One thing that I would like to talk about this week is accessibility. We are covering Romeo and Juliet right now in my English class. When I learned that I had to teach the play I was a little worried because the language is somewhat difficult for most 9th grade students to understand, and I was worried that even I would not understand it. Before this unit I had not read Romeo and Juliet since I learned it in high school. I remember vaguely that it was difficult, but not a completely foreign language to me. After reading it now, as a graduate student, it was much easier. This may be due to the fact that I am more familiar with Shakespearean language now.
For the first week of teaching Romeo and Juliet I just watched my mentor teacher do it, and this is where I learned about accessibility. The students are reading and listening to the original text therefore it is very difficult for them to understand even the plot of the drama. My mentor teacher explains almost every line of the plot to help them to understand and follow the dialogue as it plays on the audio. She breaks the scenes up into even smaller sections to give brief and explicit explanations of what is going on in the scene. Usually after hearing her explain and then hearing the audio the students are able to understand what happened in the scene. Occasionally a student will ask for clarification. As we progress through Romeo and Juliet we will explain less and less before listening to the audio. The students will become more accustomed to the language and it will therefore be much more accessible to them without so much explanation.
I think that this form of making text more accessible to students is much better than just giving a student an easier version of the play. Giving them an easier version is starving the students from the opportunity of even attempting to understand to true Shakespearean language. I think that scaffolding the students up to the higher level serves them better by allowing them to experience the real version but making it more accessible to them.
True. It is really like hearing another language isn't it?
ReplyDeleteShelli,
ReplyDeleteI so wish I had read this post earlier! One of my favorite Shakespearean word and language activities is to give the students a list of Old English words (thee, thou, 'tis, etc.) and to allow them to not only define the words within the context of Shakespeare scripts and sonnets, but to also utilize these words to write their own scenes, incorporating these difficult words into language they understand. This not only incorporates student choice (which words to use, scene topics, etc), but also makes the language more accessible to them. Hope this helps you for next year!
-Jamie Hipp