Working in supplemental informational text

Wow that's a pretty wordy title, but I wanted to be as specific as possible.

Today I thought I'd give an example of how I bring in some supplemental informational text, which is aligned with CCSS.

A lot of people read the CC standards and gasp "No more fiction! Only non-fiction! The horror!" And while CC does say about 60% of what high school students should be reading is informational text, that means ACROSS THE CURRICULUM. Meaning, 60% of your English class does NOT have to be strictly non-fiction.

Students are reading non-fiction (or informational text) in science, social studies, Spanish, foods, consumer ed.....you get the idea! Most of what they read in other subjects is informational, not fiction. So it's OK to still teach a lot of fiction in English class.

But what CCSS would like us to do is bring in supplemental materials sometimes in addition to our fictional texts. It is actually fairly easy to find a non-fiction text that relates to something you're studying in fiction.

If you're reading Fahrenheit 451, students could read an article about the pros/cons of censoring books.

To go along with To Kill a Mockingbird, they could research the history of the "n" word or read the Jim Crow Laws, or a plethora of other ideas.

These are things you probably are already DOING in your novel units anyway without necessarily thinking of it like this.

I'm going to give you an example of a lesson I recently did that tied fiction and non-fiction together.

We have been doing an American Poets unit in my junior class, and we recently read "Birches" by Robert Frost. (I admit, I choose my favorite poems to teach my students. "Birches" is one of my absolute favorite poems EVER!)

So after we did our lesson analyzing the poem, I had them listen to JFK's speech at Amherst College which honored Robert Frost after his death in 1963:
{Hint: If you only want the part that talks about Frost, start it at 6:28}

 I give them a printed version of the text of the speech and have them annotate as they are listening/following along to show evidence of a close reading.

These are the specific instructions I gave them on their sheet (click to make larger)

After we listened to it, I let them go back through and take more time to add annotations if they couldn't keep up with the recording. After they did this, I brought it up on the Smart Board and had about 5 students mark their annotations in just the first three paragraphs. I talked about how THAT was the extent and amount of annotations I'd expect for the whole article.

Then for homework, they answered these close reading questions, which I put at the end of the speech:

 We started class the next day discussing their annotations, their answers to these questions, and relating with JFK said about art/poets/artists to Robert Frost specifically, as well as discussed his ideas in general. We talked about whether or not they feel our country is the kind of country JFK described in his speech.

All told, we spent about 1.5 class periods on this supplemental speech, but I am also using it next week to teach parallel structure, so it is killing like three birds with one stone :) 

This is just one example of how you can bring in informational text to supplement the fiction you are already doing, the fiction we want to be teaching.

Numbered Heads/Desks

Back in May, I attended a two-day Common Core conference with a co-worker (wow, love the alliteration in that sentence!) and walked away with my head swimming with new techniques I wanted to try. The first one I knew I wanted to kick off this year was Numbered Heads (I call it Numbered Desks).

I would love to meet the teacher who has kids JUMPING out of their seats to answer questions, discuss, and share the responsibility of learning amongst their peers. Students who hold intelligent discussions with one another without much prompting from me and always listen attentively while peers share and then can't wait to respond themselves.

But if you're like me here is how it usually goes: You ask a question. There is silence that stretches on awkwardly. Finally the same few kids who always answer questions raise their hands and their peers sit back, knowing they're off the hook because so-and-so always has the answer.

Well that's not how I envision my class. ALL students need to take responsibility for responding, sharing, and discussing. But I also want to avoid kids saying I'm "picking on them" or putting them on the spot. So I have adopted Numbered Desks in my room and so far, I love it.

I numbered all my desks 1-4. I did this pretty low-tech with colored squares of construction paper, a permanent marker, and clear packing tape. Most likely I'll have to replace the numbers each year.

I introduced this concept on day 1 and my students knew I would use it regularly. I don't do it with every single question I ever ask, but I do it with questions that involve critical thinking, planning, and where I want a discussion to ensue.

