Today we were back in the classroom after a long break.
I told the 12th grade that we would be working our inference muscles, then doing a super spoiler by reading a synopsis of the play All My Sons.
The inference work happened in two stages.
The first was a free write on the word "sons". Here is some of the feedback:
They carry the family name. They bear responsibility.
If there is more than one son, they probably play different roles, like the responsible one, the lazy one, the spoiled one, the rebellious one. (I loved this comment)
The relationship between father and sons is fragile, since a son's departure or estrangement is really hard on the family, and because he is the one who "carries on" the family legacy.
Sons don't have to be biological - at wartime a whole society treats soldiers like "sons" in order to show support and connection to them. It is a way of inviting empathy, since "sons" reminds us that these are not just soldiers, they also have caring mothers and bear our collective future.
The name "son" can be diminutive or patronising, as when someone says "Don't worry about it, son," implying that someone is childish.
Conversely, "son" can endear someone to the speaker by warmly admitting him to a sort of honorary family, "What do you think of that, son?"
The next phase of inferring came when I gave couples a line from the first act to incorporate into a short role played conversation. There are some of the lines people worked into their skits:
1. She thinks he's coming back, Chris.
2. I ignore what I gotta ignore.
3. What's the difference? It's all bad news. What's today's calamity?
4. If he doesn't come back, I'll kill myself.
5. Well, that's what a war does.
6. I've been a good son for too long, a good sucker. I'm through with it.
Once they performed, the other guessed what the line from the play was. What quickly became evident was that the more incorrect guesses there were, the better the skit had been. If people thought that multiple lines were significant and delivered deliberately, then the actors did a good job of creating palpable emotion and using effective language. I wrote these lines on the board for them to copy, and I realise now I should have paused for each and had the class come up with two words to describe the attitude of the speaker for each.
Then, looking at all the lines together, I asked them for inferences as to what the play was about. They guessed that the son left for war, that the parents didn't support the war (someone guessed that it's set during the Vietnam war because there was so much resistance to that war). A final comment ventured that the character's, and the son who is at war, might be on the losing side of the war, since it seems all the news is bad. She said, for example, in the fight against Israel, no mother wants her son to go off to war because it's such an unequal battle, "we know what will happen." She said, "'It's all bad news,' we hear that all the time."
At the end of class we created a visual at the front of the stage to represent the synopsis of the play as written in the introduction. I did this because All My Sons is a difficult play, and the thrust of the action and the backstory is very hard to pick up on as you begin. So I wanted to ground them in the story before we jump into act 1's text tomorrow. I'm not sure the stage visual was the most effective way to do this though. I'll see how clear they seem to be on the story as we begin tomorrow.
In the eleventh grade, I had a one-off lesson because I have this section four times this week while I only have the other section three times. So we jumped into Shakespeare's language (we're starting Macbeth tomorrow) by examining iambic pentameter in sonnets. Last year when we worked with sonnets in the tenth grade, I was surprised what a challenge the idea of syllables and stressed and unstressed syllables posed for the students. It proved a challenge again today, but one they enjoyed. We practiced scanning these four lines from the beginning of sonnet 73:
We established the idea of iambs, and determined that there are five iambs, creating iambic pentameter. We read the poem in an "around the world" fashion, having each person read one syllable. It was very hard!
After scanning the lines with the appropriate dip/dash symbols, I asked them what the effect of this rhythm was. It lends it music, they said, and makes it prettier. It slows down the reader, and maybe the emphasis is used to emphasize words or an idea that the author wants to make a statement about.
Then we looked at these lines from Sonnet 20, and I asked them to determine what was different about them.
They noted that these lines have an extra, unstressed syllable. So into our notes on sonnets went the detail that lines that end with a stressed syllable are called "masculine" while lines that end with an unstressed syllable are "feminine". This will become relevant particularly when we look at Macbeth's monologue as he waffles in his decision to kill King Duncan, (full of feminine endings, implying weakness or uncertainty) and Lady Macbeth's monologue in which she responds to his hesitations, questioning his manhood and asserting that if he were truly a man, he would not waver in his conviction. All the endings to her lines are masculine, reflecting her own determination and violent intentions at that moment.
Before that though, today I asked them to determine whether the endings of the lines of this poem are masculine or feminine. I should have been more clear in saying that I wasn't expecting them to scan the whole lines, since I ended up telling each group i checked in with just to focus on the final word. This kind of lesson is fun, but I don't do it very often, since it doesn't get at the root of any of the emotional content of the text. It's purely technical. I look forward to getting into our discussion of Macbeth's equivocations, and how the mere suggestions of the witches are enough to make him take incredibly drastic action.
It's good to have campus bustling again. Soccer practice just ended outside my apartment window, and there was an MUN meeting in my classroom after school. The school stirs!
