Chris Bang

BRMS TWS
Section III: Standards, Goals & Objectives
Unit Guide:
Shakespearean Insults:
The unit begins with an introductory Prezi of Shakespeare (created by Leanne Porzycki), the
globe theatre, the works and adaptations of Shakespeares plays, as well as an introduction to
Shakespearean English. This activity lasts one day, and culminates with a worksheet that asks
students to construct Shakespearean Insults. I allowed the students to direct their insults at me.
I did this to engage students in the lesson. The lesson addresses CCSS 8.2.3.a.i; this reading
standard assesses how students encounter unknown words. This was an opportunity for students
to use their technology (i.e. phones) that they typically have with them to find definitions for
words that were used during the 1600s. I also wanted to see if students could use their
technology responsibly; most of the times students are not using their technology for academic
purposes. I think I could have presented my learning goals and objectives more clearly with the
unit, but I was able to engage students in the unit and I had a good start to my unit. The lesson
presents knowledge about the context and language of Shakespeare. I state throughout the Prezi,
that although Shakespearean Language is complicated, the storys he tells are timeless plots.
What I will state over and over in this unit guide is that I had a hard time achieving my goals
because my expectations and objectives were not clear or too lenient. That is to say, I could have
put in a grade for participation, and responding to the activity, but I didnt. If students wrote
their responses on a paper I collected them, and then stored them for no later use. My goal was
to get students engaged; I did that by letting them direct their insults at me. My objective was to
get the lesson to align with CCSS 8.2.3.a.i, and by having them use their phones, to look up
words they were shown a way to encounter words, yet it is hard to demonstrate proficiency in
that sense.

Character Descriptions, Character Map & Popsicle Sticks:

The goal for this activity is to have students comprehend the intricate relationships between the
characters of Shakespeares play Twelfth Night before we begin the play. Since this is an eighth
grade class, and Shakespearean language can be challenging, I relied on the No Fear
Shakespeare Edition of the play. At the beginning of this edition, there are character list, and
descriptions. My objective is to have the students read these descriptions and have them look up
the unknown wordsI am also circulating the room to offer definitions to students that arent
understanding the descriptions. Students are able to prove their proficiency by filling out the
character map activity. The character map asks questions that can be answered by the character
descriptions. I went around and checked to make sure. My expectation was that my students
keep these and use them on an activity where they illustrated characters on popsicle sticks and
demonstrate the relationship in a chart. Before students began on the popsicle stick project, they
took a quiz on the characters. The quiz assessed that students realized which character was who,
and how the characters were related to one another.
The goal for the popsicle stick activity is that students chose two attributes of the eight major
characters (Viola, Orsino, Olivia, Malvolio, Fool, Sir Toby Belch, Maria, Sir Andrew) and
displays them on popsicles sticks. Afterwards, students adhere their popsicle sticks onto paper
and use placement to represent visually the characters intimate and intricate relationships. The
objectives were hard to convey, because none of the descriptions gave indication about what the
characters look like. Student struggled to realize that I wanted them to represent the things that
make character function in the plot, as well as interact with the other characters. This activity
had students applying the understanding of the character descriptions and character maps into a
more comprehensive text to think of the play. Students demonstrate their proficiency by giving
earnest effort into the illustrations, and the chart.
Both of these activities align with CCSS 2.1.a.i: which assesses how well students Cite the
textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as
inferences drawn from the text. Students use the description and the straight forward map to
understand the basic relationships. They analyze the information to find the pertinent details
about the character and their then illustrate it. On the popsicle stick chart, students could
basically imitate the map that asked questions from the descriptions, but they had to draw what
the characters relationship was to each other.

Acting of the Play & Scene Questions:

My goal for acting out the play was to engage students into the material. I had a collection of
props and costumes that students could wear, and they performed the No Fear Shakespeare
version of the play at the front of the room. This activity works in combination with the Scene
Questions, which I will describe separately. My goal was not easily met, because I set up
expectations that were too lenient. I did not require the students to participate in the reading of
the plays. This prove as an obstacle in reaching my goal, but also in completing the task.
Because I did not have students required to read up in front of the room I was often struggling to
assign enough reading parts for the scene. My reasoning for not requiring students to read the
parts is that I did not want students to feel anxious about the play. I regret this, because this
would have been a great way for students to demonstrate their reading skills and public speaking
skills. But through performing the play, students are better able to understand the progression of
the plot. I supplemented our performances by asking questions periodically, in order to confirm
major plot points. Students were demonstrating their comprehension while they were reading the
play. Although I did not have a grade attached to the performance of the play, the performance
allowed us to complete the scene questions.
The scene questions (created by Leanne Porzycki) supplement the acting of the play, in order to
convey the plot, conflict, and the development of the theme. The development of the theme is
crucial to the culminating project for this assignment. My goal with the scene questions was to
make sure students were understanding the progression of the play so that I could ask question
that required analysis throughout our progression of the performance. This again was met with
much opposition because the scene question did not have a grade attached to it; however, it was
easier to keep students accountable with completing this text for two reasons. The first reason is
that I told them there would be a quiz over the acts of the play, and that they could use these on
the quizzes. The second reason was that I broke the scene questions into chunks, and had
students work in groups in order to fill out their assigned chunk. After the small groups had they
answers, they shared out to the rest of the class. In this way, students were keeping each other
accountable, and I was able to assess whether or not students were getting the right answers to
the questions.
The questions were basic and did not go into higher levels of inquiry, but they were good texts to
make sure that students were understanding how the characters developed the plot, so that I
could convey the way that these characters impacted the theme. With these activities I must
ensure that students understand the plot so that the unit can align with CCSS 2.1.a.iii: Analyze
how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects
of a character, or provoke a decision. It is through daily observation and modification that I
assess this standard throughout the progression of the unit, though there are not many other
standards applicable to the performance of the play and the completion of the scene questions
this one is addressed heavily.

Act Quizzes:
For the acts one and two of the play I had quizzes that assessed whether or not students were able
to synthesize the information of the play in order to answer questions that led them to analyze the
development of the plot and theme. The goal of the quizzes was to hold students accountable for
completing the scene questions as much as it was about offer students credit for understanding
the play. I only did the first two quizzes, because I did not want to bog down students with too
many assessments, while still giving them an opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of
the play. The questions on the quiz were multiple choice and they were allowed to use their
scene questions on the quiz. Those had been diligent about their scene questions did well on the
quizzes. I imagined that if I gave quizzes, for the first two acts, then the students would
automatically assume that there would be a quiz after each act, and fill out the scene questions
appropriately.
As I have stated earlier, the quizzes and the scene questions are a way to scaffold for the higher
level questions I ask during performances in order to have students synthesize and analyze the
information of the story to answer questions about how the theme is developed throughout the
text. Though it is difficult for me to align the quizzes with any one particular CCSS standard, it
is fair to say that the quizzes demonstrate how students are understanding and applying their
knowledge of the play. Furthermore, this is the most standardized form of student assessment;
that is, a multiple choice test.

Final Project:
The goal of the final project is to see how well students can answer the overarching question:
how does the author use character to develop theme. And this inquiry aligns directly with CCSS
2.2.a.ii; as well as, the pretest (a question on the district assessment) that I use to discern the
effectiveness of this project as a post-assessment. The final focuses on CCSS 2.2.a.ii, but it
incorporates skills of composition and collaboration. My expectations is that students determine
a theme that applies to the story; afterwards, students create two products that demonstrate the
explaining of the overarching question. In response to one of these products, students write an
artist statement.
In order for students to demonstrate their understanding it is important that there is no confusion
by the overarching question. The first activity allows students to generate various themes that
apply to the play, which are developed through the characters. By ensuring that students had a
pool of themes that they could explore, many students were more comfortable moving on to the
product generation stage of the project. To reduce anxiety about the next step of the project
students were given planners to record what types of products they were going to make, and how
they were going to use their class time to complete these products. This also establishes
accountability, so the students that failed to produce anything for the project had no excuse.
The next stage in the project is for the students to create their visual or creative writing products.
The goal of these products is to explore the theme they brainstormed in the previous step and
demonstrate how the author developed that theme in some particular way. Here again, my
expectation were not so clear and so the objective of the products became somewhat unclear. I
think students found the goal of the products elusive, even if they understood what it was the
question was asking. That said the products required that the students synthesize all the
information that they compiled about the play and evaluate the best way to present this
information depending on what genre of product that they chose. Students demonstrate their
proficiency in accordance with a rubric, the criteria of which focus on creativity, craftsmanship,
and application to the overarching question. The way in which these products were assessed
might have been affected by the general climate of the school at the time of grading (we had a
student pass away around the time I graded the assignments) but as long as students had
portrayed their understanding of how character affected any theme they were able to come up
with for the play they received a proficient grade. In order to complete the project most students
needed to use technology, so this was another opportunity for me to see how responsibly the
students were using their electronic devices.
The artist statement was a written explanation of how one of the creative products, which the
student made in the previous step, answered the question of how does the author use character to
develop theme. The goal of the activity is to attach a written component to this highly
constructivist and this generative project. The artist statement had a rubric that focused mainly

on writing conventions, but the objective of the artist statement aligned with the generation of the
products in the previous step. Students had to display their understanding of the plot in order to
demonstrate proficiency in this culminating project. This step of the project aligns with CCSS
3.2.a.i, vi, & xi: these are all writing standards that assess how well students can construct their
synthesized knowledge into a cohesive academic text.