Today, I sat reading our assignment for this afternoon's class, and I saw myself and my students on these pages as author Penny Kittle discussed the power of rereading texts in her new book Book Love: Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent Readers in chapter seven "Responding to Reading." "We know that rereading a text is central to deepening understanding. Rereading is when we begin to think differently and see differently."
Yes! This we are doing in my English 12 class (teaching this level for the first time in many years), as the other teacher and I deliberately chose to have our students view (and some read along) before analyzing the text. For 'tis true, their lack of comprehension of the text would have been a dire detriment to their understanding of even the the plot, much less the lessons that either Shakespeare wanted us to learn or the lessons we learn based on our own background experiences.
This teaching method also illustrates the growth in my own learning process and teaching style, for once upon a time in a land not so far down the road, I would have assigned Act 1, administered a quiz, and then attempted to lead a discussion on primarily the plot and maybe a connection or two, but, no, nothing like the class I had today.
For a look into that class, please visit this lesson plan. Then, if interested, you might visit here for a brief look into the next few day's thematic topics that I am confident will develop as we continue to "reread" this text.
This time, as we analyze Macbeth, my students and I are attempting to gain access to Shakespeare's brain instead, as compared to how I used to teach this drama, of my attempting to just pull out what little a few of my students had comprehended in their reading of the play.
Try this out sometime. Read for pleasure or, in the case of complex texts, even for understanding. Then, read on an analytic level. The result? You will have read two completely different texts.
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