Introduction: Multimedia Teaching Resource

Hi! This blog has been set up as part of a MTeach (Secondary) English assignment. The focus of this blog is to create a multimedia resource that can be used to teach Stage 6 (Year 12) English with a focus on literature that will be tested in the HSC.

To begin with, I explain the new HSC syllabus and provide a rationale for my chosen focus content (Module A for Advanced English students) and give a little introduction about the kind of students I might expect would be in my classroom.

Setting the Scene: New NSW Syllabus 2019 for HSC
It is a rather challenging time to be a pre-service high school English teacher as the new HSC syllabus comes into effect. I spent the better part of a week scouring through the new English Syllabus and trying to wrap my head around the HSC 2019-2023 modules and prescribed texts. The new syllabus for Stage 6 has been developed by the newly named NSW Educational Standards Authority, NESA (the old Board of Studies).

According to NESA, all students must study the Common Module and as such, is a mandatory unit for all students doing the English HSC, be it students who are doing the English EAL/D, Advanced or Standard exam. Students will have to study texts from different mediums.





Senior English Texts


The new English syllabus shows that there will be a very strong focus on writing skills. According to an interview with Louise Ward, NESA Inspector English and Literacy, "This focus on writing builds on the recently launched English K-10 syllabus. In all senior English courses, students will continue to have the opportunity to develop their writing skills and their knowledge to use language accurately and appropriately for a range of purposes and audiences."

Thus, in creating a multimedia resource that is suited for Y12 in preparation for the HSC, I will have to focus on giving my students opportunities to experience texts which give insight into social, gender and cultural perspectives.

Preparing for a diverse student population
As I've chosen to put together resources based on a module that only advanced students are taking, I foresee that the class makeup would include students who are gifted and talented, students from different ethnic backgrounds and likely also have students who are diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome or are ADD. I also take into account that there may be students who might have a physical disability such as vision or hearing impairment. I will also cater to dyslexic students. Not forgetting, these students will all come with different styles of learning (auditory, visual, kinaesthetic). My teaching approach would suit these different learning styles and needs.

I draw from an article from Roell (2019), who succinctly lists the type of learners and the best ways they learn:

Visual

1. Strengths of the visual learner: 
   1. Instinctively follows directions
   2. Can easily visualize objects
   3. Has a great sense of balance and alignment
   4. Is an excellent organizer
2. Best ways to learn: 
1. Studying notes on overhead slides, whiteboards, Smartboards, PowerPoint presentations, etc.
2. Reading diagrams and handouts
3. Following a distributed study guide
4. Reading from a textbook
5. Studying alone

 

Auditory

1. Strengths of the auditory learner:
   1. Understanding subtle changes in tone in a person's voice
   2. Writing responses to lectures
   3. Oral exams
   4. Story-telling
   5. Solving difficult problems
   6. Working in groups
2. Best ways to learn:
   1. Participating vocally in class
   2. Making recordings of class notes and listening to them
   3. Reading assignments out loud
   4. Studying with a partner or group

 Kinaesthetic

1. Strengths of the kinaesthetic learner:
   1. Great hand-eye coordination
   2. Quick reception
   3. Excellent experimenters
   4. Good at sports, art, and drama
   5. High levels of energy
2. Best ways to learn:
   1. Conducting experiments 
   2. Acting out a play
   3. Studying while standing or moving
   4. Doodling during lectures
   5. Studying while performing an athletic activity like bouncing a ball or shooting hoops

References:
Roell, Kelly. (2019, August 23). Understanding Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic Learning Styles. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/three-different-learning-styles-3212040

Focus Texts: The Tempest & Hag Seed

I have decided to build my assignment for this Multimedia Resource task on Module A: Textual Conversations for Y12 students taking Advanced English.

 ‘In literature courses, we are sometimes so busy trying to “cover all the material” or “expose” our students to “great literature” that we fail to take the time to focus in, develop connections between works and contexts, and explore the relevance of what we read to the present’ (Carey-Webb, 2001, p. 117). This quote aptly sums up the goals for Module A.

I have unpacked the syllabus and jotted down some of the key ideas underpinning Module A:

Module A: Textual Conversations
This is a comparative study of texts and their contexts. They study two texts from different time periods that have a direct connection.

Students must consider:
- differences and commonalities
- the texts written in their respective time periods
- the different objectives of their authors/composers

For the purpose of this assignment, this blog will be a curation and rationale of several multimodal resources to complement the teaching of Shakespearean text, The Tempest, Shakespeare's final play about a magician and his daughter stranded on a desert island. A companion prose fiction that will accompany the study of The Tempest is Margaret Attwood's Hag-Seed, a modern retelling of the former text.

