Samples of My Lessons & Materials
Students will...
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Identify explicit and implicit textual information including main ideas and author’s purpose.
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Identify and analyze how an author's use of language appeals to the senses, creates imagery, and suggests mood.
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Analyze themes, structures, and elements of myths, traditional narratives, and classical and contemporary literature.
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Analyze works of literature for what they suggest about the historical period and cultural contexts in which they were written.
Sample | 01
Wuthering Heights
This is one of my many novel/film units that I teach. In this multiple-day unit, students will learn about the Victorian time period, the Victorians' cultural contexts, and the author's biography; also, students will participate in a readers' theater play, they will make contemporary lyrical connections to the story, read the preface as well as the first and final chapters of the novel, watch the PBS version of the masterpiece, complete a literary analysis exercise, and participate in differentiated activities. Students will discuss key motifs in Gothic novels, including the uncanny, the sublime, and the supernatural. Teaching this story is a great opportunity to incorporate Romantic Era philosophy, as well as the series of events that inspired the Romantic Movement.
Students will...
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Understand how style and content of spoken language varies in different contexts and influences the listener’s understanding.
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Participate actively and effectively in one-on-one oral communication situations.
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Analyze and compare the use of language in literary works from a variety of world cultures.
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Analyze themes, structures, and elements of myths, traditional narratives, and classical and contemporary literature.
Sample | 02
Homer's Iliad
In this unit, students connect their prior knowledge about Greek mythology to Homer's Iliad. Students will learn about the Bronze Age, the Trojans, and the Achaeans. Students will analyze a documentary, read a readers' theater play, read portions of the Iliad, connect their learning to scenes from a movie, participate in differentiated exercises, complete a unit project, and end the unit with a film analysis of the Odyssey. Students will recognize the positive character traits of heroes as depicted in music, art, and literature. They will also discuss multi-media representations of heroes as well as the cultural differences of heroism. This unit is a precursor to the next unit of study and helps to introduce the Dark Ages and Beowulf as the first English literary text. The Iliad encourages students to learn more about the warrior mentality and the notion of "survival of the fittest."
Students will...
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Explore a research topic. Gather relevant sources. Evaluate the validity and reliability of sources. Synthesize and organize information effectively. Design and present an effective product. Use source material ethically.
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Interpret a speaker’s message; identify the position taken and the evidence in support of that position.
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Identify, analyze, and evaluate similarities and differences in how multiple texts present information, argue a position, or relate a theme.
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Generate ideas and gather information relevant to the topic and purpose, keeping careful records of outside sources.
Sample | 03
Macbeth
This unit provides students the opportunity to delve into the Renaissance and to further analyze the Elizabethan Era. Students will complete a mini-research project that connects Macbeth to modern day despots in order to demonstrate and to extend their learning about ambition and power, and the consequences that can follow if abused. Students will also participate in an interactive, multiple-day classroom dramatization of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Students will write a literary analysis discussing the Aristotelian elements of the tragic hero, motifs and images, and conflict. This lesson follows my units about The Wars of the Roses and The Tudor Dynasty—and precedes our next unit of study: the Restoration Age and Milton's Paradise Lost.