Merchant of Venice #3

For our final Merchant of Venice, I asked the students to rewrite the play in a different time frame or reality. We divided our group of 12 into two groups of 6. That gave them enough "players" to put on their presentation for us.

The two groups came up with polar opposite ideas. I gave them a story map from this page to write down their ideas for characters, plot etc. You might be able to find a free one online.

The first group used a barnyard theme with Sheeplock etc.. It was very inventive and had lots of humour.

The second group presented from the point of view of intellectual writers in the 50's-60's era. They had more of a narrative presentation.

What I love about group work is you never know where it will end up. Two groups of students, doing the same assignment and coming up with two totally different ideas to present the plot and characters of Merchant of Venice. Giving students the freedom to create is a wonderful way of exploring what they know. They knew Merchant of Venice very well!

After they presented for us they did a dress rehearsal and our final performance of The Merchant of Venice!

I love these Three Session Literature Learning Camps - it is just enough time to know the literature well, analyze it, do critical thinking exercises and put on the play!  I don't think our students will ever forget Fiddler on the Roof, Pride and Prejudice, Midsummer Night's Dream, Tom Sawyer and many others we have done over the years ;)

Blessings,
Natalie

Sweatshop Labour and Ethical Fashion Show Co-op

Our last Co-op was an awesome exploration the Asian Floor Wage, Ethical Fashion and Sweatshop Labour.

First I had the students watch this video and we talked about the floor wage and how that would affect each country depending on costs of living.  

We then as a large group compared statistics of the Asia Floor Wage and what a Living Wage is in a variety of countries and discussed the poorest paid countries. I used these statistics.

Together we looked at this political cartoon and discussed the implications of totally boycotting sweatshop labour: 

The students then got into groups of four to create a fashion show. They brought a variety of clothing with them. I adapted this idea for our Sweatshop Fashion Show: 

Here is the document that the groups used to create the commentary for their fashion show. They were to have one model with ethically responsible clothing and one model with non-ethically responsible clothing.

Here is the main information that they used to assess their fashions. 

I think that this session helped our students to look at clothing in a different way. Hopefully, they learned more about the fashion industry and the idea of living wages and floor wages. 

They certainly learned those companies that have changed their practices over the past 10 years. They also learned about those companies who have full disclosure and who have signed either the FLA - (Fair Labour Associations) guidelines or the ETI - (Ethical Trading Initiative).