I pose a question verbally and put it on the SmartBoard (or have it on a sheet the students are given). This way, they can go back to that question if they need to re-read it. I give them a couple minutes to jot down their own response individually. This way they have time to think and can have something to read off of if necessary. Then I have them share with a partner near them. I don't allow them to move around the room; it has to be someone close. If they were totally unsure of their answer, they can run it by a peer and hear what they have to say also.

Then we come back together and I randomly call a number 1-4. Those students have to stand and I hear from them one-by-one. This way, students know their number may always be called (I will sometimes call the same number twice in a row to keep them on their toes so they don't start slacking if they were already called once), and they know they share the responsibility of class discussions. I am hearing from them more rather than me always talking.

When students have their numbers called, it is OK if they agree with what has already been said. But I ask them why they agree or to expand on so-and-so's answer. "I don't know" is not acceptable and they know this. They have a couple options: they can ask me a question for further clarification or help, they can ask for another minute to compose a response, or they can ask to "phone a friend" and get help from a peer. This does not mean the peer answers instead. It means they are allowed to ask a specific question to one peer to aid in their understanding. I always go back to the original student to hear from them.

So far, I have had success with this. I am hearing AWESOME responses from students who would never raise their hands and volunteer on their own. I am hearing from my whole class, not just three or four kids. And they are actually having a discussion with each other. They know the onus is on them, as a class, to learn the material, share ideas, and think through things; it shouldn't just be on one or two students. I will not lie; some students groan if their number is called and aren't thrilled or jumping for joy, but they still stand and give it the old college try. I have yet to have a student be disrespectful or outright refuse to share when their number is called.

What techniques do you use in your room to spur class discussion and shared learning?

How I'm doing vocab. this year

Man, time got away from me. Already two weeks since I last posted. The school year is in full swing with tests, papers, projects, football games, and all those other things that signal we are back to it.

I have been knocked on my butt this past week with a terrible cough/cold. I also had lots of kids out sick. Never before have I had to take a sick day the first couple weeks of the year. I am feeling better, but still not totally myself yet.

Well now that I've had a couple weeks of doing vocab. in a new, CC-aligned way, I thought I'd post how it's going.

In the past, we had vocab. workbooks with arbitrary word lists, the kids got 20 words every two weeks, we'd do workbook exercises plus some supplemental stuff I came up with, then did a review game and quizzed on those words. NO MORE. And I am excited about the change.

Now, our tier 2 words are coming from what we read. Whenever I assign a reading, I go through beforehand and pick out 3-4 words (per week) that I think are difficult, yet frequently-used words my students will need to know across the curriculum and to use in everyday conversations.

I also define for them Tier 3 words (not often used or very content-specific terms). The tier 2 words I underline in the reading and have them try to figure out from context clues. Then when we discuss the reading, we come up with a consensus of a definition (if no one knows it, I let them use their phones to look it up in an online dictionary). They keep vocab. journals and keep a running list of our words: the words, definition, synonyms they come up with, and they write down the sentence it appeared in.

Every couple weeks, we take those words and will make a decorative sheet for them for our Word Wall. They can use colors and fun fonts to make a sheet with the word, definition, and a picture that shows that word's meaning. Then we hang them on our wall, so we can always see them and incorporate them into our language. So far, between my seniors and juniors, we have about 12 words up there and it will keep growing.

We also do some supplemental activities about once every two weeks. This week I had them fill out graphic organizers for each word with things like their own sentence, antonyms, synonyms, and a picture to demonstrate. I also plan to play some review games.

One game I want to do I learned at a CC conference. I plan to get note cards and for each word, do three things: one card has the word, one card has the definition, and one card has a defining picture. I'd do this for all our words so far (and cover up the word wall or take them down). Each student gets a card and has to find their two word partners. Then they have to stand with their group and show me all three cards that go together. I like this idea a lot; I just want to accumulate more words before we play it.

