Hamlet - Day 20 - Reflective essay and work day

Please start today by writing a short reflective essay and answering a questionnaire about your work habits in Senior English as first quarter draws to a close.

• First quarter reflective work

Before you continue with your work on your Hamlet assignment, please note you will need to own a copy of The God of Small Things for class on Tuesday.

Hamlet - Day 19

Today was our final discussion of Hamlet. I gave you a list of potential discussion questions for us to use for our conversation.

• Discussion questions for Hamlet

Also, Mrs. Phillips created a presentation with tips to consider as you write your Hamlet essays.

• Tips for Hamlet Essays

Tomorrow we will meet in the G104 computer lab for an end-of-quarter reflection activity and work time.

Hamlet - Day 18 - Radio Broadcast

Today in class we listened to an episode from a radio show, This American Life. It focused on a performance of Hamlet in a maximum security prison.

• Here is a link to the NPR show
• Here is a link to the handout I distributed at the start of class

Hamlet - Day 17 - Paper / Project Proposals

In class on Monday you completed a proposal for your project / paper. You will receive these back before our final discussion of Hamlet (Wednesday for 1st period; Thursday for 6th and 8th period).

Here is a link to the proposal form in case you still need to complete it. Note that the document contains forms for all four types of essay / project (2 pages each) followed by a page of instructions.

• Hamlet paper / project proposal form

Hamlet - Day 16

To wrap up our week, we watched Act V of Hamlet. If you missed class, or want to watch it again, you can find links to the movie under the Hamlet tab above.

Hamlet - Day 15 - Act V, Scene 1

To kick off our study of Act V, Scene 1, we read the dialogue between Hamlet and the Gravedigger (lines 120-167). In these lines, we found out some important information, including Hamlet’s age, a key event that occurred on Hamlet’s birthday, and what the people of Denmark believe to be the reason for Hamlet’s trip to England.

Second, we examined Hamlet’s thinking in Act V, Scene 1, lines 67-224. You worked with your groups to select key lines, and describe the meaning of the lines/ the assertion Hamlet makes. Then, you made connections to what we have heard from Hamlet in earlier Acts.

Last, we worked together to create a Grande Tableaux of the funeral in Act V, Scene 1. Each group was assigned a character, and you worked with your group to select a line, develop a pose, and determine the characters inner thoughts. In hearing from each group, we examined the relationships between characters, as well as how the characters and their relationships have evolved. 

(Photo coming soon)

Hamlet - Day 14

On Tuesday, October 20 (or Wednesday, October 21 for 8th period), we watched Act IV of Hamlet. 

If you missed class, or want to watch it again, you can find links to the movie under the Hamlet tab above.

Hamlet - Day 13 - Ophelia

On Monday, October 19, we took a closer look at Ophelia. 

We read two interpretations of her character, and your group was assigned one interpretation to prove with evidence from the text. Then, you worked independently to make an assertion about the interpretation.

You can find a link to the activity here: Ophelia Activity

Hamlet - Day 12 - Act IV Soliloquy

Today we explored the soliloquy Hamlet gives in Act IV, Scene 4 after he is sent to England (to be killed!) and sees the armies of Fortinbras along the way.

Hamlet - Day 11 - Themes

At the start of class today you made a list on the board of the things you ate or drank before coming to class. Then I asked you to think about the different ways to group them. Here are some of the answer you had:

• Liquids and Solids
• Things made at home / things made at a restaurant
• Hot and cold items
• Things with more / less carbohydrates
• Things with one word / multiple words

Once you named these topics, I asked you to think about them as themes - once we identify a theme, and we use that to look back at the examples, what conclusions can we make?

We further illustrated this with a look back at Antigone. We noted how in that play there were three characters who committed suicide. But once we've identified that topic, how does it turn into a theme? What is the play saying about suicide?  Here are some of your answers:

• The suicides of Antigone, Haemon, and Eurydice were punishments for Creon's power-hungry actions and attitude
• Those who do not follow / listen to the gods will be punished
• Some characters do not know how to deal with challenges and see suicide as a way out

We finished the class with this in-class writing: Hamlet Act III writing

Hamlet - Day 10

To wrap up our week, we watched Act III of Hamlet.  If you missed class, or want to watch it again, you can find links to the movie under the Hamlet tab above.

Also, Mr. Rigler and Mrs. Phillips have made several updates to the Hamlet calendars. You can access the calendars here, or under the Hamlet tab above.


Calendars:

• 1st period Hamlet calendar
• 6th period Hamlet calendar
• 8th period Hamlet calendar

Hamlet - Day 9

During the first part of class today you worked with your group to create a visual portrayal of a topic from Act II. These included:

• Deception
• Trust / Distrust
• Doubt / Confidence
• Madness
• Baiting others / Fishing for information
• Privacy

For the second part we examined four relationships and how they change (or don't) over the course of the first three acts of the play:

• Hamlet and Gertrude - 1.2 / 3.4
• Hamlet and Claudius - 1.2 / 3.2 & 3.3
• Hamlet and Horatio - 1.2 / 3.2
• Hamlet and Ophelia - 1.3 / 2.1 / 2.2 / 3.1

Instead of discussing them or writing about them, you created a series of tableaux - silent freeze-frames to convey the feelings, attitudes, and motivations of the characters in these scenes. While two of you created these poses, another person in your group read the line(s).

Here's a link to a slideshow with photos of some of our tableaux: Hamlet Relationship Tableaux

Hopefully you took good notes during class - your work with both the themes and the relationships was insightful - keep track of these details!

Hamlet - Day 8

Today we watched Act II of Hamlet.  If you missed class, or want to watch it again, you can find links to the movie under the Hamlet tab above.

Hamlet Day 7 - "To be or not to be..."

Happy Monday!

After a brief recap of Act II, we turned our attention to Hamlet's famous soliloquy in Act III, Scene 1. Even though these are some of the most famous lines ever written, our job is not to just pay respect to them but rather to explore them in terms of the ideas Hamlet raises, how he speaks of them, and how they potentially connect to some of our own concerns.  The writing activity we did with them is called an "exploded imagery" - each of you selected a line or phrase and used it as a first line of a new piece of writing. We shared all of these out loud, inserting them into a read-through of the speech. Sound complicated? Cool? It sounded fantastic in class!

Hamlet - Day Six

On day six, we worked with our groups to make sense of Act Two. We took a closer look at the key events, and examined the issues/concerns elicited by these focal points of the play.

We used a graphic organizer to record our ideas about Act Two, and on Monday, we will examine how these events overlap/ intersect/ parallel each other.

Also, Mrs. Phillips’s classes learned about interpretive questions, and began practicing writing their own questions. You can access the Interpretive Questions presentation here: Interpretive Questions.

Hamlet - Day Five

On day five, we watched Act 1 of Hamlet. In class, we will be watching the Kenneth Branagh version of Hamlet (1996).

If you are absent on a day in which we are watching the film, you can check to see if the Kenneth Branagh version is available at the Deerfield Public Library, or you watch it here:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Hamlet - Day Four

On day four, we took a closer look at Hamlet’s first soliloquy, examining how the figurative language reveals his feelings about death, God and religion, his father, his mother, and King Claudius.

Then, we took a look at advice that characters gave to each other during Act 1, Scene 3, and discussed what the interactions reveal about each character. With your groups, you examined one of the following interactions:

• Laertes gives advice to Ophelia
• Polonius gives advice to Laertes
• Polonius gives advice to Ophelia

Last, we picked out the most important lines from Act 1, Scene 5, when the ghost speaks to Hamlet and charges him to revenge his murder, most foul and unnatural.