Ms. Bridges' AP English

NOVEMBER 27TH WEEKLY SCHEDULE FOR AP LITERATURE Monday, November 27th: I hope you are all rested from eating and sleeping and partying this weekend! For a journal entry: Please write five original sentences with adjective clauses using your Unit 3 vocabulary. Please bring you ENGLISH WORKSHOP to class today. Pages 167 - 168; exercises 2 and 3; “Adjective Clauses” have already been assigned but I will go over it with you today. Today we will be reading and analyzing HAMLET ! I suppose you all didn’t read Act 2? Tuesday, November 28th: We will continue working on Hamlet . As soon as we finish Act 2, you will turn in your Act 2 open book test and we will watch Kenneth Branagh’s HAMLET. I’m getting a little paranoid about the quality of the tape - and the DVD version still hasn’t come out yet(?) - so I bought the Mel Gibson DVD to show. The only problem is that Gibson’s version has been shortened and changed around a bit, i understand, so we’re not seeing the real play. Your EN

November 20th Weekly Schedule for AP English Monday, November 20th: Today, if you have not turned in your Act One test for HAMLET please do so. If everyone turns in the test today, then we will go over the answers in class. Grades are coming up so the sooner you turn in outstanding work, the better your grade will be (and I mean the word “outstanding” in both senses of the word - quick, what literary term would that be?) Please bring the handout that I rather hurriedly passed out to you on Friday. The handout has two passages from HAMLET that I would like for you to look at and analyze. It might prove helpful in decoding Shakespeare. We will read Act Two and discuss today. And if the xerox gods smile on us, I will be able to give you the contemporary translation of Act Two and the open book test on it as well. Tuesday, November 21st: I will give you a fun little unscrambling assignment - just like the other fun little unscrambling assignments - but this time it will be over adje

This is to help you decipher the more difficult passages in HAMLET . When all else fails, check the footnotes at the bottom of the page, or in the Folger's edition, check the opposite page. Please scroll down after this, and check this coming week's agenda (November 13th). Remember, you are to read Act 1 and to underline any difficult passages or phrases you did not understand. Hamlet Act 1, Scene 2 Horatio: Two night together had these gentlemen (line 203) Marcellus and Barnado, on their watch In the dead waste and middle of the night (line 205) Been thus encountered: a figure like your father Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe, Appears before them, and with solemn march Goes slow and stately by them; thrice he walked By their oppressed and fear-surprised eye Within his truncheon’s length, whilst they, distilled Almost to jelly with the act of fear, Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me In dreadful secrecy impart they did, And I with them the third night kep the wat

Check out this link: Hamlet Spoiler Alert!: Read the first paragraph only on the plot of HAMLET; then skip down to read the posts some students have left. The posts may be of interest to you. NOVEMBER 13TH WEEKLY SCHEDULE FOR AP LITERATURE Monday, November 13th: Your ENGLISH WORKSHOP homework, “adverbial clause,” pages 169 - 170, exercises 4 and 5 are due today. Pass out the “Literary Wheel” and of course, explain. You will use this handy little “wheel” in your reading of HAMLET to help you with the literary tropes and with the themes. We will go over a handout on reading comprehension (breaking down some of the more difficult passages) in Act 1, Scenes 2 through 5. We will then discuss the rest of Act 1 and if we have time, we will watch Act 1, Scene 5 of Kenneth Branagh’s film. Tuesday, November 14th: Shortened Day! Journal: Using five of your vocabulary words from Unit 3, please write five sentences with adverbial clauses. You will turn this in for credit. As soon as we are fini

November 6th Weekly Agenda for AP English Literature Please scroll down to the next entry after you read this. There is an excerpt from MACBETH and accompanying questions designed to help with comprehension. Monday, November 6th: Please bring your vocabulary book to class today. I’d like to go over Unit Three with you. This will be due on Thursday, November 9th. For your perusal, please take a look at a cutting from MACBETH. We will begin reading HAMLET - finally! - today! Today we will go over Act 1, Scene 1. Tuesday, November 7th: Please bring your ENGLISH WORKSHOP to class today. I’d like to go over the adverbial clause assignment with you. The assignment is on pages 169 - 170; exercises 4 and 5. This assignment will be due on Monday, November 13th. We will watch the first scene from Kenneth Branagh’s film, HAMLET, and then move on to read Act 1, Scene 2 in HAMLET. Wednesday, November 8th: For your consideration, please take a look at the “Polysemy” handout over Shakespeare’s

For your consideration: 1. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow 2. Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, 3. To the last syllable of recorded time; 4. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 5. The way to dusty death; Out, out, brief candle! 6. Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player 7. That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, 8. And then is heard no more; it is a tale 9. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 10. Signifying nothing. The above quotation is from the last act of MACBETH when MacBeth learns that his wife has committed suicide - "The Queen is dead." He is alone - I believe - and so it is a soliloquy. He is getting into armor to do battle with MacDuff who is already at his gates clamoring to storm the castle. (Yes, yes, I know the above quotation is from MACBETH - and no, it's not a sonnet - and that we are about to read HAMLET, not MACBETH, but this exercise is to get you thinking, visualizing and hearing Shakespeare.) Read the above