Extra credit:
Everyone feels differently about extra credit, and I don't offer a lot, but I do offer a few points. I find that many students don't take advantage, but the ones that really want to try to better their grade do. Each week, students can earn one extra credit vocab. point by doing one of the following with a word on our word wall:

1) Use the word correctly in a Facebook status and show it to me.
2) Use the word in a Tweet and show it to me.
3) Find a word in a book or magazine/Internet article they are reading and bring it in.
4) See the word used out in public somewhere, take a pic of it and bring it in.
5) Use a word correctly in class.

So far, I've had a handful take advantage and it's been fun. A lot of them really dig the FB and Twitter options.

Overall, I am loving doing vocab. differently than in the past, and it frees up time to do more with lit. and writing, instead of feeling like I have to get through 20 words in two weeks that they won't retain anyhow.

A sample Common Core discussion using Grapes of Wrath

Our community and school always participates in The Big Read.  
It's a really cool endeavor, and the community members get super into it by organizing 10-15 activities each fall that coincide with the book or author the committee chose to study that year. At the high school, we try to study the work in some capacity at various grade levels.

This year, the committee in town chose the works of John Steinbeck from The Big Read. I am teaching 3 sections of juniors again this year, and while we don't have time to study a second entire novel (we already do Gatsby first semester), I decided to start the year with a little mini-unit incorporating the first chapter of Grapes of Wrath, as well as some supplemental materials.

I have to admit; I've never read GOW before! So today, I sat down and read chapter 1 (it's only three pages). Shorter is better for going in-depth like CC wants, anyhow. As I went through, I picked out 4-5 Tier 2 words  that my students would work with that week and put in their word journals. I also circled tier 3 words, which are words that are not used often in conversation and are content-specific, but ones that they need definitions for in order to understand the passage. These I will just provide definitions for.

Common Core is big on tier 2, or cross-curricular, common vocabulary, higher-level thinking and providing textual evidence as support. The way I am structuring the lesson is as follows:

-Distribute the book GOW and assign students to read chapter 1 for homework.
-The next day, I plan to read an excerpt aloud (CC actually suggest always reading the selection aloud after the students read it silently, but I just don't think that is feasible for everything we do, and may not encourage students to actually do the assignment of silent reading if they know I will always read it to them anyways).
-I will pass out a worksheet that has the following on it. Notice I define tier 3 words for them at the top already. The tier 2 words they are putting in their journals and that will go on my Word Wall and that we'll do activities and play games with are incorporated as questions.

________________________________________________________

Rivulet: a small, quick-flowing stream of something

Bayonet: a blade that can be attached to the end of a rifle and used for stabbing

Avalanches: a rapid downhill flow of a large mass of something dislodged from a mountainside, especially snow or     ice

Emulsion: a suspension of one liquid in another, e.g. oil in water or fat in milk

Bemused: to be confused or puzzled

Vocab. words to be added to your vocab. spiral:  dissipated, sluggish, cunningly, perplexity

1. What is the definition of the word “dissipated” (page 1)?

2. What is the definition of the word “sluggish” (page 2)?

3. Why was “sluggish” the best way to describe the smoke? What other things do you think of when you hear the word “sluggish”?

4. What does “cunningly” mean (page 2)?

5. Why do you think the author described the wind as digging cunningly? Why is that a better choice than one of its synonyms, such as cleverly or resourcefully?

6. What does “perplexity” mean (page 3)?

7. Make an inference: How would the conditions described in chapter 1 affect the livelihood of the men and women living during this time?

8. Quote material from the chapter to support your answer in #7. Please include page numbers.

9. What was the relationship between women and men like during this period?

10. How do you know this? Quote material from the chapter as support.

_______________________________________________________________________

For every "content" question I ask, I also ask for support from the text to back up their responses. I also don't ask simple comprehension questions. This is the way Common Core is moving. Much of this I used to do anyway, but now I am working on going this in-depth with all the selections we read (within reason).

So I will have students work on these questions in small groups or individually, depending. Then we'll go over as a large group.

