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Grade Level: 9-12
Academic Areas: Language Arts
Duration of service: 1-2 Months
Character Virtues: Giving, Respect
Service Areas: Human Services, Education/Tutoring
Service Learning Project:
Using Streams Online (a Linux-based, open-source software available
free of charge at sol.tenpennyplayers.org), students will discuss
and analyze Shakespearean sonnets with a distance learning partner
that is from a geographic location that differs economically and
socially from their own. Each pair will work to write its own
sonnet. This sonnet will be presented in any format the pair feels
comfortable with (reading it, performing it, creating an illustrated
version of it, etc.) at a public venue such as the local library
or public access television channel to which members of both communities
involved will be invited. The participants will be "peer
educators" for their schools either through assembly or class
presentations (example - high school presenters to middle school
students). Participants will perform or present their sonnet and
share the growth process of learning about each other and breaking
down barriers.
Goals and Objectives
Academic
Learning Goal: Students will be able to analyze and define the
qualities of a Shakespearean sonnet with the purpose of writing
their own.
Standard: ELA #1 #2 and #3
Learning Goal: Students will be able to discuss the themes of
sonnets and compare and contrast them with other Shakespearean
works they have read
Standard: ELA #2, #3, #4
Service
Community need: Students attending high schools in neighboring
school districts have been in continuous conflict with each other.
Students stereotype other students based on where they live/attend
school (city, suburban, urban school districts) and their ethnicity.
Possible Community Partners: Streams Online, local libraries within
both geographic areas
Objective: Breakdown stereotypes that exist between geographic
areas and people of different ethic groups
Objective: Increase contact between students that are different
from each other.
Character
Virtue: Respect
Objective: Students will increase their regard and value of the
varying communities around them.
Virtue: Giving
Objective: Students will share their learning with the involved
communities.
Key Activities
Key Planning Activities
1. Students will brainstorm stereotypes that exist about the
community they will be in partner with in the form of a KWL chart
– What do you know? What do you want to know? (These two
questions will be discussed and answered prior to beginning the
project.) What have you learned? (This last question will be answered
at the end of the project as a reflection activity.)
2. The teacher will find another class in a geographic location
that differs economically and socially from that of the teacher’s
class. Students will work in pairs, one student being from a rural/suburban
school and the other being from a city school.
3. The teacher will be trained in how to use Streams Online: sol.tenpennyplayers.org
4. Teachers will conduct a brief review of any Shakespearean works
that the students have read throughout their high school career.
5. Students will read and study two to three of Shakespeare’s
sonnets.
Key Service Activities
1. Using Streams Online, students will discuss and analyze the
Shakespearean sonnets with their distance learning partner. Topics
to be discussed include: How do the sonnets relate to students’
personal experience? How do the sonnets compare to other Shakespearean
works? What are the literary elements of the sonnets? What clever
ways did Shakespeare use to make his words and message fit into
the structure of a Shakespearean sonnet?
2. Each pair will work to write its own sonnet. This sonnet will
be presented in any format the pair feels comfortable with (reading
it, performing it, creating an illustrated version of it, etc.)
at a public venue such as the local library or public access television
channel to which members of both communities involved will be
invited.
Key Reflection Activities
1. (oral) As a class, students will discuss the “L”
category of the KWL chart (see planning activity #1).
2. (written) Students will write a letter to their partner in
the other school expressing their feelings on the project and
on working together.
3. (performance) Students will invite the community to a forum
in which they discuss what they learned about the community with
which they were partnered. This might occur in conjunction with
service activity #2.
Celebration Activity
Students’ poems will be collected and published in a book
to be distributed to participants. Community members are invited
to the performance mentioned in service activity #2. In addition,
books will be distributed to participating members as well as
attendees of the performance.
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