Re-thinking Romeo and Juliet: the window scene

My grade 10 class received the following instructions at the start of class -

After answering their questions, and providing them with an example, the class set to work.

This was a fun in-class activity that allowed students to experiment with the Shakespearean play and explore the play's characters. They took on the roles of directors. I had multiple goals for assigning such an activity to my students. First, I aimed to break the shy boundary within my students and allow them to take charge in the classroom. Getting students to interact with their classmates and, simply, to raise their hands became a lot easier after this activity. This activity opened up the chance for students to be fun, creative, and collaborative in the classroom, which broke the traditional boundaries of the classroom and created a welcoming and an encouraging atmosphere for the students. Second, I aimed to indirectly test students' understanding and comprehension of the lines in act 2, scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet. The window scene is by far the most popular scene in the play and the monologues and soliloquies present in the scene are rich in meaning. By asking the students to take the lines and apply them to different scenarios correctly, allowed me to see who really understood what Shakespeare is trying to communicate with his audience. Standing at the back of the class while groups presented allowed me to check for different aspects of the presentation.

This was a successful activity that, again, indirectly allowed my to test students' understanding. No grade level was assigned, but students did receive written formative feedback on their scenario scripts.

Evaluating Students' Understanding of Literary Terms

After a very long and tedious lesson about the many different literary terms that may apply to William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, I decided to administer a small activity to test students' understanding. Each student received a two-page handout containing various examples of poems and passages to which they were instructed to connect an appropriate literary term. Most often, making sure the students have correct and complete notes is not enough. Allowing students to practise and test their newly gained knowledge is vital to their success.

The bellow attachments are of a worksheet students received in order to evaluate their understanding of the specific literary terms. The following was used as formative evaluation. Students received a completion mark and a class discussion either confirmed or corrected students' choices. During this activity, students were given the option of working individually or with an elbow partner. I try to encourage collaboration as much as possible in the classroom because I believe that people learn better by communicating with one another and sharing ideas. Small activities like this are a great opportunity to create a conversation between the students.

By the end of the class, and after the answers to the questions were answered, students' concerns were all cleared up and any confusion was set straight. This in-class activity reaffirmed the lesson to the students and allowed them to see the literary terms in a real context which set them up to identifying them later in the Shakespearean play.

Digital Media Exit Cards: Twitter

Matt Levinson wrote an article, published on the Edutopia website, about the advancements of technology and social media and how such technological media can be used in  the classroom as interactive exit cards. This was a very interesting read to me because Levinson wrote about and confirms everything that I want to implement in my future classes.

Levinson gives the following points as examples of multiple media platforms and how to use each as a digital exit card -

• A six-second Vine video to capture the most critical six seconds of class
• A 16-second video to post to MixBit, YouTube's new video sharing tool
• A tweet that boils down the essence of the class to 140 characters
• A photo illustrating the key learning moment that can then be posted on a class Instagram account
• A question posted to a class Edmodo account inviting a continuation of the learning outside of class

During one of my practicum, I used Twitter as a digital exit card. After reading the day's assigned scene from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, I asked my students to use the hashtag #RomeoandJuliet2015 to tweet a thought, comment, likes, dislikes, or a reaction to the scene. This was such a fun activity that allowed my students to access social media platforms during class time responsibly. I have met many teachers who claim that use of cell phones in class is a problem, and I tend to disagree. Proper use of cell phones, or tablets, in class, can be fun, educational, and beneficial. Technology in the classroom is just a part of creating the 21-century classroom and it is the teacher's responsibility to guide students' use of such technology.

Link to Matt Levinson's official Edutopia article: Hit the Mark With Digital Media Exit Cards

Kahoot! Game Review: a great form of formative assessment

Kahoot! is a new and an exciting game, quiz, and survey creator that allows teachers everywhere to create and administer tests, reviews, and gather all forms of ideas and opinions from their students. For the sake of creating a fun, an exciting, and an interactive class, I created and played Kahoot! games with my grade 10 students every chance I got. There is a wide cheer that can be heard from outside the classroom every time I ask my students to get their phones and their tablets out. They know a Kahoot! game is coming! Playing such games in class can be so much fun and it also allows students to communicate and discuss ideas and possible answers with each other before clicking in their answers. The game site is a great way to administer reviews before big test dates. Below I have attached two links to two Kahoot! games that I created for my grade 10 class before a big Romeo and Juliet test. Moreover, I used the results of the Kahoot! game as bonus points on the test, which was greatly appreciated by the students. There are many more ways one can use Kahoot!, bellow are just two examples.

