1. We read through the conversation between Hamlet and the Ghost. There are a few questions left for students to consider as we read the rest of the play:
   1. The ghost tells Hamlet first that he lost his wife to his brother who seduced her. Then he tells him how he was foully murdered by that same brother. Some people who study Hamlet believe that since the Ghost described the relationship between the Queen and brother before the murder, this is an indication of an actual affair between Queen Gertrude and her brother-in-law before the King died. Whether Gertrude knew about the plan to kill the King, helped with it, was completely unaware but involved with the brother, or was faithful to her husband, no one really can say for sure. Watch for indicators in the rest of the play to help make up your mind.
   2. We also still don’t know if we can trust the Ghost. Brad had some mishaps today at the beginning of class, which was a great transition into one of the biggest questions yet solved from the play – I asked whether Brad was destined by fate to have troubles and setbacks or whether it was his own decisions that lead him to accidents and such. The same goes for Hamlet – is he condemned by his fate to die a tragic figure or does he decide his own fate and is then responsible for what comes? You decide.
2. We read along in our books as we listened to the audio of Act II sc i and ii. Two brave souls, Ken and Shaun, were kind enough to come to the front of our class and act out for us the scene that Ophelia describes to her father of Hamlet’s most bizzare behavior. (See the video below for their performance!)   [kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/4I4EYdYeNXw" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
3. From that, I left the class with a question to ponder:
   1. If you had recently had such disappointments in your life as Hamlet (Father dead, mother married suddenly… to Uncle, no crown to expect, everyone drinks to excess and you’re disgusted with life… what is the one thing you would “CLING” to and try to hold on to? There should be at least one thing you can “count on” and trust in. For Hamlet, the one thing left in his world that made sense was Ophelia and their affection for each other. What would Hamlet do, then, if Ophelia suddenly started acting distant and refused to see him. Wouldn’t he really become depressed and wonder whether anything has meaning at that point? Some people beleive that’s why Hamlet broke into Ophelia’s presence in such an abrupt manner, in this scene. Whether he was play acting, pretending to be mad and faking it even for her, or whether he was actually upset over everything and expressed true feelings of frustration and uncertainty to her, again, is up to you to decide.

1. Students basically had yesterday’s class to chose which of the five essay topics they were going to choose and do their brainstorming / planning. For today’s class, they were asked to begin filling in the necessary things in their essay outline handout. By the end of class, they should have been able to have completed either their entire outline or three really well-prepared body paragraphs. They had to hand them in for me to have a look at to gauge how well they understand the format and how well they used their time. I know some are still uncomfortable / tired of essays but it is a big part of future English classes so we might as well make sure you get it before moving on.
2. Tomorrow, we’ll look at the proper way to integrate literature into their own writing.

1. We started off with a reminder about blogs being due next week. Students were encouraged to start reading each other’s blogs and adding their comments. They have a handout / checklist meant to help them ensure they’ve completed all that was required of the blog project and on the far right column is a space for them to fill in the name of the person’s blog for each week.
2. We briefly talked about a few of the main characters and what it is about their personality or habits that suits the outfit that character wears during our play acting. For example, Claudius is wearing a Hawaiian shirt because every day’s a party for him, now that he has his brother’s crown, his wife, and a kingdom to control. Hamlet, though, broods every day about the death of his father, the vulgar marriage of his mother to his uncle, the fact that all anyone in his kingdom does anymore is drinks which brings down the value of their people in the eyes of others… but also because he wasn’t made king.
3. We read through all the scene questions for all of Act one, except scene five, which we watched in video first, before reading it. We reviewed on the board the beliefs people had about ghosts at the time Shakespeare’s play would have been created. They beleived any sign of a ghost meant something was left undone, someone was possibly murdered, they had burried treasure they had to show to someone, they wanted to lure people to their death or just warn of impending doom. What was the purpose of this ghost and how did people interpret what he had to say?
4. We watched the two videos attached in yesterday’s blog post for B30. They, the class, definitely appreciated the Mel Gibson version moreso than the first video. We pointed out the two tasks the Ghost asks of Hamlet. From these, we have to decide whether Hamlet follows his instructions as asked. He was to:
   1. Taint not thy mind
   2. Nor let thy soul contrive/Against thy mother aught
5. Then we watched Holly, Eric and Josh’s performance of Porphyria’s Lover on video. They did a wonderful job and should feel pleased with their performance.

