Zachary+W's+Action+Portfolio

@zlwhite Judith Darling, Middle Creek High School, Apex

Action Portfolio Preface

Prep for Class 2: 8/28/2013

Prep for Class 3: 9/4/13

Prep for Class 4: 9/11/13

Prep for Class 5: 9/18/13

Prep for Class 6: 9/25/13

Prep for Class 7: 10/9/13 Mini-Lesson Draft 10/9/13



Prep for Class 9: 10/16/13

Prep for Class 10: 10/23/13

Prep for class 12 - 11/6/13

The first Shakespeare play I read was “Romeo and Juliet” in ninth grade. I didn’t find it particularly compelling and our teacher assigned us to memorize and recite a speech from class and all I can remember is at least two girls crying out of fear and having to turn around and face the board and reciting a soliloquy from Juliet. I don’t remember doing anything else with the text other than watch the silly movie version from the 1960s which drove the class wild because there was nudity in the film. In tenth grade english, we read “Julius Caesar” and I found it to be very compelling and interesting. We listened to the first act on tape in class and followed along in our books, then I think we read the rest out loud and volunteers read for roles for each act. In twelfth grade we read MacBeth and Hamlet which we quite good, but we didn’t do much of it in class because my teacher was finishing her dissertation and was not really engaged. So, I didn’t hate Shakespeare in high school but found some of the language difficult, but fascinating because in general, I like a challenge. If something is easy to do it probably isn’t that worthwhile.

In college, I started to read more on my own again and found myself drawn back to Shakespeare. The gateway text for me was “Richard III” and it helped me see how dark and powerful Shakespeare’s characterization and language use was. I began to read more play and reread the ones I read in high school and as of now, my two favorites are “King Lear” and “Othello” because they both struck me on a personal level and engaged me as an emotional experience as well as an intellectual challenge and pleasure. I would like to introduce those texts to my students, but since I had experiences with the text on my own, it might not be the same for my students who have to read it together in class. I might want to do “Richard III” in class because, even though now it is not one of my favorites, I think it is accessible and strong enough to introduce students to Shakespeare and the power dynamics at play in the text are still relevant.