Share Word Power With Students (Or, Watch a Frenetic Teacher Talk About Latin Roots)

In this quick post, I talk about how I teach the Latin root for "star" and how this root has permeated our language. Also, it is quite a rowdy lesson. Mainly because of me!

Word power-knowledge. I have way too much frenetic energy. And to think I was feeling vile about the proceedings of the day — until our Ninth Grade Writing class got my spirits up. After the first period today, I had thirty seconds, so Rajveer in Ninth Grade took this video of our discussion of the Latin root "aster-" or "astro-" (for star) and how it appears in the English words asteroid, asterisk, astronaut, disaster, and astronomy. Thanks to Ariadne for being the model student and Theo, Pema, Ryan, Mia, Luna, Lucas, and Ava for the inspiration. Tag, share, comment on, cast, or copy this video. It’s insane.

Mr. Roselli captures a selfie.

All in a day's work.

Aphrodite as Depicted in Chalk on a Chalkboard

Athena with a shield.

Just your garden variety love goddess.

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How Diligence Paid Off Cataloging Indigenous Plant Species of Louisiana (And How I Came Upon the Secret of Motivation)

In this post, I wax nostalgic about a class I took in high school and how it taught me something about human motivation.

"You'll need to collect one-hundred specimens of native flora from Louisiana to gain a perfect score for this project," intoned our Biology teacher — I was in Eleventh grade. I had opted to take a class called Biology II rather than Environmental Science. It was unlike me. Having gravitated more to the arts and humanities, even in high school, taking an advanced science class went against the grain. But it was one of the most immersive courses I took in high school. I liked the botany unit. We had an entire semester devoted to exploring indigenous plant species of Louisiana. I had even gone as far as to purchase a used copy of a field guide to plants of the state; "Don't collect invasive species," our teacher had said. So I wanted to make sure I knew the difference between Kudzu and an indigenous Wood Sorrel. 

Look around you. There is a
        world to catalog and discover.

I put my heart into the project. With my field guide in hand, I combed the thin strips of woods that separated neighborhoods; I examined plants and looked closely at leaf and stem characteristics. I learned words like "deliquescent" — the word to describe a tree that has developed a finely developed branch covering resembling a cup (most often happens when the tree grows in an open field without competitors to challenge its airspace). Or that a leaf that has a soft "hairy" layer is said to be tumescent. Looking up these words in a standard dictionary, I found that these terms, while having a general meaning, also have a specific sense in botany. For example, I can say deliquescent to describe how water absorbs evenly into the soil from moisture in the air. And use the word tumescent to describe the soft hair that covers a newborn baby. Words are so multifaceted, I thought to myself then — and still realize to this day. It's a concept I often try to impart in the classroom: "Kids, vocabulary knowledge is closely tied to how it is used in the text."

What drives motivation? What made me so motivated to pursue a task that before I had taken it, I would never have followed on my own? Most likely, it was the challenge of the project. Something about discovery: and the idea that I had to explore areas outside the boundaries of my neighborhood or looked closely at the familiar. I don't remember what my classmates did for the project; I don't recall working with a partner.  

I had my parents purchase for me a ginormous three-pronged binder and a bunch of styrene protective covers. To successfully save a plant specimen, it is necessary to place the plant parts into a book or under a newspaper fastened with something heavy — like a book or a rock. It can take days for the specimen to set properly — our teacher had specifically said that if you don't let the plant sufficiently dry out — it will rot and produce mold once you seal it in the binder covering. The first few plants I had picked out delivered such a fate — I didn't press them long enough — so afraid of having points deducted from my project, I did them over again. 

I was diligent and methodical with this project — I managed to collect about ninety-eight specimens — everything from Sweet Bay Magnolia to a Pitcher Plant. I noticed how invasive species could completely take over an area, their massive and quick growth, quickly suffocating plant diversity in the area. This specific invasive plant called Chinese Privet — I found lots of those everywhere around my backyard. Seeing the ubiquity of certain herbaceous plants made me realize the destructive force of nature when human intervention is too rapid, and Mother Nature cannot keep up.

Motivation is tied to relevance. If you can tap into the significance of a task, then you have your student's attention. Make a task too easy, and it loses its relevance; make a task unattainable, and it becomes a chore. I like how my teacher implied that the project had a perennial aspect to it; I still have that binder from high school. And I still have the plant species; they are labeled correctly and nicely preserved.     

It wasn't an easy task, but it promised discovery. So finding a rare plant species proved to me a gleeful moment — filled with joy, as on a particular jaunt into the woods behind my mother's house in Madisonville, Louisiana — I found a Devil's Walking Stick — properly named because if you pluck it you will automatically be stung by its many sharp prongs that line its length. Walking deep into the woods, I came across a bayou that flooded its waters often when rain fell heavily, which gradually seeped back into the ground or wended its way back to a tributary and then into the Tchefuncte River and then finally into Lake Pontchartrain, which is an estuary that opens out into the Gulf of Mexico. Everything is connected. I knew then and know now.

