Don Quixote Reading Writing Renaissance A lesson to engage English Language Learners in the Renaissance world view guided by the wisdom of Sancho Panza.

Presented by Melissa Thompson Sheldon I.S.D. Houston, Texas Created for the Greater Houston Area Writing Project, Summer Presented July 13, With many thanks to the National Endowment for the Humanities for a grant received July, 2004.

Inquiry Strategies - Immersing “In immersing themselves in either a lived or represented world, students need to consciously attend to their own reactions to that world, because these reactions suggest those aspects a person would find urgent or significant enough to study.” Inquiry-Based English Instruction, Engaging Students in Life and Literature by Richard Beach and Jamie Myers

Inquiry Strategies - Immersing “Students who have a limited amount of time or access to a site may examine a social world as represented in literature and the media.” Inquiry-Based English Instruction, Engaging Students in Life and Literature by Richard Beach and Jamie Myers

Inquiry Strategies - Immersing Students have begun a unit to learn about the Renaissance. Since they do not have access to a site (i.e., they can’t go there and see it for themselves) literature and the media will be employed in the classroom for the students to begin reading, questioning, and writing.

Inquiry Strategies - Immersing The cover art is discussed and the main characters are introduced. Discussion is encouraged in discussing the animals on which each man rides. The word “ass” is defined and discussed. Laughter is encouraged. Prior knowledge is activated. The text is never watered down.

Inquiry Strategies - Immersing “The reader’s primary goal as he meets the text is to have as full an aesthetic experience as possible, given his own capacities and the sensibilities, preoccupations and memories he brings to the transaction.” The Reader the text the poem, the transactional theory of the literary work by Louise M. Rosenblatt

Inquiry Strategies - Immersing In beginning this larger than life work of art, the students begin with smaller, typewritten passages that are read by the teacher, while students read along. They see the larger work in the reader’s hands and are read to from the complete work.

Inquiry Strategies - Immersing Passages

Passage 1 During this fortnight Don Quixote set to work on a farmer who was a neighbor of his, an honourable man (if a poor man can be called honourable) but a little short of salt in the brain-pan. To be brief, Don Quixote told him, reasoned with him and promised him so much that the poor villager decided to go away with him and serve him as squire. Don Quixote told the man, among other things, that he ought to be delighted to go, because at some time or another he could well have an adventure in which he won an island in the twinkling of an eye and installed his squire as governor. These and other similar promises persuaded Sancho Panza, for this was the farmer’s name, to leave his wife and children and go into service as his neighbour’s squire. Cervantes 61

Passage 2 ‘What’s a knight adventurer?’ replied the wench. ‘Are you so green you don’t know that?’ retorted Sancho Panza. ‘Well, look here, my dear: a knight adventurer, to cut a long story short, is someone who’s being beaten up one moment and being crowned emperor the next. Today he’s the unhappiest creature in the world, and the poorest too, and tomorrow he’ll have two or three kingdoms to hand over to his squire.’ ‘Well, you’re the squire of this fine master,’ said the innkeeper’s wife, ‘so how is it that, to judge from appearances, you aren’t even a count?’

‘It’s early days yet,’ replied Sancho, ‘we’ve only been looking out for adventures for a month, and so far we haven’t come across any worthy of the name. And sometimes you go looking for one thing and you find another. The fact is that if my master Don Quixote gets over his wounds or fall and it doesn’t turn me into a cripple, I wouldn’t swap my hopes for the best title in Spain.’ Cervantes 123

Inquiry Strategies - Immersing Response circle. Vocabulary is written informally on the board for students to see and incorporate into their reflections. Beach and Myers’ dual entry journal format is introduced, discussed and modeled.

Inquiry Strategies - Immersing “On the left side of the page, they may describe observations of particular objects, symbols, activities, interactions, or practices in a world.” Here the Renaissance world-view seen through Sancho. Inquiry-Based English Instruction, Engaging Students in Life and Literature by Richard Beach and Jamie Myers

Inquiry Strategies - Immersing “Then, next to each of these observations, they note specific thoughts and feelings evoked by the practices and material conditions of the social world.” Inquiry-Based English Instruction, Engaging Students in Life and Literature by Richard Beach and Jamie Myers

Modifications Gifted and Talented. Same lesson, longer, more complex passages and a copy of the text in hand. Special Education Students. Same lesson with more group work and oral sharing of ideas and vocabulary and partner writing responses.

Bibliography Beach, Richard and Jamie Myers. Inquiry-Based English Instruction, Engaging Students in Life and Literature. Teachers College Press, New York, NY Cervantes, Miguel. The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha. Penguin Books, New York, NY. Rosenblatt, Louise M. The Reader, the text, the poem, the transactional theory of the literary work. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL 1978.