Facebook Profile Character Development Lesson

Standard:

CCSS RL 9-10.3 Analyze how complex characters develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.

Objective:

Students will analyze the characters’ multiple and conflicting motivations in “Hamlet” in order to determine how these interactions drive the plot. Students must have an understanding of internal/external conflict, plot and character traits.

Essential Question: 

How do the internal conflicts of certain characters affect the external conflict between other characters in the play and how does this advance the plot?

Opening Activator:

I will open with how internal and external conflicts interact all the time. I’ll give and ask students for examples such as celebrity Twitter mishaps and how an indirect tweet can affect their followers. I’ll ask them how often they’ve put how they were feeling about something personal not directly speaking to anyone on Facebook and had comments that showed that it effected other people.

Quickwrite: How would/did your mom react? Boyfriend/Girlfriend? Friend? Teacher? Etc…

Direct Instruction:

There are a lot of soliloquies in this play and the actions of Hamlet, the new King, his mother, effect how each person reacts.

What if this all played out on Facebook? What would it look like?

I will then show them an example of my “Othello” Facebook profile page complete with status messages and comments from Desdemona, Iago, and Cassis.

Facebook Profile Othello Example/Template

Guided Practice:

They will create a Facebook profile page for their character: Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius, Laertes, Ophelia, Horatio (some have complete profiles, others are contributors)

Students will be working in groups of 4-5. Each student will have a role:

Scribe: type the information into the template

Researcher: look up quotes for status messages and comments

Translator: will provide the explanations for quotes used (write in “Facebook lingo”)

Presenter: Present the information verbally to class

Designer: Provide pictures for the profile 

They will need to have 5 status messages with quotes from the dialogue in the play with their translation of the meaning in “Facebook lingo.” At least 2 pictures should be included with captions, and other information like birth, death, hometown, etc.

Student will present their profiles. 

(Self-Evaluation) Student groups will check their work with their checklists 

Facebook Profile Checklist

Independent Practice:

Students will write a eulogy for the characters that died in the play based off of what they’ve learned about them and how they’ve interacted with other characters. They can give these eulogies as other characters in the play.  They must use evidence from the text (direct quotes).

Example: Laertes gives eulogy for his sister Ophelia.

Fates Shackled to a Scantron

A hush comes over the entire building as the students sit in their janitorial rows. Harsh fluorescent lights cast an ominous glow of fear and nervousness over their quiet, innocent faces. The room looks like a prison cell since the brightly colored posters that once made the room look more cozy, were snatched down and now the children are bound to their desks. No there are no smiles, no happy sounds of children’s laugher—only solemn faces fixed with anxiety as if they have met their fates. And all I can do is look on. I have the urge to reach out and comfort them, but I’m not permitted to. Our fates are actually tied together on this day—a year’s work thrust upon them in one hour as they take the state standardized test.

I hate this time of the year…it’s when I tell my students to tuck away their talents and forget what makes them individuals to serve a common cause…to pass a darn multiple choice test. In a way we reward the children who excel at regurgitating information with labels like “gifted” or “honors’” just based off the results of a test which honestly doesn’t evaluate them to their full potential. We then shun the talents of students who cannot pass this paper/pencil test. How dare you be able to read music, but have trouble comprehending vocabulary. How dare you be an artistic genius, but struggle with numerical values. We’re taking round pegs and attempting to place them in square holes. In a country that boasts diversity, by admonishing teachers for NOT teaching for all intelligences and all learning styles…at the end of the day evaluates our students’ academic abilties using a very narrow and discriminating scope. 

And I, like other educators who are aware of this unforgiving society, know that I have to teach beyond what is required. Not because they cannot grasp the material, but because they need be critical thinkers. I have to teach my students to be doubly conscious—to know their surroundings and how others view them as well as how they view themselves. I have to teach them not to hide, but to know when to share their gifts and their talents because there are people out there who are not interested and who tear them down for not imitating their likeness. I have to teach my students that passing the test may help them gain acceptance into the “larger community”, but it does mean that they will nurture you. Hell they will never know who YOU really are and were never concerned with that, or they would find another means of getting to know your needs, your wants, your talents. So it is frustrating to watch them as they cautiously bubble in their answers—knowing they have been reduced to student number 45766223 where only their test score matters, and the score keeper will never know what else they had to offer.

