Many teachers now love to read Tolkien to their classes, or include him in reading assignments. And while I am sure there must be many blogs where these teachers share their classroom experiences I don’t often stumble across them.
Teaching Tolkien is still fairly new, only started in February 2013. The author’s bio says of her:
Holly Rodgers is an educator, musician, and writer in the greater Washington DC area that has worked collaboratively with the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC to design lesson plans to promote the use of Shakespeare’s works with English language learners….
Holly is guiding thirteen (what an epic number!) 5th grade and 6th grade “English for Speakers of Other Languages” students through The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. She writes on the blog that she wanted something challenging for them.
The class started out with The Hobbit, which they completed in three weeks. As a reward Holly took them to see Peter Jackson’s movie “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”.
Maybe the most heartening anecdote is the most recent (at the time of this writing), where Holly shares her frustration with occasional disruptions of the class schedule, but her joy at seeing her students carry on when she is called away. Read External vs Internal Drive.
There are some interesting times ahead for the students. I hope they can complete this journey together.