The next day, I am having them read an informational non-fiction piece from Smithsonian magazine entitled " Are We Headed for Another Dust Bowl?"

For this one, I think I will hand it out and have them silently read right in class. After, I plan to have some questions similar to the types I have on the worksheet above, but this time displayed in a PP presentation on my Smart Board. I don't want to just always give worksheets (though I am not opposed to worksheets as a whole, like some people are. Maybe that discussion will be for another day).

I picked up a discussion technique at a CC conference last May. I went in and numbered all my desks 1-4. I will post a question up on my Smart Board and let all students have time to think about it. Then I will randomly call a number, and all students with that number on their desk stand up. This encourages ALL students to participate (we all know we have 3 or 4 kids in class who would gladly lead every discussion, but then many others who are content never saying anything). Sometimes, I will have them share with a partner before this step or write down a response before this step as well.

So, let's say I have 4 kids with #1 and they stand up. Then I will ask them and only them to respond to the question. Sometimes I'll ask all four, sometimes I won't. It's meant to keep all students on their toes (there is always a chance their number will be called), BUT they can feel safe because they are not put on the spot (they can see the question ahead of time and have time to think/write/share with a partner before sharing out loud).

On the last day of this mini-unit, I am showing a clip from the Ken Burns film entitled The Dust Bowl. Below, I have included the preview to the film on PBS (you should be able to also find the entire film on YouTube).

 

Then we'll bring it altogether and discuss its implications today. The article I posted above from Smithsonian discusses how it was partially caused by humans and how it's very possible something like that could happen again in our lifetime. I don't think my students know a whole lot about the Dust Bowl past that it happened, so it'll be interesting to discuss some of the lesser-known causes and if we are headed in that direction again today.

Do you have any other cool resources you use with Grapes of Wrath? What about with the Dust Bowl? Or have you come up with any cool CC-aligned units?

Determining Text Complexity

As I've mentioned here before, I'm part of the ELA Common Core Committee for my district. For the high school, there's just two of us represented on this committee and it's our job to kind of teach this stuff to the other ELA teachers at our school.

We are focusing on 6 big shifts happening in ELA, and we found a great video on Engage NY that explains in detail these 6 shifts (Engage NY has a TON of great CCSS resources, and I highly recommend browsing the site).

The one we are going to focus on first is text complexity. In a nutshell, CC is pushing for more difficult texts, which means *some* texts we have previously used at a certain grade level may no longer be difficult enough to use at that level.

So how do you know if a text is difficult enough?

One way is to see if it's listed under Appendix B which lists exemplar texts for each grade level. If it's there and under your grade level, you are fine.

If not, you have to do a little bit of work on your own to see if it will be rigorous enough. There are three things you need to do consider: quantitative, qualitative, and reader and task consideration.

The first is to see what its lexile score is. To do this, make a free account at lexile.com and search for the book/short story/what have you that you want to teach. If you want to test an article that you find, you can copy and paste some of the text into lexile.com, and it will analyze it for you. (Note: For poetry and drama, lexile score doesn't matter).

Use the chart below to determine which lexile score you need for each grade level. You need to look at the "stretch" lexile band.

Grade Band	Current Lexile Band	"Stretch" Lexile Band*
K–1	N/A	N/A
2–3	450L–725L	420L–820L
4–5	645L–845L	740L–1010L
6–8	860L–1010L	925L–1185L
9-10	960L–1115L	1050L–1335L
11–CCR	1070L–1220L	1185L–1385L

 Source: lexile.com

That is your quantitative.

Do not fret if the text you want to use doesn't fall in the appropriate grade category yet! Remember, there are two other components to test.

Up next is qualitative. This is where you use your knowledge and prior experience with the text to run it through a checklist of sorts. I would recommend going viewing this document to give you an idea. I have pasted a sample of the document below.

