Hiking outing

Today's hike got off to a late start because no one seemed to know where we were going. But once we were off it was, as usual, stunning to encounter the Palestinian countryside from up close.

The wildflowers are out in force  - though the force is made up of teeny tiny participants. The flowers are brightly coloured, but minuscule. We saw one near the end that approached the side of a crocus, and it dwarfed all the others.

The greatest fun today was that the hillside smelled of herbs. There was so much sage and thyme along the way that as we traipsed through we stirred up all kinds of wild, herby scents. I brought some sage home.

Monica and me

Katharina and me

One of the coffee and cigarette breaks.

The clearing where we set up the fire and picnic

Resting after the final climb

The Witches

One of the most successful elements of this year's study of Macbeth has been the HL section's exploration of the witches. In the first session on the witches, blogged about below, the students created the chaos of words and sounds that comes at the beginning of Act IV. In last week's lesson, they looked at images of the witches from different productions and considered the effects of the "spectacle" created by the witches' words and appearance. Let me dwell on that lesson for a moment.

One of the reasons this has been a fun topic to explore is that I'm not sure what I feel about the witches. The nature of our discussions has been "exploratory" in that we have tried out several interpretations of their role, and in today's discussion the students came up with several powerful messages Shakespeare might be trying to send through the way he portrays them.

Last week I'd been thinking a great deal about the witches and I told Monica that I was considering their use of "spectacle" - they are, in the words of a student, "so dramatic all the time". Monica pointed out how politicians also rely on spectacle, citing Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, as an example of someone who presents a certain persona in order to achieve a specific end. I loved the way she spoke about his rather goofy public persona as a way to gain the attention and affection of his colleagues and constituents, and how she pointed out that although he makes himself seem like the "everyman", he makes decisions in the interests of a very few.

In class the next day we started out looking at these images of Boris Johnson:

We discussed how this person seemed to be presenting himself, and why he might choose to present this way. They had excellent comments, especially from M. who talked about how politicians like Johnson know the power of press coverage, and the power of a media persona which sets them apart from the others. M said that Johnson's popularity probably comes from his goofiness, his being so willingly different from other, stiff politicians. 

Then I asked them to analyse this headline about Johnson in pairs for phrases they thought were key to understanding him as a politician. 

Then we turned to our correspondent on the ground in London, Monica, to tell us about her impression of him as a leader. She pointed out that he had made many promises but then not taken much action to improve London in the ways he said he would. 

We discussed what the purpose of Boris's spectacle,  might be:

We then turned to the witches to discuss their spectacle. They worked in groups to describe and analyse the effect of the spectacle created in each of these productions of witches: 

These images and the students comments about their appearance and impact are now on the classroom wall. 

Here are the comments students made about the witches after the discussion:

Now, compare these musings to some of the brilliance from today's discussion, which truly felt like the culmination of these weeks of class and contemplation:

The witches are an audience to Macbeth's undoing. They perform one small action at the beginning, then sit back and watch Macbeth on his way to his downfall. We also as the audience witness the downfall. 

After J. made this comment, I decided to ask what they thought Shakespeare wants us to think about as we watch Macbeth's downfall. Here are their comments:

Humans are weak because they believe in irrational beings if the message those beings tell will serve them. 

Human actions are the most important, even in a world in which there are magical or supernatural actions going on. The human behaviour still  has the most profound consequences. (I thought this was an incredible comment, also from J.)

Power is based on influence, not on actual physical strength. Influence often comes from the way someone uses language. So Shakespeare's message is, language is power. (Brilliant, commented by M.)

Given the nature of the witches, the message we get is to be skeptical of the power of language. Don't trust everything we see and hear right away.

Simple ideas, and small suggestions have large ripple effects.

I cannot tell you how happy I was with the discussion on the witches today. We weren't even planning to talk about them, but someone brought them up, and I figured it would be excellent preparation for our HL writing tomorrow. I could not have presented their final comments on the role of the witches any more coherently than they did. I look forward to seeing what they write tomorrow.

Themes in Shakespeare

In my last post, I noted how limiting it is to tell students what the main themes of a text are. Yesterday I was reminded of another reason that the typical list for Macbeth falls short. It includes "blind ambition, lust for power, guilt, corruption through power". It seems unjust to limit Shakespeare to such a list. There are more, and much more nuanced themes on almost every page. We looked at some of them yesterday.

We looked at the scene in which Macbeth hosts a banquet to celebrate his new title of King. He has recently hired two murderers to kill Banquo and Banquo's son. In the middle of the banquet Banquo's ghost arrives in dramatic fashion to haunt macbeth with a steely glare from atop the table (We watched this scene in the 2010 modernised adaptation, 1:24:00-1:28:00 here )

Once Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are out from under the confused and suspicious eyes of their guests, they have the following exchange.

