The Glass Roses

So, have any of you read or taught Alden Nowlan's Glass Roses? I'm a fan. I like the Canadian stuff, what with being Canadian and all. Here's a really rough draft of an explanation of the lessons I tried with this story this term.

1.

The first thing we do, obviously, is read it. Well that's not really true, this time around I read it out loud myself. It was the first short story we'd done all year, and so I wanted to model, as best I could, the "art" of reading aloud. I got this idea at the end of last year, when I asked my grade 10s to take turns reading stories out loud (without practicing first) and the whole exercise ended up being a diagnostic tool for which of my students had reading fluency and which were struggling. Too bad the diagnosis was happening in June. I think this year I'm going to try getting the students to either vlog or make a podcast out of themselves reading a short story aloud. Maybe as part of my final multi genre project, maybe something separate.

Next year I'm going to try to take things even further. A major element of the story is that midway through, "The Polack" reveals his name to be Leka, and further, that he's in fact Ukrainian, though he's been displaced and run out of his home so many times that he'd just as soon accept the label he's been given, or call himself a Canadian- which, given the way the Canadians in the story treat him, is possibly a sign of his resignation. Anyway, I was speaking with a very kind and open Ukrainian coworker and asked her if her husband (who, I was told, has a pronounced Ukrainian accent) would be so generous as to record himself saying Leka's lines aloud. I'm thinking that hearing his words read in a voice besides my own will emphasize his 'otherness', and after some discussion, his loneliness.

After reading, the first question I ask is 'what are your questions'? The length to which this activity goes depends on how much time we've got left in class. Sometimes I just ask and wait for volunteers, and sometimes I get students to write their ideas and questions down as a kind of exit slip activity.

2.

The next class involves what I called 'the 16 square page'. When students ask how they should fill up the squares, this year I said "any way you want or can". Students can use this page as a way to organize ideas and suggest possible topics of discussion. I asked students to take a piece of paper and create 8 equal squares on each side. The headings for each of the squares are:

(Characters)

Stephen	Leka
Father	The Workers/The Cook

(Setting)

The Wind	Trees
The Bunkhouse	Canada

(Symbols)

The Glass Roses	The Cathedral
The Cavalry Men	The Axe

(Something extra)

Nightmares	Is Leka Gay?
Xenophobia	Freedom

3.

We spent a class going through these squares, where I'd ask students to share their ideas and encourage them to write down as much as made sense to them. The character one was nice to have first, followed by the setting, because those aspects of the story are pretty literal, and so a good place to start.

Theoretically, the groups of 4 get a little more challenging as they go; but by the time we got to the final square, the students were ready to talk about a concept like xenophobia because they'd already given some thought to how Canada has been illustrated throughout the story (Leka's yelling that the country was made to teach man humility or that it's the country itself that doesn't like people) as well as how the other characters in the story behave towards Leka. I definitely enjoy the discussion around Canada and fear of foreigners the best because I think some students (or people, really) are too quick to assume that everything in Canada is fine, just fine, and I like this example of a Canadian author pointing out Canadian flaws. Canadian!

I also like to leave the discussion of the Nightmares for the end of the discussion, because it's a snazzy way to tie the other squares together (Leka, Glass Roses, Cavalry Men, Trees, Canada, etc) and to leave the discussion on the note of Stephen's final act, or at least the beginning of this act. Yes, I believe Stephen woke Leka up.

Some students were surprised about the "Is Leka Gay?" question I think, maybe because it seems inappropriate to bring up in class, or maybe because they were thinking it themselves. For the record, I don't think so. But in previous years, when students asked that I'd just kind of dismiss the question or give them a firm "no" without explaining myself. Now, I'm thinking that this is a question that deserves deliberation, if for no other reason than students ask it seriously.

4.

Once that was done, the next thing students did was quotations. Quotations, I find, are a major area of concern for my students. Interesting, because 'Support', as it's called, is a major concern for Alberta Learning as well. For this, I turned once again to a quick graphic organizer. Scaffolding!

(Setting)

p. 1	Quotation	What this tells you about the character or story
p. 2	Quotation	What this tells you about the character or story
p. 3	etc.	etc.

