By the end of the year, I was feeling reasonably secure in my ability to craft a unit plan that engaged the students and pushed them to engage the world around them. The unit plan found here and subequent project descriptions and student work provided me with the first true inkling of what was possible. It led the way for the Othello Unit Plan and the World Change Unit Plan in 10th and the Hamlet and Memoir Unit Plans in 9th. Overall, I'm pleased with how it turned out, but want to add more definition to the benchmark description so that the students feel the guidance they need. I'd also differentiate between the audio and written performance expectations at the outset. Eventually, that happened.

In 10th grade English students read Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston. As we completed the book we began an inquiry of language in our lives. During this inquiry the main question we were investigating was "What are the relationships between language, power, and culture?" To investigate this question we analyzed the language in Their Eyes and then we read several different essays that relate to issues of language, identity, and power. For a complete list of the essays click here.

Students were then given the Language Autobiography assignment:

Through the 9th grade study of The Odyssey, we explored how the story was crafted to teach its

audience basic lessons of the time, (i.e. "How to be a real man."  "The importance of loyalty in upholding

social order.")   Further, we tracked and analyzed how archetypes were used within the story.  From this study,

we looked to the modern version of this lesson-based, archetype-heavy story, the Fairy Tale.  Students were 

then asked to create an illustrated fairy tale story book.  Lastly, they had to reflect on their experiences developed

through their own authorship, and then connect those experiences to a deeper understanding of Homer and The

Odyssey.

 The final versions of these stories are in hard copy.  If you'd like to read them, head over to school and ask one of

our students to show you. 

During the 4th quater, we read Hamlet.  When we finished, we wrote acedemic papers around a variety of topics.  I chose to focus my paper on the Laertes foil to Hamlet.

For this project, we were asked to brainstorm a list of 20 memories.  We then had to add sensory detals to five of them.  Finally we choose one, and expanded it, telling the full story of the memory.  I choose to write about my experience of leaving the girl's department for the junior's.

    My group and I have completed the script and have already started recording for our presentation. The way that we're going to be presenting it is through a podcast. We all have designated people we must reenact for this project. I am doing Desdemona and Cassio, Michael is doing Othello and Roderigo, Dakota is doing Barbantio, and Jacob is doing Iago. My job is also to edit everyones parts to make the podcast ready for the presentation.

    The good things about working in this group is that everyone knows their assignments. We all know what we must do to get our portion done and we know how to use our time effectively. But the bad things about working in a group is that some people didn't have computers to use the program we needed to record the lines. So we had to designate times in which we were going to be able to get them to do their part.

    For the editing part we had to choose which parts of the script sounded good together, as well as what would get straight to the point without losing story plot. It was hard to analyze all of the text and edit it, but we found out how to do it effectively and correct.

    My understanding for the plot and characters, as well as the theme are deepening through this benchmark process because I'm starting to see how things are tying together due to what has happened. I'm also seeing how somethings need to be mentioned in the beginning to make sense of what has happened at the end.

This is my Humanities Portfolio for 2008. This portfolio shows the work I have completely for english and history. It also shows how much of an understanding i have gained throughout the school year. The video below is a verbal and audio demonstration as to what i learned.