LADY MACBETH

A kind good night to all!Exeunt all but MACBETH and LADY MACBETH

MACBETH

It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood:
Stones have been known to move and trees to speak;
Augurs and understood relations have
By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth
The secret'st man of blood. What is the night?

LADY MACBETH

Almost at odds with morning, which is which.

MACBETH

How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his person
At our great bidding?

LADY MACBETH

Did you send to him, sir?

MACBETH

I hear it by the way; but I will send:
There's not a one of them but in his house
I keep a servant fee'd. I will to-morrow,
And betimes I will, to the weird sisters:
More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,
By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good,
All causes shall give way: I am in blood
Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er:
Strange things I have in head, that will to hand;
Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd.

LADY MACBETH

You lack the season of all natures, sleep.

MACBETH

Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse
Is the initiate fear that wants hard use:
We are yet but young in deed.

They talked about the effect that guilt seems to have on the two characters, and how the bravado displayed in the film might be a mask for their uncomfortable conscious. They talked about how uncomfortable Macbeth seems with the influx of power, and that's why he seems to abuse it so, even when he's not envisioning friends he's murdered. Lady Macbeth, M. pointed out, refers to him here as sir, where she never did before, showing a change in the power dynamic of their relationship. She may now fear him and defer to him as her own conscious grow heavier and heavier. We talked about collateral damage, and how Macbeth's wife, and employees, and friends are all suffering acutely because of his actions and his own deteriorating mental state. 

When I asked them what they thought Macbeth would do next, some said "seek the witches!" (which is correct) but S. suggested "He might confess". I asked them to look closely at the bolded text above. What is Macbeth saying? The first class, thanks to the ever bright A, got it by the third comment. He's past the point of no return, and has killed enough that he can't go back to innocence. I look forward to talking about that theme more. In the other class I had to all but don a costume to get the point across by miming stepping backward and stepping forward as I read the words with emphasis. Then they jumped in triumph at having understood. "He's stuck!" So we recognised therefore that confession is unlikely, since he points out that going backward doesn't feel like a legitimate option. 

On Monday we'll look at Macbeth's response to the witches' prophecies, and how he now pledges to "crown his thoughts with acts" before resolve cools - he's a man out of control, and Macduff's family will be the next batch of collateral damage. 

Don't you think "not being able to step backward because of being so far instepped so far into something" and "the compulsion to act quickly before fear triumphs over conviction" are more interesting themes to tease out than "ambition"?

Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble

There is a multitude of teaching resources available for Macbeth. Most give fairly basic background information about the play and playwright, then give short explanations of the different themes that manifest in the play.

Side note on themes: It seems like the dullest move in English teaching to provide a list and an explanation of the themes of the text. Deciding what the text is talking about seems to me to be the bread and butter of reading and discussing; let the students identify the themes! I think it instructs apathy and passive reading to tell them that "ambition" is a theme in the text.

From this sea of mediocre teaching resources on the play, there stands out one resource in my mind: Shakespeare Set Free! teaching guides. The book, (some pages, al hamdulilah, are available on google books) contains a day by day lesson plan for teaching Macbeth. Not all of the lessons are appropriate to this group of ESL students, but they can be adapted. The reason I like SSF is that it suggests activities that use the drama of the text for clear pedagogical goals.

The first time I used it this year was for the monologue in which Macbeth vacillates about whether to kill the king. I blogged about it below. This Wednesday I turned to the google books version again to see how the authors handled 4.1, the chaotic scene in which the three witches make a brew, then meet with Macbeth and reveal to him their boss, the spirits which tell him about his future.

On Wednesday I had an extra class with HL, and I decided (based on some fantastic student questions in discussion on Tuesday) that we would take a closer look at why we have the witches in the play. I copied this handout from the one shown on Google Books from SSF: (this is a screen shot of the top part of the handout)

We got into a circle, I assigned three witches, and the rest of us counted off 1-3. We had a sound rehearsal (they were awesome, especially at the howling dogs). Here's what I loved: then we talked about what literary devices were present, and N. said "foreshadowing and pathetic fallacy". She explained foreshadowing ("All these dark creepy noises imply something bad will happen") but didn't know why she had said pathetic fallacy. This is such a key moment in literature. Students know the device, and don't know why they know it, and certainly can't comment on its effect. B. raised his hand and said "Well, what's happening in nature and in the outside world is showing the evil that's going on in the story." Bingo. Later that class and the next day, several other students referred to pathetic fallacy in their discussion and writing.