I told the 12th grade that we would be working our inference muscles, then doing a super spoiler by reading a synopsis of the play All My Sons.
The inference work happened in two stages.
The first was a free write on the word "sons". Here is some of the feedback:
They carry the family name. They bear responsibility.
If there is more than one son, they probably play different roles, like the responsible one, the lazy one, the spoiled one, the rebellious one. (I loved this comment)
The relationship between father and sons is fragile, since a son's departure or estrangement is really hard on the family, and because he is the one who "carries on" the family legacy.
Sons don't have to be biological - at wartime a whole society treats soldiers like "sons" in order to show support and connection to them. It is a way of inviting empathy, since "sons" reminds us that these are not just soldiers, they also have caring mothers and bear our collective future.
The name "son" can be diminutive or patronising, as when someone says "Don't worry about it, son," implying that someone is childish.
Conversely, "son" can endear someone to the speaker by warmly admitting him to a sort of honorary family, "What do you think of that, son?"
The next phase of inferring came when I gave couples a line from the first act to incorporate into a short role played conversation. There are some of the lines people worked into their skits:
1. She thinks he's coming back, Chris.
2. I ignore what I gotta ignore.
3. What's the difference? It's all bad news. What's today's calamity?
4. If he doesn't come back, I'll kill myself.
5. Well, that's what a war does.
6. I've been a good son for too long, a good sucker. I'm through with it.
Once they performed, the other guessed what the line from the play was. What quickly became evident was that the more incorrect guesses there were, the better the skit had been. If people thought that multiple lines were significant and delivered deliberately, then the actors did a good job of creating palpable emotion and using effective language. I wrote these lines on the board for them to copy, and I realise now I should have paused for each and had the class come up with two words to describe the attitude of the speaker for each.
Then, looking at all the lines together, I asked them for inferences as to what the play was about. They guessed that the son left for war, that the parents didn't support the war (someone guessed that it's set during the Vietnam war because there was so much resistance to that war). A final comment ventured that the character's, and the son who is at war, might be on the losing side of the war, since it seems all the news is bad. She said, for example, in the fight against Israel, no mother wants her son to go off to war because it's such an unequal battle, "we know what will happen." She said, "'It's all bad news,' we hear that all the time."
At the end of class we created a visual at the front of the stage to represent the synopsis of the play as written in the introduction. I did this because All My Sons is a difficult play, and the thrust of the action and the backstory is very hard to pick up on as you begin. So I wanted to ground them in the story before we jump into act 1's text tomorrow. I'm not sure the stage visual was the most effective way to do this though. I'll see how clear they seem to be on the story as we begin tomorrow.
In the eleventh grade, I had a one-off lesson because I have this section four times this week while I only have the other section three times. So we jumped into Shakespeare's language (we're starting Macbeth tomorrow) by examining iambic pentameter in sonnets. Last year when we worked with sonnets in the tenth grade, I was surprised what a challenge the idea of syllables and stressed and unstressed syllables posed for the students. It proved a challenge again today, but one they enjoyed. We practiced scanning these four lines from the beginning of sonnet 73:
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
We established the idea of iambs, and determined that there are five iambs, creating iambic pentameter. We read the poem in an "around the world" fashion, having each person read one syllable. It was very hard!
After scanning the lines with the appropriate dip/dash symbols, I asked them what the effect of this rhythm was. It lends it music, they said, and makes it prettier. It slows down the reader, and maybe the emphasis is used to emphasize words or an idea that the author wants to make a statement about.
Then we looked at these lines from Sonnet 20, and I asked them to determine what was different about them.
A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,
Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion:They noted that these lines have an extra, unstressed syllable. So into our notes on sonnets went the detail that lines that end with a stressed syllable are called "masculine" while lines that end with an unstressed syllable are "feminine". This will become relevant particularly when we look at Macbeth's monologue as he waffles in his decision to kill King Duncan, (full of feminine endings, implying weakness or uncertainty) and Lady Macbeth's monologue in which she responds to his hesitations, questioning his manhood and asserting that if he were truly a man, he would not waver in his conviction. All the endings to her lines are masculine, reflecting her own determination and violent intentions at that moment.
Before that though, today I asked them to determine whether the endings of the lines of this poem are masculine or feminine. I should have been more clear in saying that I wasn't expecting them to scan the whole lines, since I ended up telling each group i checked in with just to focus on the final word. This kind of lesson is fun, but I don't do it very often, since it doesn't get at the root of any of the emotional content of the text. It's purely technical. I look forward to getting into our discussion of Macbeth's equivocations, and how the mere suggestions of the witches are enough to make him take incredibly drastic action.
It's good to have campus bustling again. Soccer practice just ended outside my apartment window, and there was an MUN meeting in my classroom after school. The school stirs!
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