My students are the kind of kids who will work hard as long as they see a purpose to what we are doing. Kids are like adults - they want to see that their work and effort has some kind of meaning. Sometimes it’s hard to convince kids that reading Shakespeare can teach life lessons, but if you are enthusiastic and passionate, you can bring it to life for them. That’s the kind of thing I try to do with my kids. I get them up and moving and interacting with the literature. My kids love projects and creating, and my room is full of their art. I have projects from years ago, and I add to them constantly.
My Project
My students create the most wonderful and interesting projects when they read the books, poetry, and essays with which we interact. Art gives them an outlet to interpret the literature on their own terms and explore important themes, characters, settings, and events as they see them. It makes the learning and the literature more personal and meaningful.
In our classes, we read Macbeth, Beloved, The Kite Runner, If Beale Street Could Talk, The Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, plus tons of poetry and short stories!
My kids either write about or create a project for nearly everything we read. They are constantly responding to literature.
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