Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Class Notes -- January 24

Greetings!

We had a good class today.  For those of you new to my classes, I usually start with a Quick Write exercise to get our creative juices flowing.  I had the students be "theater critics" and write reviews for either of the two plays that we read for today. 

Following this writing exercise, we went over some historical dates related to literature developments.  We discussed briefly the influence that other nations who conquered the little island of England had on the language and therefore literature of that country.  I had assigned the mystery play, "The Second Shepherd's Play" and the morality play, "Everyman" which were late Middle English (Medieval) pieces of literature.  We talked through some of the literary points of "Everyman" first.  This serious play is an allegory similar to Pilgrim's Progress.  The mystery play was bit more light-hearted with some humor.

A key element of this class is the process of analyzing the literature via the class discussion.  I appreciated the thoughtful responses that each of the students gave.  I'm looking forward to "unpacking" our other books. 

Our next book is Much Ado About Nothing by Shakespeare.  I gave the students some background information on the context, themes, and characters.

Assignment for Next Week:
-- Read the handouts.
-- Read Acts I & II of the play.

This week's blog.
Worksheets (Context, Themes, Characters)

Have a great week,
Mrs. Prichard

No comments:

Post a Comment