"Something Wicked This Way Comes"

     "When at first you don't succeed, try and try again".  This seems to be the motto for my unit on Macbeth.  I have labored over this text for days and figuring out how in the world I was going to teach such a challenging text.  When I first found out I was teaching Macbeth I was overjoyed.  I love Shakespeare and this is one of my favorite plays.  Little did I know that liking a play and teaching a play would be completely different!  I'm still not entirely sure what went wrong with the comprehension on this play.  Could it have been the names of all of the characters?  Perhaps, it could be the language?  I even considered that it may have been that they simply did not like it.  Little by little each day I tried new ways to approach this text.  These ways included: reading No Fear Shakespeare, watching a modern version of it, watching an older version of it, the graphic novel,  performing it outside, and the literature book version.  It seemed as though every way I taught it caused more confusion and perhaps even made the understanding go backwards.  Regardless, I settled on teaching acts IV and V through the older movie version and discussion.
     This leads to the day that Dr. Mortimore came and observed this Academic IV class at the end of the day.  Fist of all, one might note that this situation and circumstance of time is not the most ideal.  These students have senioritis PLUS it is the last period of the day.  Anyhow, the students came walking in and picked up a graphic organizer on the desk.  I decided to start the lesson with an activating strategy that picked up where we left off yesterday, the three apparitions in Act IV.  I wanted them to answer questions about the apparitions and predict what the significance was of them.  This turned out to be quite the catastrophe that I didn't expect.  They seemed to be very confused on how the graphic organizer worked and asked an abundance (excuse the alliteration) of questions that took up way too much time.  Even once we got on the same page, I still didn't get the discussion that I hoped for.  It was mainly me telling them what I THINK and them not understanding how I came to my conclusions.  So as a reflection, what could I have done differently?  The answer is quite obvious and simple.  I needed clear and concise directions with perhaps a model for them to see.  I wanted them to create something on their own, but I left it too vague.  I think it is hard for me to do graphic organizers because I was never one that really appreciated them.  I liked taking my own notes and writing down my thoughts on lined paper.  Naturally, everyone is different and I need to constantly remind myself that graphic organizers can only help and that they never take away from learning.
     Once that activity was over and I was still in an panicky mood from the results, I explained the post-it note activity to these students once again.  Each student got five post-it notes and there were five posters on the wall.  They had to answer or do the tasks that were explained on each poster on theit posrt-it note.  In the middle of the movie, if they had a post-it filled, they would stick it on the wall.  After awhile I would stop the movie and go over the questions.  This activity actually worked out prety well for doing it for the first time.  The reason behind doing this was that I needed more participation.  This ensured that every students was participating and keepting them engaged while watching the movie.  The only issue that I had was that I wanted them to ask deeper questions and their answers were not always that deep.  Perhaps I should have used the higher-level thinking words on the poster for them to answer.  Either way, it kept their attention and it went as good as any other lesson had gone so far in Macbeth.
     One thing that was a struggle during this unit was the technological resources for it.  I had to resort to using a youtube version of the movie to show these students.  Not only was the quality terrible, the acting was also not the best.  I think that there should be more tangible copies of movies rather than trying to rummage around the internet for one.  Furthermore, there needs to be a more engaging movie.  Someone should make this movies geared towards students.  Perhaps there should be questions on the movie after each scene and sort of go through elements that were just shown in the film.  I am sure that there are versions like that out there; however, I would have liked to get my hands on it for the unit.   Lastly, I was VERY impressed by the behavior of the students.  They were not on their phones and they did not talk during the movie.  The all perticipated and followed directions.  This was quite an improvement and I was very very proud of them for their behavior.
      I suppose now is a better time than ever to wrap up my thoughts and reflect on student teaching as a whole.  I have learned so many things that this blog cannot possibly contain them all.  One of the most important things that I have learned is that preparation is the key to a successul lesson.  If everything and every detail is planned out then it leaves little room for error.  I learned that you should never give up after a lousy lesson.  It is a chance to try different things and will prepare you for that unit if you ever teach it in your own classroom.  Finally, I learned that teaching is not a job or just a career but a lifestyle.  After most jobs people go home and go about their business.  As a teacher, your job goes everywhere with you.  I don't think I ever stop thinking about teaching during the day.  My gears are constantly going about what I am going to do about this or that and it never stops.  It truly is a career in which you keep learning new things.