As a teacher myself, I now give students projects and written assignments, as one is wont to do as a teacher. I have never given out a botany project like the one my science teacher did for us — but I marvel at what motivated me to complete such a project so painstakingly. I sometimes joke with colleagues that if someone were to crack the code of what truly motivates people to be industrious, creative, or simply do work — especially work that at first glance does not seem necessary — they ought to win some kind of Nobel Prize for Ingenuity. I never went into Botany — heck, in college, I only took a handful of Science classes. The bulk of my undergraduate course load was filled to the brim with Dante and Kazuo Ishiguro — with ample servings of Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and Shakespeare — can you tell I went to a heavily Western-centric liberal arts college? But I never forgot my foray into botany. That project stayed with me over the years. I still remember the scientific names of certain plant species — for example, Live Oaks and White Oaks — and all oaks — belong to the Quercus genus. And figs are in the ficus family. And if you take a walk with me in the woods, I will revel in the joy of discovering a field of Crimson Clover — it's still a beautiful flower.

Photo by Dmitry Grigoriev on Unsplash

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First Days of School in the Covid-19 Era — Report from a High School English Teacher

Some schools have already been back in session for three weeks now and New York City Public schools have not even started but in our small school in Jackson Heights — we just started this past week. Here's my first day of school report — 2020 edition.

Deep Thought Freeze Frame on Zoom

"I think she's in deep thought," a curly-haired kid in the front row said. "But's she's been like that for a long time." I checked the computer screen — a laptop on the teacher's desk where I could see kids that were learning remotely from home. "Can she hear us?" I asked. ""I think she's frozen, Mr. Roselli." And sure enough, she was. Whatever she needed to say was caught out of joint, still. 

That's a snapshot of my first couple of days back at school. I am a high school English teacher at a private school in New York City. About twelve percent of the school has chosen to go remote. The rest of us are at school, wearing masks, properly podded in classrooms, with orchestrated arrival and dismissal times, lunch delivered to classrooms, temperature checks, and everyone in the building has been tested for Covid-19.

A Kind Eighth Grader and a Lesson on Lipids

I start my day before school checking my devices, making sure I don't have a laptop or Chromebook at a low battery level. "Make the first days of school fun," a friend says. But it doesn't feel fun. The excitement of the first day lost its allure this year. In homeroom, I take attendance, but I have to make sure the students who are learning remotely have logged on. Then I have a planning period in the morning. And then, I monitor the eighth-grade study hall. "How are you doing, Mr. Roselli?" one of the eighth-graders asked me, and my heart melts a little bit because I know this kid, and I was touched by her small gesture of empathy. She tells me in a free flow of words how her day has gone, her troubles with Google Classroom, and why soap and water kill the Coronavirus. The whole class then suddenly stops and listens as I give a deliberate explanation of how the cell wall of a coronavirus is made of a lipid layer — and that soap is basically a lipid — and when soap hits the surface of your skin, any virus material that may be on it gets canceled out by lipid action. Soap is basically fat. I say.

After lunch, I teach three classes back-to-back, and they are all in separate rooms with a different technology set-up. One place is near the main hallway, and it has a blackboard only, a teacher's desk that I won't need to use, a bunch of maps (that I won't use), and no smartboard. There's a laptop hooked up to the Internet, and I sign into the school Zoom account to admit the remote learners into the room. I tell the kids who are actually in the classroom, "While I set up Zoom open up Google Classroom on your device. Respond to the group discussion question, and we'll get started in five minutes." I had forgotten that over the Summer, I had made "podcasts" to go along with some of my lessons. I am kinda glad I did because it's given me a sense of control of my courses. One of my students, a quiet kid who always answers my questions correctly, but I cannot understand him (because he speaks very softly), is sitting in the front row listening to one of the podcasts. I hear my own voice emanate, and it feels surreal. "That's Mr. Roselli's voice. Do you like the sound of your own voice?" No, not really, I think to myself.

A Feeling of Split-Screen Reality

There's me in the room, kids in the room, devices, a chalkboard, kids on Zoom — and I forgot to take the daily attendance. So I open a new tab on the same laptop that's streaming the Zoom, and I realize I need to log-in again — but I don't have my password handy, so I take out my phone that has all of my passwords. But I am wearing a mask, and the phone prompts to login me in with face recognition. But I don't have time to lower my mask for the phone to capture an image of my face. So then I need to key in the phone's password. And by this time, I feel that tinge of stress that radiates from your neck down the small of your back. Too much cognitive functioning going on!

I jump back again to reality — by saying, "Let's talk about representation." A brunette girl who had been listening intently to my audio says, "Yeah. Like politics." And we talk about how senators or representatives represent us in Congress. But I explain that in Art History "representation" has a slightly different meaning. And then I feel like the class flow is streaming (and no one is frozen on Zoom). But then I want to show the class a painting of Pocahontas that was done in 1616 that depicts her as a European — when in fact, she was an indigenous person.

