G - The one with more questions.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: Why do we rush to judge character?

Learners reread the poem as a class. We made two rounds of questions and discussed the connections between the Lady of Shalott, Ophelia, and Gertrude.

Thank you to Mr. Casiano for spending the quick class with you!

ENTRANCE TICKET: How does the Lady of Shalott compare with Ophelia and Gertrude? Is she weak and gullible? (Post your response to the digital whiteboard before coming to class next day.)

NEXT CLASS: Losing sight of self, the narrative essay

B - The one that wasn't.

Everyone except Michael was away - it was a reflection day for those who attended Encounter this past weekend.

VIEW: "All the things I wasn't" by Grapes of Wrath music video (yes, a music video)

NEXT CLASS: Does Shakespeare still matter?

G - The one with muscial chairs... sort of.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: How do we come to judge character?

Learners worked in pairs to offer their impressions of this painting:

Learners read independently, Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott." We sat in a circle, read the poem aloud together, then went around and offered only questions about the poem. (Rules: no repeat questions, one pass only, then you must leave the room!) We switched seats in the circle after two rounds. We were able to get through five rounds of questions!

EXIT TICKET: Pick a line from the poem that could serve as the the title of the painting above. Post the line to the digital whiteboard.

PRACTISE: Create a list of questions in preparation for our continued "Socratic Study" next class.

NEXT CLASS: Ophelia and the Lady of Shalott

B - The one with OP.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: Why is the evolution of language so important to literature?

We continued our study of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 and I used the language of poetry (and the sonnet) to model an appreciation for the poem.

HIGHLIGHTS: In the first quatrain, the speaker questions whether or not he should compare the subject to summer and decides that the subject is "more fair and more temperate." The speaker extends the "summer" metaphor in the second quatrain and suggests that the subject possesses (or will possess) a more everlasting beauty than that of summer. At the volta in the third quatrain, the speaker asserts the beauty of the subject directly, explaining why he thinks the subject's beauty will last to eternity. The couplet solidifies the speaker's assertions by suggesting that the subject will live on in the lines of poetry that the author (Shakespeare) wrote, and which will be read by others as time passes.

We viewed together a short video on Shakespeare's original pronunciation (OP):

We spoke briefly about all the missed puns from our previous experience of Shakespeare because we did not consider OP.

I assigned learners a sonnet and they used the period to prepare an appreciation of their sonnet for next Wednesday.

PRACTISE: Prepare an appreciation of your assigned sonnet.

NEXT CLASS: everyone is away for Encounter or something else, so November 20 - Shakespeare's sonnets

G - The one with Hamlet's roman empire.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: How do one's actions speak to identity?

Learners sauntered in after the fire drill. We discussed some prompts that Ms. Ignacio left, and provided thoughtful ideas about our peers' proficiencies. We finished with a discussion on Hamlet's "Roman Empire."

My message to Ms. Ignacio:

Thoughtful and passionate! They were worried about giving feedback to their peers but once they got into it, things went smoothly.

Many grounded their discussions with textual evidence. Good structure.

They had difficulty with the idea of “mighty opposites.”

They had difficulty with the last question, too, but once I told them they could relate the quotation to their own lives or interests they had a direction to go.

The more abstract the questions got the more guidance they needed (understandably). Noah, Cecilia, and Gabriel were standouts.

- Mr. Casiano

NEXT CLASS: weakness and gullibility

B - The one about the chase.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What does the sonnet form suggest about how Elizabethans viewed love?

After Kylie's speech about how Queen Elizabeth boss-ladied her way through the Renaissance (I said that it was her roman empire - see what I did there?), we launched into some discussion about the sonnet form. Learners presented their oral analyses of early sonnets by Wyatt, Spenser, and Sidney. We discussed the issue of reading only men's versions of "the chase," which always seems to be ego-centric and about winning "an object."

After Jaya's comment about not finding iambic pentametre, I spoke about rhythm and metre. I defined specifically what pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables form:

• an iamb (iambic foot)  ⏑ / (unstressed, stressed)
• a trochee (trochaic foot)  /⏑
• an anapest (anapestic foot) ⏑⏑/ 
• a dactyl (dactylic foot) /⏑⏑
• a spondee (spondaic foot) / /

We looked at Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 in an effort to see the growth of the sonnet. Brianna fed Stephanie the lines so that she could read them dramatically to Kylie. Stephanie noted the difficulty really expressing something coherent because Brianna was feeding her the lines so slowly. A second and third try finally gave Stephanie a chance to express the lines more gracefully.

READ: the excerpt from Spenser's The Faerie Queen

PRACTISE: Arrange a dramatic reading of Sonnet 18

NEXT CLASS: love, the sonnet, Shakespeare's contemporaries, OP

G - The one with acting out Act V with Mr. Casiano.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What's the purpose of comic relief?

We heard the last two creative reactions to Gertrude's announcement of Ophelia's death.

We worked the first part of Act V, scene i and played out the scene in groups of four. Thank you to Mr. Casiano for joining us as we played out the scene by "feeding" each other the lines. (See what we did there... we literally giving you comic relief!)

PRACTISE: If you did not present your creative reactions / interpretations, please send them to me and explain why you were not able to present in class.

NEXT CLASS:

• "The women in Hamlet are weak and gullible." Discuss.
• Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott"