Classroom Activities
Read, Record, Listen
Reading texts aloud is a valuable practice to support students who are developing their reading comprehension skills. To hear proper pronunciation and tone can help students not only build their comprehension of content, but for ELLs, it can also help with English language development. Throughout this unit, students will hear teachers read texts, other students read text, as well as reading with partners and on their own. At times students will record each other using smart phones or computers with microphones and listen to their recorded voices as they hear their pronunciation develop. In addition a collection of recordings of the texts used in class will be available to students to listen to as they are reading along. These recordings will be made by school staff members.
Sociogram of Romeo and Juliet
Working in groups, students will create a sociogram of the characters in Romeo and Juliet by mapping on large paper the relationships in between the individual characters. Through this discussion students will engage in conversations that transfer information about each character as well as context for the relationships they have with each other. Students will then create a smaller version of this graphic in their sketchbooks so that they can refer back to find out who characters are and how they are connected to each other.
Comparing Texts
Spark Notes, the publisher of the No Fear graphic novel Romeo and Juliet, has a section of its website dedicated to comparing Shakespeare’s original writing with the adapted version. When students gain a familiarity with the graphic novel, they can compare the texts side by side to identify similarities and differences in the words, as well identify words that appear commonly in the texts. This could also be a tiered activity for students who are ready for more challenging texts.
Circular Mandala
This meaningmaking activity from Early and Marshall, mentioned earlier, can be used multiple times throughout the unit to help students identify and synthesize characters, plot, and identify metaphors. Working in groups to create mandalas, students will engage in listening to and speaking English. Explaining what mandalas are and modeling how the can be deconstructed to create the mandala should guide this activity
Deconstructing Advertisements
Using magazine advertisements, students will examine both words and images as they extract and identify the metaphor used to persuade a consumer. This activity could be done in groups or individually; however, students should have an opportunity to sketch and write about their understanding in their sketchbooks and discuss with partners or in small groups.
Metaphors in Native Language
Students will identify metaphors used in their native language then translate them into English. After they will create visual representations of treanslated metaphors in their sketchbooks. Students will then share their work with a student whose native language is different than their own. As an extension, students could take metaphors in English and translate them into their home language to help further their understanding.
Collect Metaphors
This out-of-class activity asks students to tap into their interests (sports, music, etc.) and encourages them to observe an activity or place of interest to identify metaphors specific to it. For example, many of my students love soccer; in observing their coach during practice, does he or she use any metaphors to help convey instructions? Or in viewing a broadcasted soccer game, students could listen for metaphors used by the sports commentators. Students will record their observations in their sketchbooks and share them in class.
Metaphors Comparison Charts
Students will use a Google search to gather metaphors based on one of two opposite themes. For example, metaphors about night or day could yield a collection of metaphors that have some similarities and some clear differences. After students have listed metaphors, they will deconstruct the meaning of the metaphor, translating if needed before creating an illustration of the metaphor to share with the class.
Metaphor Lists
As a class, students will conduct an online search for metaphors on that use a particular theme or word. For example, there are many metaphors that reference bread in American culture: to “bread and butter,” “break bread (with),” and “breadwinner,” each metaphor uses bread to convey something different. Students will seek out metaphors within a focus area, and then deconstruct the meaning of the metaphor, translating if needed before creating an illustration of the metaphor to share with the class.
Identifying Visual Metaphors
This activity focuses on comparing scenes from the No Fear graphic novel and the film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. Students will read a selected passage, then view the movie, and after review the text again to identify how a metaphor that is writing can look visually. With each interaction with the text, a discussion of metaphorical elements should take place in small groups and then in the context of a whole-class share out.
Deconstructing Text: Creating Meaning and Searching for Metaphors
Students will receive enlarged photocopies of text from the No Fear graphic novel of Romeo and Juliet and work with a partner first to identify the metaphor used and second to cut up the passage to rearrange it to convey a different meaning. Discussing how they made their decisions, students will present their reconstructed text to each other.
Visualize Metaphors
Students will explore the Dire Straits’ song Romeo and Juliet first by reading it in groups, then in pairs, and finally listening to the original recording. After students take a verse of the song and working with a partner, they will identify the metaphor used in the verse and what the metaphor is conveying. Finally students will create a visual representation of the metaphor. An extension of this activity could ask students to create their visual representation on a postcard and then decide which character in the play they would send it to and why. After, students would write a message on the back of the postcard explaining why they chose to send this visual metaphor to the character they chose.
Paper Cutting
Practice
Using scissors, X-Acto knives, and cutting mats, students will practice cutting out basic shapes both geometric and organic in preparation for creating visual metaphors. Students can use one color of paper or several different colors. After shapes are cut, students can arrange shapes and glue into their sketchbooks. Then students will reflect on the process given written prompts that guide them to identify the shapes they created and the process they took to create those shapes. A teacher demonstration or YouTube video to explain cutting techniques and safety would be beneficial.
Symbols
Following their initial cutting practice, students will deepen their cutting skills as they identify imagery from Romeo and Juliet to create a paper cut out of. Then students will glue their cut symbol into their sketchbook and reflect on the process given written prompts that guide them to identify the shapes they have created and the process they took to create those shapes. It may be helpful first to examine the work of Elsa Mora using VTS to engage students in a dialog that may lead to a familiarity with paper cut objects, symbols in paper cut art, and techniques used.
Character Silhouettes
Students will utilize their knowledge of metaphors in Romeo and Juliet and their experience cutting symbols to examine a character from the play to create a paper cut silhouette that combines the physical attributes of the character in addition to the metaphorical ones they identify. Students will begin by creating sketches and reacquainting themselves with the metaphors they identified through earlier exercises. It may be helpful for the teacher to model this process through a demonstration.
Self-Portrait Silhouettes
This project begins with the writing prompt, “when I am at my best I am…” to think of a metaphor that describes them. Students are encouraged to reflect on their experiences and goals they to generate ideas. During thinking and sketching time, students will craft a metaphor that they will then share with a partner to exchange ideas about how to illustrate this metaphor. After, students will create a drawing in their sketchbook that is a metaphor of who they are when they are at their best. It may be helpful for a teacher to model this through a demonstration.
Using the sketches and metaphors generated during the “I am Metaphor” activity, students will create a cut paper silhouette of themselves that is reflective of the metaphor they crafted to the prompt, “When I am at my best I am…” This small silhouette will be glued into students’ sketchbooks and reflected upon either in small groups or with partners using a discussion prompt. Students will then take their feedback and reflections to redesign their paper cut out and prepare to make a large (18” x 24”) self-portrait silhouette that reflects their metaphor.
Comments: