Hello everyone,

I wanted to share this lesson plan for teaching some literature and
creating discussions and providing writing topics. The idea of using "As
You Like It" - Act II, Scene VII,"The Road Not Taken", "The Circle Game"
and the writing assignment come from Ruth Rapoport from Tichon Hadash, Herzalia. The lesson plan was also developed by Diana Katz from Metro West.

Class: good Yud Bet
Steps: The short version! Leaves room to expand in individual directions!
(Results of students' writings)

1.  I started out with a question about the stages in life we go through
(My lead in to this can't be used by everyone, however. I told my class
that I had {re}married over the summer! I couldn't have timed it better!) I
tried to keep it to the NUMBER of stages as opposed to the ACTUAL stages. I
wanted to later get into our obsession with categorization and "stage
naming" but it got lost in everything else that was going on over the last
two weeks...

2. I then gave them a copy of Shakespeare's "As You Like It", which I read
to them (without stopping for questions - the goal was more to talk about
stages and descriptive writing than to examine Shakespeare..)

3. In pairs, the class then copied out the stage "titles" and the
DESCRIPTIVE words and phrases used to describe them. Only after that did we
discuss the stages and their meanings. The class supplied explanations for
his use of "soldier" or "justice" etc. to head his stages...

4. Second hour they had to write their own stages in life, using lots of
descriptive phrases and clever adjectives. We talked about the differences
in expected life spans in Shakespeare's time and our own. They did the
writing in pairs, small groups or individually. These were then polished up
at home and turned in the next lesson. I have sent some excerpts to the
ETNI home page "Students Write". I also asked them to bring in songs they
had (in English, of course) about life cycles.

5. I was given about 4 different songs but for lack of a CD player, we
couldn't listen to them! We then went on the Robert Frost and compared
Shakespeare's stages with Frost's method of using the seasons to categorize
stages. Then we did "The Road Not Taken".

6. The second hour I gave them reading comprehension, "The Circle Game"
which created excellent discussion on their different interpretations.

7. The final assignment on this "unit" was to write (draft in class) on the
stage of life they preferred, explaining why. Those were just turned in
yesterday so I haven't had time to read them all, but it's been very
enjoyable for me!

Galia Kaspi
Alon High School
Ramat Hasharon