Rationale
The analysis I’ve provided above clearly doesn’t exhaust the possible pieces of evidence that can be interpreted to make judgments about the characters in Julius Caesar. There are probably solid disagreements with my interpretations that could be supported. The focus, however, should not be on what answer I provide, but that students will have been guided through a “meta-interpretation” of the play. Not only are they making judgments about the characters, but thinking about why they make those judgments given their own beliefs. They will consider how their beliefs might act as biases governing their interpretations and learn how to actively seek out evidence that they might be missing owing to preconception.
Seeking out more complex ways of interpreting character -- and interpreting the people around them -- is an invaluable skill to give high school students. The students I teach - 9th and 10th graders at Allderdice High School in Pittsburgh -- ask themselves the same question every day. Which of their peers are the good guys -- who should they trust, who do they count as friends? And as they prepare to enter life beyond high school, they will increasingly have to ask this question about the people they meet; as they decide who to vote for, who to marry; as they consider which friends to keep in their lives and which to grow apart from.
In my five years of teaching, I’ve had mixed experiences teaching Shakespeare. This year in particular, I had both extremes. In my honors classes, after finishing A Midsummer Night’s Dream, my classes practically begged to read Macbeth next. They couldn’t get enough; though they still struggled with the language, they seemed so engaged in the story that they were willing to take on the challenge. We laughed together at Puck’s antics and argued about whether Lady Macbeth was strong or crazy; they wouldn’t let me take a day off from reading.
The other extreme happened during a reading of Romeo and Juliet with my mainstream class. Though there were some high points, we hit rock bottom during 6th period somewhere in Act IV. “Are we reading again today?” -- and not with the same tone as the other class begging for Macbeth. Reading Romeo and Juliet was slow, agonizing, difficult and boring for them. Though there were a few students who loved it, most slogged through just to get the work done and earn a grade.
My mainstream classes are an interesting mix of students. Previously, Allderdice had three “tracks” -- Center for Advanced Studies (CAS) classes that were limited to students who qualified as gifted by the state’s standard, an IQ of 130; Pittsburgh Scholars Program (PSP) for students who were advanced, but not gifted; and mainstream, for students who were not advanced. Three years ago, the “mainstream” track was eliminated and all students not in the CAS program were enrolled in PSP. As a result of this change, the range of ability levels in PSP goes from very advanced students, some of whom may be gifted but not tested or have chosen not to take the advanced English class, all the way to students with IEPs who are included in general education classes.
Engaging students at a range of ability levels creates problems, but part of the struggle lies in the anxiety about finding the “right” answer in what they often see as a jumble of language that barely makes sense to them. After they have endeavored to sort out what the words mean, they are then tasked with making judgments about these characters and hoping that they are “right.” They sift through pages and pages of evidence, often skipping over what they didn’t understand very well or what might have seemed less significant. I believe that, at times, they have an answer in mind and find the most prominent evidence that supports that answer while avoiding a close reading of a wider range of evidence that might complicate their beliefs.
My mainstream classes read Julius Caesar at the end of 10th grade. At that point, I will have taught the same group of students for two years; they will leave me and go to a new teacher for 11th grade. The way that I teach Julius Caesar will be what sends them off -- my last chance to make sure they have the skills they need to move forward and that they enter into 11th grade excited about English class.
After completing this unit, with 11th grade in their sights, I hope that students will have a sense of the complexity of character in the literature that they study, specifically Shakespeare. I hope that approaching the text by ascertaining our own beliefs and then purposefully finding ways to challenge them will not only expand their consideration of what is “good” and “bad,” but will also give them the skills to more carefully analyze the evidence presented to them in a text.
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