Reading Othello in Middle School

When the curriculum director informed that Romeo and Juliet would fall to ninth grade this year, I was suddenly at an impass. What Shakespeare play could I possibly teach that connected to young teens in such a strong way. I especially had to look out for my boys. I wanted to make sure they were not overwhelmed with the romanticism of Shakespeare. For months I tossed around King Lear, then Much Ado, even Mid Summer's (which has way to many plots to be an introductory play). My favorite play has always been Othello. This play's short introductory love story is so strong that you can almost forgive the blood bath in the end... almost. So Rachel and I were talking and she mentioned Othello as well. Off I went to research and see if this would be a fitting play to introduce these young minds to this wonderful playwright. More to come...

Success! Harrison School and Christian Family Fellowship always comes out on top

It's hard to believe that this was my tenth drama production in Canon City, but it is! When John Caverly came bounding into my classroom five years back to ask me to produce plays with him, I was laughing furiously on the inside. You never know where life is going to take you, but I will tell you that I have had a blast in helping polish up our productions. One of our brighter stars begged to be on the poster and so here is the poster. It was placed all over town.

CINDERLLA


A few weeks after that, the high school performed Cinderella. I invited Keilah, a 6th grader from church. I had a hand made invitation that told her when the carriage would arrive and that I promised to have her back before she turned into a pumpkin. I even signed it "your fairy godmother". It was so much fun to see her reaction and take her to the performance. Of course, we had reserved front seating. This performance was a bitter sweet one. Sad because Julie Dean, the drama director is retiring. Julie welcomed me from the beginning and has always been so kind and giving to me. Thanks Julie! What will I do without you now? But the play was also sweet because this is my first year in which I will have seniors graduating. That means that every year after this I'll have students graduating. So, you can guess how fun it was to sit and watch these students of mine perform having taught them in middle school. The icing on the cake of course was the fact that Cinderella was one of our very own CCMS stars in which she played Pollyanna. She was a perfect Cinderella. You should be able to see her in the picture.

BLOSSOM FESTIVAL AND QUEEN

If that isn't enough, our Blossom Festival is this month. If you haven't noticed I have a website dedicated to my house which I have aptly named: Apple Blossom Cottage. It was given this name for the very reason of our annual Blossom Festival. The parade is a celebration of all that is good in a small town.
The Blossom Queen this year was Trista Delarosa, a youth from my church. I am so proud to see Trista representing Christ in such a positive way. She truely is beautiful!

O.k. one more thing. Not many of you know this but John wrote a play 4 years ago entitled "In the Middle of the Middle". He is in the process of seeing it published. The fun part of this story is that a middle school in Denver wanted to perform his play. I'm trying to convince him we need to go see it!

So you see, this has been a Spring season of successes!