Siddhartha in the 21st Century

Each year I read Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha with my World Literature 12th grade students. While a few of them are quick to understand the concepts and deeper insights into how one should go about living life, most need the themes and ideas driven home through curriculum supplements.

This year I utilized readings from The Way of Chaung Tzu by Thomas Merton to help elucidate key concepts. I also called on YouTube for a visual assist, and found a great three-part Siddhartha series created by high school students.

Today we watched videos one and two. Tomorrow we'll watch the finale before beginning work on the culminating activity for the unit, an essay entitled Siddhartha Comes to America!

Below are the three student-produced Siddhartha videos. I hope you enjoy them as much as my students and I did.

All hail Macbeth!

I've added a Macbeth character poster activity I did last week with my seniors. There's also a handout on citing correctly from plays. There's a lot more I'd like to add to this page, but alas, there is only so much time.

As for the image above, I had students do a five minute freewrite. They were free to describe what they thought was going on, write about any connections they made between the image and their world, write about how the characters were feeling, etc. It sparked some creative responses, and even my more reluctant students were able to chime in.