You get it. I included as many rows in that page as there were pages, though that kind of organization is kind of arbitrary. My reason for asking for only one quotation per page was to not overtask students by asking for 3 or 4 per page, and also to encourage collaboration: at some point in the class, students were invited to share their quotations. There were quite a few who worked 'as a group' who assigned one another one page each and then shared their quotations at the end. I think that's what happens when the perceived goal is to complete the worksheet, and not to reread the story for deeper understanding. Tension between time, management and focus, I guess. I mean, it annoys and maybe even grieves me, but I also think part of teaching grade 12 is learning to accept their choices as valid.

5.

The next bit involved sticky notes. I handed out a bunch of notes to the students, and asked them to return to their 16 square pages from earlier. Naturally, there were those students who by then (an entire 2 days later) had lost their notes, but what can you do? Photocopy someone else's notes, that's what. (And next time, type it on a Google doc.) I asked students to affix the sticky notes to the squares that contained the most information (ostensibly, the subject with which they were most knowledgeable or comfortable) or the topic that they were interested in learning more about. It's probably worth pointing out that I also suggested that if the student had encountered any other topic that I didn't mention, they were welcome to pursue it. I don't recall anyone actually doing this, though my next short story unit will involve students creating their own 16-square headings. Scaffolding!

So, let's say the student ended up with 4 stickies: Stephen, the Axe, nightmares, and Canada. The mini lesson that day had to do with shaping an essay through ideas, so, play with those 4 stickies and rearrange them until you have them in the order that makes the most sense to you. (I will point out here that the whole 'strongest vs. weakest' argument makes me quake with frustration, but that is a post for later, or never.) Some interesting conversations came out of this activity, and it was funny to me how naturally the students became involved in physically moving their ideas (or stickies) around on the page, long before any topics sentences or thesis statements were even on the horizon. This, of course, is where I may lose some other teachers- I believe that the thesis comes from the writer's ideas, not the other way around.

6.

Next, computer lab for typing up the first draft.

After that, I used Google Docs to comment on some of them, and for others I'm currently using class time to conference with the students one on one, though I confess it's using far more class time than I am comfortable with.

Soon, I'll get their final drafts and I'll mark them and the cycle will begin anew. Also, am I using the term scaffolding correctly?

No, not my best work. But not bad for neglecting this blog since July!

=)

Summer School Lessons

I just finished my first Summer School class ever, and let me tell you, it was one of the best teaching experiences I've ever had. I realized a few days ago that my favourite class is usually whichever class is in front of me, and this last class was no exception.

What I want to quickly jot down here are my personal highlights about this last month of teaching.

• Students hand wrote every single assignment

The school I taught at didn't have wireless, and the classroom held one 'teacher station' computer. So, students wrote every assignment- save one- by hand. In my regular school, I've been campaigning (I call it campaigning, the dictionary would call it incessant whining) about getting our school equipped with a wireless network because for God's sakes, Burger King has a wireless network and we still don't? I'm definitely pro 1:1. So it came as a minor shock to admit that I think part of the reason for the students' improvements in their writing was due in no small part to the fact that they were putting pen to paper. I know there's an anti-cursive murmur out there, but I can't get on board with it, not after this month.

• There were 9 students in class

Does this really need any kind of discussion? 9 students, 4 hours a day. Every day I could look every single one of them in the eye, ask a question, smile, tease, whatever. Every day I could (and sometimes did) collect one or two assignments and had them covered in feedback and returned the next day. Could I duplicate this with my normal assignment of 200 students? Ha. That is actually the sound of me crying.

• Every time I assigned a piece of writing, I wrote one myself. 

Before the course started, I had just finished reading 'Write Beside Them' and it was like getting written permission to be a better teacher. I don't have the same circumstances as Penny Kittle in that I teach both writing and reading texts, but I made sure that at least one third of our day was dedicated to the writing process. I intend to keep this habit up when I return to my regular classroom because it was transformative for me and oh yeah, for the students too. Silent Reading became my favourite part of the day. We responded in Quick Write form to everything from YouTube videos to the tragedy in Norway. I shared my work and my challenges, and then they shared theirs. I learned (or relearned) that part of making a safe place for sharing in the classroom was not just expecting trust but showing it too. And I learned humility, when I shared what I thought was a brilliant first draft essay on happiness based on Alden Nowlan's "Glass Roses" to one of my students and she said it was 'just ok'. 

