Macbeth is going well-- kids do get it and they do like it...!




My Brit Lit kids read, in parts, aloud, the first two acts of Macbeth in under 80 minutes. Not that we are trying to set any sort of speed records, but let's be honest-- this crew has a very spotty foundation for all things English-y due to their having such a (poor? incompetent?) teacher last year. We are having fun! We are reading it at about the rate it should take to put on the play itself! And that's always my goal. I stop occasionally to "decode" what's what, but they are getting it pretty well, even without my glosses. Yes, we've been diving into Shakespeare in preparation for this: sonnets, the "insult day," we saw The Tempest live and watched Henry V (Branagh version)-- but this is their first real foray into reading it aloud, themselves, relatively unaided. I'm super pleased. 

If anyone ever tells you that a/ it's too hard, or b/ it's not relevant, send 'em my way. The play is a commentary on the fact that the insidious poison of obsessive ambition, coupled with unfettered violence, leads to madness and destruction. 

Um. 

Yeah.

And it's definitely not too hard. Yes, it takes a little scaffolding, but what doesn't? For too many years, people have determined (wrongly) that difficult+canonical=pointless. They get it-- don't sell kids short. 

My students are not particularly academically gifted, most do not come from financially comfortable homes, and most of them have jobs, play sports, and have family obligations that kids from more stable homes don't have. But they can do the work. And they can enjoy it, too. 

We just have to forge ahead and treat them like the thinking and able young people that they are. 

Huzzah!

Have a super day, hug your loved ones, and pray for both rain and sanity. We could use a deluge.

C

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