Setting's Impact on Theme Foldable for A Midsummer Night's Dream:

This foldable is being used for A Midsummer Night's Dream, but can be adapted for any text that has two locations that contribute to the plot. For example: In Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, it could be adapted for Strawberry vs. the town where the Logan's live. Or for The Outsiders, West Side vs. East Side. In the case of Midsummer's, each setting treats a topic differently, but in the case of a text like The Outsiders, the schism that divides the Greasers and the Socs proves not to be all that wide as Ponyboy and Cherry discover that things are rough all over. This could be good for The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, Invisible Man, etc.

Mini-essay: In the blank space inside the house, explain how the setting influenced the theme of the work. Make sure to include information regarding how the topic was treated and why, but don't forget to add supporting evidence and explain. 

Character Relationship Foldable with Textual Evidence for A Midsummer Night's Dream:

This foldable can easily be adapted for any novel, but fits perfectly with Act 1, scene 1 of Midsummer. So much of a character's motivation is rooted in how he/she feels about other characters, so exploring those relationships - particularly in this play - provides analysis of character motivation and how that fits into character decisions and contributes to the conflict. At the end of the text, refer back to the foldable to see how the relationships evolve. Students could easily select one evolved relationship of their choosing and then explain the evolution in a mini-essay with textual evidence. 

Short answer question: After finishing the text, go back and examine the Character Relationship Foldable. Which relationships remained the same? Which evolved? Select one of the relationships that evolved and in an essay - using textual evidence of course! - explain how the characters originally felt about each other, why their feelings changed, and what those end feelings were. 

Teaching Symbolism the Metacognitive Way

Again, this is breaking it down into cognitive steps. The example below is from Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, but I have used this full activity for The Outsiders, Full Tilt, a variety of picture books dealing with prejudice in small groups for a pre-reading activity before we begin our Holocaust Literature Circles, and it is the same thought process I go through for smaller texts. 

1. Read text all the way through
2. Have students draw objects from the story (they will naturally gravitate toward symbols). 6-10 for a full length novel, 1-5 for short works. And label them.
3. Review definition of symbol - an object/color/action that represents an idea. AKA something that you can see representing something you can't see.
4. Model with one of the images from the text. I model on board and have students write on the back. Say, for example, the pearl-handed pistol from ROTHMC. Students reenter the text and find 3 places where the object is mentioned. We write three sentences about how the characters feel, react, or think about the object based on the three page numbers. EX:
TJ wants the pistol.
RW and Melvin give him the pistol.
The pistol becomes the source of TJ's downfall. 
5.  I use a white erase board to create blanks for where the object is: 
TJ wants ____________.
RW and Melvin give him __________.
___________ becomes the source of TJ's downfall.
Whatever the object symbolizes should be able to be replaced in at least 2 of the 3 sentences. We create a list really quickly of all the things the pistol can symbolize (inevitable, someone says violence.) I start with one I know if wrong, like violence, to show the students it doesn't work. TJ does not want violence. Usually a kid will offer something like "power" or "status", which is what it does symbolize. I like to show students that both of those words would count as correct answers.
TJ wants power.
RW and Melvin give him power.
Power becomes the source of TJ's downfall.
6. Where they have written the object, they also write down the correct answer on the front.
7. After I model one, I always let the kids work in pairs to work for the remainder of the class period. I request the images be colored and look nice, that there be three page numbers, three sentences for each on the back where they show their work, and have what the object is and what it symbolizes on the front. Here are 4 examples:

Teaching Theme the Metacognitive Way

Broken down into the cognitive steps, students can determine theme with the support of modelling and collaboration. This video shows the strategy for introducing the concept (quick soapbox moment: even though kids in 8th grade were exposed WHAT theme is in prior years, I never assume they were taught HOW to figure it out. There are definitely kids in high school who were never taught how to figure it out. In fact, there are a lot of students who have been given the themes by teachers. If we are to prepare our students for STAAR or whatever standardized test is looming over you, they need to be able to determine theme on their own. If we want to foster analytic skills and inferencing skills, we need to ask them to use those skills by forcing them to do the thinking.). After doing this strategy with passing the paper and creating multiple themes, it is simply a matter of reminding students throughout the school year that in order to determine theme you just need to follow these basic steps. 

