"I think; therefore..." Rene DeCarte

Over the course of the first few weeks of school my seniors have been working on an analytic essay that they wrote over the summer.  People I tell about the assignment are surprised that there is a program that has students working over the summer.  I have to remind my friends that these students are on a college track, many have already been accepted to impressive institutions, and the amount of work they do over the summer is nothing compared to the work they will be expected to complete when they get to university.  That being said, we have now moved on into Existentialism and Hamlet. 

                The class spent a few days learning and annotating an article from the Stanford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Existentialism.  My CT gave them a packet that is comprised of the existentialism article, examples of how to annotate a work, and a series of higher level questions to answer.  Honestly, I am not well versed in existentialism so I completed the assignment at home to give myself a better understanding and so that I could assist the students if they needed help.  I also dug out my copy of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness and brushed up a bit.  We are teaching existentialism and the absurd in order to give students context as they read Hamlet.  Furthermore, we are teaching annotation so that our students can learn the skill.  They will be required to take notes during Hamlet and then when we move on to The Stranger they will be required to annotate their own copy of the novel for a grade.  I was surprised to find that there are college students and certified teachers who have never annotated a novel and it blew my mind that they would miss out on having that intimate of a conversation with a novel, especially literature.

                Some of my colleagues have expressed that they feel existentialism and the absurd is (1) to difficult of material for Highschool students and (2) they feel like they may be unprepared to teach such a heavy subject, especially in relation to Hamlet.  However, in my opinion if we gloss over existentialism we are doing an injustice to them.  Hamlet is in a similar situation to many of our students.  “To be or not to be” comes to mind.  By teaching existentialism with Hamlet we are helping our students, who are creating their own identity, to create their own identity using existentialism and literature instead of pop-culture and celebrity.

 

                During Thursday’s class period the class was opened for discussion on existentialism and the absurd.  The opening question that my CT posed to them was “What are your ideas of existentialism at this point?”  The conversation went from there on its own.  My CT did ask connecting questions but primarily the discussion was student driven as they discussed and debated their own concept of existentialism.  Some of the best questions were: “What is the burden of facticity?”  “How can paradox be resolved?” “What is the context of religion and science in relation to existentialism?”  How did the reformation effect existentialism or did existentialism influence the reformation?”  And a discussion on herd mentality.  These students are extremely intelligent and challenging them less than we are doing right now would be to fail them.

                Time was given on Friday for the students to review their graded summer essays that they edited in class.  For the most part they did well with the revision process.  No one received below a B.  My CT reviewed what assignments were supposed to be turned in by Friday as we handed back papers.  Time was then given to the students to review and read the comments on their papers.  It was made clear to them that repetitive mistakes do not show growth and that you have to be willing to review several papers together in order to find these types of mistakes.  In addition my CT made sure that the students were aware that they can come in at lunch or after school to discuss their papers in a friendly way and that he would show them how to correct any mistakes in their papers if they had questions.  Afterwards we began Hamlet.

                Hamlet in context was the objective of Friday’s lesson.  Students took Cornell notes while my CT lectured.  Topics covered during the lecture were: Hamlet’s first performance, Elizabethan history, James I, Change and the unknown, reality vs. unreality.  Students were assigned their own parts with my CT reading the part of Hamlet.  My advice to the students was to read with enthusiasm.  Nothing is worse than reading, and listening to someone read, with a monotone, boring, uninterested voice.  We got through Act 1: Scene 1 before class ended, and definitely an exciting start to the year.