Benjamin Karl
Benjamin Karl
English Language Arts
Embedded Files
Explaining and Modeling Content
Explaining and Modeling Content
While studying William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, we engaged in several parsing exercises that looked at different strategies for decoding the play’s language and structure. In a previous exercise, we’d looked at Hamlet’s first soliloquy “Oh, that this too too solid flesh would melt…” (I.i). Specifically we analyzed the iambic pentameter to determine significant words in the speech, and used syntax analysis to tease out the meaning of more poetically complex sentences.
The exercise in the attached video focusses on the analysis of typographic and context clues to derive meaning quickly without needing to look up every unknown word or passage and picks up with the question that the first soliloquy leaves off with: “To be or not to be?” (III.i). Taken together, these two exercises were critical for an upcoming paper wherein the students would analyze three different performances of the “To be or not to be” speech, comparing and contrasting the merits of each.
I began with having students simply circle each instance of punctuation in the passage. Though some students reported that the mark-up made the document difficult to read, others indicated that by identifying the punctuation, they were better able to parse out individual ideas as well as the twists and turns within a given idea. They also felt more confident identifying logical pauses and just knowing where to breath when we next read it out loud.
I knew that with a better sense of where individual ideas begin and end that the students would have a more specific context within which to look for words or phrases that might be confusing or unfamiliar. They cold then use that context to try to extrapolate justified meaning. Finally, I would ask them to either confirm that meaning or come to a new understanding by researching the troublesome term and again reading the passage aloud.
Throughout the presentation, I modeled exactly what I wanted the students to do at every stage. I started very simply by placing my copy of the speech onscreen via the document camera. I told the students to begin by circling any and all punctuation, and I called out the items that I was circling as I did so; “commas, periods, semi-colons…” Just as I asked them to, I also later circled words or phrases that I thought were challenging, again calling them out as I did so, saying “fardels…what’s a fardel? Contumely…” When it came time to hypothesize definitions, I did the same, both on the document camera and speaking aloud: “contumely…sounds like costume…”
At this point, I asked the students to volunteer those words or phrases that they had found challenging. Indeed fardels was one of them. I modeled my own process for decoding the word, going to back to the text with "'who would fardels bear?’ What’s bear?” I asked them. Once they were able to define bear, we were able to work backwards to the idea that fardels referenced a heavy load of some kind. We went through a similar exercise with "there's the rub" and the idea of something rubbing up against somethign else and catching. I even used my hands in the air to show a boat rubbing up against a dock and "catching," hence the common expression "there's the catch!"
We continued this way through a few more challenging words or terms, including “mortal coil.” We made analogies to coils being the workings of machines and our living bodies being machines. I also drew a coil on the document camera. Once the students saw the visual representation, they made the to leap to spiraling into death as it were. One student pointed out that the expression is “shuffled off” and wondered how one shuffles off a coil. There happened to be a coiled ceramic disc on the desk; I picked it up to show a figure circling it and then exiting into oblivion at which points the students let out an audible “oh!”
Finally, after having worked our way through several terms and the remainder being given as homework, it was time to watch the first of three filmed interpretations of the scene.
Time-indexed Annotions for Video Excerpt
Time-indexed Annotions for Video Excerpt
00:00 Wait time—waiting for students to become quiet
00:23 Goal for the next couple of days; explore to be or not to be
00:38 Reading the passage aloud
01:22 Detailing the assignment: Circle every bit of punctuation that you see in this document
01:49 Modeling
02:02 Answering student questions: “What is punctuation?”
03:14 Next instruction—read it aloud to the person next to you
06:01 “Has everybody had a chance to read?” Next instruction (I hope that the punctuation helped with pauses). Now, circle the words that you don’t understand
06:43 Modeling
07:38 On the second page is a place for you to write what you think these words mean
08:40 Answering student questions “Can we put phrases on their too?”
09:19 Additional detail: “Based on context, what do you think it means?”
09:44 Modeling — One of them that I’m thinking about…how to use context clues
10:46 If you’ve already done that, you can use your phones or books to look up the word and compare the results with your predictions.
11:10 Modeling —
13:00 Engaging with student results: What’s a word that you came up with?
13:27 A student giggles defining “consummation” in To be or not to be
15:53 These are all viable interpretations
16:10 Another word — Mortal Coil
17:16 Visual for mortal coil — exploring
17:51 Physical object picked up for visual reference
18:22 These are viable interpretations if you can justify them
18:52 There’s the rub
19:31 Tyler seems to be suggesting that “there’s the rub” is an idiom, but then he agrees with contradictory explanations from other students. Another student offers an explanation from his text rather than context, but also seems confused. By this point, I’ve bought some time and I’m fairly sure that Tyler was actually going for idiom or colloquialism which may be valid interpretations, but I want
21:11 Modeling and working through the figurative language of the soliloquy to parse out, through context, what “the rub” is.
23:25 Next steps—Compare and contrast
Google Sites
Report abuse