The things I most want my students to understand after this course or year are:

1.Students will understand how to speak for communication.

2.Students will understand how to read for meaning.

3.Students will understand writing as a process of discovering their ideas

3a. Students will understand writing as a process of discovering how to communicate their ideas?

4.Students will understand how genre shapes understanding.

5.Students will understand how political, social, and personal contexts inform American literature.

Generative Topics

What is worth learning? What is it about this unit that is exciting to you and your students?

This unit will look at speaking in the context of the dramatic performance of Shakespeare's play Macbeth.This unit gets at the heart of bringing words to life for the speaker and for his or her audience. The students will learn that "speaking" is not necessarily "communication" and that communicating involves layering different types of language: body language, voice intonations, pronunciation, and physical position in a space. The students will learn that speaking to communicate is a process of uncovering meaning for the speaker and then, focusing that meaning in a presentation the audience can understand.

Understanding Goals

What will students come to understand?

1. Students will understand how genre influences understanding and how to read different genres, such as drama, for meaning.

2. Students will understand how to orally interpret a literary genre.

3. Students will understand how communication is a layering of language types.

4. Students will understand how to utilize external resources such as video to develop their own learning?

Performances of Understanding

What will students do to build and demonstrate their understanding?

1. Students will build toward understanding how to read drama for meaning by collaboratively paraphrasing an assigned scene of Macbeth (UG 1).

2. Students will build toward understanding how to read a drama for meaning by blocking their scene, applying class notes on stage composition, picturization, and other dramatic concepts (UG 1, UG 2).

3. Students will build toward understanding how performance choices influence meaning by discussing and drafting a "performance choice essay", or written justification for why they blocked their scene as they did.

3a. Performance choice essay must identify the theme of the scene and discuss how the performance illustrates or brings out theme (UG 1, UG 2, UG 3).

4. Students will build toward understanding how oral communication involves a layering of language types oriented toward an audience by performing their scene using dramatic and speech techniques introduced in class (UG 1, UG 2, UG 3).

5. Students will build toward understanding how drama is a genre of literature different from other genres by applying dramatic devices not found in other genres: stage directing, expressionistic elements, costumes, etc (UG 1).

6. Students will build toward understanding how oral interpretation is a process of creating meaning by analyzing their performances on videotape and with their instructor to improve their approach to communicating the scene (UG 2, UG 3, UG 4).

7. Students will build toward understanding how to utilize external resources to develop their conceptions by critiquing a professional movie version of Macbeth according to the criteria they have been applying to their own performances (UG 4).

Ongoing Assessment

How can you tell if your students understand what they have explored?

Students will get feedback on their performances by….

The criteria for each performance will be…

PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT

PRACTICE WEEK 1
1a. Students get feedback on their initial paraphrasing by discussing the assigned scene with students in their small group.
(UP1)
1b. The criteria the students use to paraphrase their scene are as follows:
Does my paraphrased vocabularly make sense in the context of who is saying it and what is happening?

Does my paraphrase maintain the continuity of the scene?

Is my placement of grammar accurate?

2. Students get written feedback from their instructor on the understandability of their paraphrase according to the prescribed criteria (see 1b).

3. Students act out their scene in their group using the script as a guide and get feedback from peers and instructor during this preliminary blocking session. (UP2, UP4)

4. In their small acting group, Students assess their blocking using classnotes which ask the group to assess their blocking according to the following criteria: (UP2, UP 4)

a. Characters are visible to the audience or justifiably obscured (justification should be in "performance choice essay").

b. Major and minor characters are distinguished.

c. Entrances and exits are planned.

d. Any props used are essential to the scene.

e. Blocking adheres closely to stage directions in text or justifiably changed.

f. Blocked positions contribute to this overall theme.

g. Blocking demonstrates techniques of composition: strong or weak positions contribute to scene goals.

6. Using the criteria listed above, students assess and revise during each run-through of their scene. (UP2, UP3, UP4)

7. Students will assess their understanding by individually writing a "performance choice essay" that justifies their blocking of the scene according to the criteria prescribed in 5a-g. (UP3)

ATTENTION TO LANGUAGE
WEEK 2

8.. Each student gets feedback on his or her oral communication by ongoing peer and instructor review based on the following checklist (class handout):(UP4, UP5)

a. "Suit the action to the word": body language contributes to understandability of word(s)

b. Words are clearly pronounced.

c. Voice volume contributes to understandability.

d. Voice tone gives appropriate emphasis and/or emotion.

e. Voice demonstrates that speaker understands what he or she is saying.

f. Words are directed to the appropriate person, object, audience, or heavenly being.

g. Facial expression contributes to understandability and is consistent with scene events.

h. Movement in space was appropriate and contributed.

i. Emotion enhanced understandability.

