Making the Classics Come Alive What do you

Making the Classics Come Alive!

What do you do with the classics? • Get rid of them completely • Continue dragging students through them • OR… MAKE THEM COME ALIVE with strategies that WORK!

How to Make the Classics Come Alive: • Dramatize • Scaffold • Pair with young adult (YA) texts

Dramatization Why it works: • “social and student-centered process” • “active methods allow students to have some ownership in generating meanings and understandings” Baxter 120

Dramatization Ideas • Hot-seating (ask questions of the main character in a role-play) • Tableau Variations (highlighting characterization, character relationships, plot development) • Role-Breaking (role-playing the parts of minor characters, focusing on cultural and historical contexts by reversing them)

Scaffolding Methods Why it works: • “The language of the classics frequently intimidates today’s students and generates negative attitudes and immediate resistance” • “Insufficient knowledge also impedes students’ ability to resonate with the classics” Shelley 387

Scaffolding Methods • Building Background Knowledge • Developing Vocabulary • Facilitating the Reading of the Text • Enrichment and Extension

Pairing with Y. A. Texts Why it works: • The “richness [is] clearer to students as they read the companion novel and [make] connections for themselves” • “They can then discuss the many thematic bonds between the two novels, as well as the contrasts in narrative voice” Abair 83

How to Pair with Y. A. Texts • Select a y. a. lit text that relates in theme or character to a classic novel • Read the y. a. lit novel first, then the classic novel • Compare and contrast the many thematic bonds between the two novels, as well as the narrative voice

A Few Suggested Pairings • The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne • Beloved – Toni Morrison A proud woman and her child are isolated from the surrounding community for transgressions committed years earlier • “Self-Reliance” – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (sections on excellence) - Pirsig

More Suggested Texts and Authors • Into Thin Air, Into The Wild • A River Runs Through It • • • Jon Krakauer Norman Maclean Stephen King Sandra Cisneros Chris Crutcher Lois Lowery Martha Brooks True Confessions of a Heartless Girl (2003) Jennifer Donnelly A Northern Light (2003) Angela Johnson First Part Last (2003) Richard Peck The River Between Us (2003) Jane Yolen Sword of the Rightful King: A Novel of King Arthur (2003)