Julie Calfee uses scaffolding to support all of her high school students through particularly difficult passages of Romeo and Juliet. She recognizes that without the scaffolding, some of her students will not be persistent and gain an understanding of the text. She fi nds that by getting students up, moving, and thinking about strategic phrases, they are more likely to connect to the text. By giving the students specific, workable segments of the play, she builds on their current knowledge and learning preferences. This improves their ability to collaborate with their peers. Her expectations, though, have not been altered and neither have her connections to the standards. Students are still expected to identify and articulate their understanding of personification, imagery and poetic terms. They can do this because Julie has built
on their engagement with the difficult text to help them reach new levels of persistence.
