The drama unit I teach my English II Honors involves reading Antigone and Taming of the Shrew, two classic texts very entrenched in the time period in which they were written. The culture of both of these eras is fascinating and also very well reflected in the texts themselves. There is so much historical information I could cover here, but it would mean a lot of lecturing on my part. Instead, I break the history down into 24 topics (12 about Ancient Greece and 12 about the Elizabethan era). The students work in partners or alone (their choice) with one of these 24 topics, and they must do the research, decide what’s most interesting/relevant, and present it to the class.
Last year, I had them do this project using Microsoft PowerPoint. Well, let me tell you that the students already know PowerPoint backwards and forwards. They have seen plenty of PowerPoints, and they have created plenty of PowerPoints. This just isn’t anything new for them.
With this in mind (inspired by this grad class’s discussions), this year, they had to think of a different way to present their information for this particular assignment. I showed them some options including Prezi, and it was up to them to figure out what they wanted to use and how it could best be used so long as they covered their important information and had MLA citations. I’m not going to lie: some of their technical frustrations seemed epic. However, I truly believe they grew through this assignment on more levels than my students last year. Working through the new technology forced them to work on those ever-important media literacy skills while working on research and presentation skills.
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