Hamlet NY Times video contest

This looks like an awesome contest for students--hopefully some of mine will submit, especially since their own Hamlet videos are due the week after Thanksgiving!

Who needs SparkNotes...

When you have Legos? Just saw this in Costco yesterday...so awesome!

The Carol Burnett Show - Hamlet by MissGreenAgain

via IFTTTThe Carol Burnett Show - Hamlet

nobody out crazies ophelia! by Drarack

via IFTTTnobody out crazies ophelia!

Another time, another place

Hamlet has been performed thousands of times across the centuries, and while many productions strive to recreate the dark, medieval setting of thirteenth-century Denmark, other presentations of the play reimagine or update the setting to highlight the universality of Shakespeare's characters and themes.

For this week's post, I'd like you to imagine how Hamlet might work in an alternate setting.  We've seen a little bit of the Ethan Hawke Hamlet, set in the cutthroat corporate world of Manhattan in 2000.  How could you translate the characters and themes of Hamlet into another time or place? Detail how you would envision a reimagining of the play's setting, and then in a separate paragraph select one scene from the play and describe how you would stage that scene to embody the setting you've chosen.

Have fun with this post-- show off your creativity!!

Words, Words, Words...

Now that we've finished Act 2, I give you...

The Muppet Show - Hamlet/Brush Up Your Shakespeare

Hamlet 3.1--Who gets the most famous soliloquy right?

As we continue our discussion of Hamlet, let's look at the most famous soliloquy in the play, the grandaddy of them all:  "To Be or Not To Be..." (3.1.64-99)

For this week's post, conduct a search on YouTube for two different interpretations of this critical soliloquy.  You can simply search for "To Be or Not to Be," and you should find multiple clips.  Please embed each video in your blog post, (try to embed the actual videos, not just the links) so your readers can see the videos you chose, and write a short comparison/contrast of the two versions of the soliloquy.  What do you notice about what each Hamlet emphasizes in his delivery of this speech?  Which version do you prefer and why?

Then, for Thursday's class, please be sure to comment on one of your peers' posts.

Photoshop and "Barbie Doll"

via IFTTT

The power of Adobe Photoshop

Check out this video, folks.  It might provide some food for thought for anyone planning to revise an essay on Marge Piercy's "Barbie Doll".

Blogging at 41,000 Feet

I'm posting this weekend from my flight from San Francisco back home to the OC after attending the Fall CUE conference in Napa.  Look forward to some #eduawesome posts of some of the tips, tricks, and tools I learned!

For my students this week:

I'd like you to take one paragraph from your recent short works essay, a paragraph that you struggled with, as evidenced by the feedback from me and/or your peer reviewer.  First, post the paragraph in its original form, as you turned it in to me.  You will want to copy the text from Word into a TextEdit or some text program to remove all the formatting before you post it.  Then, under the original, I want to see your revision of that paragraph.  Think carefully about the topic sentence, the evidence you used (and how you set it up and analyzed it), and edit your word choices so your paragraph includes NO weak verbs (to be, to have, to go, etc) and is as concise--yet thorough--as possible.  And of course, be sure to address any and all feedback I gave you on said paragraph.

Happy editing!

Portrayals of Hamlet 1.3-1.5

For this week's post, I'd like you to look at how Act I has been performed in the past and consider the director and actor's choices in presenting these key scenes that set the tone for the rest of the play.

Select one of the following options:

1.  Look at this portrayal of 1.3 and discuss how Ophelia is portrayed in this scene. Do you agree with how this actress approaches her?

Now compare this portrayal with this scene from the Zeffirelli version:

2.  Watch Kenneth Branagh discuss Act 1, Scene 5:

And then watch the actual scene:

What strikes you about this portrayal of the scene and Branagh's approach?

Best version of Hamlet 1.3 I've ever seen...

Thank you, YouTube, for brightening my day...

Hamlet: First impressions of the royal family?

For this week's post, look over your annotations of 1.2, select one member of the Danish royal family (Hamlet, Gertrude, or Claudius), and post your initial impressions of this character.  If you plan to focus on Claudius, consider how Claudius strikes you as a king, as an uncle, as a father figure to Hamlet.  If you choose Hamlet, explore how Hamlet responds to his uncle and mother. What kind of prince is he?  And if you opt to focus on Gertrude, look at how she comes across as a queen, a widow, and a mother.

Make sure that your post is 350-500 words, and that you properly cite the play in your post--utilizing slashes between lines and MLA parenthetical citations of Shakespeare.

You should also include some sort of visual (photo or video) that you think best encapsulates your initial impressions of the character you've chosen.

Your post is due by class time on Monday, and you should submit your URL to Canvas.

Born too late?

In E.A. Robinson's famous poem, "Miniver Cheevy," we meet a character who is convinced he was "born too late," that he was meant to live a far more romantic and exciting life than his "commonplace" world of "khaki suits."

It's one thing to wish you had been born in a different time, but it's quite something else to resent fate for bringing you into the world in the first place.  Miniver Cheevy doesn't live in the past--he romanticizes it, assuming that it must have been better than his present.

But where does that romantic sensibility get him?  Does it inspire him to take control of his own destiny, to make his present more like his fantasy of the past?  Not exactly.

What are we to make of Miniver Cheevy?  What might Robinson be showing us by presenting us a character who "wept that he was ever born"?

While you're contemplating that question, listen to this version of the poem put to music:

Isn't it Ironic?

Irony can take lots of different forms:  sarcasm, reversal of fortune, wearing white after Labor Day.  I love the Oatmeal's take on irony.

In that comic, Matt Inman mentions one of the most frustrating (and yet oh-so-catchy) takes on irony of the last 20 years or so:

In her video, Alanis Morissette alludes...sort of... to one kind of irony--cosmic irony, or what we might call "God's little joke."  When Morissette sings about "rain on your wedding day" or a "free ride when you've already paid," she's not exactly talking about irony as the destruction of expectations, as we've discussed in class. Instead, she's suggesting that sometimes, life is just a bummer, and fate (or the divine, or whatever higher power there might be) conspires against us.  Or maybe she ironically isn't actually talking about irony at all--as John Winokur suggests.

For this week's post--due Monday by class time--I'd like to hear your thoughts about  why Marge Piercy, in her poem "Barbie Doll," and Nadine Gordimer, in her short story, "Once Upon a Time," use irony in their respective texts.  Select ONE of the texts, preferably one you haven't already blogged about, and consider why the author chooses irony as a primary tool to get across her main idea, rather than, say, direct narration.  Using the Oatmeal's take on irony, as well as this definition of irony  identify the kind(s) of irony used in the text, and discuss why irony is such a useful tool in conveying the big-picture idea in this text.

I look forward to reading your posts!

First post of the 2013-14 year: Which text spoke to you the most?

For this first post, introduce yourself, your blog, and then write about the text you read this summer (one of the summer reading selections, please).  What struck you the most as you read this story or poem? Was it challenging?  Confusing?  Inspiring?  Horrifying?  Surprising?  Why?

Please also include your favorite passage from this text--the passage that made you stop and think, if only for a brief moment.

My favorite text from the summer is "Eveline" by James Joyce.  I love that every time I read this story, I don't know whether I should root for Eveline to leave Dublin with Frank or stay behind and honor her obligation to her family.  I particularly love the moment in the story when the narrator notes that despite Eveline's difficult life, "now that she was about to leave it she did not find it a wholly undesirable life." All too often we opt for the "devil we know" rather than the "devil we don't," because the fear of trying something new or taking a risk--even for a good reason--can overpower us.   And, like Eveline on the dock, sometimes we find ourselves paralyzed, incapable of choosing an unknown future over a known entity...

Welcome to the New School Year!

Welcome to a new school year!  I'm so excited to work with my new students, and to start blogging with them.  For your first blog post, please compose a wordle of your own to introduce yourself (do not use Chrome, as it does not support Wordles) and post it to your blog!

My wordle for this year--some of my favorite poems, short stories, and novels.

The Golden Rule of Close Reading

This week's #engsschat on Twitter focused on close reading, and it was fascinating to see how different educators interpret and use close reading skills in their classrooms.  Everyone agreed that close reading skills are important to teach and learn, but we each have our own ideas and questions about how to integrate close reading effectively and meaningfully into our day-to-day work with our students.

For me, close reading is all about becoming more conscious of how language informs meaning.  When I read something closely, I'm looking at what specific words, phrases, or more generally, choices, an author makes to elicit a response from me.  How exactly is Jefferson able to make me as angry as he is in the initial draft of the Declaration of Independence?  What does Poe mean, exactly, when he says in "The Fall of the House of Usher" that "Lady Madeline was no more"?   How does Morrison try to make me feel the generations-long struggle to overcome the legacy of slavery in Beloved?  Where do those emotional or intellectual reactions come from, and what buttons is an author trying to push to lead me to a particular range of experiences with the text?

Some folks registered concern that too much close reading can be off-putting, or that close reading without sufficient background context or scaffolding can be challenging.  I suppose that's true, but I can't help but think that if we need a bunch of context to find or make meaning of a text, then something's amiss.  Context is always helpful, but it shouldn't be required for a communication to be effective.

One of the prompts for the discussion asked if we lose something by investing solely on evidence-based reading--if we spend too much time figuring out where in the text we found our conclusions/responses, have we missed out on the magic of a text?

Maybe, but I propose that all reading, on some level, should be close, evidence-based reading.  Too often we passively allow what we experience to wash over us,  often with the noble thought that we'll go back and consider it more carefully when we have time and space to devote to it.   Unfortunately, we don't spend enough time thinking about why we think what we think, or what inspires us to feel. Instead, all too often we have knee-jerk reactions that, often because of time and bandwidth constraints, end up becoming our not-so-well-reasoned opinions.  

Reading, at its core, should always be an active engagement with another voice trying to communicate with me.  If I don't read closely, I'm just letting the words bounce off me--it's a one-sided interaction that more often than not doesn't stick.

When I tell my students to "read like a writer," what I'm really telling them is to use The Golden Rule.  Treat writers the way you want your writing to be treated.   I owe it to the writer to at least consider how and why she's trying to connect with me. After all, isn't that what I want my readers to do for me?

Things Fall Apart and a Single Story

I recently watched a terrific video where New York poet Suheir Hammad made the point that Things Fall Apart is one of the first portrayals of Africans not as slaves, but as communities with centuries-long traditions, social hierarchies, and perhaps most importantly, prosperity.


From the opening lines of his novel, Achebe challenges the "single story" of Africa by presenting us with a hero "well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond." (3)  Immediately he shows us how little English-speaking readers know about the Ibo, about Nigeria, and by extension, about Africa, since Okonkwo's reputation has spread far and wide across "twenty years or more" (3).  We should have heard of Okonkwo, but we haven't.

As the opening chapters unfold, we not only learn more about our hero, but about his community, where "the art of conversation is regarded very highly" (7) and "achievement was revered." (8)  This is not Conrad's portrayal of Africa in Heart of Darkness, where Africans are nameless, voiceless for the most part, and "nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation."  Instead, this is a civilized society with deeply-rooted values. 

However, as we also see in the novel, Umuofia is by no means a utopia.  Achebe creates a world not unlike our own where war, violence, pride, and dishonor cause conflicts and weaknesses.

As we continue our reading of the novel, I encourage you to think about what things could "fall apart" over time in Umuofia--what forces erode this once strong and powerful community.   

Semester II: The Danger of a Single Story

Happy New Year!  After a restful break, I'm excited to begin second semester with my with two very different, though related novels.  My AP Lit Seniors will tackle Conrad's Heart of Darkness, while my sophomores will read Achebe's Things Fall Apart.  As Achebe wrote his novel as a response to what he identified as Conrad's rampant racism in Heart of Darkness, I'm hoping to create some opportunities for my sophomores and seniors (who read Things Fall Apart when they were tenth graders) to share their thoughts about both texts.

While I'm eager to move from back and forth from one text to the other over the next few weeks, I'm going to start the semester in both courses with this TED talk by Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie, entitled "The Danger of a Single Story."

For this week's blog post, share your thoughts on Adichie's talk, after you've read the first chapters of Achebe's novel.  Does Adichie's talk influence your reading of this novel?  How?