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!

A Two-Day Week! by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at laurastubbs.blogspot.com.

The Final Push

What a rough couple of weeks for me personally!  First, my home eliptical machine broke a couple of weeks ago.  While this is ridiculous to use as an excuse for a rough time, I've worked so hard the past couple of months to get my health into a better place, so I use that eliptical in order to relieve stress.  Thank goodness it's fixed now because my 7th grader is doing nothing to relieve the stress.  I know there are some of you out there who can empathize with my experience.  I swear he has lost his mind.  He tanked on his grades in school a couple weeks ago, in spectacular fashion I might add, and still seems to only be using a portion of his brain to fix things.  Unfortunately this has been taking up a majority of my time, so I haven't kept up with my grading.  NO MORE!!!  As of this weekend, that is not happening anymore, and I swear the eliptical machine is a huge part of the turn around.  Like I said, I'm ridiculous at times.

Anyway, in the midst of Christmas shopping, Christmas concerts, family Christmas celebrations, life does go on.  I'm working today to get things caught up, and in class we're working on finishing Romeo and Juliet.  Their final objective test will be on Wednesday, and it's worth 100 points.  The final essay will be written in class from Thursday through the following Monday; it will be 60 points.  In the meantime, they're reviewing for the test in class by performing out a 30-minute skit which contains Shakespeare's original language, and everyone has a role.  We'll perform it out during class on Tuesday, so I should have pictures for next week.  In the meantime, I handed out a study guide with suggestions for studying on Friday, so you should see them doing something!  I have told them that they can check out a textbook if they wish, but free online text and audio is out there and available.

So here's the week:

• Monday - they'll get all their paperwork back from the unit, and then practice the skits.
• Tuesday - they'll perform the skit for each other.
• Wednesday - objective portion of the test - 100 points!
• Thursday - we'll plan out the final essay.
• Friday - we'll work on drafting the final essay - 60 points!

Busy, busy, busy!  I hope everyone has a great week.  Ciao!

The Final Push by Laura Stubbs is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at laurastubbs.blogspot.com.

Finishing Off Romeo and Juliet - Literally

We're almost done with this play!  Even though I love it, and love Shakespeare, it's always nice to see daylight at the end of a tunnel as big as this one.  We've had a lot of fun, but now we're getting down to business and my goal this week is to finish the play.

Speaking of fun, last week, I did a rhythm activity with them to emphasize Shakespeare's rhythm (Iambic Pentameter).  For the first four hours, the whole class was involved and needed my leadership, so I have no video.  For my final hour, however, we were short on time, plus the volunteers had no problem needing me to guide them, so I was able to get video of them doing it.  Here are a couple of clips of what they did.  I didn't get the whole thing because they fell apart in the middle and appeared done, but then they picked it up again.  It gave me a laugh:

So, here's the plan for this week and beyond:

• This week we will be finishing the play.  My goal is to finish it Thursday.
• Friday I hope to hand out an acting project; I have a text of the play broken down, in Shakespeare's words, to four scenes.  There are enough parts for everyone to either take a part or volunteer to direct and act.  I plan to give them Friday and Monday 12/14 to prep for it, then perform for each other on Tuesday 12/15.  I'm not expecting memorization, they can have their scripts with them, but I believe that doing this will help them to truly understand Shakespeare's words, and the play as a whole.
• I've updated the calendar with the following information, but here it is written out:
• The objective test (100 points) will be on Wednesday 12/16.  Study guides will be handed out on Friday.
• The essay test (60 points) will take place in class from Thursday, 12/17 through Monday, 12/21.

I'll adjust calendars and let you know if things change, but that's how I'm hoping this will all occur.  This way, there will be no homework from me over the break.  I did offer extra credit for anyone who wants to do an extra book project over a book of their own choosing, but it's not required.

I hope everyone has a great week!  Ciao!

Finishing Off Romeo and Juliet - Literally by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at laurastubbs.blogspot.com.