Final Project!

We have finished our final project. huzzahhh!

We wanted to make a presentation that would encourage the use of technology in the classroom.
We felt like this was a really hard thing to say how to do (especially since none of us are professionals), so we more focused on the idea of planting an idea in teachers' minds (ah Inception!) so that they would make the important decision of incorporation.  We decided to talk about why it needs to be done and examples of how it has been done.

Our Prezi can be found here as well!

Let us know if you have any suggestions or comments!

others like us

there is a lot of discussion about this
idea of incorporating teaching and technology

this presentation  looks like it was for an "FLC" conference
i have no idea what FLC is outside of my home town college 
but it just shows examples of how teachers have
incorporated technology into their classroomm

this presentation looks at Shakespeare in Bit and
is almost like a review  for it
however they are kinda encouraging the use

This prezi is an overview of the use of a Prezi
in a classroom. just to show ideas to others

4teachers.org is a website to show teachers
and help them integrate technology into their classroom

There are tons of articles about why you should
teach with technology too 

all very interesting!

one thing that really jumped out at me was,
"It's not about technology integration anymore. It's really about how to be a better teacher by using the best tools."

Final Project Trailer

This is just a catch trailer for what we are doing!
Yay!

Updated Video

I felt that my video was pretty good
for the technology and things that I have

I went back through and added text and links though

I feel that if we are going to do more with these videos
we all need access to better technology
and make them more uniform

Shopping Market Study

So i tried to brain storm all of the prospective audience outlets
of where we could post or present our project

I think something that could be an actual presentation would be best
but i suppose we could do a written submission

Dr Burton suggested Classroom 2.0
They have a call for submissions for their book and also for a virtual conference they are hosting

NCTE takes submissions for journal articles, this is probably a little more formal than we are looking though

UCTE/LA every year they have their conference where teachers present ideas. I attended last year and it was great. we could definitely probably present there and it would be a very appropriate situation to do it at

Central Utah Writing Project has workshops that they do through out the year as well as during the summer. they are more gear towards writing but being as the officers are all our english teacher professors, we may be able to pull something

Secondary Solutions has a blog about teaching that we may be able to submit something to

readwritethink  is a website that takes lesson plans that might be good to submit our ideas to

We also could try to get something with Folger Education  either their blog or their teachers' cite

We could maybe present to one of the BYU classes here on campus
Or there is club/interest group  that i have been trying to facilitate that we could

i think i have exasperated all my teaching ideas.

If all else fails we could just do a you tube video!

Education for Everyone

I am taking a social problems class right now
and for extra credit we could watch
a documentary about education

I watched Waiting for "Superman" on Netflix

Now i am already passionate about education
but this more just supported those feelings
it was a really moving film

i strongly urge you to watch it

But one of the things i wanted to talk
about was how this is semi applicable to
my Shakespeare and what I am looking into now

One line that stood out to me was about
these charter schools --called Kipp Academies
Their big "slogan" that the man described their schools as doing is  

"closing the achievement gap and shattering
the myth that some students can't learn"

This article talks about Harriet Ball
the woman who helped to inspire these charter
schools by the way she taught
in the article it is is described as
"a 'multisensory, mnemonic, whole-body teaching technique'
designed to 'propel at-risk students toward excellence,'
 though she insists her method works for all children.
In simpler terms, she calls it Rap, Rhythm, and Rhyme."

the way i saw her approach was just
making the material accessible for students!
-breaking up the material

I want to look more into her
suggestions that she had given
and maybe work them into our "Shakespeare-ience"

but over all this film was so moving
especially the last half hour
i seriously got choked up

it is so sad to me that all of the students
want to be in these good schools
and they want to learn
but they dont get chosen for the "lottery"

i really hope to see our education
system change in my life time
and when i am a teacher

that way everyone can have an education

This film completely renewed my wants 

to be a teacher (not that they were fading).
It also helped me remember 

the importance of being a good teacher.
Half way through I was starting to question

 if i still wanted to be a teacher because

 it is such a huge responsibility and challenge, 

but by the end it just strengthened my wants.

Just thought I would share :)

and it was semi relevant 

Coming soon to theaters....

Here is my video!
definitely rough

but it wasnt too time consuming
--i only spent 5 minutes between take one and this take (5)

I kinda feel like a valley girl

i dont know how i came out so enthusiastic 

but it works!

lodge you in the field!