Game Link: Kahoot! Romeo and Juliet Act 1 Review

Game Link: Kahoot! Romeo and Juliet Act 2 Review

Double Entry Journals: an alternative form of formative evaluation

In a previous post, I spoke a little bit about the necessity of assigning students straightforward questions at the end of a lesson, unit, chapter, or novel. For the sake of having similar results and arriving at a quick assessment of student's comprehension and students' knowledge, one can use double entry journals. Best used in an English classroom, double entry journals could also be an across-curricular method of formative assessment.

I used double entry journals during all my practicums while teaching William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet the graphic novel and the original text. Instead of asking students questions that will eventually have them contemplate the text, a double entry journal allows teachers to focus on specific lines of the text, as well as allow students to comment, interpret, analyse, and question the same lines. Double entery journals can be a great gateway to a larger class discussion of the subject material.

Comprehension Questions: Straightforward and Sometimes A Necessary Form of Assessment

Moderns forms of teaching and assessment and evaluation focus on contemporary methods. While it is always beneficial and fun to include electronic and alternative forms of formative assessment in class, sometimes it is necessary to give students a few direct questions that test their understanding, and reading comprehension.

Studying William Shakespeare is not an easy subject in school due to students' unfamiliarity with old English. There is always a little bit of tention when a teacher tells the class that they are starting a Shakespearean unit. While some students may love it, others will hate it. And I won't deny it, the language is difficult. And so, I believe that giving students straightforward, comprehension questions can be vital for the teacher to determine student understanding and highlight areas or scene he or she might need to re-teach.

Below are some sample questions I have given out to my students during one of my teaching practicums.

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Act One Questions

Scene 2

1. Capulet eventually agrees to consider allowing Paris to marry Juliet. Under what conditions?

2. On page 33, lines 38-44, we meet the servant. He is instructed to send out the invitations to Lord Capulet's party, but he has a predicament. Explain his predicament. How does he explain it?

3. It is clear that the element of chance (fate or destiny) is introduced early on in the play. Where does it occur in this scene, and how is it expressed?

4.  In Scene 1, line 222, Benvolio says, "Be ruled by me." If you were Romeo, would you be ruled by Benvolio? What advice is he offering to Romeo in Scene 2? 

Scene 5

1.      Knowing what you do about Romeo and Juliet, how do you account for them falling in love so quickly? How much of a role does physical attraction play?

                           

2.      Look at page 67 and page 69, lines 93-109, and explain the metaphor Romeo and Juliet use during this scene. What purpose does this metaphor serve?

3.      Describe Lord Capulet's reaction to seeing people from the House of Montague at his party. How does Tybalt react?

Decoding William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: Media in the Classroom

William Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet, is one of the most popular tragic stories to have ever been written and it is a play that is still studied in today’s classrooms. While it is important that the play’s text is explored, watching the play and experiencing it visually is equally important. Bringing the different adaptations of the play into the classroom was a very easy decision to make. Not only does this cater to visual students, but it also brings live, passion, and excitement into the English classroom. I used the 1996 adaptation of the play directed by Baz Luhrmann, and a stage performance from the Stratford Festival 2013. Students were first asked to read the party scene. Second, they watched the 1996 version, and third, they watched the Stratford stage performance. Students were asked to fill in what they understood, what helped them understand, and what they still had a question about. 

The movie adaptation and stage performance, alongside the original text, helped students explore and understand the scene better. With each clip, the students discovered a new layer of the scene that they had not before explored. The students also had a chance to compare and contrast the importance of picking the right cast and how different directors interpreted Shakespeare’s scene differently. They learned about different people may read the same lines and see something completely different. I believe that is the true magic in studying and teaching English. I asked the students to hand in their comment sheets at the end of class. The comment sheets, which included three columns of 'I understood...", "what helped me understand...", and "I still have a question about...", were gives a check mark for completion and a few comments/reactions, and answers to their questions if they had any. The following day, I took the time to begin the class by having a "what did you think" conversation with the students. At this time, and through conversation, I answered some of the questions that they had.

This was a great form of assessment because it tested students' ability to rationalise and interpret a scene from a play and a movie, and to compare and contrast the two. This is an exercise I would certainly repeat in future classes.

Going Gradeless

In his article on the widely popular Edutopia, Matt Weyer, a grade six teacher, explores the idea of going gradeless self-assessment. Weyer writes about Mark Barnes who "Barnes advocated using narrative feedback to enter a feedback loop that would culminate in the mastery of specific learning targets within the context of a larger project" (Weyer 2016). This large project consisted of teaching an entire school year and administering different forms of formative and summative evaluations without assigning a grade level on any of the assignments. The teacher and the student, according to the written feedback given in the duration of the school year, would arrive at the final grade, Weyer states. And what a fascinating idea this is. Reading Weyer's article, I was reminded of Dave Petro's talk about the importance of written feedback, because really what does a 77% mean, and what is the difference between a 3- and a 2+?