The range of resources that this blog will offer will focus on language structures and features, Shakespearean text structures, as well as grammar and conventions. There will be talk about the story of the English language and how it has evolved over thousands and thousands of years. Let's face it: It IS important that Advanced students engage with Shakespeare's language to gain a complete understanding of how the text is constructed.

That said, apart from just learning The Tempest from its text, the resources found here would (hopefully) bring the book to live for my students and hopefully, would make learning more interactive and that they will take learning as more than just passing the HSC with a good grade. This means generating interest in literary reading by "connecting this experience with real-life concerns and then creating ways to turn that interest into ‘a fuller response’" (Carey-Webb, 2001, p. 2).

These multimedia resources and lesson ideas were inspired and drawn from many experienced English teachers that also reassured me that packing Shakespeare AND this companion text within 10 weeks is going to be OK! I hope this would give other new teachers (like myself) more ideas on planning out of the box lessons.

At the end of the day, my goal is for these students to engage with the text by exploring social issues and whatever we read be developed through "stimulating anecdotes and discussion that bring a particular issue to life" (Faust, 2002, p. 383).

References: 

 Faust, M. (2002). ‘Getting it right’: pragmatic approaches to reading and teaching English literature. Journal of curriculum studies. 35(3). 371-386. DOI: 10.1080/0022027032000050025

Webb, A. (2001). Literature and lives : A response-based, cultural studies approach to teaching English.

Introduction to Shakespeare

* Before the start of this session, all students would've been set up with their Google classroom username and GoConqr accounts. GoConqur is an online note-taking site for students and teachers alike to create blog posts, record and organise ideas (such as a note-page for different characters or themes), share/ discuss and create quizzes. It allows the teachers to follow the students and easily track their progress as well. Using technology is one way of creating student engagement as well as catering to a variety of learner styles. Students, having their personal devices, can readily personalize it to maximize its use within the classroom. As a teacher, I won't have to worry too much about magnifying an image (for the vision impaired) or turning up the volume or changing the pitch (for the hearing impaired) for all the resources can be accessed via Google classroom.  

 

 

 

This short 2-minute video is an excellent introduction to Shakespeare before teaching The Tempest for Module A: Textual Conversations because it gets students thinking about the right questions! Prior to reading The Tempest, I'd WANT my students to know and discover why we're still reading Shakespeare - someone who lived hundreds of years ago! What is it about Shakespeare's plays that have endured through the centuries?

Faust declares the "continued relevance of Shakespeare's work at the start of a new century" (2002, p. 383).

Following which, this next short video is one that can be a springboard to Shakespeare's life and the subsequent parts of the lesson.

A brief overview of William Shakespeare
   - born in April 1564
   - Tudor times (this is important subsequently when reading a brief history about English and Shakespeare's everlasting effect on the English language.
   -Left school at 15 due to father's financial problems
   -Married to Anne Hathaway (3 children)
   - Left Stratford after marriage and not much known in the interim (mysterious)
   - Resurfaced in London as an actor and playwright.
   - Very successful from the start and soon became wealthy.

The Globe Theatre
The Lord Chamberlain's Men moved the company in 1597.



Outdoor Shot

Indoor Shot

Short activity: Look for other pictures of the Globe Theatre on the Internet and note these observations in GoConqr.

Discussions about students' observations can vary:
- it was an outdoor theatre
- it was circular
- the stage was a simple platform thrust into the middle of an open space
- audience standing the closest tot he stage paid the least
- little use of technology.
- voices had to be projected, music had to be played live

Setting the context: The Elizabethan period
Students should explore the period that Shakespeare was born and era that he wrote his plays. He wrote during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. This was a glorious time in English history when England conquered new parts of the world and emerged as a commercial power in the west.

Mini research project:  Investigative report about William Shakespeare and the period in which he lived. Students are given free-reign on how they would like to present this project. A visual learner could make a video clip, a kinaesthetic learner could craft or make something from that era, an auditory learner might like to discover what kind of music or difference in language/accents during that period.

These questions may serve as a guide.
1) What were some of the religious beliefs and cultural practices during the Elizabethan period? Compare then and now.

2) What are some of the legends and rumours about Shakespeare's life?

3) What is so powerful about his plays?

The above project is a good foundation to getting students to understand the context of Shakespeare's time. After all, Module A is about exploring the influence that context has on the text.

"Crafty readers try to ‘make something’ of their encounters with literary texts. They use what they know about the context in which the words were written as well as what they know about the present context in which they are reading (and this includes what they know about the craft of writing) to produce experiences that make a difference in their lives." (Faust, 2002, p. 377)

References:
 Faust, M. (2002). ‘Getting it right’: pragmatic approaches to reading and teaching English literature. Journal of curriculum studies. 35(3). 371-386. DOI: 10.1080/0022027032000050025

Understanding Shakespearean Language

Analysis of the story in the context it was written in is an important element in order for students to really engage with and excel in Module A. Students who read Shakespeare for the first time are often intimidated by the strange "language".  Thus, in order to gain a complete understanding of how the text is constructed, it is important that Advanced students engage with Shakespeare's language.

One session will be dedicated to just that! With a little perseverance, practice and FUN, students will soon find Shakespearean language not only a little easier to understand, but ALSO beautiful and hard to forget!

Students will discover that he wrote in verse rather than in prose. That means they sound more rhyming and poetic than conversational. Also, Shakespeare was an important figure in contributing to the English language! He wrote during the Elizabethan era and thus, modern English speakers like ourselves will not be familiar with the kind of English spoken during those times.



Shakespeare had an everlasting effect on the English language - He introduced in excess of 1,700 of his own newly constructed words into his works. These words would permanently enter into the English vocabulary and appear in normal conversation today!

That said, here's a little fun fact: The Shakespearean plays we watch and read today are spoken and written in early modern English. And, much of it - it's pronunciation, puns and rhymes are actually lost and can't be picked up by us because the sounds and pronunciation used by Shakespeare during the Elizabethan period has been lost.

Spoken English during the Elizabethan period may not be readily understood in modern times. 

The short forms:
To start, students should familiarize themselves with commonly used Shakespearean words. Shakespeare loved to contract words. Instead of "it is", he wrote 'tis. Most times, this was meant to make the plays he wrote sound more harmonious. These are a few more examples:

't - it
'tis - it is
'twas - it was
o'er - over
ne'er - never
e'er - ever
lov'd - loved

Commonly used words:

Here is a list of commonly used Shakespearean words which I found from a textbook, Mining for Meaning (Choo & Yeo, 2013, pp. 203-204).

Teachers can get students to do a translation exercise with these examples:
(i) 'tis a nice day
(ii) Get thee hence
(iii) Whither did he go?
(iv) Get thee here anon!
(v) The lady doth protest too much
(vi) Forsooth I swear by my name

After which, time permitting, they could try translating a longer verse. Perhaps a short extract from Romeo and Juliet.

Activity:
Just to add to student engagement and get ALL students involved and be a part of the learning process, all students must pretend to get into character. They will have to act and speak as if they were living in the Elizabethan period. Thus, just as how EAL/D students are required to use English in-class while they're learning the language, the class will be forced to use only Shakespearean language - and perhaps even speak in rhymes! Of course, I will have visuals all around the classroom to help them along. I reckon this small activity would be full of laughs and would cater to my students with various learning needs. This is also a good activity into reading The Tempest (read next post) together as a class.

As part of a collaborative effort to learn The Tempest and Hag-Seed, I'd get my students, day by day, to add to the class' bulletin board and decoration. 

Shakespearean Language: Quotes and phrases poster

Relevance in contemporary society: Shakespeare and Human Nature

These are important question that students should aim to discover, and dig deeper still upon reading of The Tempest. What is it about Shakespeare's plays that have made still endures today? Why are his dramas, comedies and tragedies still performed over and over again in countries all over the world, not just in English but in many other languages as well?



Is Shakespeare's work is still relevant in contemporary society today?

An idea for linking Shakespeare and the relevance to society today can be done through this hands-on activity.

1) Short summaries of some of Shakespeare's famous works are placed around the classroom. Check out Mya Gosling's homepage of these really short and succinct comic summaries. Her love for Shakespeare's works is made fun through these great and easy-to-read illustrations.

2) Each student will be given an image of two contemporary movies. They'll need to quickly google and read about them and see match the movie that has obvious links to a Shakespearean work.

 The above activity is just something to allow students to discover how Shakespeare was able to discern perceptive things about human nature that was way beyond most of his contemporaries and why his works continue to appeal to us even till today.

