Last Blog

This is our last blog for the year.  There is something so sad about saying good-bye and finishing forever.  For this final blog, I want you to look back at the year.  Think about all of the texts that we have read.  Foster says there is really only one story.  What is it that all of these texts are trying to say?  What do they want us to contemplate? What do they want us to value?  What do they want us to think?  Each time we read something, we take in something different dependent on where we are at the time.  Be mindful of that when thinking about what they all say.  

In your last blog, explain what all of theses texts are saying that is the same.  Use the texts to support your arguments.  Once you have done that, then tell us how it speaks to you and your life.

  

Scene Analysis

Watch this scene from Hamlet.  Analyze the way the two characters interact with one another.  Watch their body language, facial expressions, and listen to their voices.  


How does this change the way you read the scene in your book? Does this change how you perceive either character?  

Explain your answers using evidence from the video and the text.  

Hamlet Poetry

"The Plays the thing..."
This is one of the greatest plays and we are going to really look at what is going on in this masterpiece. This week, you will write a 16 line poem and it will take one aspect from Hamlet and weave it throughout.

Don't look it up!  Think for yourselves.  When you allow others to interpret text for you, YOU give up on YOURSELF and the ability to think.  YOU are better than that.

An example using another text (Draft):




Candles get snuffed out and the darkness seeps in
to take over.  The wax freezes in its march, marking time
until the heat releases the next forward step.  The smell of extinguished light 
floats upward sticking to the walls, the mirrors, and the ceiling leaving footprints
that grey color over time.  For something gone,
it lingers--a reminder that existence, though brief,
once warmed this spot.  Took up space.  Breathed in and out.  Contributed.

"*1We do not read or write poetry because it's cute.  We read and write poetry
 because we are members of the human race."  We are members who are afraid 
that existence means nothing.  So, we follow the smoke through the air searching
for a voice--
for an identity--
for a place where we fit in.  We fail to see in the darkness...
Looking forward. Putting our sight on the "out there, over there, 
everywhere", gets us nowhere.  We think we are wicked, spiteful,
hidden.  We try on the voices of others to flesh out our own--
gain an audience, silence discontent.  

The spark that lights a candle is friction--ideas pressed
against others.  The light catches, and what once was hidden is illuminated.  
The fire dancing in the wind is not extinguished because what once 
had no shape, no hope, or no vision is found.  
What once was invisible becomes the light.  


*1Borrowed from Dead Poet's Society

Poetry

With this being National Poetry month, I want to give us a chance to write a poem.  Now, writing a poem is about the language.  It is about playing with language using those devices we have been learning all year long.  

So, here is your prompt.  Write a 16 line "Why does it matter poem?"  If you do not like this prompt, write a junk food poem.  Whichever poem you choose to write, remember it should have those devices we have been working with: symbols, metaphors, similes, anaphoras, alliterations etc.  

The example below is just my take on the prompt.  As long as the phrase, "Why does it matter" appears somewhere in your poem, it works.

Example:

Why does it matter that the shoes I wear are not
heels, and my jewelry is not a pearl necklace.  Why does it matter
that when I sing while driving, my voice is not amplified or streamed?
Why does it matter that books opened speak a language I understand,
and build with letters,
forming words,
making sentencesstrungtogether that hang across
page after page lighting up the silence?  Why does it matter that
when I am in public, I am quiet?  Not because I have run out of things to say
or my mind has powered down, but because sometimes knowing comes from
observing and listening?  Why does it matter that when the sun comes up
and the sky is streaked with red, orange, and blue,
I cannot help but think in poetry, and why does it matter that
sometimes my fingers cannot help but hold a pen
and watch as it skates across the page etching meaning
to make sense of the world.  Why does it matter?
It doesn't matter to anyone but me.