Ok. I know it has been an incredibly long time since I last reflected and updated this blog but I picked up my full class load a week before spring break…and then I did nothing over spring break and it was fantastic. So now I am teaching Shakespeare’s Macbeth to two grade 11 classes and one grade 10 pre-IB class which my SA treats like a grade 11 class. So basically I am teaching the same lesson 3 times. I originally thought this would be rather easy…I was very naive and delusional because I’ve now come to learn that each block of hormonal high school students is a completely different species. Block 2 is quiet and not awake yet despite it being nearly 10 am when it starts. Block 4 is pre-IB so I could ask them to tap dance like a monkey and they would do it, they also read independently and are able to carry more academic conversations. Block 5 is wildly chatty, wide awake, and excited to go home (I have them at the end of the day). See, totally different.
When I started my Macbeth unit I was so excited, I love this play and I could not wait to share that with others, convinced that my love for the work would be enough to engage my students in stimulating intellectual academic discussions about the Bard…sometimes I laugh at how naive I was. It was not enough. The words were too unfamiliar for the students to understand right away, my discussion questions were met by terrifying, palpable silence, and I felt like I had to have it entirely on my shoulders to hold their hands (metaphorically NOT literally, relax) and spoon-feed the information to them. I turned into a Shakespeare professor overnight forgetting that my students have not learned to take notes without me explicitly telling them to. I have taught this way for a week and two days (with a 2-week spring break in between) and I am so tired of my own voice and of lecturing the same thing three times a day. I don’t know how university professors do it. To all my professors, I am so sorry for zoning out during your classes because I now know how those glazed over eyes and slumped over, sleeping students make you feel. The dead silence that followed my discussion questions were so terrifying to me that it has been pointed out to me by my wonderful SA that I have not asked another once since day one and what is supposed to be a class of learning has been turned into “The Jen Show featuring William Shakespeare” or “Jen talks the Bard”.
In my fear of losing student engagement because of the content, the content is being lost on students who now do not know how to read or analyze the beautiful words of the Bard which I did not want from the very beginning. My SA and I talked about the day and strategized ways of getting students to get involved in the analysis process and doing the work for themselves. We discussed layering questions, starting off small and moving towards bigger ones instead of spoon-feeding the information to them.
I’ve just fixed my lesson plan for tomorrow and made a powerpoint of the questions to help them with their analysis so fingers crossed that this goes over well and that what my SA and I talked about works well…he’s at a conference tomorrow and the next day so I am on my own with a very competent, trusted TTOC by my side.
Once more unto the breach dear friends once more. For there is not a reason why there is but adapt the lesson plan and make these kids learn without me holding their hands or die, into the valley of education rides Ms. Nishi.