• I forgot to give Unit Exams

This may sound facetious, but it's true. At about the three week mark I realized that I hadn't yet given a single unit exam, simply because we were too busy doing other things. And at pretty much that same moment I realized how useless and needlessly distracting unit exams have been for me. Series of rhetorical questions to follow: Am I anti measurement? Yes, probably, and especially as I get older (Har, har.) Would I rather my students spent their time at home reading, relaxing or enjoying their lives instead of stressing out about mystery exam questions and what the resulting number will be? Absolutely. Can I get away with not giving unit exams in my regular school? We'll see. I can be awfully forgetful.

So there you go, best month ever. I am a total teaching nerd. And now to enjoy August and to think about ways to make the 10 months of next year a lot like the month I just had. 

A novel unit - with illustrative diagrams

Interviews are silly things, aren't they- like the standardized testing of hires: no one learns anything meaningful, but you'll certainly come away feeling good or bad about yourself. Only in that kind of contrived environment would one adult ever ask another what her greatest weakness is. You don't want to know what my greatest weakness is- I probably don't want to know what my greatest weakness is.

Anyway, in the interview for my current job, I was asked by my now department head (a fabulous and wonderfully generous woman) if I would describe my best lesson. I had two answers for her and the assembled committee, the standard 'interview' response, and the real one. The first one I mentioned was pretty standard: Macbeth, grade 11. Lots of links to YouTube videos. Active use of a recently purchased foam rubber sword that I would slam onto desks at random times during the day. All of the info that I've covered in a previous post. The second lesson is what the rest of the post is about. (and transition!)

So, two years ago, in a desperate bid to not have to reread Lord of the Flies, I asked the then grade 11 students if they would be willing to read a different novel- anything else- and if so, would they be willing to buy their own copies? (No, I don't hate Lord of the Flies, this will be a post for later). Socioeconomics were not a grave factor at my school, and I bought a few extra 'class copies' just in case. Anyway, they were and they did, and so that year we read The Kite Runner, to moderately successful effect. My favourite day was definitely when we cut kites out of garbage bags and went outside to the field. There's something so touching about a group of 16 year old boys running around yelling 'for you a thousand times over!'

My best lesson happened the next year, since after that taste of deviating from the cannon: both in terms of literature and class structure. This of course meant that I also had to cope with losing a lot of control, or at least what I perceived as control: tests, lectures, chapter questions, everyone sitting down at the same time. All the things that look like great teaching on paper, but in practice quickly become monotonous and boring as reading Lord of the Flies for the sixth time in two years.

I figured I knew about 10 novels that I could help students understand. They ranged in difficulty, and frankly, the book selection had a lot more to do with which class sets sat in our bookroom than which concepts or themes I wanted them to explore. I think the final chioces included Lord of the Flies (yeah!), The Great Gatsby, The Kite Runner, Of Mice and Men, 1984, Brave New World and Night. To get them to make their selection, I just passed the books around for a few minutes. I think that for several students, book length was a major factor in their choice. The stickler in me balks at that- some of my favourite novels are nothing short of tomes, but when you're in a good story, it flies by. "Experience that!!" I wanted to yell at them. "Learn to love books the way I love them!!!" But the, um, rational part of me figured that for someone who isn't already in love with reading, length can be a real concern that does need to be taken seriously. (Which feels like a different post in the making).

Once they chose their books and groups (not always in that order but oh well), the next thing I did was rearrange the desks accordingly. Some groups sat at tables, some sat in pods make up of desks that were pushed together. It was an unquestionable hodgepodge- definitely not a shape you'd see in a student teacher undergraduate management class.



Which of these seating plans is more interesting to you?