Elizabeth E Schuch 

I agree with everyone that

i am enjoying this play tremendously

i am so excited to go see it on the 24th!

which have you seen the pre production pictures?
and the video?

theres also a study guide

looks fabulous!

i found this article that discussed

the relationship between men and women

in the context of this play 

now that ive looked at this and found this

i would have loved to look into this

for a research project

its is intriguing!

i also found this activity 

that has students act out 

the "Winter's Song" poem from the play 

i love this activity because it focuses on 

what i have been looking into with my research

this idea that students should look 

more in detail at smaller chunks of the play

and this is exactly what it is doing

and it is a really hands on activity which is good too

project blue print

first off i am going to direct you to Mallory's Post about what she is thinking

we are wanting to create a two part project
in my mind i see it as a hook/ trailer with videos of students
talking about what they want and why

and then part two i see as this "Shakespeare-ience" idea
where we would come up with a "how-to" of sorts
or even i would love to create a really fun protype lesson plan
that acts as a how-to and example for teachers

yay!

more on my tweethis.

So i reposted my thesis on Facebook and got some more response

take a look here

it is always so interesting to see people's thoughts

i feel a tad too far to incorporate these things into my paper but this is interesting to see!

"Shakespeare in Other Worlds"

I found this really cool wiki that is collecting how Shakespeare is being taught around the world in differewnt countries
Here is the wiki: Teaching Shakespeare around the world

and here is an article more about the project

looks really interesting
i will have to read more into it after all the madness has passed

tweethis results.

As i have blogged before, I posted my shortened thesis on Facebook and Twitter

I didnt have as much response as I was hoping
but at least I was expecting a lack of response
(I wont go into why haha)

As far as Twitter... I didnt get any response
I was expecting that because I dont use Twitter
but I did have an English teacher start following me!

(as well as some random porn fake accounts...)

But on facebook I had a couple responses
I had one teacher who commented on how she always tries to find ways to spice things up
I also had another teacher comment that he felt ALL teaching needs to be modernized

That just got me thinking about how while this paper focuses directly on Shakespeare
There really is this over all problem with the teaching techniques that are happening in schools everywhere
and while the government has mandated new core curriculum and instated the no child left behind,
I wonder if things are really changing?

I have had some people say to me "well i love Shakespeare;  I had a great experience"
and that makes me sad because i feel that people are blind to what is happening in our schools
people are blind to the fact that there are a lot of students struggling
and even if it isnt A LOT or an huge statistic

shouldnt every student be able to succeed?

I think people need to be careful about making blanket assumptions that they had a good experience so it must not be a problem -- and this applies to everything!

alright



i dont know how i got off on that haha

but I am noticing a trend that everyone seems to be at the same place with our papers
-- i see that place as a place of needing more time. more hours in the day. more bodily energy.
more time to allow the papers to develop and come together more.
just too many things in too short of time.

I feel like now I spent too much time on social proof and trying to bring everything together
when i should have been spending more time on the actual paper writing

dont you wish you had a  time turner sometimes....

rough rough draft. in progress.

I decided that there was no reason for me to stay up all last night
and stay up all tonight to finish my rough draft.

Not only would it produce a very low quality paper, but I like to sleep

and as i posted earlier, i am currently stuck in a non word processing rut
so i will slowly work on it and let it come to me instead of me force it

so i invite you to comment and watch my progress-- you might even see me typing live...  (thats scary now that i think about it)

just dont judge me haha

you will have to have to click the "here" link in the viewer below or you can view and comment here!

to comment with in the text, right click and click "comment"
Thank you!

Updated note: This now shows what I turned in as my final draft.

****to post your own draft into you blog like mine:

1. go to this site, paste in your Google Doc URL
2. cut and paste the "For an embedded viewer, use this HTML tag instead:" 
3. paste that html into your blog post
4. AND! you then have to change your options on the right of your post creator to "Compose mode: Interpret typed HTML"

If you have questions, email me :)

Digital Media: Shakespeare in Bits

So I previously mentioned that I found Shakespeare in Bits

which is an awesome company that is making these interactive programs for Shakespeare!

It is funny because I had mentioned it in my last post and the creator commented on the post giving me his information to get a hold of him directly!

I went ahead and downloaded all of the trials.

and i love them! i think that is it such a cool thing for students to use!

you should really download it for yourself just to see how cool it is 

here are some screen shots of the Macbeth version

Each play has an animated clip and text to follow along with
the text in annotated with  important things students may need to know
it also has note on the acts and a synopsis

It also has an analysis section with all sorts of key important things for students to know

there is a "cast" section that goes through each character and gives you important details

this is also great for a play like Macbeth where everyone is name Mac-blahblahblah

with in the cast section there is also a character interaction section 

i absolutely love this creation.

in a future classroom where students will probably have Ipads or tables or computers

a teacher could use this to make the text interesting and approachable

and also be able to use all of the text rather than having to trim it!

