Dear Ninth Graders,By now, you've heard the phrase "Common Assessment" for the third time this school year, and I'm sure you've responded with the appropriate groaning. Just to reiterate, the common assessments are there to give everyone an equal opportunity to find your own way to demonstrate what you've learned during this unit. We can always expect to have reading, writing, and speaking tasks in any unit that we study, which usually align to the overall standards for the unit. The Shakespeare unit at MCHS addresses two main standards.
Reading Literature Standard 9-10.7 states, "I can analyze the representation of a subject or key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or omitted from each treatment." This is something that we do because we recognize that the same information can be presented in multiple ways, with wildly varying results. Speaking and Listening Standard 9-10.1 states, "I can initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions." We do this because as an adult-type-person, you will be expected to be able to communicate clearly and effectively, and in order to do that, you need practice.Let's take a look at RL Standard 7 first, because it is definitely the more complicated of the two. Analysis means picking something apart and figuring out what is important about it. Artistic mediums are any different vehicle for presenting info, like painting, film, poetry, or drama. Emphasizing something means yanking it up front and paying tons of attention to it, and omitting it means leaving it out altogether. When we work our way through our common assessment, the major task we are going to be completing is thinking about and discussing what changes have been made to our story when it is translated into a new medium, and how those changes impact the meaning of the story. What has the artist (filmmaker, vlogger, or writer) decided is super important? What has been deemed lame enough to get chopped? Why were these decisions made?
Speaking and Listening Standard 1 is NOT something that we will be meeting through the reading of our Shakespeare play aloud. Reading from a script is definitely crucial, but it's can't always be viewed as a discussion. As we work our way through reading the play, we are going to stop along the way to talk about what's going on, why we think it's happening, and how we can relate the events, characters, situations, and conflicts to other things we've read and to the real world. It is your job to be an active participant in these discussions by providing original comments, and by responding respectfully and appropriately to your classmates' comments.We're going to practice these skills a LOT. A certain amount of stress is just fine when you're learning, but there is to be absolutely NO PANICKING. If you need to come and see me, request a tag for Focus Time, and I'll talk you through any questions that you might have. You can absolutely do this.Love,Morrell
Why do we read Shakespeare? Is it tradition? Is it because it's part of the curriculum? Is it a means for me to torture you because I'm just the tiniest bit sadistic? No! (To all of the above! Despite my reputation for being super cranky, I do not actually enjoy making you suffer.)We read Shakespeare because the stories, characters, conflicts, and situations about which he wrote are timeless, and I want you to understand why and how. Finding the relevance in any piece of information, and a context through which to connect it to your life, is a skill that will serve you well in the future, when you're trying to understand why you do ANYTHING AT ALL. We read Shakespeare because I want you to stretch your empathy over 400 years and give Hamlet a hug because he hates his stepdad. Because I want you to be indignant that someone could lie about Hero cheating on her boyfriend. Because I want you to be annoyed that people think that Romeo is a great romantic, when really he's just a fickle man-child who makes terrible decisions.
When you're sitting in English class asking yourself when you're ever going to use this information, try to think about the skills that you are acquiring, and not the content itself. (Although, seriously, this content is boss.) We are going to be reading the entire text of a Shakespeare play aloud in class. (Honors classes will be treated to the glorious bloodbath that is Hamlet, and CP students will experience Much Ado About Nothing and all of its outrageous, complicated, screwball hilarity.) We are going to be comparing the Shakespeare plays that we read in class to several different media versions, and analyzing why the filmmakers made their decisions about things like casting, setting, and plot changes. And most importantly, we are going to be applying the observations and analyses that we make about the play to solving real-life problems that you ABSOLUTELY WILL encounter in the future.Buckle up, cupcake. The next few weeks are going to be crazy busy, but crazy rewarding.Love,Morrell
