It is 4:15 AM, and my alarm is going to ring in an hour. I have used my insomnia to finally have time to focus on my plans for my students' character sketches for Othello. I was worried about having the papers rushed at the end, which would have been a shame because we have worked very closely with this play and the papers have, consequently, real potential. I have now slowed things down to let our work sink in as they process their chosen characters' final moments in this tragedy.
The students move into this character study having performed live the entire Act V of the play (check my webpage later for pics and video!). Therefore, they know this play about as well as they can at this point. I hope the critical essays we then read (here and here) play an even bigger role in their papers because we are working through them a bit more. I am using Google docs to have them outline their chosen essay with a partner the night before they come into class to jigsaw. I have also included these essays along with other suggested sources on our Tumblr page so they are reminded that these can be outside sources for their character studies. Now let's see how it works out ... the best laid plans ...
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