I then think the teacher could supplement this with hand on activities. 

go download it now!! and tell all your friends :)

i emailed the creator and am anxiously awaiting a reply because this is so awesome!!
another one of those things that makes me want to go teach shakespeare right now.

contacting people.

So I have been working on contacting all of my people.
This is basically what I have been emailing them --of course updated to fit them:

"Hello,

I am a student studying to become an English teacher in Utah at Brigham Young University. Currently I am in a class studying Shakespeare. I am doing some research and looking into the methods that are used in teaching the bard. I am looking to and making an argument that Shakespeare teaching needs to be changed from the current and traditional way that is being used. I have read many of your articles from the Folger blog and have even discussed you on my class project blog (pinatara382.blogspot.com). I feel that you have some great insight into this topic and some very valid ideas and topics.

My thesis I am working towards is that the teaching of Shakespeare should be more of a spiral or scaffolding approach and needs to be much more hands on. I have heard this idea that when teaching a play a teacher should breeze over a big chunk and then focus in on a little important chunk. I also think that teaching Shakespeare needs to be updated with working in the 21st technology we have. I think that teachers could almost teach everything with in the curriculum by simply deeply exploring a play so that students are very comfortable with it. Right now I feel that teacher just breeze over a play to say they read it with out working with students to really get into it to an extent. Otherwise, if teachers do not implement these ideas, I feel that Shakespeare study in schools may completely fade out because our new age brains can't seem to handle the current methods of just simply reading it.

Would you be will to share some insights towards my working thesis and ideas if you have a moment to spare? Or even if you have some good sources that I may be interested in I would gladly welcome that as well. I also encourage you to take a look at my blog as well if you have time and feel free to comment there if anything jumps out at you.

Thank you so much for your time and effort. I look forward to hearing back from you!"

So far I have met with Dr. Sirpa Grierson in our BYU English teaching department.

I have emailed:

Mike Lo Monico who writes on the Folger Shakespeare Education blog and has mention many things concerning the change of teaching Shakespeare

Christy Desmet who is a professor of Shakespeare for over 25 years AND!!! she teaches a class at her university specifically for educators called "Shakespeare in the Classroom"!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so excited when I realized this!

I also contacted many of the authors from the NCTE English Journal, Vol. 99, No. 1, September 2009

I have stumbled across Dana Huff's website many times and saw she had a page all about Shakespeare so I emailed her

I found this really cool Shakespeare in Bits program that is an interactive program that students and teachers can use to read Shakespeare. I tried emailing them, but I dont know if I will get through to the creators.

I am excited to hear back! It is really nerve racking though!

love and luck.

I love when you accidentally stumble upon a wealth of awesome things that are exactly what you need.

case in point

English Journal, Vol. 99, No. 1, September 2009
a whole issue all about teaching Shakespeare

i now am working through contacting like 20 people instead of the few i had

Also when I met with Dr Grierson she gave me some great ideas and pointed me in a few directions and also gave me the link to her own personal wiki with Shakespeare teaching articles!

Great digital media sources!

unsex me here.

i have always been fascinated with Lady Macbeth
There is just something that I love about her

one thing that I particularly like about her is her strength
and while it may be for the bad and everything
i seem to like powerful woman roles

and women who are too submissive in literature
seem to bother me to an extent

its funny because on netflix it gives suggestion based on what youve watched
my husband always makes fun of me because it will suggest
"romantic comedies with strong female lead" or something like that

but i like this womanly strength in her in particular for teaching
because i think it gives something for female students to grasp onto
and the fact that there are there two side of Macbeth that appeal to both student genders
this may just be my own feelings but i will run with it

i wanted to look at the transformation and character of Lady Macbeth

in high school i looked in her use of "witchcraft"

and this time i was thinking about how interesting it that she specifically asks "unsex me here"
so she doesnt want to be a woman and have all of these womanly feelings
i would think that her reasoning for this is
so she wouldnt feel bad about not killing Macduff because he looks like her father

i also wonder if she was wanting and wishing that she could be king for herself ?

i always get this feminist feeling for from her
and this may be completely off and out of no where
but i wonder if she had postpartum if she had just had a child?
(which i just did a quick google search on and there is a lot out there on this idea. man i love when i have brilliant thought that i find out are completely justified ---note to self. look into this.)