So I pull that up — but then I realize, "Wait. The kids at home cannot see it." So I need to share my screen. And then I feel stressed out again. For some reason, I cannot share my screen — and I promise to put the picture on Google Classroom later so everyone can see it. Later, when I add the graphics, I notice that in my Twelfth Grade English class a boy named Adam has posted, "Let's get it, Mr. R.! Keep it up with the same energy!" 

Why You Have So Many Websites?

If a kid thinks I have a surplus of energy, I think, let's get it, then. The last two periods of the day go well — it's sometimes funny to see how the kids on Zoom interact with the kids in the classroom. I make a joke with the class about how I feel like the kids on Zoom are not really real — because they are postage-stamp-sized moving images — a bit pixelated and blurry. But there are real kids in the room. And they are like kids. Feeling anxious and worried and also a bit expectant about the beginning of the school year.

I don't like this set-up. It makes me feel inadequate. It's a compromise — to open school, and to allow options for kids who want to stay at home. But it's going to run me down to the ground if I don't devise a plan.

So, first. I am going to keep up the idea of making podcasts. They are easy to make, and they help me as a teacher to organize my thoughts for each lesson. In March and April, I listened to a ton of podcasts, and they helped me get through the darker days of the pandemic. So I want to recreate that immersive experience of listening to someone's voice. 

"Why so many websites?" a sixteen-year-old boy asked me, with a tee-shirt that said "Phoenicia" on it. I didn't understand his question, so I asked him to explain. "Oh. He said. Like you have so many websites on your Google Classroom." I realized what he meant. I have a website for the class, and then there is the Google Classroom page, and I use Vocaroo for my podcasts, and Quizlet for flashcards and FlipGrid for presentations — it all becomes quite intense quickly. I’m suddenly feeling I could use a vacation in Phoenicia right about now.

Your Class Feels Like A Lot. Because It Is 

Over the Summer, I didn't know what I would be teaching until late August. And once I found out what my course load was to be, I immediately started planning the year. In the Eleventh Grade English class that I teach, I have thirteen weeks of material already set up. I thought it would make me feel organized — and it did! I do not regret doing it — but one of my students, an awesome kid, said, "You have thirteen weeks already set up. That's a lot. This class is going to be a lot."

And I guess she's right. It feels like a lot this year. That's why I had fun on Friday doing an activity where I had asked everyone to send me in advance a "fun fact" about themselves that no one knows about so we could share it in a fun lesson at school. "I have a Guinea Pig,"; "Follow me on YouTube,"; "I want to be a recording artist,"; "I want to be a Psychology and Business major,"; “I hiked the southern rim of the Grand Canyon when I was eleven.” — and I shared a story about my pet hamster named Hammy. We would take him outside, and he would eat the clover leaves until his cheeks were filled. And then out of nowhere, one of the kids on Zoom — which had been quiet most of the class period — piped up, "Now — you had a lawnmower as a kid!" Everyone started to laugh. "Yeah. He said. Your hamster was like a lawnmower!"

Ohhhhh, Girl!

And at dismissal, I heard a loud noise emanate from the street outside — it was the sound of a fire truck — and I yelped, "Ohhhh, girl." And one of the Eighth graders said, "When Mr. Roselli gets scared he goes like 'Ohhhh girl!'"

That made me so happy.

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Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" Is As Relevant Today As It Was in 1955 (When It Was First Published)

There are a few short stories I keep coming back to in my life. I first read Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" in college. I was hooked. And don't read this blog post if you have not read the story. Here is a copy so you can return here after you've read it. You're welcome.

Photo by Anton Kraev on Unsplash

Reading "A Good Man is Hard to Find" in College
My professor, Sr. Jeanne d'Arc Kernion, was a senior Catholic Nun with a doctorate in English. She had been the mother superior of her monastery until it had dwindled in numbers. She was one of the few sisters left — her motherhouse was in Atchinson, Kansas — but she stayed in Louisiana until she retired a few years ago. She was one of the best English teachers I ever had because her instruction came with a love of fiction. She was always reading a new novel every week — and I felt like, for her, talking about fiction was as easy as making one's coffee with warm milk in the morning. I took her Contemporary Fiction course — which was a way for her to teach college-age students many of her favorite works of fiction she could cram into a semester.

Coming from the South, We All Knew Someone Like the Grandmother (And More Spoilers!)
We read O'Connor in that class — and I think I knew people like the Grandmother at nineteen or twenty years old. So she wasn't that shocking. In the South, we had grandmothers before anyone ever heard of a "Karen"! I also remember being attuned to O'Connor's insertions of absurd details. For example, a monkey is tied to a Chinaberry tree in the story. Who does that? And the unnamed mother has a face, according to the text, as innocent as a cabbage! Those strange details hooked me to O'Connor's fictional world, so I devoured her other stories and two works of fiction with delight.