Next, their first assignment involved filling up a blank calendar. I figured the novel unit would take about 15 days (90 minute classes every day for 4 weeks). The handout I made ended up looking something like the diagram below. Nowadays I'd add a task about Voicethread, something involving online discussion boards, maybe making a cake or something. Or I'd have the students come up with mini projects of their own, even better.

So, on that first day, the only job the students had was to discuss and fill up their calendar with those tasks, in any order they wanted. If they wanted to do the final first, fine, good luck.* If they wanted to do a trailer towards the end of the unit, good call, I think that makes the most sense too. But most important to this task, I stepped back (a bit) and even if the students chose an order that had some clearly flawed logic, I either let them do it or at least got them to explain their reasoning.

*In retrospect, now I probably would put that task twice: write the final, write the final again.

At the end of each class I'd collect what they did and look over it. For some, I'd just put a checkmark if it was done satisfactorily. Depending on the assignment though, most things got handed back with comments or questions that tried to move the students to the next level of understanding (the bloom's taxonomy way, not the 'think outside the box' way). If there was something amiss though, like a clear language problem, or a misunderstanding of either the task or the text, I'd write down that feedback and the next day, the students would have to add to, or modify the task from the previous day before moving on.

And so, every day that class would come to class and get started. I didn't lecture or introduce anything. I'd walk around and ask 'what are you working on today?', sometimes I would have to gently or firmly remind them to get it together.

There were quite a few gratifying moments that came from the experience: walking past a group of two boys who normally showed up to class just to put their heads down arguing rather spiritedly about Piggy's death. Getting to sit down with a group and talk about dystopia and whether or not Big Brother's telescreens sort of already existed. Playing a silly game with great music to get a group of girls in the mood for the Great Gatsby era.

I don't want every unit I ever plan to take on this format: different genres wouldn't fit, and I don't think all lecturing is all bad.  At the end of the unit, all the students wrote a final essay for me, and yeah, I'd say those essays were on par with those that I've received after lecturing a full unit's worth. The difference was that for that unit, the students were the ones doing the work.

The Classroom Library

I've noticed that twitter (#engchat in particular) has been full of a lot of classroom library talk. It's been so long since I last posted, so in the interests of keeping this blog 'alive', and of course in the interests of sharing, here are pictures of my classroom library (last year, at my last school).  

Last year I got a grant from le gouvernement, as we don't really call it here, to buy books and furniture to create a classroom library. I taught (and still teach) grades 10, 11 and 12, so the books I bought ranged from YA to adult literature. I got a good mix of fiction, non fiction as well as some great poetry titles. (Read: award winners, not bestsellers). Not as many graphic novels as I'd like, so I have to work on that one. Very luckily, there was another teacher who volunteered to order the YA books (so she could have the Scholastic points, which was absolutely the least I could do) and I ordered most of the adult titles online from Amazon.com. 

 The comfy chairs are from my sister's basement. I totally recommend buying secondhand and spending a Saturday afternoon with one of those steam cleaner machines, that would be a big money saver. The pillows and ottoman below are from Superstore.

Funny thing about the pillows: they were absolutely the best purchase I made. I got about 6 in total, and even when students weren't using the reading corner, they'd just grab a pillow, and literally 'hug' it or keep it on their laps for the entire class. (Same with the two stuffed animals- our class mascots- which unfortunately never made it into the pictures). I know it might sound a little strange, but I think having those pillows really helped some students focus or be more comfortable in class. One student who suffered from sports-related back pain was especially grateful. Plus, I got to add "no pillow fights" to my course syllabus.

The carpet is from a liquidation outlet (as is the artwork). Incidentally, that same liquidation store was where I previously got about 100 journals for 50 cents apiece. The carpet looked nice at first, but there weren't any vacuums around, so it got pretty grungy by the end of the year.

In case this is news to anyone: fabric makes a great bulletin board cover.

Baskets were organized very superficially by genre: "Pink Covers" or "There could be vampires in this book" or "These books are thinner than the other ones". (I got the baskets from another liquidation centre.) Whenever I wandered over to that corner of the room I'd move the front book to the back of the  basket. Circulation!