the thing I wanted to point out and that i found interesting
is that if lady macbeth was not as motherly and womanly as she is
and if she was able to be unsexed
that would change much of her interactions

first off she would have probably not encouraged Macbeth to kill Macduff
I think it is a rather motherly thing to be really encouraging
and i find it interesting that she specifically parents him
like why did you bring back the evidence you shouldnt have done that

secondly she would have probably killed Macduff herself
and she wouldnt have been so "loving" or more like convincing to Macbeth
to go and do the deed and get over his feelings

so really her wanting to be "unsexed" would not have been a good thing for the point of the play

the only positive outcome that I could thing of
would be she might not be so guilty as to kill herself
and it is interesting that she really results back to those feelings about her guilty
and its a very motherly and sensitive thing that she does
that also completely goes against her beginning feelings
in the play of being so powerful and manly

so her transformation
she starts out very manly and strong
then she shows hints of her womanness in wanting to change
and  being motherly like to Macbeth
yet being very strong and expecting of him to be a man
and specifically stating that she would do it if he didnt look like her father
---that is such a stab like well i am more manly than you
but then she breaks down to this weak almost little girl type in her guilt

so yes. Lady Macbeth is one of my most favorite characters
in all of literature. her and Penelope from the Odyssey
who is also a very strong woman

maybe that says something about myself?
...on that note im not planning on killing anyone though haha

Teaching Our New Age Brains

I am trying a new thing of posting from the app on my phone so if anything is weird in this post take that for the explanation

first off I feel like i should officially introduce my research paper
it will be a non traditional approach. see more details here
there are a few of us that are looking at things related to education

What I am interested in looking at is the benefits in incorporating different formats for a better  comprehension of Shakespeare and looking with Macbeth specifically

I have talked a lot about the idea of scaffolding teaching. To explain this in more depth --scaffolding is the idea that your pedagogy should build on each other so you.should start with easy ideas and build baby steps on top of the easier ideas with harder ideas to create a complete learning experience

As i was talking to my class peers I was reassured that this is definitely something important because our new age brains require different ways of learning because we are so.distracted. we also talked about how it is important to include multiple modalities or multiple ways for students to learn because not everyone learns just from reading

so that "socially proved" my idea that i want to look into how Shakespeare and Macbeth provide perfect content for our new age brain's requirements I want to look into infographics that Profe Burton suggested, as well as art and character development, actual performance and perhaps other things

The main thing I am worried about is making this more of a research paper rather than a complex lesson plan.... what do you think? Do you think it is not research material or is there a way you see I should tweek it?

Shakespeare's Hamlet: The (not really) Manga Edition

I chose to look at the manga version of Hamlet for my comic book

while i am not a huge comic book reader,
i thought it was really cool.
and i think the art is very well done and beautiful
---i do wish it was color

I was really excited to purchase a copy
just to have in my future classroom

i could see students loving something like this
and perhaps
I think it would be a wonderful first approach
for students to read Shakespeare

we are back to scaffolding
you could have your students read the comic version first
they get used to the story
get used to the language
see it in a format they already like
and see the pictures with the language
and then students could read the actual play
you could even structure this scene by scene
and you could work in the audio book even.

have students read the comic
listen to the audio book
read important scenes alound

this may take twice as long in a classroom
but i think if students were enjoying Shakespeare
and understanding it
then it would be worth it

and they would all think you were the coolest teacher.

i love this idea

and where many teachers may be dreading it,
this makes me so anxious to get out and teach
and teach Shakespeare!

Hamlet: Shakespeare Appreciated. Unabridged. Dramatised. Commentary Options. and teaching students.

As i stated before, I am listening to Hamlet through audio book format
Thus far I began by listening to the commentary version

I thought the intro was interesting
i would have preferred had the intro just been the history
rather than "well Shakespeare's father just died and we just missed Julius Caesar"

I continued to listen to the play with the commentary for the first scene
while i enjoyed what the lady has to say
i find the commentary distracting.
i had a hard time focusing on the plot and what was happening
also an extra three hours is a lot more time to dedicate to listening

perhaps a recap and interesting info blurb at the end
of the scene would be better for my mind

i do have to try really hard to focus on the play
otherwise my mind wanders
i am sure that following along with the text would be helpful

after i have listened to a scene
i like to read a summary on Sparknotes per say
so that i can solidify what i have read.

i think this is how i would like to teach my students Shakespeare:

1. give students a brief overview and background of the text
2. read aloud or listen to one scene at a time --perhaps focus on important scenes by listening and then reading/ acting aloud
3. read summary of the scene
4. discuss important information about the scene
5. repeat with each scene until the end 
6. reread the summary/ overview of the play 
7. discuss important facts of the play 

I think that this would instill a really good understanding of Shakespeare for students
It has the important aspect of scaffolding to harder content
and it also has multiple modalities for students of all learning types

its funny when you you come to a place in your major
when you start to look at everything through your "major eyes"

its okay
i love it.