Macbeth, the Game.

I know it's been exactly a week since my last post. There have been several occasions when I thought, "I could blog about that." But, I'm a little low on emotional energy right now. Dan's doing some cover work, which means that neither of us is at home resting. There are two tired and stressed people trying to take care of two energetic young girls. Needless to say, it's not conducive to blogging.

I'm also working on a really, really big project. I have a group of pretty apathetic 9th graders this year, and my next unit is about Macbeth. Apathy and Shakespeare don't really get along and, quite frankly, I just want to light a fire under them. So, I came up with a solution, a very complicated and time-consuming one. I've made my entire unit into a game. Everything about class will either earn them points or badges and I've gotten feedback from several game fanatics in order to get it as close to something they might play as possible. Now, I know that gaming in the classroom is nothing new, but it isn't really about the novelty. I really, really, really want to engage these kids.

If they don't get into it, or just plain hate it, I will probably have a breakdown. Or, maybe I'll just make them read the entire play silently and give them a test. Ha! Then we'll see who likes my game. If nothing else, they'll get better and better at faking it!