Further rambling

Okay. So I've touched on standards ELARL1 and ELARL2. By the way, ELA stands for English Language Arts, which is the Official Course Name and all, and RL is for "Reading and Literature," which is the... I dunno, the category (they have a jargony name for it but I can't ever keep 'em straight) and then 1 is the specific standard/objective/thingy within that category.

ELA RL 3 has to do with... oh, relating a work to its historical or literary environment. The idea I saw behind this one is that art is not created in a vacuum; a creator's experiences and environment influence the work. Therefore, What can we deduce about Shakespeare based on Romeo and Juliet? What kind of person would create this story? We may need to do some research on this, because it's easy to say, "oh, he fell in love and la la la," but I know that there were a buncha earlier versions of R&J and what this tells us was that Shakespeare, like all good writers, READ. It's going to be tricky, though, because I'd like to guide the students to seeing this or to finding it out from another source, rather than just giving it to them in notes.

ELA RL 4 is about the students showing that they understand literary techniques (such as those from RL 1) by creating works in which they use the techniques correctly and effectively. This is SO broad that I'm sure I could work it in; at the same time, because it's so broad it hasn't led me in any particular direction (yet).

ELA RL 5 is vocabulary; understanding word parts, finding meaning from context, etc. This one'll be tougher because there are about a bajillion words in R&J that are going to be new for the students. So far I'm planning on giving a vocab quiz every other Friday (I liked Ms Q's idea about having them answer a prompt using the vocab words correctly - at least I think it was Ms Q's idea!!) and giving extra homework points for correctly using vocab on the HW writing prompts.

I'm getting a little bit lightheaded, so I think it's time for bed. We watched the Anthony Andrews/Jane Seymour/Ian McKellan version of The Scarlet Pimpernel. Fun fun!