Mrs. Stubbs's English Blog: A Two-Day Week!

Well, here we are with a two-day week, just before the holidays! Last week, we were so busy: we practiced and performed our 30-minute Shakespeare Play. Here is a video from 5th Hour. You have to watch to the end (the surprise is toward the end, and it's a good one!). Luckily, I saw them rehearse, so I knew it was coming:

Here are a gazillion pictures from throughout the day. I can't tell you how much fun it was to watch my 9th graders speaking and performing Shakespeare. They were so fluent...and so funny! I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did. In fact, sometimes I was enjoying it so much that I forgot to take pictures. I'm sorry to first hour, because that's exactly what happened, and so I'm shy on pictures of them. Also, during my smaller hours, people had to volunteer for multiple parts, so they're in more than one photo as more than one person. Finally, during 6th Hour, I ran out of battery, so I didn't catch the end. Oh, and when I brought in the play swords from my home, they also wanted the light sabers, so many of the fight scenes were very Star Wars, but that only seems appropriate.

1st Hour

Romeo and Juliet - Balcony Scene

Everyone contemplating Juliet's "death"

2nd Hour

A Narrator/Director Filling Us In On Plot

Romeo and Juliet Balcony Scene

Another Narrator/Director - Doing Her Job

Juliet - Begging for Help

The Final Death Scene

4th Hour

The Fight Scene

Paris's Interesting Entrance - Very Funny

Paris and Romeo Fight

Romeo's Final Moments

Juliet Got the Giggles

Juliet's Final Words

Everyone Wants To Know: What Happened Here?

5th Hour

Fight Scene

Romeo Feeling Angst

Romeo Just Climbed the Wall (My Desk)

Balcony Scene - Romeo Startles Juliet

Capulet Confronts Daughter Juliet

Paris Visiting Juliet's Grave - She Seemed Very Awake

Paris and Romeo Fight

Juliet - Having Trouble Deciding How to End It

6th Hour

Fight Scene - This Was a Big One

The Prince - Laying Down the Law

Narrator/Director - Helping Us Understand

Balcony Scene

And, My Battery Died...

After all this, we took the Romeo and Juliet objective test. If they are unhappy about their grade for any reason, they're welcome to come in and do test corrections for half-credit back. Then Thursday and Friday they worked on their essays. We will finish those on Monday.

Tuesday, they'll begin watching the movie Much Ado About Nothing, a Shakespearean comedy that will continue when we get back from break.

Speaking of that, I will not be doing a blog post after break for the first week because I'll still be traveling back from Italy! My son is going to Rome to sing for Pope Francis, and I'm fortunate enough to be able to go with him. After I get back and have a few days to re-acclimate, I will post again.

Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Ciao!