Lessons for the Classroom on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

I was very unhappy and disappointed to have a bad cold at the beginning of our unit on Twelfth Night - so I did the next best thing.  I created a group reading sheet for each of the first acts so that students, in small groups (5-7) could recreate what happens in our class readings.  In some ways, it works even better as it forces students to be much more "on." 

 I have rearranged the sequence (and reedited the readings) for the Marxist day of Literary Criticism - and in 2012 rearranged it back to Day 5.  Much of what the students read for New Historicism and for Feminism also holds true for Marxism and so they will be given instructions to look over their readings for those days using a "Marxist Lens" that they will gain from the first page of the newly attached background reading on Marxist interpretations of Shakespeare.  The group work and solo work also lays the foundation for watching the movie, Exit Through the Gift Shop.

 I have revised this Group/Solo work - focusing on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, rather than The Tempest.  I have also removed Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant" from their reading and their consideration and will instead use that text as a kind of culminating piece of work for them to use what they have learned about Literary Criticism from the beginning.  There are Group, Solo, and questions for tomorrow here - all centered on the idea of Deconstruction.  They would have read the introductory/reference materials before coming in the class to work on this.