Often, teachers mark students' work through a rubric that has been written according to various learning goals and ministry standers. This rubric would have been communicated to the students (and I believe there is a great benefit in telling students what you will be looking for when marking an assignment), and the students then take the rubric and develop the assignment in order to "hit" all the rubric requirements. Later, teachers receive the assignments and match the assignment with the rubric, assigning a grade level. Without communicated this grade average, it really means nothing other than students knowing that he or she did well or not so well. Instead, Weyer started using Barnes' SE2R model to provide feedback.

It was very interesting to read Weyer's article, where he outlined his goals for this experiment. His main goal was to see how students apply themselves when grades are completely removed from the daily equation. Weyer found that students actually more interested and more invested in their learning process. Suddenly, students stopped asking about their grades and started asking about what they can do to improve.

Matt Weyer's Article Link: Going Gradeless: Student Self-Assessment

More about SE2R Model of Feedback: SE2R Feedback Model

Newspaper Report

 

 

During my practicum, I taught two grade 10 English (university prep.) classes where we read William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Since the practicum took place a month before the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT), I decided it would be beneficial for my students to include OSSLT teaching moments throughout the Shakespearean play.

Before my practicum began, the grade 10 students wrote a practise OSSLT and the results of the tests were determined two weeks after my practicum began. While many students performed well on the test, the results for the newspaper article were quite low across all those who wrote the test. It was clear to me that writing up a lesson plan that focused on newspaper writing was vital to the future success of my students. The first scene of act one of Romeo and Juliet takes the audience to the marketplace where a fight breaks out between the Montague and the Capulet men. This was the perfect place to start my lesson on newspaper articles. After exploring the scene with my grade 10s, I introduced them to their next assignment. Using a large model of the inverted pyramid, I explained the form and structure of a newspaper article. Next, each student was handed a copy of the day's newspaper and a question sheet. By answering the question, the class was able to explore and dissect the structure of that is included in a newspaper article. They also had a chance to differentiate between a good newspaper article and a bad one. This was a vital part of the lesson because it gave students a chance to look at a newspaper. I know, this sounds a little silly; however, with online journalism (which has its very own reporting rules and structures) and news feeds on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr, students have less of a chance of picking up a print newspaper. This exposure to newspaper articles gave the students a base to model their own news articles.

Each student received a copy of the assignment guidelines and rubric. Students were encouraged to peer assess and self-assess their news articles before submission. I feel very confident in my students writing and I am glad to notice a significant difference between their OSSLT practice test and their Romeo and Juliet act 1, scene 1 fight scene articles.

While the assignment fulfilled its purpose and the students grasped newspaper article writing, I encountered many issues while marking the assignments. These issues revolved strictly around the rubric. Even thought I wrote the rubric twice before checking back with my associate teacher, I still had a very difficult time with grading and trying to match students' work with the rubric. I should take the time to clear up the fact that some assignments were very easy to mark because they followed the rubric exactly. Others, however, were very difficult to mark. The entire grading process revolved around trying to pinpoint where the students' work fit on the rubric. This is also where I started to question the difference between a 3- and a 2+. Because, really, the difference is so small, it might as well not exist at all. Checking back with my associate, the response consisted of a shoulder shrug and a "well that's rubrics for ya". For the sake of providing proper feedback to my students, I made sure to include lots of written feedback on their sheets and their assignments. The feedback consisted of what I thought was done well, what needed improvement, and what did not work at all. This and the "interviews" I held after the marked assignments were handed back out, really helped the students understand the assignment and their grade better.

While I am not dismissing rubrics all together, I'm simply saying that they work best alongside written feedback.

Peer Assessment Table

Peer Assessment Table
(Best used in "science fair" type presentations)

The above peer assessment table serves a wonderful alternative form of summative assessment. Usually, the course instructor performs summative evaluations in a rather traditional manner through examination or a project. Students are always instructed to write or create with their audience in mind, the audience being their teacher and other class members, and peer assessment, such as the table above, provide students with the chance to be assessed by their target audience.

This type of peer assessment resource could be used during project presentations. After a reading a novel, students would conduct critical analysis by applying a literary criticism theory and present it to the class. The audience would record their likes, dislikes, and possible areas of improvement for each presentation as they travel amongst the stations.

The peer assessment table can be used for any grade level and any subject area. At the elementary grade level, students have the opportunity to reflect on the presentations they witness, while at the secondary grade level, students are encouraged to critically think about their peers' presentations instead of merely sitting witness them. This is a great resource to use in a student-centered classroom where the students are transformed from the audience into active members of the classroom.