NCATE Standard 3.3.2

The candidate uses a wide range of approaches for helping students to draw upon their past experiences,

socio-cultural backgrounds, interests, capabilities, and under-standings to make meaning of texts.

      Themes of Romeo and Juliet.

                   There are items which caused conflict between the two young lovers which are outlined in the artifact.

Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Forcefulness of Love, Love as a Cause of Violence, The Individual versus Society, The Inevitability of Fate and others best addressed by a discussion in a Literature Circle.

In a nutshell, literature circles are a structured reading activity that allows powerful, high-ordered discussion and thinking to go on around good books. Sophisticated literary discussions are the outcome. Literature circle time is separate and different and special. It is a time for kids to:

• pick, read and discuss their own books, connect with books, take responsibility as readers and group members, construct meaning together, and begin to debate and challenge one another.  This is part of critical thinking development.

NCATE Standard 3.3.3

The candidate uses both theory and practice in helping students understand

the impact of cultural, economic, political, and social environments on language.

     Artifact 3   African American Vernacular Speech/Ebonics.

                   The paper is from research I did while in linguistics class.  The information I found is helpful to share with students so as to understand different speech patterns that they will come across such as in Mumbo Jumbo.