I am going to share a lesson I used when my English IV class read Macbeth this past semester. I know Macbeth is not a novel, but the same ideas could be used for any book that requires a "history day" to set up the reading. I introduced the unit by having them do a WebQuest called "A Day in the Life...A Personal Journey Through the English Renaissance." Here is the link: http://cte.jhu.edu/techacademy/web/2000/hebert/
The finished product of the WebQuest was a diary entry that the students wrote from the perspective of an imaginary character I assigned them (31 year old fabric merchant, 27 year old miller, 17 year old son of a nobleman, 25 year old widow from the village, et cetera). They presented their diary entries to the class, so everyone got an overview of the time period. Some of the students really got into it and collaborated to talk about encounters with other characters their classmates had.
To encourage even more creativity, I could require students to bring a prop (costume, food) on the day they perform the diary entry.
The students filled out the following chart and had to include most of these things in the diary entry:
A day in the life of…
Character’s name
Clothing
Meal or snack
What occupied your time? Describe the feelings, troubles, and triumphs of your day.
Leisure and entertainment
Dialogue
OTHER: home, family life, love, intrigue, hobbies or vices, money, education, religious beliefs, etc.
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1 comment:
This is a lesson that could be easily adapted to any reading. It sounds like a good way to get students back into the novel AND connect themselves to the characters and the issues.
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