Carrie Lee's Portfolio
INTASC* Standard 8:
Instructional Strategies
SUMMARY OF CONTENTS
TYPE OF CONENT
- Shakespeare Shakeup Lesson Plan
- Shakespeare Shakeup Lesson Commentary
- Shakespeare Lesson Appendix
- Station based activities with assessments
- APA References
- Capstone Project Literature Review
- Capstone Presentation for Defenses
- Update Date: March 16, 2022
- Language: English
“The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage learners to develop deep understanding of content areas and their connections, and to build skills to apply knowledge in meaningful ways,” (CCSO, 2013)
The instructional strategies InTASC standard is about utilizing a variety of effective strategies in considering of the students, to engage them in the exploration of the content and assist them to apply their knowledge and make real connections (CCSO, 2013). This InTASC standard is about tailoring the instruction to the types of learners, and their interests. It is about knowing the content well enough to come from different approaches to deliver the content. How many possibilities there are to meaningfully use this skill or learning target? The challenge to isolated the skill in the measuring process
One method that demonstrates a variety of instructional strategies is station-based progressive lesson activity. I prefer flexible grouping for these lessons, allowing students to go at their own pace.
Students can repeat the loop after they finish all the station assessment tasks, and the final at their desk task, if they wish.
Flexible grouping is an instructional strategy that allows for differentiation in consideration of those with unique learning challenges, and while also encouraging the peer groups to naturally form as the students move at different paces. “Ideally, flexible grouping creates an environment where students are more collaborative, empathetic, and more willing to take risks – with the content and with one another. This sets the stage for their development as people, not just as students” (Hockett, 2017).
Students sit so much in a day, interactive physical engagement is a great way to change up the learning experience. Both interactive engagement and the flexible grouping instructional strategies suit many categories of learners, offering inclusivity in a way that truly benefits students universally (Jacobs, et. al., 2002).
By orchestrating an introduction in this way I am also targeting creative skill areas of fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration with standards based activities, which is a creative instructional strategy that invites a deeper connection with the content and a sense of exploration that provides effective delivery to students in a way that they can make meaning from it (Drapeau, 2014).
Another way of demonstrating a range of instructional strategies is in a project-based learning unit, or in offering a range of options for students to demonstrate their mastery or understanding of a concept like was done in the creative response unit ideas list. The key is to offer true choice. In the case of the linked list, the students were given the text, and instruction to analyze and respond to the symbolism of the piece, students then choose which instances of symbolism spoke to them before explaining their reasoning.
All of these approaches offers opportunities for students to tailor their own learning experience to work for them, while also giving them a variety of opportunities to authentically interact with content, peers, and their worlds (Winterbottom, 2019).
When I first approached teaching Shakespeare to my honors class, the school year was almost over but we had only been in person for a few weeks thanks to the pandemic of 2020. Spring 2021 I dove head first into my prior research into teaching Shakespeare. The words of advice that stuck with me most in all my reading of strategies were these: “remember, as you select introductory and preview activities, you want to do more than prepare students for your unit; you want to sell them on it. Students should be somewhere between curious and chomping at the bit by the time you actually allow them to read this play” (Heilmer, 2009).
It was this advice that I took to heart and took on the task of structuring an introduction to Shakespeare that is that had something for every student. Strategies like flexible grouping to allow for authentic interactions. Where the progressive nature of the stations encourages movement and engages students physically and mentally.
Artifact one, station one uses all these strategies, plus appeals to the immature side in creating an activity inspired by Sadlier School, where the student creates a Shakespearean insult Madlibs style, then translates it to modern English using the provided dictionary (William Sadlier, Inc., 2018). Artifact one, station two uses strategies combining the students’ music knowledge in the GIMKIT game of “Who said it – To Bey or Not to Bey.” The students try to match the artist to the lyric in a digital game (GimKit is a tool to create, share, and play quiz games to assess student learning, similar to Kahoot).
The same strategy, with a different application, is applied in artifact two, station 3 where the students are matching the original song to Didriksen’s PopSonnets the same song in Shakespearean format and language (2015). The next station contains Disney posters that illicit nostalgia from the students as they read the story parallels between the films and Shakespeare’s plays. The final station is found in artifact three, and takes place at the students’ desks where they are translating some of the iconic lines turned to modern English. Also found in artifact three is the culminating activity for the introduction to Shakespeare, which takes place the following day. The class time is spent reading & analyzing Shakespeare’s Sonnet 141 and viewing Kat’s version from the film 10 Things I Hate About You (Junger & Lazar, 1999). After which, the students write their own derivative version of the sonnet using modern english and the iambic pentameter formatting. This invites them to express their own creativity through originality while simultaneously demonstrating their understanding of the sonnet format.
All these activities incorporate creative instructional strategies that entertain students while also engaging them with memorable learning experiences that remove the stigma from Shakespeare and familiarizes them with Elizabethan English.