O'Connor's fictional world is inter-connected — while her stories do not feature repeat characters and there isn't overarching worldbuilding inherent to her storytelling — it is evident that the universe of the Grandmother and the Misfit are the same universe as Hazel Motes in Wise Blood and Mr. Shiflet in "The Life You Save May Be Your Own." The universal theme that connects all of O'Connor's fiction is that our lives of dreary banality can often become undone by the macabre to shake us out of our complacency. In "A Good Man," the innocent family vacation that ultimately turns deadly shakes the reader out of their complacency. But, as you notice, if you've read the story repeatedly, O'Connor has signposted the narrative with heavy-handed hints that something awful is just around the corner.

O'Connor's Foreshadowing Technique is in Retrospect Obvious, But No One Gets it At First
I'm a high school English teacher, and I often teach the short story to Ninth and Tenth graders. I like to read the story out loud, and I have different students read different parts. I tend to read the narration. No one gets the foreshadowing until the end. Most of my students are surprised when I remind them that the Grandmother reads about the Misfit in the newspaper — it's mentioned in the first paragraph! And a quarter of the way in — Red Sammy's wife talks about a murderer attacking her restaurant. And there are other less than obvious hints. The Grandmother complains that she should dress formally for the car ride in case anyone who would find her dead on the roadside would know right away she was a lady!

Spoiler Alert! And Why People Don't See the Misfit Coming
There is also symbolic foreshadowing of the Grandmother pointing out to June Star and John Wesley a cotton field cemetery dotted with five or six grave markings. Oh no. In the end — the body count is six dead. I am assuming you, my reader, have read the short story, or you wouldn't be reading my review — but now I know you will return to the text and find the examples I just pointed out to you. My students are often shocked. And I think it says a lot about O'Connor's craft as a writer. She does not write a stray sentence. Every word, every line, is purposeful — even the details, that on first reading, seem redundant, at the end are memorable and shocking. Ironically, the Grandmother would worry about what her corpse looked like — as if people would wonder whether her dress color matched her hat! But it's those details that stick with us, the absurd and zany happenings of the Grandmother's storytelling and the insouciant children, June Starr and John Wesley — that catch our attention, and we are drawn into their world that by the end, we forget there is a Misfit on the loose. We don't see him coming.

The Grandmother's Actions Are the Biggest Red Flag
Yes, people don't see the Misfit coming, and they miss the textual clues that point to a potential dumpster fire. Yet — the sticking point is that it's all the Grandmother's fault! I think many readers see the Grandmother as goofy and a nag — slightly annoying and hypocritical. But there is also something else about the Grandmother that bothers me (besides being an archetypical Southern nag).

She doesn't think about the ramifications of her actions. If you chart it out, the entire story is the Grandmother's series of mistakes that lead to her and her family's death. And she is oblivious to her moral responsibility in this fate until the end — when in the story's climactic moment, she sees the Misfit and reaches out to him and says he is one of her own babies. I think the Grandmother sees that she is about to die, but she also, in a flash, has a revelation about her own broken, human condition.

People sometimes quip that before you die your life flashes before your eyes. But for the Grandmother — I think — she sees everything she did wrong in painstaking detail. She saw how she didn't want to go on the vacation, and when she reluctantly went, she hid the cat in her basket so no one would find out. She never thinks that perhaps her son, in reserving a motel room, would need to know that there was a cat on board. She ironically is worried that in her absence, the cat will accidentally turn on the gas burner and asphyxiate itself. When in truth, her caviler attitude is one step that brings her to her own death. Telling her son and family that she knows the location of a house with a secret door — I won't riddle you with all of the details — she forces everyone to go on a wild goose chase, which eventually leads them off the beaten path and lost. The Grandmother realizes that she has no idea how to find the house — that's it's not in Georgia — but in Tennessee — and in that moment instead coming clean with everyone she jostles the basket with Pitty Sing the cat — who jumps out in a rube-goldberg scenario that causes the Father to lose control of the car and crash it.

You may miss it if you have only read the story once — but there is a moment when the Grandmother is crouched in the fetal position, another foreshadowing of her death? She fantasizes that she is injured, so her son will have pity on her rather than become angry about leading the family astray. Now — it is perhaps easy to whisk away the Grandmother's action as just a senile senior citizen. But if we take the Grandmother to court, it becomes clear that this is a person who would rather be hurt, to be injured, to put her family in danger, rather than act honestly and allow her words to match her actions.

The Grandmother's Racist Microaggressions Should Also Be Considered
Take her behavior earlier in the story when she and Red Sammy, the Bar-b-que restaurant owner, are railing on about the moral degradation of society. But the Grandmother enjoys touting moral platitudes, but easily her actions belie her words. She thinks nothing of taking a photograph of a little black child she sees on the side of the road, not wearing pants (or, as we say in the South, britches). And she thinks nothing of telling her grandchildren a story loaded with racist innuendo about Black people.