1. We gathered together in the classroom first to go over a few things:
   1. Blogs were checked over the weekend. Some people are keeping up and others have to get cracking. I was surprised and pleased to see that several had left themselves messages, little “note to self” messages, to remind themselves of the due date coming up. They were left by their “future selves” so it as intruiging. Computer time was reviewed with the students so they all understand the availability of computers and internet is there.
   2. Assignments were returned and it was re-explained why those with missing assignments will have to get whole new assignments to complete. Doing it this way allows the other students who completed their assignments on time to feel that it is more fair, that other students don’t get “extra time” to complete the same work. New assignments are usually more difficult and mean the student has to start from scratch so they begin all over. It seems to work well for everyone.
2. We moved onto the stage in the gym but had some complications finding room for everyone, getting settled, and figuring out the cd audio system. Once we got going, though, things went well. Students are standing in their positions, posing sometimes as the characters as the audio plays their parts, and other times the students read out their lines themselves. Tomorrow, we’ll gather in the classroom and go over a few things so far and discuss the questions for Act 1 sc 1-3.
3. Here are a few videos that are interpretations of the Ghost scene in Act 1 sc 4. Since Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most appreciated work, there are several different examples or interpretations to choose from.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/5DfKi5L8H9c" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/hNVS59BF-vo" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

1. Things were slightly interupted with the wonderful Pancake Breakfast put on for the students this morning. Once things got settled, though, they got a good start on their brainstorming and drafting of an essay they have to write. We’ll consider that this first class was a bonus Brainstorm class and tomorrow they should all be prepared to get right into writing their draft.
2. Students were all given a copy of the essay outline we have used recently along with a handout with five possible essay questions to respond to. They had to chose the essay they wanted to write, brainstorm responses to it, and begin their body paragraphs. I was pleased to see that they were following the right format and order (writing body paragraphs before their introduction). We’ll see how things go tomorrow!
3. Attached here is the final draft of the essay we wrote together. Students were given a handout with a copy of the essay along with hand-written revisions and corrections I wrote in in my attempt to revise it. The final draft here has those corrections / changes included. This was hopefully to model exactly how valuable editing can be in improving what you write after a first draft.

in-class-symbolism-in-mice-and-men-good-copy-essay-final-draft.docx

1. Yesterday, the students and I began the task of writing an essay together from start to finish. We went through all the necessary steps of 1) brainstorming for ideas on the topic, 2) choosing the three best topics to write on, 3) begin with writing the body paragraphs, 4) write the introduction near the end and 5) the final paragraph or conclusion. The hope with this project is that by going through the writing process from the very beginning, it will help students understand the writing process and also help them see what goes into writing proper paragraphs. As I mentioned in class, there are two things to concern yourself with when writing an essay – one of them is the actual content of the essay, what your are explaining or analyzing, but the second and equally important concern is the organization, its structure. There is just a certain way an essay should look, to the reader, and having that part down pat will help them in their future essay writing immensely!
2. Once we finished the rest of our essay, we just had a few minutes of time to kill so we re-watched a video we had formerly watched making fun of affirmative action.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/svTR-Y4L3kg" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

1. Students were given play books with their numbers written down. I explained they had to hand in the exact book they’ve registered as having. Handing in a book at the end of the study will not help them if it’s not the one they’re registered as having. Keep track of your books!
2. We talked about the structure of our reading – we can listen along to the cd, read it aloud, or a combination of the two, but students have to really keep their focus and attention in order for our studies to be of value. There is some entertainment meant to be in reading it on the stage with people standing there in their parts, but if too much rowdy action goes on, it won’t be beneficial and we’ll have to go back to reading it in the classroom.
3. Once on the stage, our volunteers got themselves ready in their costumes. I was surprised that the girls actually “wore” the dresses for their lady’s parts; I only anticipated they could wear them around their necks and have them hang in front of them. lol The students did a great job of portraying their roles, even asking if they could read for a bit as well. Well done!

