Igniting Your Personal and Professional Growth

Describe one or two, specific learning experiences from your fellowship. In words, show us this experience and explain why it was powerful.

The most powerful learning experiences on the trip for me were viewing Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London and touring the theater the following day. As a Literature teacher, I’ve taught at least one Shakespeare play each year, and I always begin that Shakespeare unit with a lesson about Elizabethan England and Shakespearean theatre culture of the era. I feel like I have a brand new outlook on both of those things now.

What did you learn about yourself? What did you learn professionally?

I learned that there is so much history behind all of the texts that I teach (or really any text) that is so integral to a deeper understanding of the context of that text, and that a lot of that history was and still is lost on me. On a basic level, I obviously knew that already, but after seeing hundreds of both big and small connections to the things we read in British Literature, my eyes were opened a bit to just how much I’ve probably been glossing over as we read Shakespeare or Beowulf.

What were some unplanned or unexpected experiences or outcomes of your fellowship? Or, how did the fellowship you crafted differ from the actual learning experience?

For the vast majority of the trip, we were able to stay on schedule and see the things we originally planned to see. We did have to nix the Tower of London because we had planned it for our first day in London amongst other things, and we ran out of time and energy post-flight. We had hoped to fit into one of the other London days, but it just didn’t work out. This essentially taught us that the possibilities for exploration both related to and unrelated to literature were endless in London.

Impacting Your Classroom, School and Community

Outline specific plans you have to implement your fellowship and reach your student goals.

My main goal for my students post-fellowship is for them to have a better understanding of the cultural context behind British literature that we read in 12th grade British Lit. Each year I do an “Introduction to Elizabethan Culture” and “Introduction to Anglo-Saxon Culture” Unit that precedes Macbeth and Beowulf respectively. For both of these units, I can now provide meaningful context that I learned on-site at the Globe, Shakespeare’s birthplace, Inverness, and the druidic ruins at Keswick.

What is one way you can leverage your fellowship to create one authentic learning experience for students? (e.g. hands-on learning, projects, community engagement)

As mentioned above, once my students have been introduced to Shakespearean culture, we will read Macbeth. They will be able to see photos of medieval Scotland and watch film adaptations. They will also be able to see the way the Globe Theater sets their stage through photos from our tour/play viewing there. Then students will be assigned a project where they choose an element of the play to reproduce in some manner. These projects can be filmed/photographed and put on display in the library.

How, specifically, will your fellowship extend beyond your classroom? (e.g. families, school-at-large, afterschool groups, surrounding community, colleagues, etc.)

The projects my students complete can be photographed/filmed to be on display in the library for other student groups to enjoy. Physical projects can be displayed there as well. Ideally, however, my fellowship partner and I can convince other teachers of Shakespeare to collaborate with us on a Shakespeare festival of sorts. All grade levels could do projects related to their respective plays, and the library could be a center point for display on those projects.