O'Connor inserts these insensitivities into the mouth of the Grandmother because it is another way to show that this is a person who does not reflect on the implications of their actions — at all. But the Grandmother is also a person who very easily will point the finger at someone else. So when the Misfit and his henchman find the Grandmother and her family stuck on the side of the road, again, the Grandmother does not hesitate to endanger her family further when she recognizes him and shouts out his name. I should add here that I am not a criminal murderer, but if I were, I certainly would not want a witness to recognize me and shout my name, for all to hear — especially if I am a recently escaped federal prisoner. Now I do not mean to suggest that the Grandmother directly planned and caused her and her family's demise — but I will argue that O'Connor is suggesting that much of society's problems lie in an inability to truly and authentically reflect on our actions.

O'Connor's Story is Radically Relevant in Our Times that Does Not Seem Much Different from 1955
Returning to the racist and demeaning behavior of the Grandmother — she has probably never been put to task for how she talks about and treats people of color. She has become smug in her moral uprightness that she is unable, or unwilling, to see her participation in oppressing those that are not like her. An inability to appreciate difference, to see color, to see racial division is why, O'Connor's short story, is relevant for today — written over fifty years ago, its portrayal of a white person who cannot zoom out and see how she is part of a bigger problem painfully rings true in the recent events surrounding the death of George Floyd.

Black Americans have rallied together and protested the murder of an innocent Black man at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. And cries have been shouted across the nation that we as a people, must come to terms with our conflicted relationship to race in this country. The axial moment of "A Good Man" is that the Grandmother only comes to realize her cooperation at the moment of her death — as I mentioned earlier in this blog post. The Misfit shoots her twice in the heart — which is telling — because the heart is the symbol of emotion and love. And the Misfit shot her in a moment of recoil when the Grandmother, in an almost tender moment of love, reaches out to him and calls him her child.

I think readers miss something relevant to what happens after the Misfit kills the Grandmother. The Misfit is taken back by his violence and is shaken more than he would typically be, wiping his glasses of the blood of the woman he has just shot. His henchman criticizes him, and he retorts, it is no real pleasure in life. And at that moment he says, perhaps, the most quotable line from the story — "'She would have been a good woman,' the Misfit said, 'if it had. been somebody to shoot her every minute of her life.'" I read this to say, that the Misfit recognizes that it was something good, something preternaturally good, about the Grandmother's final action, that causes him to recoil like a snake and kill her.

I think of a person tending to a wounded dog — and the dog, not recognizing the person's kindness, bites him. The Misfit has had a life of criminality, disavowal of goodness, and a childhood deprived of love and care. In the Misfit, we see a man who has indeed been a "miss fit." He does not fit into society's fabric, so he has isolated himself and chosen a life of delinquency. It is hinted that he killed his own family. And that his father physically abused him.

When O'Connor Alludes to Jesus She is Being More than Just Religious
And the Misfit's theological discussion with his Grandmother — that Jesus threw it all off balance is telling. The Misfit cannot accept a person like Jesus because the Misfit's own life has been absent of the kind of love that Jesus represents. In fact, in an almost desiring way, the Misfit wishes he had seen the person of Jesus with his own eyes and witnessed his miracles. He would have to see it to believe it. But isn't that the final irony of this messed up tale? That a racist, empty-headed, middle-class, commodity obsessed, superficial white woman becomes a beacon of love that infiltrates the misfit's hardened heart. Let that sink in.

Now we don't know what happens to the Misfit. Because the story ends. And as a teaching tip — have your students continue the story! And you may be aware that O'Connor herself gave a rendering of what she believed will become of the Misfit. She sees the Grandmother's action as a moment of grace that plants itself in the heart of the misfit that will grow like a mustard seed into a crow-filled tree! That's an interesting visual metaphor, the action of grace. And I get it. Grace (or call it a moment of aesthetic judgment) is this instantaneous moment of undeserved love — or mercy — that humans are capable of — but we often do not consider it — taken in more by reports of humanity's baser nature or propensity for violence and harm.

So how are we to come away with this story? What is the message that it leaves us with, ultimately? I think the message of "A Good Man is Hard to find" is that "the good" is something that does not come out of moral uprightness or outward bearing signs of good behavior. Do you remember who says the title of the story? It's Red Sammy — and he certainly is not the paragon of a good man. Or is he?

Goodness is Not a Polite Profile But an Eruption
In this story, the good cannot be a profile we affix to a person. As when we say, "Oh, he's good because of XYZ." Goodness is an eruption, a sudden moment of grace that can spring up when we least expect it — come in at a moment of otherwise sheer terror to open up the world anew. Perhaps the Misfit is right — Jesus threw the world off balance. Jesus — here — being an analog for that which comes into the world, despite its own gnarly roughness, and can shine forth.

