Journal Entry 5: Teaching with Drama AND "How I live now"

So clearly it has been awhile since we did this lesson, but I have been thinking about it recently and I thought it would worthwhile to write about. Wilhelm had nothing but good things to say in regards to using drama to teach literature. I will admit that some of it has come in handy for me in my tutoring for Everyone Reads, but I was left wondering about the long term implications of using drama to teach and how I could implement it successfully in my future high school classroom...



Our substitute (Dottie?) had us participate in some activities that really helped me gain some perspective on how drama could be used effectively in an upper level classroom. I loved the short story we read, and the fact that the end was really open to interpretation. The whole convince your best friend to use or not use the love potion was fun, and I think it would be great for a teenage audience because it would bring the story to their level. And of course the whole good angels versus bad angels was hysterical (although some of the things the bad angels came up with would certainly not be appropriate for any high school classroom... you know, the whole kill off the love slave when you're done with her thing could be construed as slightly inappropriate by some parents...).



I am truly looking forward to involving drama in my future classroom for several reasons. The first of which is that I really want to employ a variety of different teaching techniques in my classroom to cater to different types of learners. Second, I want to bring literature to life. So many times students see literature as something which is dead, set in stone, dormant. I want my students to experience literature and begin to see it as alive, thriving, changing, dynamic. I feel that involving drama in the classroom is an excellent means to achieving this goal. However, I also think that I will have to be very cautious about how I introduce the use of drama. Even from our short exercise in class it is obvious that things could get wildly out of control.



The day we did the exercise with drama in the classroom was also the day that I did my book talk, and I feel the need to write about that book as well. I decided to read a book called "How I live now," by Meg Rosoff. I truly did not expect to like this book nearly as much as I did. What initially drew me to the book was something on the back panel about living with terrorism in the modern age. However, once I actually began to read the book, I became hooked. The protagonist, Daisy, acts as narrator, and the way that she tells the story is difficult to understand at first, but I think it would be appealing to teens. It honestly reads like a conversation with a teenage girl, but once I fell into the rhythm of her speech I could appreciate the story a lot more.

Daisy travels to England to live with an aunt and some cousins who she has never met before. Shortly after her arrival war breaks out and her aunt, who works for the government, is sent away. The children are left to fend for themselves, and Daisy soon discovers that her cousins have some mysterious talents. Daisy also discovers an unnatural attraction to her cousin Edmund. As the story progresses this relationship becomes even more complicated, but in the end I couldn't help but want them to be together, even if it was more than a little incestuous.

The story is supposed to be about terrorism in the modern age, but I couldn't help thinking that the story was extremely reminiscent of WWII novels I have read... it was very different, but very interesting. I think this is something that I could safely recommend to my future students... and I think it would generate some very productive conversations. I want to say that the book was good, but that just doesn't seem to fit, even though I liked the book. I think it is something that I am going to have to read again to get the full gist of it.

Journal Entry 4: Where the heck have I been?!?!?!

I must first apologize- I have been totally absent from this blogger thing. I don't really have a very good excuse, though. Part of it is that I have been on baby watch 2008, and that was hectic. Another part of it is that this very class got me hooked on the TWILIGHT series, which I read and reread... because I am a nerd, and clearly I have no life. And I have been a little disappointed with some of the readings from Wilhelm...

It has been a little bit of a letdown for me, and I think that is also part of the reason that I have been neglecting these journal entries- I just didn't want to talk about it. Or write about it. In the beginning of the semester I was so excited about Wilhelm, and totally on board with what he was saying about reading. I suppose that I kept waiting for a moment that never came- like a EUREKA moment when it all comes together in a coherent fashion.... instead, though, it seemed to me as if Wilhelm was basically saying the same things over and over again. It is for this reason that I think this will be my last entry concerning Wilhelm... he has provided me with some interesting food for thought, but alas, I leave the company of Wilhelm not entirely content with the menu.

I did stumble upon some gems while reading Wilhelm. On page 52 Wilhelm describes Ron as a ludic reader, or someone who enters a trancelike state when reading. (Who knew there was a name for how I read???) I even sympathized with Ron when he stated that sometimes his fixation on a certain book truly interfered with his school work... but while this was all very intriguing, I couldn't help but wonder how this coould help me in my future classroom... not every child is going to be a ludic reader... certainly if they were I would be much less troubled about reaching out with literature because I would have voracious readers.

Also, I thought it was interesting that Wilhelm draws a distinction between the ways in which girls and boys read. I am sure that he is not the first or the last to make such a distinction, but I just found it interesting. Wilhelm states that boys read with a landscape of action, and girls read with a landscape of consciousness. When I read that, I was like, "WOW, how profound!" But then I was hugely disappointed because I don't feel that Wilhelm did an adequate job of expanding upon this difference in terms of teaching strategies... It's like Wilhelm wets your appetite, but then leaves you hungry.

I will say that reading Wilhelm has not been a complete loss, because if nothing else it has forced me to think about some strategies that I need to think about for my future classroom, and has also inspired me to learn more about certain topics.