9. Students assess their own understanding by moving from reading the text to "acting" the text from memory with words and body language ("moving off book"). (UP4, UP5)

10. The instructor knows if the students understand what they are saying by observing multiple "run-throughs" per group and watching actors improve their speaking according to the prescribed criteria. (UP4, UP5, UP6)

11. Instructor assesses students' understanding by observing kids' capacity to critique and advise their peers. ((UP4, UP5, UP6)

USING TECHNOLOGY TO CRITIQUE UNDERSTANDING
WEEK 3
11. Before their dress rehearsal, students assess their performances by analyzing the movie version of their scene and comparing their interpretation to the scene during class and subsequent, small group discussions.

12. Students get feedback from their instructor on their drafted performance choice essays (handed in prior to day 5).

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: ESSAY AND DRESS REHEARSAL
DAY 6

13. The instructor assesses the student's understanding by watching the group performance in dress rehearsal and providing a grade prediction based on explicit, public criteria.

14. Students assess their understanding by watching their peers perform each scene and giving an informal evaluation based on explicit, public criteria.

15. Students get feedback on their UP by listening to the comments of their instructor and peers.

16. The instructor knows if the students understand the nuances of developing understanding by watching them improve their scene according to feedback in this last pre-performance day.

17. Each student assesses his or her understanding of drama as genre by revising the "performance choice essay" according to feedback and writing a final version for a grade.

THE UNDERSTANDING FINALE
WEEK 3-4

18. Instructor assesses each student's understanding by evaluating the "performance choice essay" handed in on performance day.

19. The instructor assesses each student's understanding of language layering by evaluating the actor's delivery according to prescribed criteria and delivering a grade.

20. The instructor assesses the group's understanding of drama as genre by evaluating the group's use of dramatic techniques in the scene.

21. Students critique each other by writing evaluations of peer groups on performance day. They write to the performers, explaining what worked in the scene, what themes were conveyed, and what could be improved and/or was confusing.

22. Students self assess their performances by critiquing the videotaped record.

23. Students assess their understanding of how to utilize resources and technologies such as video in developing their understanding by discussing performance process in this unit during subsequent class discussion and in end-of-year course evaluations.

Resources for Adapting Unit to Other Dramas

Crucible/Miller Web Resources

http://www.chimacum.wednet.edu/mitch/crucible.html

http://www.ogram.org/17thc/crucible.shtml

http://kennedy-center.org/honors/1984/miller.html

New Technologies

How do new technologies enhance Teaching for Understanding?

Video technologies facilitated the ongoing assessment in the Macbeth Unit. Recording performances of understanding meant that students and teacher could review and assess whether the performances demonstrated understanding goals:
1. If the goal was reading for meaning, did the students' performance of text illustrate that they understood what they had read in their script?
2. If the goal was writing for meaning, did the essays students' read aloud for the video camera demonstrate their ability to think through ideas in writing and communicate ideas effectively in written form.

Videotaping allowed critiquing and fine-tuning performances to develop understanding over time.

Make curriculum more generative?

Technology helped make the curriculum more "generative" because videotaping, editing, and broadcasting performances for the local cable station kept students interested and ignited their passions for what they were doing with drama. Technology made curriculum generative because it emphasized the connection between curriculum goals and life goals, namely effective communication by "bringing text to life", the power of an individual's voice, reading and writing for meaning, and collaboration.

Make goals more explicit and central?

Technology helped make goals clearer. As students critiqued recorded performances and decided for themselves what helped them understand another person's performance, they could then apply this new insight to refining their own performance in rehearsal.

As outlined in the CCDT, recording technology helped support performances of understanding and strengthen ongoing assessment by instructor and students.

HELLO! PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU LEAVE HERE...

I'd like to know what you thought of my unit. Please give me your feedback or "ongoing assessment" posting a note to the Message Board below OR by entering any of the Forums in the Meeting Hall OR by looking me up in the Meeting Hall.

I'd love to hear what you liked? what needs work?

Thanks a bunch!

Christine Greenhow
English Teacher