B - ... when you melted "away and made no noise," so I lived "the best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men" by myself.

No essential question. No learners. Nothing. Nada.

NEXT: Goldsmith (get ready!) and the pre-Romantics

F - ... when we got to the Roman Empire (is that still a thing?) of Zhao's film.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What is the value of discovering the soul of a literary piece?

I asked learners to consider a shift when viewing the rest of Hamnet (2026) today; rather than observing,  I challenged learners to predict and connect (particulary with their experiences with Hamlet and "The Second Coming").

Learners shared some of their field notes from last class and added "Signs of Acceptance" as something to consider through today's screening.

POST: ... to the digital whiteboard, one "echo" from Shakespeare's Hamlet or Yeats's "The Second Coming" that you see/hear in Zhao's film Hamnet (2026) - either a line, an image, a motif, etc., and explain the echo.

READ: Of Mice and Men

NEXT CLASS: putting it together and extending. Life & Death / Hope & Despair

B - ... when you attempted a summary, but in 60 words AND in verse.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: Is it possible to simplify without sacrificing deeper meaning?

Learners used the period to "shrink" Golding's She Stoops To Conquer and their assigned piece from Gray or Burns or Blake into 60 "poetic" words. See the sample under "Class Links & Resources."

Ms. Van Elk collected the assignment and gave them to me - they're really great and so playful!

NEXT CLASS: Pre-Romantics

F - ... when you slayed at synthesis.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What is the value in recognizing the echoes amongst literary and artistic genres?

I gave a quick "what to look for" for learners' "field notes" before continuing our screening of Cholé Zhao's film Hamnet (2026). I asked learners to pay attention to the denotative and connotative ways the film considers the Shakespeare's motifs in Hamlet and Yeats's images from "The Second Coming":

• unweeded garden
• trappings of woe
• widening gyre
• physicality of rotting
• poison (in the ear)
• mighty opposites
• what seems v. what is

Learners continued watching the film and took notes.

NEXT CLASS: from observation to prediction & connection, "the sould of an age"

B - ...when we got to the Early Romantics.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: Why is it important to notice the shift in literature at the end of the enlightenment?

Learners posted their Pope-like epigrams and Johnson-style dictionary definitions to the digital whiteboard and offered their reactions to each other.

We spoke briefly about the shift in thinking at the end of the enlightenment and I assigned poems by Gray and Blake:

• Anne & Aiesha - "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
• Sarah - "Introduction" from Songs of Innocence
• Alison - "The Lamb"
• Azza - "The Tiger"

READ:

• Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer
• Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
• Burns's "To A Mouse"
• Blake's "The Lamb" and "The Tiger"

NEXT CLASS: The Pre-Romantics

F - ... when we began to make deeper connections between prose, poetry, and film.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: Does the act of facing mortality lead to the destruction of the hero or his/her regeneration?

Learners shared their physical representations of their interpretation of one of the motifs from Hamlet before finishing our appreciation of Yeats's "The Second Coming." I asked learners to reflect on if and how the motifs from the play echo in Yeats's poem.

As we watched the opening 20 minutes of the film, Hamnet (2026), learners kept "field notes" on how the motifs from Shakespeare's play echo in the film.

NEXT CLASS: Hamnet (2026)

B - ... when it was about wit, satire, and enlightenment.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: Despite being from the same "age" in literature, why do Pope and Johnson approach the human condition differently?

Learners shared their work on their sections of Cantos III and V from Pope's Rape of the Lock. We discussed the difference in Pope's approach to the enlightenment (ridicule, satiric - "mock" epic - exclusive, aristocratic) and Johnson's (middle-class, universal, moral reflection).

Aiesha and Anne made their "modest pitches."

PRACTISE: Write one Pope-style epigram and create 10 word definitions in the style of Johnson

NEXT CLASS: The Pre-Romantics