See what else you can do with the theme created by using research and technology by clicking here!

Introducing Tone Using Art

Since Tone is how the speaker feels about a subject, it can be illustrated by starting off by comparing two images that deal with the same topic. 

What do you think is Thomas Kinkade's tone while painting The Spirit of New York?

1. First, I like making sure students have a tone words list to keep for themselves. I usually make this a blue color and students refer to it throughout the year. 
2. Next, I collect 2-3 different paintings of the same subject. Landscapes are great. Nature landscapes tend to have more similar tones, so taking and urban landscape - like New York - works best.
3. Then I have my students who are artists come up with a list of terms the class can use to discuss a painting and how it is painted:use of light, colors, textures, etc. I display one painting and have them discuss in groups, share out one whole class observation, and then I ask them to determine the best tone word and what supports their answer the most.  

Here are two that are both Time Square in the rain:

See the energy and excitement? Kids won't even notice it is raining and at night until they really analyze it!

Same location, same weather, and exact same time of day but completely different tone!

4. Then we transition in poetry/lyrics about the subject. You don't need to use the work in the entirety. Post a stanza from a poem. Simply search a phrase on http://www.poetryfoundation.org and you can find a poem about most anything. I, personally, love Dar Williams and must plug her song "Hudson" but the others on this list are also great to pair: http://manhattan.about.com/od/best-of-new-york/tp/Best-Songs-About-New-York-City.htm
You can ask students which painting the stanza is most paired with.

Writing workshop suggestion: do this lesson while your students are in midst of revising a narrative. After doing this lesson, have them enter their draft and work on description of setting with an emphasis on writing the imagery and diction that enhance the tone of their work.

TED Talks: perfect research project for any class

My persuasive/expository unit is focused around STEM fields: teaching organization patterns with spider goats (check it out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYlkJyG1Oik ), audio/visual manipulation and logical fallacies with GMO propaganda (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkionqWPc-Q ), and a slew of other skills with Odyssey magazine articles (http://www.odysseymagazine.com/). So when it came time for me to work on the research component, I knew I wanted more than just the research essay, I wanted to use that essay for a purpose. And what better purpose than to convert the essay into a TED Talk!

What is a TED talk?

Ted Talks aren’t just for STEMs. The soft sciences, philanthropy, dietary philosophies, social concerns, all these things are addressed in the various TED and TEDx talks. They have their own YouTube channels and I encourage you to go there, watch the intro vids, and read about what they are. I simply couldn't do justice to the awesomeness that is a TED talk.

TED: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAuUUnT6oDeKwE6v1NGQxug

TEDx: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsT0YIqwnpJCM-mx7-gSA4Q

Why a TED talk?

If you asked students to give a presentation in class, let’s be honest: they have one shot and only one shot. With a TED talk, they are recording their movements and inflections, and then replaying them, and then rerecording as needed. The fact they can actually SEE how they present is the best feedback. Letting a child give a live presentation and then mentioning to her that she was compulsively touching her hair the whole time, it really too late for feedback. Where, if they student saw her own hair touching, she would be more aware of it as she tried her presentation again.

How do I do it?

The research essay, I grade as its own product looking at the usual suspects: organization and ideas, research, citations, conventions, and style. When I ask the students to convert these into TED talks, we examine TED talks and come up with a presentation rubric of visuals, volume, inflection, and non-verbals. Then, students take their essay and truncate it for a presentation. They cut things out and reword things once they discover that what looked okay on a page is not what sounds best aloud (Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Senate testimony that he submitted written was revised for his verbal testimony. We analyze the differences in class before we even begin our TED talks so when it comes time to make the TED talk speech, they kids already know it is not weird to change things up.)  In class, we use iPads with iMovie – although some of my students do go home that weekend and do it on their phones and submit it to me that next Monday. Those kids who have it in early are usually more than willing to play cameraman for their peers. To submit, I can pull the talks right onto my desktop and I put a student in charge of that. Some students submit via You Tube (DON’T DO PRIVATE!) and sending me the link.

I don’t have any samples I can post because they have the students’ faces on the videos, but it was really cool to see how creative students got with the presentation. One doing research on cochlear implants introduced her topic using sign language with captions at the bottom.  

No matter your subject area, TED talks are great platforms of student work!