This week, I had the pleasure of reading Oedipus Rex for the first time, which was a great experience. Not only that, but I had the chance to lead the class for a day, since Andy was gone. I think first and second hour received the play differently, and I want to try zooming in on why that might have happened.
First hour was fantastic; Nearly the entire reading, most everyone seemed engaged, and we got to share a couple laughs throughout. I made sure to interject throughout the reading whenever I saw something that genuinely interested me, and each time, the class had some stuff to say, too. This, plus the fact that the readers seemed pretty engaged, led to a very enjoyable learning environment!
In second hour, things were just a bit different, and I think have some things to work on in that regard. Overall, the class seemed less engaged. I think I can attribute this partly to the general class dynamic that I've noticed. They seem to always be just a bit quieter than first hour--which is not bad at all, just different--and I haven't found the most effective way to reach them. This is definitely something that I'll be looking into, because it's my hope that both hours enjoyed collaboratively reading the play as much as I did. The following link is to an article that discusses some tips for reading texts aloud in the classroom setting, which I found pretty interesting. Particularly, the teacher pairs snippets of the text with clips from (if available) the film version of the text, as a way to keep readers engaged a bit more.
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/reading-out-loud
First hour was fantastic; Nearly the entire reading, most everyone seemed engaged, and we got to share a couple laughs throughout. I made sure to interject throughout the reading whenever I saw something that genuinely interested me, and each time, the class had some stuff to say, too. This, plus the fact that the readers seemed pretty engaged, led to a very enjoyable learning environment!
In second hour, things were just a bit different, and I think have some things to work on in that regard. Overall, the class seemed less engaged. I think I can attribute this partly to the general class dynamic that I've noticed. They seem to always be just a bit quieter than first hour--which is not bad at all, just different--and I haven't found the most effective way to reach them. This is definitely something that I'll be looking into, because it's my hope that both hours enjoyed collaboratively reading the play as much as I did. The following link is to an article that discusses some tips for reading texts aloud in the classroom setting, which I found pretty interesting. Particularly, the teacher pairs snippets of the text with clips from (if available) the film version of the text, as a way to keep readers engaged a bit more.
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/reading-out-loud