So, then we listened to the witches, then did the whole thing together. I asked them what they thought of it.

"It's annoying to listen to, especially with the witchy voice A. is using."
"I think that's the point, that it's supposed to be annoying."
"I think it's creepy."
"It sounds really chaos. Chaotic."

We got back into rows, and discussed on the board how the witches are portrayed. They pointed out that it's a stereotypical image of witches, since they're around the cauldron making a potion. S. pointed out that they must be powerful to have access to such rare ingredients, and what they're making with all of it must be quite potent and unusual. I asked the witches how they felt reading the lines. (Trying to draw out that the language they use, and their tone, is quite different from the other characters, and rather at odds with how much power they seem to have). M. said he felt childish saying it. A. said, yes, childish, but like children playing at ruling the world. Someone said they make it hard to tell what's evil and what's not. I would like to have them write about why the witches are portrayed as they are. What purpose Shakespeare might envision for them.

I'm grateful to SSF and Google Books for sponsoring this lesson!

Theater as Monument

In my High School English class we periodically had in-class essays where we received an unseen passage from a book we were reading and needed to construct an essay in response to a certain question in 45 minutes. They were some of the most challenging periods I ever took. What struck me was that I often did my best, boldest thinking during those classes. When the time pressure was on, and I had no opportunity to leave the work and return later, I made intriguing connections and bolder analyses than I did when I was writing an essay at home. 

It turns out that the same leaps in thinking sometimes take place when I'm under the pressure of teaching a lesson. Today I wanted to talk to the twelfth grade about the purpose of memorials. Why do we feel the need to remember those who have come before us? I showed them these two images at the beginning of class:



This is a WWII memorial in Great Britain.



This is the WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C. 

They had great comments on the difference between them, how one seemed to emphasize the human experience of war - the loss, the hardship, the personal sacrifice, while the other glorified the collective experience, especially the victory. The fountains seem a celebration of post-war triumph. We'd looked at that "After total war can come total living" poster in class, and clever S. said in class today: "They had total war; now this is total living." 

I asked them why we have memorials, and these are the things they said: 

The last comment, added by R., I found fascinating. She pointed out that as we walk past those bronze soldiers in the current day, buzzing, peaceful city, we appreciate how far our nation has come. Similarly, when we walk among those fountains, we feel a sense of awe that this setting, which could not be a starker contrast the dim danger of war, is ours. 

We talked about the last scene of All My Sons in which Keller realises that his son Larry flew his plane into a mountain when he learned that his father shipped out flawed airplane parts that caused 21 pilots to lose their lives in plane crashes. Keller agrees to turn himself in to the police. When Mother argues, protesting that "he's sorry! What else can he be?" Chris, the surviving son, is relentless. "Better!" he shouts. "You can be better!" He implores his parents to recognise that they are part of a great web of meaning, and that their actions affect others in the universe. 

I asked the students which memorials they thought the characters would approve of. They said Keller would like the one that emphasises post-war prosperity, since looking at the soldiers would only remind him of the "sons" he indirectly killed by sending those plane parts out. 

The part of the lesson that came into my head like an idea that surfaces during an in-class essay was that, hey, drama is a monument. Drama is a way to memorialise the past. When this occurred to me, I thought, Hm, how can we draw this out? 

I asked whether memorials achieve the things they set out to do. R. said that they do, for a period of time. I asked what memorials could do to increase their sticking power - to make them more effective. A. said "Put my name on it." Others sniggered, but I was thrilled. We acknowledged that we needed something that related to our lives, that we could see ourselves in. Others added, if we have names and ages of the people involved, that would help us feel more connected to the memory. (Starting to sound like stage directions, right?)

Others said, I need to get a feeling for the experience of those who suffered, and I need to know how the families experienced the event. Seriously, they were putting it all together so well. After these comments, I restated them all, pointing to the person who had offered up each piece. Then I sat there for a second. Then I held up my book. Faces brightened. It was cool. 

Now, the part that I then plunged onward with, which I'm not sure if it made any dent, was this:

Theater does what public monuments often don't, when it shows us the negative side of the memorialised event, and thus offers a warning that gets us to heed Chris's exhortation to "be better!" We can't really depend on the short-lived emotions stirred up by a memorial to get us to change the way we live. But when we see the warning embedded in the story of the Kellers, the way Keller's lie ripped his family apart, and his unwillingness to accept responsibility in society laid a huge burden on all his family members (not to mention the pilots who died) we see that and think, "Whoa, I'd better be better, or else!" This kind of message is generally considered too harsh for a sidewalk memorial, but drama is all over  the warning part of the memorial's message. 

