Tag: Hamlet

…which means I need a new reference.

Hmm… How about the players? That should work. I coached the troop; they performed the altered play; I saw Claudius’s reaction: now what?

Please consider this a status up-date–It’s not yet ready for prime time.

I had twenty prompts ready, each a modern-day equivalent of a major plot point in Hamlet. I also flipped all of the genders, as I teach in an all-girls school.  This also allowed me to have some fun with names: Rosie and Gina; Aunt Claudette and Garth (sorry Garth Nichols!); Harriet… (The modern-day aspect aligns well with Michelle Ray’s fun retelling, Falling for Hamlet.)

After each prompt, I had asked the girls to tweet their responses.

In short, it was a blast. Absolutely hilarious. I think hashtagging is a new art form. (I’ll share the best shortly.)

I had students tell me it was the most fun they ever had in class. Other students, who missed class for a play rehearsal, could re-live the lesson for homework! And one said it was the most fun she ever had doing “homework”.

Here’s what I can conclude:

• Students were completely engaged–I have the tweets to prove it!
• It took them a little to open up, but then they quickly played off one another and the tweets began to flow fast and furious.
• When given the option, students will be profane… (more on this later).
• When I did a character map/plot exercise with them next period, they were ready–made it go a lot more smoothly.

The engagement and fun were worth the effort (no regrets; the plot/character reinforcement was valuable).

Stay tuned! I’m about to encounter Claudius in the chapel…

More to come!

 

 

Okay, that was too obvious, wasn’t it? How about…

Whether ’tis nobler in class to suffer
The drool and snoring of our bored students,
Or to plunge deep into the Twitterverse,
And, by embracing it–(do I dare dream?)–
Find (Oh!) engagement! learning, through hash tag,
An @, and long’d-for collaboration?

Right… That was worse. Please excuse the terrible blank verse. (Ooops.)

I decided to not make like “the Dane”: Instead, I twittered away invested almost an entire period getting my ENG4U students armed for twitter. Why? you might ask.

It started with a great lesson plan idea from Jason Lilly that has students tweet their reactions to a series of modern-day occurrences that mirror the plot of Hamlet. I did it in class last year by having my students pretend they were on twitter, and I liked the results. I had intended to do it in class yesterday, but, the night before, while I watched the streamed version of the latest Cohort 21 hangout, I asked, Why have them pretend? Why, indeed.

I had all my students make a new (or perhaps dedicated would be better) twitter account using their school emails. (Most of them who use twitter have their accounts tied to their personal emails.) I figured if the class were only following each other and me, and, importantly, if they “protected” their tweets under the privacy settings, everything would be as controlled as possible. I required that their user names by easily identifiable, and I made a new account, too.

A couple of things to keep in mind if you try this.

1. If you have too many people trying to make new accounts from the same IP address, twitter gets paranoid, so a few students may need to wait a bit before getting accounts.
2. twitter only lets you have one account per email, so if one of your colleagues has tried this before, your students may need to create another email account.
3. My students found my not-for-class account in about 1.5 seconds, so thankfully it’s all fairly benign.
4. The expert students love helping rookies set up their accounts.

After a lot of following, requesting, pending, and accepting, we were all set up. I thought a google.doc may help here, but most of them just found each other without it.

Before I knew it, they were tweeting Hamlet resources and (awesomely!) suggesting witty hashtags for differed scenarios: #ThatIsTheQuestion when you’re lost or curious; #HamLetUp when punning or for related witticisms, etc.

So… To tweet, or not to tweet? I’ll let you know. Lilly’s LP is on tap next clas, without the pretending.

Stay tuned.