 

Source: ccsso.org

 This one is for informational texts and there is a separate document for literary texts (which you can find simply by Googling). As you can see by looking at it, you simply run through each category for the text in question and mark which category you think it falls in. If your lexile level was low, and you get mostly low's for qualitative as well, then I think choosing a different, more challenging text is best. However, if you get middle high or high on qualitative, you can still consider using this text even it fell short on quantitative.

The last category is reader and task consideration. I would look at this document, which I have also done an abbreviated screen shot of below.

Source: ccsso.org

Again, it's up to your judgment to take the text and run through these questions with it. Depending on your answers here, you might be fine if this portion plays out, as well as qualitative, even if you are a little low on quantitative. This last portion of reader and task consideration speaks to educators' professional experience and taking into consideration the readers' purpose in reading, student motivation and interest, etc. So it's not as black and white as either of the other two portions.

As a last resort, if you feel the text falls a little short in all or even one of the areas, you can always supplement it. For instance, with To Kill a Mockingbird (the lexile level ends up really low, but we teach it to freshmen), the teachers who do this unit are supplementing with a higher-level and more challenging piece of information text to accompany it. This might be a current events article that relates, or a piece that discusses something of the time period like Jim Crowe laws, etc. If the supplemental piece is complex enough, our committee has come to the conclusion you can still use the original piece in conjunction with the more rigorous supplemental selection.

It seems like a lot of information (it was for me too), and it sounds like a lot of work just to pick a piece to read, but I think it will go faster the more you do it, and with the qualitative and reader/task portions, it's basically a list you can run through rather quickly when assessing a possible text choice.

I'm definitely not a CC expert, nor a text complexity expert; this is just what our committee worked on last week. If you find any inconsistencies or additional information from what I posted, please let me know in a comment! Or if you have additional resources to share, that'd be great!

Well we start back at school on Thurs. I spent a few hours getting my classroom prepared this morning and need to finish up some lesson plans this week. We went on vacation last week to Michigan and it was beyond beautiful. I will leave you with a couple photos from the trip. I hope you all have a wonderful start to the '13-'14 school year :)

The view of the harbor from our B&B

The sunsets were out of this world!

The beach and lighthouse

Analyzing Nonverbal Skills & Public Speaking

It seems like forever since I have posted a blog about something I've tried in the classroom, so today I thought I'd post an activity I used last week with my sophomores.

Our last unit of the year was public speaking. They had just completed and handed in persuasive essays (I really need to do some blogs about the writing process in my room), and they were going to be presenting these topics as speeches to the class, complete with visual aid.

We had discussed some nonverbal skills and practiced them ourselves (things like eye contact, using hand gestures appropriately, speaking rate, etc.), so I thought it would be interesting to have them analyze and vote on the effectiveness of a few different public speakers. This is also one of the standards we have to do for Common Core next year (analyzing a speech), so it would be easy to carry over and do again next year (though I will no longer be teaching sophomores next year).

I gave them a WS that had a chart on it with about 9 different things to watch for and analyze: eye contact, hand gestures, speaking rate, volume, relating topic to audience, etc. They had to jot down notes in each category for each speech, and then when we watched all 3 excerpts, they had to rank the speeches/speakers 1 to 3, from most effective to least.

I chose three different clips that had vastly different speakers, delivery styles, and messages. Each of these was well over an hour or so long, and I only showed about 8:00 of each one.

The first was Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love) talking about creative genius. This was the least favorite of my students and they unanimously voted her least effective. I still think I would use it again because her very quick (possibly too quick) speaking style nicely contrasted Obama in the next selection who some would argue speaks too slowly.

The next was Obama's Inaugural Address from 2009.

And finally was The Last Lecture from Randy Pausch. My students LOVED this one. (If you are totally unfamiliar, Randy gave this speech with a few months left to live, diagnosed with pancreatic cancer). I wish I had time to show them the whole thing because the message is really cool as well.

So we watched all of these, they filled out the charts and then explained and defended their choices for #1, 2, 3. Like I said, Elizabeth Gilbert was unanimously #3 for them. But half chose Obama as the best speaker and half chose Randy. It was interesting listening to their reasons for each, and both sides had good points.

