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This brief slide show begins with the moving, translated words of Beowulf where he states that he would not race ahead of his friend Brecca, because he had promised him he would stay by his side.
This project by Norberto Rivera and Danny Chan is an inspired look at pieces of the text and Esperanza's search for her perfect house. The words move perfectly to what is happening in the text and the authors masterfully combine different sections of the text to bring together a unified, powerful, vision. [There is now a Flash Video version of this Illuminated Text - so if you've had problems hearing the Power Point Version - click on that one instead.]
A lesson as tied to the idea of the "text centered classroom" as anything else you will find at this website. It also owes most of its ideas to Stephen Booth. This group work (designed for 4-5 students) tries to show students in three parts (one done in front of the other) -- exactly why it is not a good idea to paraphrase Shakespeare --and why the actual words (as opposed to the ideas, plots, or themes) of Shakespeare's works are paramount.
A significant reworking of an earlier group work focusing on Chapters 9 & 10 -- the high priest Ork and the death of the Shaper and how it has left us alone. I print this as a two-sided handout: on one side this group work, on the other a short account on the death of Verdi, and how the people of his town lined the streets with straw as he lay dying so that he would not be disturbed. I also have the lyrics to the Simon & Garfunkel song, "So Long Frank Lloyd Wright," and invite the students to make comparisons. A new version of the group work may also be found below.
Though this work is Italian, I usually teach it directly after we study The Canterbury Tales, as Chaucer was influenced so heavily by The Decameron. This is a cooperative exercise designed to be completed by 3-4 students in one class period. The assignment has the students do a close reading of the story while answering fairly directed questions that lead to bigger and bigger (I hope) moments of critical thinking. It also looks at the idea of what happens to Frederigo and his love, and how that theme of not knowing what you want till it's gone (yes, the song by Joanie Mitchell is part of the group work and I play it while the students are working) is repeated throughout literature (as in "The Gift of the Magi).
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