Mrs. Staab
English 134
Lesson Plans
Week of 01/31/2011 - 02/04/2011
Standards:
Explain how authors use literary elements and techniques to achieve the
intended effect. (2A)
Interpret and compare a variety of texts for purpose, structure, content, detail,
and effect (2B)
Analyze the structure and function of words in context. (1A)
Compose informational writing that supports a topic or thesis statement with well
articulated evidence. (3C)
Objectives:
Student will:
1) Use appropriate reading strategies such as activating prior knowledge,
previewing, discussing, and predicting to comprehend Shakespeare’s Romeo
and Juliet
2) Utilize a variety of response strategies to understand and explore the text,
including rereading, note taking, summarizing, outlining, journaling, and
formal writing, as well as relating Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to his/her
personal experiences and feelings
Monday, January 31, 2011
1) Bellringer- Copy agenda
2) Vocabulary of the week
3) Article of the Week #5 ( due Thursday)
4) R& J Act I Quiz
5) Discuss structural elements of Romeo & Juliet- have students fill in the
"exposition" and "rising action"
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
No School- school improvement
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
1) Bellringer- Copy agenda
2) Quick write: What makes for a truly romantic moment. Is it roses and
chocolates? Sweet nothings? Candlelight dinner? What constitutes a
romantic moment?
3) Read & discuss Act II scene 1. Fill in study guide
4) Continue reading/ discussing Act II scene 2
5) Homework- Respond to AoW #5
Thursday, February 3, 2011
1) Bellringer- Copy agenda
2) Vocabulary review
3) Small groups share responses to AoW #5
4) Continue reading/discussing Act II scene 3 & 4
5) Fill in study guide
Friday, February 4, 2011
1) Bellringer- Copy agenda
2) Vocabulary quiz
3) Finish reading Act II scenes 4-6
4) Complete study guide for Act II (due Monday)
Resources (Materials/ Texts/ Visuals/ Technology):
Computer
LCD Projector
Literature
textbook
Handouts
Assessment:
Student participation
Essential vocabulary
Handouts
Article of The Week #5 Teaching for America
Source: Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 11/28/10
Note: This is an editorial. It contains the writer’s opinions.
When I came to Washington in 1988, the cold war was ending and the hot beat was national
security and the State Department. If I were a cub reporter today, I’d still want to be covering
the epicenter of national security — but that would be the Education Department. President
Obama got this one exactly right when he said that whoever “outeducates us today is going to
out-compete us tomorrow.” The bad news is that for years now we’ve been getting outeducated. The good news is that cities, states and the federal government are all fighting back.
But have no illusions. We’re in a hole. Here are few data points that the secretary of education,
Arne Duncan, offered in a Nov. 4 speech: “One-quarter of U.S. high school students drop out or
fail to graduate on time. Almost one million students leave our schools for the streets each
year. ... One of the more unusual and sobering press conferences I participated in last year was
the release of a report by a group of top retired generals and admirals. Here was the stunning
conclusion of their report: 75 percent of young Americans, between the ages of 17 to 24, are
unable to enlist in the military today because they have failed to graduate from high school,
have a criminal record, or are physically unfit.” America’s youth are now tied for ninth in the
world in college attainment.
“Other folks have passed us by, and we’re paying a huge price for that economically,” added
Duncan in an interview. “Incremental change isn’t going to get us where we need to go. We’ve
got to be much more ambitious. We’ve got to be disruptive. You can’t keep doing the same
stuff and expect different results.”
Duncan, with bipartisan support, has begun several initiatives to energize reform—
particularly his Race to the Top competition with federal dollars going to states with the most
innovative reforms to achieve the highest standards. Maybe his biggest push, though, is to
raise the status of the teaching profession. Why?
Tony Wagner, the Harvard-based education expert and author of “The Global Achievement
Gap,” explains it this way. There are three basic skills that students need if they want to thrive
in a knowledge economy: the ability to do critical thinking and problem-solving; the ability to
communicate effectively; and the ability to collaborate.
If you look at the countries leading the pack in the tests that measure these skills (like Finland
and Denmark), one thing stands out: they insist that their teachers come from the top onethird of their college graduating classes. As Wagner put it, “They took teaching from an
assembly-line job to a knowledge-worker’s job. They have invested massively in how they
recruit, train and support teachers, to attract and retain the best.”