Then we practiced their speeches in pairs, and I told them to focus on using the delivery techniques of the speakers we just watched. Overall I really liked this activity (and liked it even more now that I have a Smart Board to use. Holla!) I would use it again and possibly spend a couple days doing it, so I could bring in more examples and/or show longer excerpts of each.

Common Core Vocabulary

I am officially on Spring Break. Holla! We have today off and all of next week, not going back until April 8. Even though I brought home a tote full of papers to grade next week, I would much rather grade during daylight hours at Starbucks or Barnes & Noble than at home at night or trying to squeeze it in during prep. So I won't complain too much.

Today also actually FELT like spring with sun and temps nearing 60. I got a pedicure this morning and now my tootsies are a pretty shade of pink. I also did some spring shopping with my birthday gift cards and played with Roxie outside. A pretty good first day off.

We did find out this week that my father-in-law will have to have brain surgery on April 9 to remove two masses on his brain and are currently trying to figure out how we will go up to be with him (4 hours away) on surgery day with our super hyper, anxious dog that doesn't like car rides or strangers (she'd have to stay with my parents). So send good thoughts to us and our family if you could, please, for all of this!

Anyways, Common Core is on my mind because on our SIP day yesterday, the CC committee that I'm on met and we spent most of our time discussing vocabulary. I thought I would briefly explain the CC vocabulary stuff, post some resources or ideas I have found through this committee, and then see if anyone else has some good ideas to share!

Basically, there are three tiers of vocabulary in Common Core.

Tier 1 are words that show up in common conversation and vocabulary, like dog or bike or run. These don't really need much instruction (at the HS level, I have to do zero with tier 1 words).

Tier 2 words are high-frequency words that mature language users need to know. At a workshop I attended, the speaker described these as being "cross-curricular" words. English teachers should NOT be the only ones teaching tier 2 words. They may take on different meanings in different subject areas, so individual teachers should teach the meaning that relates to their subject area.
For example: "equality" means one thing in a history classroom and a different thing in a math class. That is a fairly simple example and they get more complex as the grade level goes up, but you get the idea.

Tier 3 words are content-specific vocab. So as an English teacher, I only teach those words that pertain to my subject area.
Examples: tragic hero, alliteration, hyperbole, etc.
I have heard numerous times that we should just give these definitions to students when we are teaching them. Each teacher would be responsible for teaching words just pertaining to their area.

I found a really good website (well it's really a blog) called Reading Sage  that has an excellent list of sample tier 2 words, definitions of each of the tiers, and a bunch of vocab. activities you can do with different tiered words for varying educational levels. If you scroll down the page, there are even links to other CCSS websites. This is probably the best vocab. resource I have found thus far in my Internet searching.

Basically, vocab. should not just be taught out of a vocab. workbook series anymore. We are getting rid of ours starting next year. It isn't effective to have students memorize 12 words for the quiz and then promptly forget them.

The workshop I attended also said students can only learn 3-4 new vocab. words (and learn them meaning understand them enough to incorporate them in their own vocabulary) per week, and that includes ALL the new words they are learning from ALL subjects, not just English. Yikes! No wonder they have a hard time on vocab. quizzes. After a new word is learned, it was suggested you build a word wall in your classroom so those words are always visible and accessible to students. I like this idea and will probably try it out next year.

The best way to combat the CC vocab. is to take it on as a whole school, at least in my very humble opinion. Our principal wanted us to focus on school-wide vocab. even this year, so we have tried something that works out pretty well if anyone wants to suggest it at their school. The English Dept. kind of spear-headed this and everyone else jumped on board.

My principal printed up a list of 100 words HS students should know (I think she got it through the SAT page). You could obviously adapt this to lower grade levels too (next year, we will probably do this with tier 2 CC words).

Every Friday is Vocab. Fun Friday. There is a list of all 100 words plus definitions in the mail room and every Friday morning, each teacher gets a sticky name tag in his/her mailbox. Each week you choose a new word and write either just the word or the word + definition on your name tag and wear it all day.

