Shakespeare/Poetry

Alright, so here goes my blog about Shakespeare and Poetry.

Shakespeare

Admittedly, I had never read Midsummers Night Dream before. The only time I have heard of it was in the movie "Dead Poets Society" with Robin Williams.

I read some Shakespeare in High School and at my community college (Romeo and Juliet 9th grade, Much Ado About Nothing 10th grade, Hamlet 12th grade and Othello at my community college). However, I haven't read a whole lot else. It's not that I don't like reading his plays, it's that I feel like I know how each play is going to end. In every comedy, everybody ends up getting married and in his tragedies, everybody dies.

I absolutely loved how we went about understanding the play. We assigned each group a scene and the group had to come up with some fun and clever way of interpreting that scene (Jerry Springer, kids on a playground, etc.).

The one thing that I didn't enjoy was how much effort my group made. We came up with a script, and rehearsed (sort of) but I found it difficult to give input to my group. At times, people would disregard each other's ideas. Hopefully, as a future teacher, I can find some sort of way to work around this. Maybe having a minimum amount of rehearsal time each group needs to give.

Here are some good resources to use for teaching in the classroom:


Hobart Shakespeareans - www.pbs.org/pov/hobart

www.rsc.org.uk/exploringshakespeare

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG7ah1FcqG8



Poetry

I loved loved loved "Love that Dog!" All I have to say Kim, is that you were right. I couldn't put it down and I was on the verge of tears at the end. The only thing I'm upset about is that we didn't spend enough time on poetry!

Generally, I hate reading and writing poetry but this book changed my mind! It's all fun and games to me now!

Here are some fun resources to use:
www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june00/poetryboxrules.html

readwritething.org/lesson_images/lesson169/TermsHandout.pdf

readwritething.org/lessons