The high tech sign out system, which I borrowed from the phys ed office. (The clipboard, not the containers.). Not that I really kept track; kids signed their own books out. Students were pretty diligent about signing out, less so about signing back in. I know that books walking away is a major concern for many teachers with in class libraries, but you can't stop the beat. That's what Hairspray taught me.

 Anyway, theft happens and I figure the best I can do is remind students that it's never too late to bring a book back. Another good anti-theft device is talking to students about the books they've borrowed, and making recommendations. For example, I know two former students who have just finished their first year of university: one still owes me 'The Glass Castle' and the other my copy of 'Equus'. Ok, so clearly those conversations were terrible anti-theft precautions, but at least I know that two of my students have some good literature on their home shelves. 

On a separate note, is anyone out there teaching Equus? There's a conversation I'd love to have.

The shelves in the photos were already in my classroom, and I know that shelving is a major budget killer for most people. I've heard of people stacking milk crates and other things, but the truth is, I actually prefer tables to shelves.

Laying out books this way took up more room, but for me, book shelves are kind of like junk drawers. (As in, if I can't see it, I basically forget it exists. Like my marking, or my car.) And, for a beginning library, this is probably a good way to make less look like more.

On that note, the pictures are a little misleading, because the books on the purple shelf were actually lifted from the book room to fill the shelving out a little. Also exempt from that grant were the tupperware containers on the bottoms of the shelves, which were purchased by the school for a separate project that just ended up being stored in my classroom.

 I usually had a few students who would volunteer to organize the books, which meant rearranging, picking up stacks that fell over, etc. Some students preferred to organize alphabetically, some liked to keep like colours together: didn't really matter too much to me. I think as the years go on I'll likely supplement the library with books of my own, purchased from second hand stores and library sales. Also not shown are a number of picture books: some very low reading level to the most popular book in the collection- an illustrated book about Nazi Youth. 

So there it was, my classroom library. I really liked how it changed the feel of my classroom to a markedly more welcoming space. I got a few comments from other adults about how my High School English Classroom looked more like an elementary classroom, but that doesn't bother me- and why should it? I figure that 'higher learning' refers to little more than the height of the students and the furniture.

Now, I wonder if anyone looking at those pictures would find it strange to know that that classroom also had an interactive whiteboard mounted on one wall, 20 dedicated laptops, a wireless environment, and two mini greenhouses full of tomato seedlings on the windowsills? It was a regular flea market in there.

Wish I'd taken pictures of that side of the room. 

Confessions of a Standardized Test Marker

 On Twitter lately, in the educational sphere at least, it seems that nothing is as polarizing as the idea of standardized testing. This is especially prevalent among some of the more vocal tweeps in Alberta, the frozen wasteland of a province that I call home. Is vocal the right word? Tweety? You get it.

Also, maybe polarizing is the wrong word, because no one seems to be on the supportive side of standardized tests. And why should they be? I understand all the reasons against those tests, and I agree with most of them.

And yet, I am a willing participant in standardized testing. And I don't mean in the ubiquitous way, like how all teachers in this province right now who teach grades 3, 6, 9 and 12 know that their students are facing provincial exams at the end the year. I do that too, as responsibly and non-teaching to the test-y as I can. But I do more: I mark diplomas.

This means that for the last 3 years, I've been paid by the government to correct English 30 diplomas, a written exam administered to all grade 12 students at the conclusion of their English 30 course. In Alberta, final exams (referred to as the dread diploma exams) (not really, but it's nice to work in alliteration whenever one can) are worth 50% of the students' final grade, and the exam that I correct is worth 25% of their final grade (the other 25% comes from a 70 question multiple choice exam). The written exam involves writing 2 pieces in 3 hours. Also, students in Alberta must pass their English course to be awarded a high school diploma. It's a pretty textbook definition of high stakes testing. (All this information can be found on the Alberta education website, btw.)

So, twice a year I eagerly- yes, eagerly!- look forward to diploma marking, and have always found the experience thoroughly enjoyable. Who wouldn't love the opportunity to get away from our classrooms to meet with like minded teachers twice a year? We joke about texts, we giggle over innocently misplaced typos, we ruminate on the different effects of a well placed semi-colon. Where else can you get into a lunchtime discussion over the significance of homosexuality in Paul's Case? Or discuss all the possible interpretations of Gertude's character from Hamlet? Or laugh hysterically about that one time you taught Oedipus in class and a student asked point blank: "So are you saying that this guy was literally a mother****er?" Seriously, this is an English teacher geek's dream come true, and I regularly refer to it as the best professional development I get all year. 

