History
and English go together like peanut butter and jelly. Before most of my units I
always take the time to go through and introduce the students to the historical
context. How can you teach Beowulf without
first going over the Anglo- Saxon time period and discussing Oral traditions
and how books were written by monks to describe the major contraindications
between the Christian and pagan aspects in the book.
How
can you teach Shakespeare without going over the Renaissance, The plays of that
century and Shakespeare himself??? You really can’t is the answer. These older
books are hard enough to read for the students and if you give them the
background knowledge and if you really help them understand the time period, it
helps students to not get confused when they are reading.
One
of the questions I wonder when teaching the historical context is whether or
not I should front-load the material or spread it out while reading. I find it
easier to front load the historical material that way the students are well
prepared for what they are going to be reading and then while reading you can
take time doing the storyline activities with the students. But is this boring
for students? Or does it really help them? It is something that I inquire about
and when I am a full time teacher I would love to experiment with the timing of
the historical context to see what works better. J
No comments:
Post a Comment