Isn't it absurd that in O'Connor's worldview, that turns out to be a miserly old woman? I guess that is the truth of "A Good Man is Hard to Find." So now. I try to judge people less harshly. I also try to be more aware of my own words and how they match my actions. When I first read the story with Sister Jean d'Arc, I saw myself as a good man. I was in school, and I tried my best to go to Church, to help others. But I feel like this story is about how the usual trappings of goodness often don't reveal our true selves. For example — remember bratty June Starr and John Wesley? In the story, the children, even though they are spoiled brats and do not show respect to their elders, see the adults' hypocrisy. The family in this story do not listen to one another. They regularly talk over one another — and I think O'Connor presents us with this family for a reason. For they are not unlike many families I know — or the family I come from — in which we often bicker and complain, but rarely take a breath, and achieve quiet. And listen.

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Teach "A Good Man is Hard to Find" to High School Students.

Philosophy in the Classroom: Friedrich Nietzsche's Concept of "Eternal Recurrence" Paired with Groundhog Day — the 90s Movie Starring Bill Murray

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In this post, I re-package a previous post I did on Nietzsche's concept of eternal recurrence and turn it into a meaningful High School English lesson for Ninth and Tenth graders.

The demon on your chest — would you curse the demon or embrace your fate?      

      A while ago, I posted a passage from Friedrich Nietzsche's book The Gay Science on my website. I was really struck by a section of the book I call "The Allegory of the Demon." It's a thought experiment and Nietzsche has his reader think about how does one live out their life? How would you live your life differently? What if you had to repeat your life over and over again without change? Would you "gnash your teeth" or would you embrace it? 

      I thought the passage was dense enough and short enough, to elicit a response in my Ninth and Tenth grade English classes. So, I created a lesson to think about Nietzsche along with a classic 1990s movie — Groundhog Day. None of my students had heard of the movie, and their knowledge of Nietzsche was slim — but we dug into the reading and I was pleasantly surprised by how much critical thinking we were able to do with such a small passage from World Literature. So. I put together the lesson on Teachers Pay Teachers. Here is the outline of the lesson:

Philosophy in the Classroom Lesson Plan: Nietzsche and Bill Murray in Groundhog Day 

What is the meaning of life? You and your students are sure to come up with many answers to this question. Get your students engaged in philosophical inquiry by presenting them with Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of "eternal recurrence," paired with clips from the movie Groundhog Day (1993) starring Billy Murray and Andie McDowell.

This resource includes the following features:

Essential Question: What is the meaning of Life?

Supporting Questions: How does Friedrich Nietzsche provide a possible answer to this question. / How can I apply abstract ideas to everyday life?

This resource includes the following features:

The text of the story is included in this resource.

• Teacher's notes on using this resource
• 7 reading comprehension questions
• 1 Entrance Ticket
• 1 Movie View Guide
• 1 Writing Prompt
• 3 Editable Google Slides handouts
• Further Reading List (To go deeper into the topic with your students)

Suggested Uses:

1. Ninth or Tenth Grade High School English Curriculum
2. World History Course on the History of Ideas
3. Introduction to Philosophy Course
4. Literature Course
5. Ethics Course
6. Introduction to Philosophy Course
7. Student Advisory Course
8. A Lesson on the "Meaning of Life"

Suggested Classroom Time: 3 Hours + Independent Worktime for Students' writing

See a companion lesson "Plato's Allegory of the Cave in Plain Language" - on searching for truth in a crazy world.

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A Pro Tip for Teachers: Using Text Sets on Newsela

Newsela is a website that curates news articles for teachers to share with their students. The idea is straightforward. Students engage with non-fiction texts to improve their reading levels (and critical thinking skills). Each news article on Newsela is calibrated to at least five reading levels which can be tweaked according to a student's grade level and reading proficiency. Articles come equipped with quizzes students can take (and teachers can see the results) and writing prompts students can respond to (which teachers can edit to align with their own classes).

Use Newsela for Non-Fiction ReadingI have been using Newsela for a long time. I use it to assign articles to my students that supplement what we're doing in class. For example, for a Ninth Grade English Shakespeare unit I have kids read about Shakespeare in the Park or after talking about whether or not "video games rot your mind" I have them read an opinion piece on the subject before they write their own essay.

Go Further With Teacher-created Text SetsA really powerful tool on Newsela is the ability to create text sets. I teach a series of "Philosophy in the Classroom" units that I developed with middle and high school students at my school. We read Plato and Nietzsche in class but I want to connect the abstract ideas of philosophers to current and relevant events going on in our society today. Newsela makes that possible. Here is a text set I recently made for my students that I have paired up with my unit on Justice.

Newsela Text Set: Philosophy in the High School Classroom: "The Ring of Gyges"
Essential Mystery: Why should I be a good person?

I based the Newsela Text Set On 

My Philosophy in the Classroom Lesson

Supporting questions:
Should I be a good person even if I know I can get away with being bad?
Is being a good person in of itself a good thing? Why do those who do bad things not only sometimes get away with it but seem to benefit from their ill deeds while those who do good don't often prosper nor get as much recognition for the good they do?

Student/ Teacher Instructions:
Why be good? The texts in this set contribute to an overarching moral question first brought out by Plato in his book, The Republic. Plato's young student Glaucon complains to Socrates that good people never seem to benefit from their good deeds, while bad people who do bad deeds not only profit from it but seem to be better off than good people. So why be good at all?

• Pre-Reading Assignment: Before going further watch the following video “The Myth of Gyges”. Copy and paste the link: https://youtu.be/4qjGp6TWqe4
• Optional. Read the primary source material from The Republic. Copy and paste the link: http://sites.wofford.edu/kaycd/Plato/. 
• Choose THREE compelling stories from this text set to read and to annotate. Respond to all prompts in YELLOW. These are my questions to you. 
• Be both Glaucon and Socrates as you read. Highlight in RED ideas in the stories that support Glaucon. Highlight in GREEN views that support Socrates' view. 
• Take the reading comprehension quizzes for the three stories you selected. 
• Prepare the writing prompt for the article that you thought was the most compelling. Read the prompt carefully. 

In class, be ready to share your annotations for the articles you selected. You will be paired with different students to discuss the ideas of each article. Your grade for this assignment is a combination of your quiz scores (20%), your annotations and appropriate highlights (20%), group participation (30%), and finally, your writing prompt (30%).

Extension Resources:

• Primary Source "Ring of Gyges" Kay, Charles D. Wofford College. “Plato”. N.d. <http://sites.wofford.edu/kaycd/Plato/>. Internet Resource.
• Go deeper with this lecture from Yale University professor Tamar Szabó Gendler on "The Ring of Gyges". https://oyc.yale.edu/philosophy/phil-181/lecture-2
• Plato, and Benjamin Jowett. The Republic: The Complete and Unabridged Jowett Translation. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.

Intended Grade Level(s): 7-10

Content Areas: English Language Arts, Social Studies, Humanities, Civics

Skills Practiced: This text set and its activities conform to the following Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.2 - Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.L.6 - Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when encountering an unknown term important to comprehension or expression.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.L.5 - Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.

Estimated Time: Three 45-minute class periods.

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Teaching Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night's Dream: Power Plays, Cultural Insights, and A Unique Scene Analysis

Dive into our insightful analysis of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream as we explore power dynamics, Shakespeare's orientalistic imagery, and a nuanced interpretation of a specific scene involving Titania and Oberon. Our post, perfect for educators and students alike, brings a fresh perspective on this classic play.

Teaching and Analyzing a Midsummer Night's Dream

I've taught high school students A Midsummer Night's Dream several times. It's a popular text in American schools. Heck, I even read it in high school. And I have seen it performed on stage several times. It's a fun play that has worn well over the last five hundred years.

Power Plays in the Play

When teaching the play, I recommend skipping the part in the first scene where Hippolyta and Theseus talk about their wedding (and I go back to it later). I go straight to the part where Egeus comes to the court to ask Theseus to force his daughter Hermia to marry a boy she doesn't want to marry.

I ask students to keep a record of disagreements that occur in the play. Who is arguing with who and what is the power differential at work? In this case, it is a debate between an adolescent girl and her upper-class middle-aged father who wants to make decisions about the future of his family tree. Having the kids identify these power struggles is an effective way to hook them onto the play. Who doesn't like a rollicking tale of parental control and teen rebellion?

If you don't know the plot, it involves two young pairs of lovers from Athens' aristocratic class who escape into the woods to evade their parents' authority and the law. I am leaving out a few plot details but basically, a fairy named Puck mucks around with the concept of love at first sight and all hell breaks out in the forest. Even the queen and king of the fairies get in on the craziness.

So there is a lot to say about this play, and I have written about it on this blog; however, in this post, I want to zero in on a particular scene one may overlook when reading the play.

A Closer Look at a Particular Scene (Act.2.S.1)

Titania, the Queen of the fairies, has "stolen" a lovely boy from an Indian king, and her husband, Oberon, wants the boy for himself. Now, by Indian, Shakespeare means the Asian sub-continent, not the first nations inhabitants of the New World. In Shakespeare's time, Britain had already made in-roads into India and had begun what would become a long colonial presence there. There is debate among scholars as to the exact implications of this term in the play. In the late 16th century, when Shakespeare was writing, England was just beginning its interactions with India. The British East India Company, which began formalizing British presence in India, was established in 1600, a few years after "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was written. This means that while there were some interactions and awareness of India, the full-scale colonial presence hadn't been fully established yet in Shakespeare's time.

But the germ of colonial enterprise is there, in the text. Shakespeare romanticizes India.

The argument between Titania and Oberon over the "changeling boy" primarily takes place in Act 2, Scene 1. In this scene, Oberon confronts Titania about the Indian boy whom she has brought from India and is caring for. Oberon wants the boy to become one of his followers, but Titania refuses to give him up, which causes a conflict between the two characters. The scene contains key dialogues that reveal the depth of their disagreement over the boy.

