous that I didn’t sleep well the night before. My SA, who has been so supportive in my mentorship, was, for the first time, not going to be anywhere in the school. I had a TTOC who was also just as nice and supportive but she was in no way my SA. I let the students know from the very start that I had been doing a disservice to them by lecturing the entire day and that, from that point on, that I’d be doing things differently and they would be doing more analysis of the text. We watched the video clips of the scenes, we read the scene out, stopping for me to explain what is going on, and then I flipped on a powerpoint I had made the night before with careful, blunt instructions and questions that would require them to close read the text analytically. Most of the questions focused on what connotations Shakespeare’s diction carried, why they thought he used those words, and what that then meant to the text as a whole (symbolism, theme, etc). Block 2 — my first instruction block of the day and by FAR my most sleepy— blew me away with their responses which they actually offered willingly! I was so excited I almost cried.
Since that day, I have not looked back, I have not stood up at the front and lectured, I moved my physical space to the side board (right behind my most lethargic and near comatose cellphone addicted students) and only offered my own analysis once they had all shared their own.
Every morning I post the day’s learning intentions and objectives on a powerpoint and get them to write it down. I decided that 3 was a big enough number of learning objectives and an achievable number. We then look at the video clip of the scene and the students look at the creative, artistic choices the filmmakers/directors used connecting the film to the learning intentions. Then we read and sometimes act it out and then look at the text and answer questions.
For the first time, I was able to mark a paper while the students worked hard on the analytical questions I posed. They were engaged in the text and the buy-in was there without me forcing it! Yes, eventually they did get distracted and their conversations did stray from Shakespeare’s use of bird symbolism and the Macduffs to who broke up with who on Snapchat last night, but they were engaged in the text for at least for a little while.
All in all, the teacher has been taught. My lesson has been learned. Never underestimate the analytical mind of a teenager, they understand a lot more than they appear to.
