I was motivated to have my students use the visual to represent their thoughts and analysis of the literature that we are reading in class. Yesterday, my students finished reading Othello, which for most of them, was their first experience reading Shakespeare. Throughout the reading of this, they learned visually (by reading the text) as well as in the auditory (by listening to it), but I wanted to take a "stab" (pun intended - lots of stabbings in Othello) at having them learn and teach each other visually. This was the task:
Focus on the characters of Desdemona, Othello, and Emilia. For each, you will tackle two tasks:
1. Find three quotes to define each character. One quote must be from the beginning, one from the middle, and one from the end of the play. Discuss what you notice about these characters throughout the course of the play with your partner.
2. Create a visual representation of your findings.
The students will find that the characters of Desdemona and Othello devolve into the stereotypical "other" of the time period (a woman and a Moor). They will also see that Emilia and Desdemona virtually switch roles.
The students will present their work tomorrow, and while a few groups chose to create skits, most created work on a page. Some created comics, some one slide pictures, and some decided to create a graph. The graph groups related their findings to their science class in which they often graph things that change over time. One group created a line graph and one a bar graph. I am looking forward to seeing the final products tomorrow and discussing their explanations. Hopefully I will have a few that I can add to the blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment