In addition to reading Much Ado at home, you will also watch outside of class a Shakespeare play of your choosing. This play cannot be Much Ado or Romeo and Juliet, unless you have never seen Romeo and Juliet. I strongly recommend that after you finish Much Ado you watch the movie. As for the play you must watch, I recommend you get together with friends or watch with you parents. They are nice people, and they like doing things with you. The point is to create an audience. Then what you have to do is: A. Print out a list of characters and read it over. Look up what the setting of the play is. Read scene 1 and maybe scene 2 to get a feel for the language. Read a synopsis of Act 1 and maybe Act 2. Then with your audience and popcorn, watch the movie. Afterwards write a one=page journal on your response to the play and the interpretation. That's it: The point is to enjoy. The assignment is due when we finish Hamlet. About three weeks.
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This week we continue to read Hamlet in class and you continue to read Much Ado at Home. Each class day you will bring in a journal entry on Hamlet that will be assigned the class before. Check this space for assignments if you are absent. Before reading each act, review the vocabulary for that act at vocabulary.com. For Monday know the vocabulary for Act 1 For Wednesday Know the vocabulary for Act 2: http://www.vocabulary.com/lists/252062#view=notes For Monday: Bring to class the rough draft of your outside reading book review. This is a short review. You will likely write more than is required and then have to cut it down. You must follow MLA format. You need to short quotations. See assignment for more information The Final essay is due in Class on Friday. We will begin doing Sonnet recitations this week. We will read Hamlet in class. You are expected to be present every day. You will be graded on class participation and held accountable for understanding what we discuss on every day. Make a friend who can help you if you are absent. For Week of 9/28.
Monday: Have read before class: Act 1 of Much Ado About Nothing. We will introduce the play, which you will then read mostly on your own. Bring with you to class a print out of your Sophocles essay. For block day 1. Have read the article on inserting quotes into an essay on Oedipus. Mark up the sheet. Expect a quiz, which includes a questions about the three-step processes for using a quotation and what the most important rule is for quoting. Bring to class a written explanation of what is wrong with the three negative examples. Missed Monday: The hand out is under Sophocles on the class handout page. Or view it here. 2. Have read the introduction to Hamlet in Folgers edition. For a journal: Write down things that interested you or questions you have from the reading on Shakespeare and his stage. We will begin Hamlet in class. 3. Councilors will visit on block day. Bring your outside reading journals. I will check them during councilor visits. Regular class journal due this day: W For Thursday: Sophocles essay is due on turnitin by 10 p.m. Late papers, even a couple of minutes late, will lose points. See syllabus. For Friday: Hamlet in class, In addition to reading Much Ado at home, you will also watch outside of class a Shakespeare play of your choosing. This play cannot be Much Ado or Romeo and Juliet, unless you have never seen Romeo and Juliet. I strongly recommend that after you finish Much Ado you watch the movie. As for the play you must watch, I recommend you get together with friends or watch with you parents. They are nice people, and they like doing things with you. The point is to create an audience. Then what you have to do is: A. Print out a list of characters and read it over. Look up what the setting of the play is. Read scene 1 and maybe scene 2 to get a feel for the language. Read a synopsis of Act 1 and maybe Act 2. Then with your audience and popcorn, watch the movie. Afterwards write a one=page journal on your response to the play and the interpretation. That's it: The point is to enjoy. The assignment is due when we finish Hamlet. About three weeks. Monday review outlines for Sophocles essay. Essay is due in class on paper on Friday.
We will cover. Periodic and Cumulative sentences. Make your thesis a periodic sentence. We will quickly review three-action sentences. Try one for your opener, even if you go a different direction. We will go over sonnets. Terms we will cover include: sonnet, English/Shakespearean sonnet, Italian/Petrarchan sonnet, lyric poem, quatrain, couplet, volta, rhyme scheme, diction, syntax, irony, paradox, tone. You have to know them all and be able to apply them. We will go over Sonnet 18. Block. We will go over sonnets. I was wrong about counselor visits; they come next week. For classes 2 and 6 follow instructions on the board. You will start with presentations then move into sonnets. It is not a race to get through sonnets; it should take a while to fully work through one. Get sonnet assignments. Thursday: Sonnet performance. Come prepared. For Friday: Have read and be quite prepared to discuss: Sonnet 2, 18, 20, (found on line), 29, 30, 71, 73, 116 (you'll hear it at a wedding some day), 130. Also read The Death of a Toad by Richard Wilbur A toad the power mower caught, Chewed and clipped of a leg, with a hobbling hop has got To the garden verge, and sanctuaried him Under the cineraria leaves, in the shade Of the ashen and heartshaped leaves, in a dim, Low, and a final glade. The rare original heartsblood goes, Spends in the earthen hide, in the folds and wizenings, flows In the gutters of the banked and staring eyes. He lies As still as if he would return to stone, And soundlessly attending, dies Toward some deep monotone, Toward misted and ebullient seas And cooling shores, toward lost Amphibia's emperies. Day dwindles, drowning and at length is gone In the wide and antique eyes, which still appear To watch, across the castrate lawn, The haggard daylight steer. The Most of It by Robert Frost He thought he kept the universe alone; For all the voice in answer he could wake Was but the mocking echo of his own From some tree–hidden cliff across the lake. Some morning from the boulder–broken beach He would cry out on life, that what it wants Is not its own love back in copy speech, But counter–love, original response. And nothing ever came of what he cried Unless it was the embodiment that crashed In the cliff's talus on the other side, And then in the far distant water splashed, But after a time allowed for it to swim, Instead of proving human when it neared And someone else additional to him, As a great buck it powerfully appeared, Pushing the crumpled water up ahead, And landed pouring like a waterfall, And stumbled through the rocks with horny tread, And forced the underbrush—and that was all. YOUR SOPHOCLES ESSAY IS DUE IN CLASS ON PAPER. Sonnets Part 1
For your Shakespearean sonnet: Print out two copies. Double spaced, 12 point type at least. On No. 1 scan and mark up for meter. Note in the left margin: quatrains, volta, couplet. In the right margin, paraphrase line for line. On No. 2 Annotate for all figurative language, key diction, key changes in meter (where Shakespeare breaks from iambs), tone, shifts in tone, etc. Pay close attention to tone. On a separate sheet write a solid paragraph (10 sentences at least) on how the stuff you noticed contributes to the meaning of the poem. Write a second paragraph in which you let your imagination play. Imagine the sonnet is a monologue (not a soliloquy) in a play. Create a dramatic situation for the sonnet: When and where is it spoken? Who is speaking to whom? What does the speaker want? Why does it matter oh so much? It must matter oh so much. YOu will perform starting next Friday. Everybody must memorize. If you choose not to perform, you may write an essay instead. Periods 2 and 6 will do the same sonnet as the last two digits of their student number. If someone has the same number and the number is less than 153 then add 100 to your number: For example 20 becomes 120. If your number is over 53 just at one until you get to an open sonnet. For example, 67 become 68 if that is available. If you don't want to do your sonnet you must see me on Thursday. Part 2 In class on block day (9/22 or 9/23) get into groups of four. You will be assigned one of the following sonnets Shakespearean sonnets: 23, 29, 42, 57, 66, 71, 138, 144, 147. You to read the sonnet for homework. On Thursday you will rehearse and perform the sonnet with your group. You must be familiar with the sonnet before Thursday. Read it several times and look up unfamiliar words. Make sure to pick a sonnet on Wednesday. Each group will act out the sonnet. Everybody must speak, even if in chorus. There must be action. You must convey the theme and tone of the sonnet. You may use a prop or two (hats, swords, books, etc.) but keep it simple. And it may be best to bring the prop to class on Thursday as I got slim pickings. Details to come on Thursday. Part 3: Write a sonnet that responds to one of Shakespeare's sonnets or another sonnet we have read. For full credit, your sonnet must follow the exact form of a Shakespearean sonnet (except that I will allow blank verse). Due Oct. 2 (same day as your memorization/performance) Part 4. You will write an in class essay on a sonnet. On Monday: We finish re-read of Oedipus in class. I go over Oedipus's name. We discuss connections to Greek society and to our own. Journal before class: Write about two moments of dramatic irony.
For Tuesday: Have finished Antigone on your own. We continue discussion of Oedipus and move on to Antigone. Journal before class: What does Oedipus say about sight? Continue work on Sophocles essay. For Wednesday: Have read Miller and Aristotle on tragedy. High light. Take notes. Journal before class: Who is the tragic hero/figure of Antigone? For Thursday: Conclude Greek tragedy. Bring in topic for Sophocles essay. Have written out the thesis statement. UPDATE: Bring marked up copy of Miller and Aristotle. For Friday: Topic sentence outline and introduction of essay are due. Begin work on sonnets. Assign drama group project (oh the suspense, no previews) On Tuesday:
You will take the long awaited quiz on Greece. It will be short, like the drama terms quiz. For sure know the main gods, esp. Apollo and Dionysus, what the Oracle at Delphi was, who Pericles was, what the Peloponnesian war was all about. Extra credit if you can name both the original purpose and literal meaning of Deus ex Machina and a modern example. I will use the section you read on Greek literary history in World Lit as a source. Revision: A few of you were concerned about the Greek quiz. Here's the deal: The material from the Greek study sheet was meant only to give you the background to enhance your understanding Oedipus and Antigone. The myths are worthy of study in their own right, but we have limited time for that. The history is worth knowing, but is not our focus in a literature class. I heard also that the quiz questions were not aligned to the study guide. I guess I was thinking that getting a little background would not become a major end in itself. But I want to be fair in all assessments. Therefore, I have revised the Greek terms sheet to reflect specific information. I will next week offer anybody who wants a chance to make up the Greek terms quiz. You can also retake the Bible quiz. Assessments remain heavily weighted to essays--in class and at home. We will practice weaving quotations into our own sentences. We will talk about Greek culture and myth. Journal for Tuesday: How is your idea of your country similar/different from Pericles for Athens? What conclusions can you draw? You should continue reading Oedipus outside class. Finish for Wednesday. You will read the book on your own outside class so that when we read it together in class we can focus on motifs and structure without distracting you from the experience. You will receive discussion questions to consider and respond to as we work through the play. Note: Bible essay is due WEDNESDAY night to turnitin. Bring a copy to class on Wednesday. Journal to write at home: One page two parts: 1. What controls your life more, FATE (however defined: God, DNA, societal forces, etc) or FREE WILL (your own choices). 2. Is the universe essentially just or unjust? At home this week read Antigone. No extra writing, but prepare for in-class essay on the what the play says about authority (totalitarian authority?) and political dissent. How are to view Creon and Antigone? It's tricky. Wednesday: Short day/ Quick look at some big ideas in Oedipus. Review your Bible essay. Continue the play. Thursday: Continue reading Oedipus. Friday. Read NY Times theater critic Ben Brantley on Oedipus and 9/11. Continue reading Oedipus |
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