Mrs. Duda's English Class



Basic components of AnalysisTOPICWhat is this selection about?SUPPORTWhat key points support the main idea?PURPOSEWhat is the author’s reason for creating this piece? (inform, entertain, warn, advise, etc.)MESSAGEWhat is the author’s message about the topic?EVALUATIONHow clear, interesting, accurate and thorough is the author’s coverage of this topic?FINAL THOUGHTS(pick one)What would you like to know more about regarding this topic?What reaction (surprised, fear, excitement, sadness, etc.) did you have to the information presented on this topic?What connection (this reminds me of…) did you make with the information presented on this topic?“So what?” What does this information mean to you?Title, Author, and Source:INFOGRAPHIC ANALYSISSUBJECTSUPPORTPURPOSEMESSAGEEVALUATIONFINAL THOUGHTS41433759525Today is the Ides of March—no need to beware1:09 PM, March 15, 2014 ??|??By Elizabeth Weise USA TODAY painting by Vincenzo Camuccini from 1805 showing the death of Julius Caesar. The painting now hangs in the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome. / Vincenzo Camuccini (via USA TODAY)Today is the Ides of March. But there’s no need to be on guard.Julius Caesar probably should have been. But then, he blew off the soothsayer who told him to “beware the Ides of March” in the first act of Shakespeare’s play.You might remember from English class that things didn’t go so well for him.Out in the Twitterverse, posters are using #idesofmarch as a way to remember actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died of a drug overdose last month. Hoffman was in George Clooney’s convoluted 2011 political drama “The Ides of March.”Though Bridget Hughes had one of the best tweets so far: “Note to self: On Saturday March 15th, order a Caesar salad, lure it into a false sense of security, then stab it 23 times # IdesofMarch“All because of a line dashed off 415 years ago.What if Shakespeare’s soothsayer had simply said, “Watch out a month from now!” Would anybody remember the line?“Ides of March” has a better ring to it. And yet all it means is “halfway through the month.”Ides comes from an old Latin verb iduare, which meant to divide. It was the Roman term for the day that came in the middle of each month.Every month has an Ides. March had 31 days, so the Ides of March is on March 15.Julius actually got several warnings. Later on in the play there’s a big storm. To find out what it means, he sends a servant to get priests to sacrifice animals and read the omens in their entrails.Their message is even clearer: Don’t go out.In best horror movie fashion he ignores them and, like an idiot, goes out.So it’s no surprise when Brutus and some other conspirators waylay him on the steps of the Capitol and stab him to death.But unless it’s 44 B.C., you’re a Roman Consul and ignoring omens right and left, you should be just fine.Directions: Read and annotate. Besides asking questions, noting main points, and making connections, identify the author’s claim/opinion, 2-3 reasons, evidence (if given), and evaluate the author’s degree of authority in relation to the article’s topic.Pool: Should kids still read Shakespeare? Posted: Monday, January 24, 2011 12:00 am | Updated: 7:13 am, Mon Jan 24, 2011. By Frank T. Pool the decades, I have taught Shakespeare to thousands of students. This year, I am, for the first time, teaching “Romeo and Juliet” to very young and bright freshmen.I periodically wonder why we still teach Shakespeare. It is not that I doubt his excellence; in fact, my appreciation for the Bard has grown exponentially over the decades. I just ponder the difficulties and the rewards of teaching him to postmodern children.The language itself poses major problems. Shakespeare uses about 40,000 words in his plays, about twice as many as are in an educated person’s vocabulary. He delighted in coinages and putting old words to new uses, and he is responsible for many words that have remained in our language.Incidentally, he was not the only playwright to engage in such linguistic creativity. His era was characterized by a love of language, as the printing press brought down the price of publication, and as literacy rose in many segments of the population.I’ve seen countless students struggling with the vocabulary through the years. Struggle is not a bad thing, and working to gain a good vocabulary is well worth the effort.Sometimes there are other obstacles to understanding Shakespeare. Often he goes off on flights of what can only be described as verbal ornamentation, when he creates a metaphor and then extends and plays with it, sometimes adding in allusions to classical mythology.His audiences, or at least the educated among them, seemed to enjoy these digressions. Nowadays, they seem lengthy and artificial. Movie versions often edit them out.We need to remember Shakespeare’s plays were written to be performed, not read. The comedies, in my experience, are much better seen than read. What looks like nonsense on the page may be horseplay, when well acted, brings laughter.A new series, “No-Fear Shakespeare” paraphrases the Elizabethan language so readers can read the original wording (which actually has been edited for spelling and other minor discrepancies) on the left- hand pages, and glance over to the right to see a workable modernization. I have no problem with students using this aid, as long as they read real Shakespeare.It will not come as a surprise that I believe students should, indeed, continue to read Shakespeare.William Shakespeare created a vast range of characters. Good writers often give birth to some people we can understand better than we can ourselves. Great writers like Shakespeare create characters who understand themselves only fitfully, and we see them in the process of their apprehension and their failures.Great literature not only entertains, it teaches us, and Shakespeare has a powerful understanding of the human condition.Shakespeare, for all his ornamentation, can be very concise and direct, can strike to the heart of the matter. After hearing a long oration on how a widowed queen should never remarry, the recently remarried queen Gertrude in “Hamlet” notes “the lady protests too much.”Not only words, but many memorable phrases issued from the playwright’s pen. Murder of a wife and her children is described as “one fell swoop.” His metaphors soar and swoop from the airy to the earthy.To love Shakespeare is to love language. His words fall trippingly off the tongue and evoke awe, disgust, anger, longing, and comic repartee. He is a consummate poet.For young and old, reading Shakespeare is worthwhile. Through his plays, we commune with our forebears who loved him; we transmit our culture; we celebrate language; and we broaden our humanity.I am glad there are still some plays I have not read. I will start on one tonight.Frank Thomas Pool is a poet and English teacher working in Austin. FrankT.Pool@.Final Thoughts:Summarize the author’s main point:Note your initial reaction to this article:514985-19050-49530066675Directions: Read and annotate. Besides asking questions, noting main points, and making connections, identify the author’s claim/opinion, 2-3 reasons, evidence (if given), and evaluate the author’s degree of authority in relation to the article’s topic.Ban Shakespeare From?Schools!Posted on February 29, 2012 by festival56drama Artistic Director, Dexter Brigham, provides background, trivia, insights and other interesting tidbits pertaining to the current season of Festival 56Nothing like a properly inflammatory headline to draw readers, right? I’m serious, though. Shakespeare should not be taught in the school system. And I’ll tell you why…As a theatre producer who is committed to presenting a production of Shakespeare every season, and who, in addition, gives it away for free, I’m in a unique position to watch the average Joe and Jane as they watch our production, talk about it to each other and people around them. Since?admission is?free, the?feedback I get from them is a?completely about the material?and the production, rather than weighing the relative market value of spending X amount of dollars on a theatre ticket to see Shakespeare.There are two things that I hear on a regular basis. The first is no big surprise and goes something like this: “I’ve never really liked Shakespeare”, “The language is hard to understand”, “I’ve always thought that Shakespeare was for smart people”, “The last time I read Romeo and Juliet was in high school” or some variation therein. Generally, we can call it the?perception of elitism in the genre.The second thing?I hear all the time?usually comes right after they say the first and goes more?like this: “I never knew?Shakespeare was so funny!”,?”The sword fights are awesome!”, “This?show has more dead bodies than?a Scorsese?film!”, “Beautiful…just? so beautiful.”Also, several times each season parents come up to me and marvel at how?much their kids?enjoyed the show. They expected them to be fidgeting by intermission, but they sat there, rapt, for almost 3 hours.The?incredible gap between expectations and experience when attending Shakespeare can be blamed on a single institution: school.?Or rather, on?our society’s?long-held belief that simply because?Shakespeare is brilliant, that he should be taught in the classroom.Shakespeare is not literature.When you teach a student about architecture, do you roll out a blueprint and marvel at the nuances in the drafting? When you teach a music appreciation class, do you?pass?out?the score to La Boheme and go through it, page?by?page? How about an art class where you just?discuss?different types of canvas and brushes that?famous artists used? Or even in technology, would you have even an inkling of what Facebook or Google was if you were just looking at millions of lines of code?We do a great disservice to William Shakespeare by pretending that he was a novelist. And by doing so, we teach our students that his stories are unintelligible, dense, fancy and, worst of all, boring. None of which is true. I’m sure many English teachers love Shakespeare and that a handful of them are truly passionate about sharing that love. But telling students how great something is and then showing them one tenth of it cannot possibly be construed as an effective way to impart a deep appreciation for anything.The works of William Shakespeare are not scripts, they are plays. The difference between a script and play is actors, costumes, scenery, audience and all the other elements of theatre. They live and breathe in real time, the jokes and verse?land with timing delivered by skilled artisans, just as Frank Lloyd Wright is brought to life by?craftsmen.?To reduce?one of?the greatest of human achievements to?30 minutes of a?class of 15 year olds sitting in desks,?mumbling their way?through?the balcony scene in a monotone is to?create barriers in those kid’s minds toward Shakespeare that they may?never break through, to their loss.I assert that it would be far, far better to go through school with no knowlege of these plays and to come to them?naturally in?the course of?life without those fetters, than to live with the vague and depressing knowledge that this body of work is?supposed to be special, if only we were smart enough?to understand it.For those of you who carry around those fetters,?thinking that?Shakespeare is not for?you: I’m sorry that was done to you. It’s not your fault. You are smart enough for Shakepeare. His plays contain everything?that your favorite?TV network has:?mindless violence, breathtaking love stories,?endlessly creative ways to?die and murder,?extended action?sequences,?bawdy?jokes, heroes and villians. But?he?does?it all?so much better. -68580029845About festival56dramaDexter Brigham is the Artistic Director of Festival 56, Illinois' largest summer theatre festival, located in Princeton, IL. Founded in 2004 by arts supporters in the community working with a group of theatre artists from New York City, Festival 56 now offers 10 mainstage productions each season in three venues. Visit for information about the current season! Final Thoughts:Summarize the author’s main point:Note your initial reaction to this article:4781550149860What do both the title and the heading reveal about the subject of this article?Reading Shakespeare has dramatic effect on human brainIn your own words, explain the term “functional shift” as the author relates it to Shakespeare’s sentence structure:What affect does this have on the brain?Is this a positive or a negative effect? Underline three pieces of text on the first page that show evidence to your thinking. Label each #1, #2, #3Would you agree with these “experts” in that the play had a dramatic impact on you? Explain your opinion.December 18th, 2006 in Medicine & Health / Medical researchExamine your thinking about the first page:I see:I think:I wonder:Evaluate the authority of Neil Roberts. Is he a valid source? Y NUnderline and draw an arrow to the text that proves your answer.Research at the University of Liverpool has found that Shakespearean language excites positive brain activity, adding further drama to the bard's plays and poetry.Shakespeare uses a linguistic technique known as functional shift that involves, for example using a noun to serve as a verb. Researchers found that this technique allows the brain to understand what a word means before it understands the function of the word within a sentence. This process causes a sudden peak in brain activity and forces the brain to work backwards in order to fully understand what Shakespeare is trying to say.Professor Philip Davis, from the University's School of English, said: "The brain reacts to reading a phrase such as ‘he godded me' from the tragedy of Coriolanus, in a similar way to putting a jigsaw puzzle together. If it is easy to see which pieces slot together you become bored of the game, but if the pieces don't appear to fit, when we know they should, the brain becomes excited. By throwing odd words into seemingly normal sentences, Shakespeare surprises the brain and catches it off guard in a manner that produces a sudden burst of activity - a sense of drama created out of the simplest of things."Experts believe that this heightened brain activity may be one of the reasons why Shakespeare's plays have such a dramatic impact on their readers.Professor Neil Roberts, from the University's Magnetic Resonance and Image Analysis Research Centre, (MARIARC), explains: "The effect on the brain is a bit like a magic trick; we know what the trick means but not how it happened. Instead of being confused by this in a negative sense, the brain is positively excited. The brain signature is relatively uneventful when we understand the meaning of a word but when the word changes the grammar of the whole sentence, brain readings suddenly peak. The brain is then forced to retrace its thinking process in order to understand what it is supposed to make of this unusual word."How did the experts prove their claim?Summarize the results of the study. Underline one line that shows the main point of your summary.What are the future implications of this study?What does the photo show, in connection with the article?Make one statement to show your observation about brain activity at 420 vs. 630ms?Who conducted this study? Are they valid sources? Y NUnderline and draw an arrow to the text that proves your answer.Examine your thinking about the second page:I see:I think:I wonder:Professor Roberts and Professor Davis together with Dr Guillaune Thierry, from the University of Wales, Bangor, monitored 20 participants using an electroencephalogram (EEG) as they read selected lines from Shakespeare's plays.In this initial test electrodes were placed on the subject's scalp to measure brain responses.Professor Roberts said: "EEG gives graph-like measurements and when the brain reads a sentence that does not make semantic sense it registers what we call a N400 effect – a negative wave modulation. When the brain reads a grammatically incorrect sentence it registers a P600 effect – an effect which continues to last after the word that triggered it was first read."Researchers also found that when participants read the word producing the functional shift there was no N400 effect indicating that the meaning was accepted but a P600 effect was observed which indicates a positive re-evaluation of the word. The team is now using magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMI) to test which areas of the brain are most affected and the kind of impact it could have in maintaining healthy brain activity.Professor Davis added: "This interdisciplinary work is good for brain science because it offers permanent scripts of the human mind working moment-to-moment. It is good for literature as it illustrates primary human thinking. Through the two disciplines, we may discover new insights into the very motions of the mind."3454406985Photo Credit:The effect of functional shift on the brain. Source: University of Liverpool"Reading Shakespeare has dramatic effect on human brain." December 18th, 2006. ................
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