Duncan disputes the notion that teachers’ unions will always resist such changes.
He points to the new “breakthrough” contracts in Washington, D.C., New Haven and
Hillsborough County, Fla., where teachers have embraced higher performance standards in
return for higher pay for the best performers.
“We have to reward excellence,” he said. “We’ve been scared in education to talk about
excellence. We treated everyone like interchangeable widgets. Just throw a kid in a class and
throw a teacher in a class.” This ignored the variation between teachers who were changing
students’ lives, and those who were not. “If you’re doing a great job with students,” he said,
“we can’t pay you enough.”
That is why Duncan is starting a “national teacher campaign” to recruit new talent. “We have
to systemically create the environment and the incentives where people want to come into the
profession. Three countries that outperform us — Singapore, South Korea, Finland — don’t let
anyone teach who doesn’t come from the top third of their graduating class. And in South
Korea, they refer to their teachers as ‘nation builders.’ ”
Duncan’s view is that challenging teachers to rise to new levels — by using student
achievement data in calculating salaries, by increasing competition through innovation and
charters — is not anti-teacher. It’s taking the profession much more seriously and elevating it
to where it should be. There are 3.2 million active teachers in America today. In the next
decade, half (the baby boomers) will retire. How we recruit, train, support, evaluate and
compensate their successors “is going to shape public education for the next 30 years,” said
Duncan. We have to get this right.
Wagner thinks we should create a West Point for teachers: “We need a new National
Education Academy, modeled after our military academies, to raise the status of the
profession and to support the R.& D. that is essential for reinventing teaching, learning and
assessment in the 21st century.”
All good ideas, but if we want better teachers we also need better parents —parents who turn
off the TV and video games, make sure homework is completed, encourage reading and
elevate learning as the most important life skill. The more we demand from teachers the more
we have to demand from students and parents. That’s the Contract for America that will truly
ensure our national security.
Possible WN topics:
How can education be seen as a national security issue?
What can be done to lower the drop out rate in our nation’s schools?
What might happen in the future if our country is consistently outperformed?
How can we get parents to take their children’s education more seriously?
Name_______________________
Date_______________________
Study Guide
Act II
Scene 1:
1. What does Mercutio say about “blind love”? (line 35)
Scene 2:
2. When Juliet appears on her balcony, what does Romeo compare her to? ( line 3)
3. How does Juliet “speak, yet . . . [say] nothing”? (line 12)
4. When Juliet leans her cheek on her hand, what does Romeo say? (line 24)
5. Unaware of his presence, what does Juliet ask Romeo to say? (line 33)
6. In a sentence or two, explain what Juliet says about names.
7. What figurative language does Juliet use when she says " My ears have yet not drunk a
hundred words of thy tongue's uttering, yet I know the sound."
8. Juliet asks how Romeo got into her place. The orchard walls are high, and Romeo’s life would
be in danger if her relatives were to find him there. What is Romeo’s response to these
questions? (line 75)
9. Why is Juliet embarrassed? ( line 85)
10. Juliet is going to send someone to Romeo on the following day for what purpose? ( line 142)
Scene 3:
11. What has friar Laurence been out gathering in his basket?
12. Explain lines 21-22: “Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,/And vice sometime by action
dignified”?
13. When Friar Laurence sees Romeo, what comment does he make about seeing Romeo so
early in the morning?
14. What does Friar Laurence mean when he says to Romeo, “Young men’s love then lies not
truly in their hearts, but in their eyes? ( line 67)
15. Friar Laurence agrees to perform the marriage ceremony for Romeo and Juliet for what
reason? ( line 90)
Scene 4:
16. According to Mercutio, what kind of man is Tybalt? ( line 19)
17. What is the nurse saying to Romeo in lines 157 – 163?
18. How is Juliet to arrange to meet Romeo?
Scene 5:
19. The nurse is supposed to be gone only a half hour, but she is actually gone for how long?
(line 10)
20. How is the nurse behaving that is frustrating to Juliet?
Scene 6:
21. What does Friar Laurence mean when he says, “Therefore, love moderately; long love doth
so”? ( line 14)
**Bonus:
22. Find an example of metaphor and copy the lines here
23. Find an example of simile and copy the lines here