Eg. Disney films High School Musical and The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride and even the hugely popular book Twilight by Stephanie Meyer are adaptations of Romeo and Juliet.  In High School Musical and The Lion King 2, both have rival cliques and warring prides and two star crossed lovers. In Twilight, the young Bella finds forbidden love with a vampire.

Here are 3 points to make to students about human nature that Shakespeare understood:
A) Humans are complex
Shakespeare understood that humans are neither entirely good nor evil. Many main characters in his plays are complex.

B) Humans change over time
Shakespeare allowed circumstances and situations to result in character change over time. Majority of Shakespeare's characters mature when they learn from their mistakes.

C) Humans, no matter how good they may seem, have flaws
Most of the tragic heroes in his plays are characters of prestige. Kings, high ranking officials. They all have flaws that lead to tragic consequences. However, they are all part and parcel of their journey to self-discovery. There is an element of hope and a lesson to be learnt from his plays.

Whole Class Reading of The Tempest

Having some background in Shakespearean language previously, it is now time to tackle The Tempest.

I got this idea of having the whole class read The Tempest together from Luke Bartolo, an English teacher who is currently using both these texts for his Advanced English students. His reason really resonated with me. He said,

"One of the challenges of tackling Shakespeare in the English classroom is finding the time to have your students read it. Assigning the text as a reading will work for some students but, owing to the nature of drama itself as a narrative genre best experienced live, this isn't going to work for the majority of the class." (Bartolo, 2019)

Very creatively, he the best approach he found for doing Shakespeare with Year 12 is to have the play read in one big go. They met as a class first thing in the morning with some breakfast, assigned roles, and read the text all the way through with a 20 minute intermission break.



Making a BIG morning of reading The Tempest together as a class.



Bartolo (2019)mentions that even Advanced English students will have a varied response to the idea of reading Shakespeare. He continues, "some level of support therefore needs to be supplied in helping to translate the language while they read". He created a new edition of The Tempest that would include annotations in support of our context. (Click on the image below to download text)



This is an unabridged presentation of The Tempest with a series of annotations alongside the original text. 

The Tempest Map

For visual learners, I've found this map on google images and is an excellent visual guide for students!

Watch It! Plot it! Quiz It! - Skimming the Surface

As the saying goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words". Surely watching the play or the movie would be worth a million? Seeing the play performed has to be one of the best ways to help students in understanding the story and making it memorable for them as well.

This post is dedicated to videos and links to useful resources to help check student understanding about the storyline of The Tempest. There are short youtube video clips about the summary of the story, a summary of the plot by BBC that's crafted really well for use in the classroom and a few Kahoot! quiz links that are engaging and at the same time help reinforce the storyline for our students.

Watch it!
Here are a couple of short, succinct videos having read the book together as a class. These short videos can be quick re-caps and make clear the storyline in case a student or two get lost in the sea of Shakespearean language (pun intended).

 

 

Time permitting (though I really doubt it), we can show The Tempest. Many plays have been filmed and put on youtube (that said, the quality isn't superb). We could choose snippets from the film.

 



DVD film of The Tempest

 

Plot it!

 

The Tempest Plot Summary by BBC Bitesize

 

There are many useful websites and multimedia resources that can be found on the web. BBC is one such resource I have come to find useful as a teacher - be it in a primary or secondary classroom. And fortunately, they happen to have a detailed plot summary that is accompanied by modern English text, videos, quizzes and revision on The Tempest! This really well-done site takes students step by step through the play, helping them to identify key plot points.

 

Quiz it!

There are at least twenty Tempest quizzes on Kahoot! As a teacher, we could even make one for our students and asking specific questions within the quizzes that may relate to the assignment that we are also about to give them just to check the students' understanding of both the story and our instructions.



Using ahoot! is a more engaging way of comprehension.



Kahoot! is a very useful quiz website that does quizzes in an engaging way. It allows for students to log on to Kahoot.it using their own laptops or handheld devices, and partake in the quiz together as a class. It collates and results and sends the grades to teacher in an excel sheet report as well.

 

I've scrolled through the numerous quizzes on The Tempest on the kahoot site and have narrowed it down to this particular quiz that I thought is great for the students who have just completed reading the book. Instead of doing a comprehension worksheet, this is definitely a more engaging way for students.

 

The Tempest Quiz on Kahoot!- Check student comprehension



Hag-Seed: Textual Conversations with The Tempest

Margaret Atwood's Hag-Seed is a wonderfully layered and highly accessible text that both remakes and comments on Shakespeare's The Tempest.

