It's Shakespeare!

It's November, so that means that my life is all about Shakespeare!  I'm looking at, studying, thinking about, and talking about the Bard 24/7!  Therefore, my mind is kind of swimming, so if you're talking to me and I suddenly break into Iambic Pentameter, it's not my fault.

In English 9 we're reading Romeo and Juliet.  This is all done in class, and it takes forever because I try to throw in lots of activities.  This past week we started by throwing a ball around while saying words that come from the play in order to think about and anticipate what the play is all about.  I also had them walk around the lobby, giving orders to each other by using names from the play so that they become used to the words and they will remember them.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures because I was playing a part in the activity, so this week as we move forward through Act I and II, I'll try to snap a couple.

In English 11 we're reading Macbeth, again - all done in class - which is time consuming.  We also ran around the lobby shouting words, but their preliminary game had to do with the memory/word association game "I just got back from Scotland and I brought with me...".  Here's a picture from 5th Hour playing it on Friday:

As we began Act I, they read the script and acted out the parts of the Three Witches.  It's all about getting the words into their mouths and letting them play with it.  Here are pictures from 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Hours:

In my opinion, getting up and moving makes Shakespeare seem much more do-able to them.  When they're sitting in chairs doing nothing but feeling confused, they get frustrated and quit.  Getting them up and involved takes Shakespeare from the impossible level to the comfort zone.  My plan is to do as much of this as possible.

What this means is that most of the Shakespeare work is done in school, but we're still working on a couple of things:  vocabulary continues, week to week, though I will not give any on the short Thanksgiving week; also, they need to be reading their own independent book and we'll be creating blog posts.  I will show them how to do the posts and give time in class, but the reading needs to be done on their own.  They should have the book they chose in their hands by Monday. 

I hope everyone has an enjoyable week.  I sure will since we're going to take Shakespeare's words to heart:

All the world’s a stage,
        And all the men and women merely players;
        They have their exits and their entrances,
        And one man in his time plays many parts...

                                                                                                                        "As You Like It"

Ciao!


It's Shakespeare! by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.