So there you go: the test markers in Alberta are English teachers. We're not robots. We're not evil. Some of us wear trendy scarves on the marking floor and others wear sweatpants. Some of us live in Edmonton and others drive up (or down) from as far as 5 hours away and spend the weeknights in a hotel room. We take the job very seriously: we're not ignoring the fact that the essay we're correcting belongs to a living, breathing, valuable and creative human being. We care about "our kids". Yet we remain complicit in what so many educators and educational writers consider the greatest evil since something really evil that happened prior to this one. (Yes Taylor Mali, speak with authority, I know).

So, here's what's been nagging at me: when I go mark these exams, am I doing something wrong? Morally, I mean. Or do I mean ethically? Or is that initial question far too simplistic for the situation that education has written itself into? I've come to understand lately that the ultimate defiance of a system involves the rejection of it, but how is that possible as long as I teach grade 12 English in Alberta? Isn't it as useful to learn the rules of the system as well as I can in order to figure out how to work around them?

I don't think the answers to these questions are as simple as yes or no. Or I'm hoping not.  Frankly, after reading this article, I'm thankful that I teach in Alberta: at least here we acknowledge the importance of test markers being an expert in what text they are correcting. (If I haven't taught it in the last year, I can't correct it. No essays on Othello for me!)

On one side, I value what I bring back to my students after a marking session; I value the collaboration that these sessions offer; and I value the community of English teachers that I feel quite lucky to be a part of. I fully intend to mark diplomas for as long as they will have me. But on the problem side: I mark test after nameless test, judging the writing ability of these students as if it were the same as thinking ability, punishing them for mistakes made under duress, and knowingly contributing to a grading system that insists on taking the thoughts, ideas and values of my students and using them to produce a neat little bell curve.

My Papa, as he is called, used to have a poster on his classroom wall that asked "Are you part of the solution? Or part of the problem?"

Damn you, rhetorical poster!!

The Lesson as an Obstacle

So, I'm taking this class about curriculum as part of a master's degree. Besides the icy shock of being plunged back into the role of student, the experience is incredibly broadening: both horizon wise, as well as my hips in relation to how much snack food I put away while trying to complete these 1000-something word papers that keep getting thrown at me.

Anyway, inspired by this class, I've been trying to be more mindful of the metaphors we use in teaching and their effects on how we think about the profession. It's nothing surprising really, but still worth reflecting on.

The lesson as an obstacle


"I have to get through this"
"We'll go over this quickly"
"Let's just get past this part and we'll do something else"

I use these phrases in class really often, actually, or I did. Then I realized that by using those phrases I was implying (and probably believing) that my own lesson was getting in my way.

It seems strange that the activities or concepts we bring to a lesson lose their importance once they leave the 'plan' stage and get put into practice. (That's called praxis, isn't it? Educated!) But it's at that stage that they become objects- specifically, an obstacle to get on the other side of.

And our language is full of this- it's almost impossible to get away from. After all, as I am reminded nearly every class, the word curriculum comes from the latin word currerre, which means to run. Run to where? And by the time we get to high school, most of us start referring to our classes as courses. I haven't seen the movie "Race to Nowhere" yet, but I imagine it's title refers to this phenomenon as well.

The problem, I think, with this problem, is that in class, in our lessons and lesson plans, the goal is the end. And what awaits as at 'the end'? It's the test, the summative or formative or whateverative evaluation that we have to get to. But I don't believe that schools are where kids go to get tested, I've never believed that. I didn't become a teacher because of my undying passion for marking- if anything, the undying marking will the reason for my leaving the profession and following my other dream of becoming a mid-afternoon baker.

So, if schools aren't where kids go to get tested, the language indicates that school is where kids go to run. And as a teacher, that's what I teach: I teach them how to run. Not to run around the lesson, or over or under it, but to run with it- on it. The lessons aren't the obstacle, they are the track.

Question mark?

Macbeth: it grew on me like a fungus.

A blog post just for you, Ms. Bayles!

Ok, so here is the slapdashiest of slapdash lists. The subject: things I've done with Macbeth.

Subheading: This is just a list of what works for me and is not intended to patronize or repeat the obvious, though it will likely do both.

•  I normally use Macbeth as an excuse to check my horoscope in class. I like this site http://www.dailyhoroscopes.net/ because instead of reading a paragraph for each sign, it breaks the horoscope down into a bar graph format for quicker comparison.

(The reason I use horoscopes is that it's a good place to lead into a discussion about determination and mysticism. There are so many different takes on what the witches in Macbeth actually represent, whether they are real, how malevolent they are, whether or not they were responsible for the 3rd murderer that allowed Fleance to escape, etc. I use the horoscope idea to play with the suggestion that with or without the witches' prophecies, the decision to act was Macbeth's and his alone. And to check my daily intellect level, 'cause that is totally based on the stars and not my intake of sleep and/or coffee.)

• If you have a theatre background you likely already know about the bad-luck-to-say-Macbeth-in-the-theatre thing. If not, it's not a bad way to start a lesson. There are lots of examples of Macbeth's curse and its ill effects online. Trivia, you know.

•  OMG- this is the best rap ever. For Macbeth, I mean. I usually show it to the kids before the 3 apparitions bit, cause they can connect with the mentions of the first 3 acts and then the rest is like pre-reading. And the hook seriously gets stuck in your head. 

•  I hope it's not patronizing to mention here that I usually bring up the fact that King James was Scottish and so the play was Scottish and that King James was into witches, and so Shakespeare put in witches, and King James published the King James bible during Shakespeare's lifetime and if you look up Psalm 46 and count 46 words from the beginning, you get the word "shake" and then 46 words from the end you get "spear". More trivia, but there are worse things. Are there worse things? Anyway, for me the King James conversation comes up late in the play, after the witches show! show! show! him the 3 visions and he demands the 4th, which is the line of 8 Kings that were likely make up to look like King James. King James!

• Oh yeah, don't forget to use a map. It's fun to find these places on a map, even if Shakespeare himself never really went there. I find that the smartboard in my classroom comes in handy for this because I can call up a realistic map of Scotland and use pictures of the characters * to move around. I find this makes it easier to explain the minor but potentially confusing details like Scone, Northumberland and Fife.

* Another silly but fun activity is asking students to cast actors of their choosing for the major the roles. Admittedly, the conversation begins with a list of dreamy or hot people, but once the students (and myself) get that their (our) systems, it's a place to start considering the different aspects of Macbeth's character as well as actor range. I usually do this via an online discussion board so that students can post pictures of the actors they are thinking of, as well as search for actors that they don't immediately know the names of.

• Oh yeah, and this may seem simplistic, but when we get to the Bloody Soldier's speech in Act 1, scene 2 and he gets going about the 'unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps', I always use a sword (I went out and bought a styrofoam one after breaking my meter stick) to kind of highlight the whole 'unseam'd' business. Something about the idea of a smoking bloody sword and a man's guts spilling out from a cut in his belly really seems to get kids sitting on the edge of their seats. Or bolting to the bathroom to throw up, you know, whatever. Engagement!

Films

I always use films with Shakespeare. I'm of the school that likes to approach the play as a play, not just a story, and to me plays were meant to be watched. So much of Shakespeare is lost with the absence of stage direction, blocking, expression, so filmed versions really help to fill that part of the play out.

Normally, I switch between versions as we go, not showing the same scene more than once, with the exception of the Banquet scene with Banquo's ghost. For that scene I show usually 3 different versions, some with the ghost and some without, which is a nice starting point for students to talk about what's more effective.

I remember asking a wiser, more experienced teacher what he thought of that and he told me to can it because then my students would be stuck with that one interpretation in their collective heads forever, instead of what the author intended. So, I show multiple versions to highlight the idea of interpretation. And honestly, I'd rather have something stuck in those heads.