I love the this image. The book, situated literally "behind bars", giving hint as to its setting, and also mirroring the sea and its waves, which reimagines and collides with the story of The Tempest.

Once again, I draw the wonderful Luke Bartolo who has painstakingly produced an excellent resource for Year 12 students. His resource works as both a series of annotations and a study guide for students who are looking to draw connections between Hag-Seed and The Tempest.

Luke Bartolo's Hag-Seed guide

He states how to make use of the resource:

The first column covers quotes and examples from Hag-Seed. 

The second column identifies techniques used by Atwood in relation to the example, allowing for students to build metalanguage and/or analyse authorial purpose and effective construction of language.

The third column directs the reader to make comparisons or recognise the significance of the example in relation to the module. 

 

He has also included some questions for students outlined in bold; about a couple per page in the third column. Students should aim to work their way through this study guide's questions throughout the remainder of the school year.

 

 

Compare Author's Context: Shakespeare & Atwood - Student Work

The Guardian: An article about Atwood's rewrite of The Tempest


In Module A: Textual Conversations, students must understand precisely what makes the relationship between the two chosen interconnected texts so unique.

 

What the syllabus is trying to get Advanced English students to consider in this module are:

• What changes in Hag-Seed and what stays the same. Attwood deliberately makes the choice to change. Why did she do that?
• Changes in the setting: Mystical island versus medium-security prison. What was Atwood's purpose for reinventing the story?

• The effect of social and historical context on the composers’ respective text.
• How and why texts have such an extended effect on humanity

This article is an excellent read. Published in The Guardian and written my Atwood herself, she describes Hag-Seed's context in 2013 Canada, the characters and she has woven The Tempest into her story. There are even elements of modern day characteristics (digital hacker) but still encompasses complex characteristics of human nature which does not differentiate which era/time period one lives in. From this article, we are able to grasp and dig a little deeper into Hag-Seed's modern reinterpretation of the underlying themes of The Tempest.

 

 

Just earlier in the year (March 2019), some students did a multimodal presentation.

 

The video above is a great model done by students for students. Following the close reading of both texts, multimedia clips and articles on both authors and their context, students now need to show how and why Atwood has appropriated The Tempest.  In particular, this form of multimodal assessment and presentation by students allow them to critically evaluate the personal, social, cultural and historical contexts of both texts and explore how both composers are influenced by another text’s concepts and values.

Hag-Seed: Magaret Attwood and Prison Reform

After re-reading The Tempest several times, Atwood thought that it would be an impossible task:

"What was the modern-day equivalent of a magician marooned on an island for 12 years with a now adolescent daughter? You couldn’t write that straight. […] And what about the flying air spirit? And the Caliban figure?  

Calm, calm, I told myself. I read the play again, this time backwards. The last three words Prospero says are “Set me free.” But free from what? In what has he been imprisoned?  

I started counting up the prisons and imprisonments in the book. There are a lot of them. In fact, every one of the characters is constrained at some point in the play. This was suggestive. […] So I decided to set my novel in a prison."  

(Atwood, 2016 in The Guardian)

I highly recommend that teachers, (or if you like, getting your students to read it as a supplementary reading after reading Hag-seed) read this article about how Magaret Attwood came to the idea in her re-tell of The Tempest. (Click on the image to download the article).

The article mentions the tough balancing act of  keeping a recognizable Shakespeare play while bringing it into the twenty-first century as a work of fiction.  It gives us insight into the specific challenges that Attwood faced when turning The Tempest into a narrative work.



Hag-Seed: A retelling of The Tempest


 

After watching this interview with Margaret Attwood, I learnt about the prisoner who having read The Tempest, fell in love with Shakespeare and when he got out of prison, started teaching other inmates. He found it such a transformative experience he's made a career of teaching Shakespeare in prisons.

 

This video is very useful for getting students to think beyond and more deeply about the context and the author's motivation. What a brilliant woman she is. Her belief in reforms as opposed to just punishment. Using Shakespeare to make inmates more empathetic is just brilliant.  

 

 

I'm amazed at the myriad of themes and topics that can be discussed with Advanced English students - their questions and interests to set directions for where our discussion and reading would take us.  Great lesson on conventions and communication for positive participation in society. What an example of a "sidetrip" or useful tangent where we can explore such issues!

 References:
Attwood, M. (2016). “A Perfect Storm: Margaret Atwood on Rewriting The Tempest.” The Guardian, September 24, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/24/margaret-atwoodrewriting-shakespeare-tempest-hagseed.