My Students

"But, for my own part, it was Greek to me!" -- Julius Caesar I love this quote, first because it coins a phrase that we still use, but second because it describes being a teacher sometimes: even when we think we are being clear, our students don't always understand without some translation help!

My students are full of joy, energy, curiosity, and a desire to change the world.

Our school community, which services nearly 800 low-income, inner-city minority students, feels the effects of our students' daily struggles with issues such as truancy, violence, food insecurity, and prejudice. Despite all of the terrible things that my students often experience, they are wonderful kids, with bright personalities, important questions, and brilliant ideas. My students love facing a challenge head-on. They are eager to share their ideas and opinions and often must be reigned in during discussions because they have so many valid points to share. My students care about each other, support each other, and want the best for each other. They also have strong desires to reach their fullest potentials so that they can become successful and give back to their communities.

My Project

Unfortunately, many of my students are reading well below grade level. This is a really tragic side-effect of many circumstances, but regardless of why it is the case, it is a reality that my students and I must work to fix every single day. My students work relentlessly to make up the lost ground that has thus far been denied to them, but they often need extra help (called "scaffolding" in the education world) to reach those high expectations that I have for them. Scaffolding is a time-honored and effective instruction strategy to help students achieve at the same levels as their more advanced peers. I will use these "Shakespeare Made Easy" texts for my ninth and tenth grade students as a scaffolding tool to make Shakespeare's classic works more easily accessible for my students. Using the original text, plus the "modern translation" on the side, my students will better be able to grasp the intricacies of his language to understand the plot of the works.

We are reading Shakespeare's dramas as a part of a thematic unit about "Systems and Relationships." It is my hope that examining these pivotal dramas will help my students examine systems and relationships as they apply not only to the characters in the dramas, but in real life.

It is my hope that having a thorough foundation in Shakespeare in 9th and 10th grade will make my students college, career, and life ready!