The idea is to get kids asking and thinking about the words. I know I have done, as well as some other teachers, an extra credit opportunity where I let students get 10 words from 10 teachers that day, write down the definition and make up a sentence using that word and they get a couple extra points. I know some teachers (and I have tried this too, though none of my students did it) tell their students they will get an extra point if they correctly use one of those vocab. words in another class and have the teacher sign-off that they used it correctly.

Our principal also had a huge spinning wheel made up with a bunch of the vocab. words on it. At lunch, she will occasionally (maybe once every other week) stand in the hall with the big wheel and let students spin it at lunch. If they can provide the definition of the word it lands on, they get a prize (typically a huge candy bar). She then asks the which teacher taught them that word and the teacher ALSO gets a prize (I think their prize is a gift card to a local shop). It has worked well so far! 

Just a couple ideas to get you thinking about the CC vocab. coming down the chute. Through all my work with CC thus far, I have found that it isn't drastically different from what we do now. We are teaching pretty much the same stuff, but the WAY in which we teach it might change slightly. I know I am already doing a lot of things CC has us do, like writing argumentatively, doing close readings, providing textual evidence, etc. So it isn't as scary as it might initially seem.

Breaking down the Bard

One of the most difficult units for me to teach sophomores is Julius Caesar. In general, Shakespeare is difficult unless they are really advanced readers because the language is so vastly different. There are many different activities I use to make Shakespare more fun, more current, and easier to understand, and I will post more ideas in other posts, but today I wanted to focus on an activity I did at school today--breaking down some of the longer speeches in Shakespeare and working with them.

If you are familiar with JC, you know in Act III there are two major speeches at Caesar's funeral: Brutus and Antony, with Antony speaking the most. Not only is this a great activity to teach the content, but also persuasive techniques and the use of ethos, pathos, and logos (more on that in another blog post because I do a LOT with it!)

I got some great ideas from the Folger Shakespeare Library, which is a great resource for all things Shakespeare, and made them my own.

I broke up all the big speeches into sections of about 20 or so lines. I copied them onto paper so I could blow up the font and also so students could annotate on them and mark them up; however, I had them keep their lit. textbooks open because they have some excellent vocab. definitions and footnotes in there to help with comprehension.

I broke the students into groups of 2-3 and each group got one of the sections of a major speech. They were given about 20 min. and asked to do the following:

1. Paraphrase this speech in your own words (we have been working with paraphrasing all year and I modeled it for them last week, so they are familiar with it. We also paraphrased a speech together in class on Friday).
2. How persuasive was this character? Point out examples of ethos, pathos, and logos with textual evidence (hello, Common Core!) Like I said earlier, we already would have covered these terms in an activity previously.
3. How did the commoners react to after this section of the speech was given? Whose side are they on currently (the conspirators' or Marc Antony's)?
4. When everyone was done, each group performed their speech in the tone and manner they imagined it would've been performed by this character. They then shared their answers and analysis with us.

Tomorrow I am going to show these speeches performed in a film version of the play to compare their interpretations and so they can see a fluent and dramatic reading of it.

Honestly I was so impressed with them today! When we read aloud as a group and I stop to ask questions and recap, they look at me like lumps on a log. This has proven to me they CAN interpret the meaning on their own, but just choose not to at times because it's convenient. Pretty much every group was right on in their paraphrase and correctly answered the questions, even using textual evidence well. 

Honestly, with difficult texts, you sometimes have to go line by line in order to get it, and the students need to be taught it's OK to spend a lot of time on a small piece of literature and really take your time with it. They are so used to getting everything yesterday, that it frustrates them :) Bonus for teachers: close reading is emphasized by Common Core!

Well the kids are hoping and praying for a snow day tomorrow. We're supposedly getting 6-8" and it may start around 5 AM. I am packing a bag tonight in case I can't make it home after school (I commute 50 min). So I might be hoping a little bit for a snow day too!