As soon as Chris says "We need to be better!" we hear a gun shot, sounding off like a final warning:

Keller has gone into the house and ended his own life with a bullet. 

Bloody hands

Today we looked at the murder scene from Macbeth in the other section of the 11th grade.

We watched the scene in the Dench/McKellan film adaptation, in which Macbeth, after committing the deed (the murder), returns to the stage with his hands bloodied.

For the next several minutes he slowly rotates his sticky, shiny, stained hands in front of his face, seemingly transfixed. Someone asked "Why does he just stare at his hands so much?" I posed the question to the class and, in classic 11-5 style, they had terrific answers.

A. said Macbeth might be amazed at the power of his own hands to have committed such an act.

Y. said power had nothing to do with it, he was seriously afraid of what he had done.

N. said he was fascinated and appalled by the evidence, and still in shock  - "Did I really do it?"

M. said the director was giving us an opportunity to think about the way we refer to the image of bloody hands in our daily language, when we apportion guilt, as in "He has blood on his hands" and then exonerate, as in "That washed the blood from his hands."

I then brought their attention to Lady Macbeth's line "A little water clears us of this deed. How easy is it, then?"

While she's referring to the removal of the blood from her hands, we acknowledged that her question could be posed to the larger question of the murder: how easy, is it, in fact, to kill someone? The physical deed may be easy, but Macbeth seems to be learning that murder involves mental challenges he finds it difficult to withstand. 

The Human Barometer

What to do in a class with seven students?

There are few class plans I would feel comfortable plowing ahead with in a class as depleted as my last period twelfth grade class today. Typically, with such small numbers I would resort to unseen passage analysis for discussion. But today I had planned to listen to a radio production of All My Sons, the end of the second act.

It's the climate of the play at which point Chris learns that his father is guilty of supplying the army with faulty air plane parts, a sale that costs 21 pilots their lives when the parts malfunction mid flight, and for which his neighbour and partner took the fall and ended up behind bars. It's a difficult moment for everyone on stage: Chris, his father, his mother, who has known and concealed the truth for three years, and Chris's fiancee, who is also the daughter of the business partner who was jailed.

Here is the radio version:

https://beta.prx.org/stories/56778

After listening to the scene and discussing what we had heard, I had them stand up and create a line across the front of the classroom. At one end of the board I wrote "Agree" and on the other end "Disagree".

Then I posed statements and asked them to arrange themselves along the spectrum of agreement. This was remarkably effective. I've done the exercise before, but their responses in the barometer were better today than they ever have been. I hardly needed to call on people - they responded directly to each other and defended their positions. I had worked during my lunch break to come up with good statements (I always come back to Monica's enlightening point that posing the right question is the teacher's hardest task) and I took it as a sign of the success of the statements were polarising. Here are the statements I asked them to weigh in on:

Joe Keller has committed an unforgivable crime.
If George hadn’t arrived, conflict would have been avoided.
Mother is the more reasonable than Keller.

I was glad A. defended Joe for the first statement, saying that he was acting in accordance with his values, which are his business and the legacy (money, business reputation) he'll be able to leave for his son. B. added that Joe would basically have been killing himself if he had let the business be ruined by recalling the parts.

M. argued that his crime was forgivable because it happened so long ago. I wanted someone to talk about people who have been in prison for 20 years serving sentences for crimes that they didn't commit, and whether they would forego the opportunity to use DNA testing to put the guilty party behind bars. R. made a comment similar to this one when I prompted others to respond. Sometimes students in these small, smart literature classes are too polite to rip into what their classmates say.


When I stir the pot, asking others if they agree or disagree, I am asking them to mine for truth; don't let half-truths go un-questioned. A classroom with no conflict is not a very just classroom, because there will always be comments or opinions that should be questioned, qualified or clarified. The quest for peace involves a quest for accuracy; much violence and oppression can be hidden in ambiguous or vaguely true statements. 

The final statement, which I had planned to leave out, but which solicited the best responses, was 

Ann should leave with George.

Somehow the barometer today encouraged the students to reach into their personal arsenal of experience to answer questions. They were making analogies and referring to TV episodes as evidence that their opinion on an issue in Sons was well-founded. References to cancer patients, "The Walking Dead," and the unwritten "bro-code" ("don't marry your brother's fiancee, even if he is dead", all lent energy to this conversation. 

Tomorrow, when I teach this lesson to the other section of twelfth grade, I'll add: 

This is a sexist play.

to the list of statements.