1. We have reviewed, in stages, several of the aspects of essay writing in recent weeks. We looked at the brainstorming process, the way to choose three of the best topics to expand on, putting them in the order you want them in your essay so you have a strong ending, creating a thesis statement after that and then going on to begin your body paragraphs.
2. To put this into practice, today then, we began the process of writing an essay as a class to ensure that students know how to go through the process, from the beginning to the end. They had a handout to brainstorm their own ideas, and we collected them and put together the beginnings of an essay. We will finish it off tomorrow and students will be given a copy of our finished paper.

Here is a copy of the handout – essay-outline-updated.doc

1. We had a well-planned for performance of the “Porphyria’s Lover” dramatic reading this morning. Other groups who have not yet performed their poem will have to make other arrangements on the schedule by the door.
2. To start Hamlet, we watched the video below with Rowan Atkinson and the lead actor on the show House, Hugh Laurie. They were doing a skit where a play producer back in “Shakey’s” time period was trying to shorten the length of Hamlet and cut out words to create the now-famous “to be or not to be” monologue.
3. We looked at a dialogue between Hamlet and his mother, except Hamlet’s part of the discussion was written in Text Message lingo. The point of this was to show that, while the language used in the play may seem unusual or “old style”, language continues to change. For these students to be able to understand what Hamlet’s part of the conversation was saying, they were able to “interpret” it, which is what they’ll have to keep doing for the play.
4. We tried something new today, as well. I had several statements up on the projector wall and asked the students as a group to respond to each. If they “strongly agreed” with the statement, they had to go stand in the back corner of the room. If they “strongly disagreed”, they had to stand in the front corner. Anyone who was sort of “uncertain” had to stand in the middle. The point of this was to decide what their response was to the question but to also align themselves with others who felt that way. An example of one of the statements was “Others dictate your fate more than you yourself.” Others are “Not making a decision is, in itself, a decision” or “Over thinking leads to inaction”. These statements are all related to the plot of the play and its major themes.
5. The students were given handouts:
   1. A fold-out page that has the plot structure of the play for students to fill in once we’re done. On the back, it also has a diagram of the plot structure of an Elizabethan play. The play Hamlet follows this Elizabethan structure, one that existed before Shakespeare’s time but that he used for all of his tragedies. In it, the problem is presented in the first Act, complications arise in Act 2, the climax or highest point of tension occurs in Act 3 (which you would think would come more towards the end of the play) but that tension continues through Act 4 in which the tragic hero seals his fate by some action. In the final Act, Act 5, the tragic resolution comes leaving many of the characters dead and the story left to be told to others.
   2. Students were also given a handout that is going to be quite important. It has:
      1. An introduction to the character of Hamlet and a variety of ways people perceive him.
      2. The common characteristics of Elizabethan tragedies, such as a tragic hero who fakes madness, a young virginal maiden who goes insane and kills herself, the hero is forced to do unpleasant things despite his wishes, ghosts who tempt men to their death and more.
      3. A background description of what all transpires in the first few scenes of Act 1.
      4. Summaries for each of the individual scenes.
      5. Questions for each of the chapters. We will discuss these together as a class.
6. We talked through all these and volunteers signed up for the roles in the first few scenes of Act 1 that we will start tomorrow.
7. We had a few people play dress up as well, trying on the outfits for each of the characters. We’ll see how things go with out performances!