Just over a week and a half ago, on Tuesday, November 2, 2010, I taught the first lesson that I had planned. It was on Shakespeare's Sonnet 29 and Sonnet 130 and was for three sections of a British Literature class at Lane Tech High School in Chicago. I've been observing these classes as part of my practicum and will be student teaching them (along with a writing class) in January.
Let me just tell you straight away I was ridiculously nervous! I had over a week to let my thoughts marinate about how to teach these sonnets and spent well over three hours sitting down and writing out my lesson plan. I've taken college courses on Shakespeare, Restoration Literature, and 18th Century Literature, so I was approaching this lesson intellectually well prepared. BUT, the night before the lesson I could barely sleep - what if everything went horribly wrong? I didn't know many of the students' names, so if there were any major behavior problems it would be hard to nip things in the bud. What if no one talked? What if they just stared at me like I was some delusional crazy person? Was I a delusional crazy person? Who am I to teach these kids? I have no experience. Argh! You get the picture.
On the other side of the freak out was my idealist - reminding me of all the starry-eyed reasons I want to become a teacher, painting a much different picture of how the day could go. The students were going to love this lesson. They were going to enjoy experiencing this softer side of Shakespeare. They were familiar with Elizabethan English because they just finished reading Macbeth. They were really going to respond to my ideas and amazingly profound discussions about the nature of love would ensue. Sure, I hadn't seen any group work done in the classes that I'd observed, but they were going to take to it like ducks to water. They were going to love my greeting card activity and the day would end with me walking out of Lane Tech, head held high, heart full, and more confident than ever before that I would make a great teacher.
Of course, as any experienced teacher will tell you, reality fell somewhere in-between. There were no Dead Poets' Society moments, nor did any riots break out. The students treated me with respect and I only saw one kid sleeping. As I imagined, the physical constraints of the room were annoying - the desks and chairs are bolted to the floor, so you can't move them around, but the kids were used to working around this seating arrangement. After my quick mini-lesson on the structure of a Shakespearean sonnet (ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GH rhyme scheme, 3 quatrains and a couplet), I read Sonnet 20 aloud to the class. (I practiced this at least a hundred times in my room at home so I wouldn't flub any of the words or trip over the iambic pentameter.) I told the students about a technique called "Think Aloud" that we were going to use to help us start to understand the sonnet. I demonstrated the technique for the 1st quatrain (lines 1-4) and asked for student volunteers to "think aloud" about each following line. Were there any of the dreaded "Buler?.... Buler?..." moments? Yes, there were. But I brazened them out. I watched students look everywhere but at me because they did not want to be called on and I called on them any way, "You. You in the blue hoodie? Can you try this next line?" (Yes, I actually said this, and yes, it is more motivation to learn their names quickly when I am student teaching.) And the students, even those who I forced to answer, bravely stepped up and offered up their ideas about what the line could mean. Yea!
Then onto the group work. I had the students work in groups of three or four and read sonnet 130 together using the "Think Aloud" technique that I just introduced to the class. I let them pick who they wanted to work with even though I knew that would mean they'd be chatting with their friends. Some groups stayed pretty well on task, others only talked about the poem when I stood by them and asked them questions. Because the desks can't be moved, students had to swivel around in their chairs, which meant that some kids weren't really included in the groups they were with. Other than telling them to face their group members and to lean in more, there was nothing I could do about this. UGH.
In first period I lost track of time completely and we didn't have any time to do the last part of my lesson (the most fun part, of course). In the other two periods we were able to compare modern greeting cards to the sonnets, but no where nearly as deeply as I hoped we would. Did the students figure out what Shakespeare was saying in the sonnets? Yes, but we did analyze them as deeply as I would have liked. Did the students learn the basic structure of a Shakespearean sonnet? Yes-ish, I am pretty sure that most of them probably couldn't tell you what a quatrain is if you asked them today. Did we compare Shakespeare's declarations of love to contemporary ones? Yes. So, my main goals for the lesson were met, so why did I walk away from the lesson feeling a little bit let down and disappointed? Maybe this is just the way it is with first time experiences. Most of the time they're nothing at all like you imagined they would be.
If you want to see my lesson plan and the handouts I used to guide the group work you can click here.
If you want to read Sonnet 29 and Sonnet 130, click here.
As always I would love to know your opinions, so let me know what you think. If you have any awesome ideas about how to teach Shakespeare, please share.