When Titania explains how the boy was not stolen, but rather, she became the child's protector, Shakespeare infuses the language with orientalistic flourishes. For example, in describing Titania's visit, Shakespeare describes the Indian air as spiced, and he notes that Titania takes a seat on "Neptune's yellow sands". I am not sure why he refers to Neptune here, but it is a reference to the god of the sea (in Greek, Poseidon). My guess is that it is a soft allusion to the trade relations between India and Europe, a relationship that was born on the sea, but also traversed through trade routes (hence the "spiced Indian air" that also seems to allude to the export of spices from Asia).

Oberon: "I do but beg a little changeling boy to be my henchman"

While Oberon contends that Titania is a thief, the Fairy Queen explains that she came in possession of the boy because "His mother was a votaress of my order." When the mother dies in childbirth, Titania takes it upon herself to raise the boy as her own and she steals away with him - basically stealing the child from his father.

Their conflict over the boy plays a significant role in the plot development, as it prompts Oberon to instruct his sprite, Puck, to apply the juice of a magical flower to Titania's eyes while she sleeps. This leads to Titania falling in love with Bottom (who has been given a donkey's head) when she wakes up. When Titania returns to the forest with the "changeling," as she calls the boy, Oberon becomes furious when she won't share what she stole. The two royal fariy monarchs duke it out and to make a long story short, they kiss and make up — but not after Titania has her way with Bottom, and falls in love with the donkey-man.

New York City Ballet production of movie version of "A Midsummer

Night's Dream" with director Dan Eriksen coaching child actress

playing the changeling, choreography by George Balanchine

(New York). NYPL Digital Collections. 

One could look at this episode as a metaphor for colonialism. The British Empire was basically stolen by the British and then raised as its own.

Stop at the end of this scene and have your students discuss — better yet, have them prepare discussion points based on the following prompts:

• Understanding the Conflict Between Oberon and Titania: Discuss the core issue that instigates the dispute between Oberon and Titania in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." How does their disagreement over the "changeling boy" inform their characters and affect the overall plot?
• Traces of Early Colonial Influence in Shakespeare's Work: Examine the textual evidence in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" that could suggest the beginnings of Britain's colonial influence on India and East Asia. How does Shakespeare's portrayal of the Indian boy reflect or contradict the historical context of early British-Indian relations?
• Shakespeare's Orientalism in Depicting India: Analyze how "A Midsummer Night's Dream" may exemplify an "Orientalist" perspective, in which India is depicted as mysterious, exotic, and otherworldly. Consider instances in the text where Shakespeare romanticizes or idealizes India. How might this perspective have influenced perceptions of India during Shakespeare's time, and how does it relate to the broader discourse of Orientalism in literature?

The Changeling in Literature

Cigarette Card 'The Fairies' Changeling

Another stab at the text is to look at the trope of the changeling — as Oberon refers to the boy. There is a long, and detailed history of the changeling child in European fairytale and lore. The changeling is a substitute child left to replace a real one — stolen by fairies — or by goblins (cue the Jim Henson flick Labyrinth). Even into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this lore has endured, as evidenced by a pack of cigarette cards. The card reads:

THE FAIRIES' CHANGELING (Herefordshire) A mother was greatly worried over her child, for it never grew but lay in its cradle vear after year. When her elder son, a soldier, returned from the wars, he refused to believe the child was his brother, declaring it was a changeling. To prove this, he blew out some eggs, filled the shells with malt and hops, and brewed them over the fire. "Though I've lived a thousand years," chuckled the changeling, "this is the first time I've seen beer brewed in egg-shells." He then rushed from the house. Shortly afterwards, a fine young man walked in — he was none other than the boy the fairies had been keeping for many years.

Suffice it to say the "changeling" represents the unwanted child, a fairytale metaphor for the step-child, or the boy under the stairs (from Harry Potter). On the one hand, the fairy tale hinges on a childhood fear that "I am not wanted;" or the fear that "My parents are not my real parents." But it also reflects a more disturbing fact, of abuse, and neglect of children.

Ahhh A Comedy (But, Wait. What about the Boy?)

The play is a comedy. And at the end of the play, all is made right, lovers get what they want and the audience is treated to a play within a play. But we never find out the fate of the boy. What happened to him — what is his story? There is a creative piece here, waiting to be written, in the vein of The Wide Sargasso Sea, where a novel is written that gives a voice and character to the changeling boy from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Let's not leave the changeling boy to be neglected and give them their voice and story.

By Greig Roselli

Sources:

1. Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library. "New York City Ballet production of movie version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with director Dan Eriksen coaching child actress playing the changeling, choreography by George Balanchine (New York)" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1964.

2. George Arents Collection, The New York Public Library. "The fairies' changeling (Herefordshire)." The New York Public Library Digital Collections.

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