“Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments; love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds, / Or bends with the remover to remove.”  ―  William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 116”

Ah, February.  Love is in the air.  The balloons, the carnations, the absolutely unnecessary sugar consumption in the halls.  Valentine’s Day, really the whole week of it, is one of those times of the year that I find…trying.  There is added excitement, angst, moodiness and stinky, overpowering body sprays.  Last year I had a dental cleaning on Valentine’s Day; I was not sorry to leave school early for it!  In my experience, it’s a rather distractable, and often times dramatic, few days for the students and therefore, me.

To take advantage of the high-flowing oxytocin of the week, while keeping focus and standards, I like to work in a little Bard Bonus unit and cover Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 116.”  It’s classic Shakespeare, without being too tough to analyze, and my resource for it is comprehensive enough to take the whole week if one so chooses.

However, if you want something shorter, to break up the week and have a fun activity just on Valentine’s Day, my pun resource is engaging and fun.  Plus, it’s very easy for a substitute to implement if you have, say, a teeth cleaning!   

Lastly, since we are only a week into Black History month, these are few of my favorites to use during the month.  I’ll feature a few different lessons in my next post.

“Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston.

Published by a fellow Floridian in 1926, Hurston’s “Sweat” follows Delia, the hard-working protagonist, and Sykes, her woefully loser of a husband.  Written in black, 1920s dialect, it can be a linguistic adventure for students to read aloud.  Delia is such a kind and likable character, and her husband so…not…that students generally find the resolution of this Southern tale particularly satisfying.  

“Dreams” and “I, Too” by Langston Hughes.

Langston Hughes, a northern contemporary of Hurston published at the height of the Harlem Renaissance.  The brevity of his poem “Dreams” makes it a great single-day analysis, and it is perfect to use to introduce students to topics they will find and discuss in longer works such as Lorraine Hansbury’s “A Raisin in the Sun.”  And, because “I, Too” is a response to Walt Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing,” those texts pair well together.

For such a short month, February has a lot going on…for most of us, anyway.  These two don’t know a thing about what puts the vittles in the bowls!  Puppy Love!

Happy Teaching!

M.D. Saints
Reading the Rapids
Liberty Dog Writing Co.