• The Sam Worthington version is full of potential and is a good enough looking film, but it cuts a lot of text out and every visit from the witches (3 schoolgirls in this version) results in an out and out orgy. Titilating, definely; appropriate for 15 years olds, less so. Past my comfort zone anyway. There's one neat detail with the "Is this a dagger" bit where he grabs at a shadow and it's a fern or something, but it's pretty short lived. I guess it's alright though for highlight context and seeing how long it takes for someone to say, "Hey, that's the guy from Avatar!" Simple pleasures.

• The Roman Polanski version: naked witches; a real life example of the curse; a banquet scene that is at once disturbing and clear, and a final battle scene that never fails to get laughs, but does a good job illustrating what fighting in armor was probably really like. Incidentally, I also use that final battle scene to point out to students how prevalent cuts are in modern action sequences. But I'd never show the film from beginning to end.

• The Trevor Nunn movie, or as I like to call it, the you-probably-had-to-be-there version. It's always a pleasure to watch Shakespearean Ian McKellan and Judi Dench, but this film is not a film, it's a play on screen. You'd think that would be exactly what I was looking for, but I truly feel that this film works best for people who are familiar with the play already, as in, teachers. Or actors, I suppose. Don't get me wrong, there are a few treats: the drool in the banquet scene, Judi Dench's ear piercing wail in the sleepwalking scene, and I actually find the exchange between Malcolm and Macduff in this film pretty endearing. But overall, I would never show this film from beginning to end.

• Just discovered the Patrick Stewart film, which is actually stored in its entirety online. I think this is a filmed version of the Broadway production, and the fact that I'm totally a Star Trek the Next Generation geek has nothing to do with the fact that this is my favourite one. But I think Picard, I mean Stewart, brings a kind of worn desperation to the role that I haven't seen before, as well as a wicked moustache. The parts with the witches in this one are a little different though, but not sexualized, and that's how I interpret the play personally. (As in, if I have to watch one more witch scream 'Double! Double!' in orgasmic delight, I'm switching to Romeo and Juliet- and I mean it this time.)

• There's another version with Nichol Willamson version of Hamlet that I've only ever seen clips of on YouTube. From the little of it I've seen, it's a decent version: I've shown both the banquet scene and the sleepwalking scene.

Other stuff

• Lady Macbeth's "Out Damn Spot" bit, by this point in the play I find students are getting into the routine of watching the film (as in, heads down and napping) so I try to show this speech from a different perspective by showing a clip from Verdi's opera. I used to show this one, because of the captions. That made sense back when I worked in a French Immersion school. It may also help that I'm an opera fan.

• Anyway, there are trillions of ways to teach Macbeth. I know one teacher who actually hosts a banquet with his students for the banquet scene (Marshall, are you out there?), though I'm not sure if he invites a ghost or how that works. Sounds fun though.

• Something I tried once when I was student teaching was reserving Fridays for performance days. We'd rearrange the desks into an Elizabethan theatre shape, and kids would draw cards to see who would be groundlings, who would be nobles and who would be royalty. Royalty got comfy chairs to sit in, and (for a while) we played the game that whenever a royal would stand up, so did everyone else, a la Hallelujah Chorus. For obvious reasons, this game did not last. But they still got the best seats; nobles got to sit at desks towards the back and groundlings had to sit in chairs, or on the floor, depending on what we were doing. Anyway, these performances would range in goodness (and relevance) from students reciting lines like rap songs, showing pictures of images in the language, performing scenes that were transported to different settings, etc. 

So, these are all activity suggestions, not really teaching suggestions, if you know what I mean. I could (and likely will) (and sometimes do) (k, often do) wax poetic about the thematic poignancy, relevance, horror and thrill of what Macbeth has to offer, but not today. I will tell you this though: every time I teach Macbeth, I never fail to quote Laura Ingalls Wilder: "Ambition is a good servant but a bad master." The beauty of that quote is that it works for any theme, really. Another reason to read Little House on the Prairie, as if we needed one.

Last, I think it may be worth mentioning that for the first few years of teaching, I hated Macbeth. Hated it. Hated. But it grew on me, it did. Like a fungus. Or a rash.