Miranda Schuhle

Secondary English Methods Education

Professor Meg Goldner Rabinowitz
Due 11/9/2015
Attacking Antigone
I was taught Antigone before Oedipus and I now wish they were taught to me vice versa.
I would ideally teach Antigone after already introducing Greek tragedies. Because I always see
myself as being a special education teacher, I would teach Antigone in a way that would be
accessible for all learners of varying levels. I believe that Antigone has such an interesting plot
and I would want my students to focus in on the plot line and the major themes of the play.
I would assign smaller chunks of the play as homework on a nightly basis. Students
would be required to annotate and then write a one sentence summary of what they just read. I
want students to read it on their own at first so that when we read it in class together (either aloud
or using a recorded voice version) it will be the second time they are hearing it and interpreting
it. When I send students home with a small chunk of the text to read on their own for the first
time, I will provide them with prompting questions to think about while reading and annotating.
When students come in the following day I will have them briefly (less than 5 minutes)
compare/discuss the reading and their annotations from the night before. There will be a specific
topic or question on the board that I will ask students to focus their conversations on. If
behavior/staying on topic became an issue I would randomly check to listen for students
conversations for a participation grade for that day. Based on what I hear students talking about, I
will try to guide any misconceptions I hear in the right direction.
Next we will listen to the play read (either by student volunteers, myself, or on tape). We
will pause occasionally to discuss what we are reading and connect it back to what students

understood from the section the first time they read it the night previously. I will have students
follow along in their own texts while listening. I want students to read the same sections (at least
the most important parts) more than once so that they can interpret a more challenging text as
independently as possible.
The assessment for the unit would be a small group project (1-3 students per group).
Students would design and describe how they would interpret the tragedy on stage. The purpose
of the end of the unit project would be for students to develop the play around how they would
represent the different elements of it. Some of the guiding questions I would provide would be:
Who would play Antigone? (What would she look like, and for other characters as well). What
kind of props would you use? Would you keep true to the time period it takes place in or
modernize the play at all? How would violence and death be shown/represented in the tragedy?
Would you change or leave anything out of the plot?
After students briefly present and turn in their final projects, I would like to bring them to
see a show of the tragedy. I think giving students the opportunity to see a text they have been
reading is so beneficial and enlightening. If I brought to my students to the version I previously
saw I dont think their interpretations would look very similar to it. I would want my students to
see how different text interpretations can be represented, but I also want them to have the
wonderful opportunity to experience the tragedy in a different way.