Shakespeare's language sounds a little weird at first. But really, once you try to read those "fancy" words and funky word order, the story isn't that difficult to get. Check out this awesome example by comedian John Branyan: A Triune Tale of Diminutive Swine (recorded live show video here).
Shakespeare's language sounds funny because it is Early Modern English, not our Modern English that we speak every day. You see, our language has morphed from Germanic roots of Old English to the Latin influence of Middle English and additions of French during the Renaissance to create Early Modern English. Now this all happened through a series of mini, simple changes to the everyday language (known as vernacular) that later became a significant shift in how the language was spoken and written. Etymology and linguistics is supremely interesting, so be sure to check out some resources if it intrigues you to know why we spell some words "ie" and others "ei" (or "ph" and "f").
Monday, April 20, 2015
R&J Helpful Links
Sometimes, reading Shakespeare and figuring out what he means can be difficult. There are ZILLIONS of resources on the web, but here are a few that I recommend without the extraneous (and unreliable) high school student websites out there. I will continue to add to this post as I find more extremely helpful resources!
Easy Reading
- Audio version will full cast: Quick, fun, great voices!
- OpenSource Shakespeare: Concordance, searchable texts, and easy navigation!
- No Fear Shakespeare: A side-by-side Shakespeare text and modern text. Also available in book format to buy!
- Bartleby: Online copy of Shakespeare’s text accompanied with line numbers
- Mr. Bruff offers detailed and sound analysis with a delightful British accent. He has many videos that can help you with other texts and assignments, too. The following are video analyses of Romeo and Juliet.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Portfolio Assessment: The Menu of Activities
A “Portfolio Assessment” gives you the opportunity to show your
strengths and do assignments that interest you about the novel of
choice. In this case, we will all be reading TKAM,
but we each will have different ending portfolios with our own unique
mix of assignments. Each of the layers below (A, B, and C) have
assignments that are alike in difficulty, but engage different personal
skills.
Layer C
is the creative, “lighter” assignments that require you to interact
with the characters, plot, and setting to create different products.
Together, Layer C will count as a quiz grade.- Layer B is the hard-and-fast knowledge check that proves you really did read the novel and that you really did understand what was happening. Each assignment in Layer B will count as an individual classwork grade.
- Layer A is the significant writing that will be counted as a test grade.
- You will also receive a grade based on your hard work in class as well as the completion of all of the assignments. This will be a classwork grade. This means when you have the opportunity in class to be working, you are ready, able, and concentrated on that work.
This assignment is geared for you to succeed. Choose the assignments under each layer that you best understand and that you know you can do well and receive a good grade on. Do not just choose something because it is easy...Trust me, if you go that route, it is never as easy as you think it will be and because you don’t care about it, you won’t do A+ work. Happy reading! Happy learning!
Check out the full Portfolio Assessment sheet here!
SPRING 2015 DUE DATES:
ONE Layer B: Wed 4/1
ONE Layer C: Fri 4/3
BOTH Layer C: Thurs 4/16
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