The Battle at Kruger: Community Comes to the Rescue

http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/LU8DDYz68kM&source=uds

While reading, the founder of the Children’s Defense Fund Marian Wright Edelman’s,  The Sea is So Wide and My Boat is So Small, she wrote about this Ytube video. She used this video to illustrate just how important the entire community is to a child’s life. Had only the mother attempted to protect her calf, it wouldn’t have survived. It took the entire community of water buffalo to save this calf. In a world where there are plenty of the lions and the alligators in the world preying on our children, what role do you play in protecting them? If we all surrounded our children with love and protection, how many children can we save?  

It takes the ENTIRE community. We are ALL responsible for the children in our community–not just the parents and the teachers. What role are you playing in the children in your community’s lives?

Teach a (wo)man to fish…

Oftentimes we assume that people without resources can’t learn or have too many obstacles standing in their way to find success and happiness. Below is truly a story of teaching “a man how to fish.” How often do we as teachers and parents control the learning environment instead of facilitating it? This really is a matter of trust. Do you trust your children/students to accomplish the task you set forth without your constant help? They will have to eventually.  we perhaps too impatient when it comes to our expectations of not what they learn but when? Ask yourselves this as teachers and parents. I certainly have and sometimes I didn’t like my answer. Sometimes you feel pressured by administrators, pacing guides, other parents, heck even society to get your child/student “there” where ever there is in a short amount of time. Everyone learns at his/her own pace. Instead of pressuring them to retain the lesson, instill the value of it. Why should they learn this? Of what significance to their lives is this lesson? If you teach that, the learner will be more motivated to step up to the challenge. Watch the video below and see how a group of impoverished mothers went from not knowing how to read or write to becoming solar engineers in 6 months! The work that they trained for, helped them sustain their villages and empower other women. We are always trying to swoop in and save people when they are very well capable of saving themselves. If we don’t TEACH people and we do the learning for them, what will they do when we leave?

Solar Mamas

Sir Ken Robinson: Changing the Education Paradigms

In English

In Spanish

Teaching Makes Me Smile

This is for anyone out there who is fed up. Maybe an observation didn’t go so well, or maybe your planning was taken up today with an unscheduled meeting. I’ve had those days. Days that made me feel completely frustrated…made me even question my career choice to become a public school teacher, but then my students come into class and I’m quickly reminded why I’m there. Despite all the craziness outside of my classroom, my room is my sanctuary when my students get there. I just close the door, shut out the world and enter the new world of learning with my students.  Little gifts, notes and pictures from my students sits behind my desk, from all the years I’ve been teaching…”Even when I’m having a bad day, this makes me smile.”

What are somethings you do to refocus throughout the day? 

Those Who Can, TEACH

In matters of public education, it seems so many policy makers miss solutions completely because they are looking at the microscopic through a telescope. The problems are much more varied and complex than most people think. It’s like looking up and out for a world ending asteroid while a plague wipes out a whole generation.

Thought of the Day

What Does School Really Teach Children?

What can we do to change this senario? At home, at school and in the community? What is your role in educating the children in your community? What are some more unintended lessons children are learning in school?

Blackboard Wars

Anyone out there watching “Blackboard Wars” on Oprah’s OWN? In a nutshell it depicts a struggling school from several different lenses from the administrator’s prospective, private charter consultant, teachers (mostly new), counselors, community members, parents and most importantly student’s! I’d love to hear your thoughts on the show. Does it mirror what you see going on in public education today? Just can be quite the heated discussion. Share your thoughts! 

Haven’t seen it? You can catch up with full episodes here: Blackboard Wars

Maker’s Educators’ Award

Maker’s is offering $10,000 to one trailblazing teacher. Entries must be in by 8:00pm EST March 22nd. Click to link to enter/nominate someone!

Maker’s Educator’s Award

Obama Proposal Raises Issue of Pre-K Teacher Prep

Obama Proposal Raises Issue of Pre-K Teacher Prep


Should Pre-K teachers be required to earn at least a Bachelor’s degree in order to be considered “highly qualified”?

They talk about the difference between being credentialed and keeping with good practice. If learning is a life-long journey, does earning credentials create a ceiling discouraging continuing education/professional development or does it motivate teachers to gain more knowledge through earning more credentials (degrees, endorsements, PLUs, etc)?

We are in desperate need of more Pre-K teachers. Do you think this new policy may discourage the recruitment and retention of current Pre-K teachers?

What’s your take on this? We’d love to hear your thoughts.