FALL SEMESTER FINAL

Welcome to the last day of our semester.  I look forward to sharing what we've prepared with each other.  In the process, please make sure to complete the following:

1. Turn in your self-assessment (items on the white board in class)
2. Have your grade conference (optional)
3. Comment to the FOR THE WIN/TER BREAK post with your Big Question

4. POST to your blog with your Big Question topic and your intention for the winter break (title: FOR THE WIN/TER BREAK)

Reminder: I will be posting to the course blog intermittently over the break.  Every time you comment to a post, you will earn credit.  (Think of it like Instagram, but less vapid and more lucrative.)

Whether you spend the break working, playing, celebrating, or resting, I wish each of you a terrific, restorative few weeks-- see you in 2019!

for the win/ter break

Please comment to this post and let us know what Big Question you're thinking about!

could this be you?

This happened in my classroom at RHS:

finals schedule

Just in case anyone else gets as confused as I do:

Winter Finals Bell Schedule... by on Scribd

my attempt at the essay final

Written in those precious few moments between classes and interrup—“Dr. Preston, may I please go to the bathroom?”—tions.

People change. 

In literature, characters that change are called dynamic characters.  However art tries to imitate life, though, dynamic characters are artificial creatures of story.  In real life, there is nothing else.  No one is static.  Everyone changes.

Sometimes people change for reasons that observers understand.  The change makes some kind of logical, chronological, or cause-and-effect sense.  More often, people change for reasons that aren’t so obvious.  Something internal drives them: trauma, emotion, or some cruel trick of the forces we call gods when we no longer believe in any.

Whatever the cause, some of the wisest among us have commented that the only constant is change.  Are they right?  Was Hume correct in observing that we never step in the same river twice?  If so, we should to look in the mirror and ask ourselves the question: Are any of us today the people we were just yesterday?  (I read somewhere that even our skin regenerates so quickly that the skin you’re wearing now right now is totally different than the skin you wore just seven years ago.)

This is the genius of Hamlet.  Shakespeare created a character that speaks his innermost thoughts as he decides how to be, how to act, and how to communicate with others around him in ways that will determine his own future and his country’s.  Hamlet gives seven soliloquies – long, individual speeches – and instead of distracting the audience from the action, they actually add to our understanding.

At the beginning of the play, Hamlet meets his father’s ghost.  The ghost confronts Hamlet with the news that Hamlet’s uncle killed his father and slept with his mother.  This hits Hamlet hard—how could it not?  So it makes sense that, after we see Hamlet speak with Claudius and Gertrude, Hamlet gives the first of several soliloquies of the play.  This one starts:, “O, that this too too solid self would melt…”  Hamlet is clearly distraught, and he needs to get himself together if he is to survive and avenge his father’s death.

Some people think Hamlet is a moody young man with a death wish or a decision-making disorder.  I disagree.  True, Hamlet talks about death and wishing he didn’t have to deal with all this madness, but who wouldn’t feel that way under such bizarre circumstances?  From the beginning moments of foreshadowing, it appears clear that Hamlet knows what he has to do.  It’s just that killing someone – especially a king – is a difficult thing to do.

As the plot evolves and the rising action intensifies, Hamlet shares more of his inner thinking.  The ultimate speech is the most quoted; you know the opening by heart even if you’ve never read the play.  “To be or not to be,” says Hamlet, and damned if that isn’t the question.

Let it sink in for a moment.  Every decision we make is our answer to that question.  Who are we?  The person who applies for that job, or talks to that girl/guy, who tries to get an A in that class, or who makes the team, or who… decides to do or not do any of those things, however big or small?  And, in the end, are we not the sum total of all our life’s decisions?

It’s even deeper than that.  Say you are debating whether or not to take a risk.  Whether or not you decide to act, in just a few moments you will no longer be the person who is deciding to act.  You will either be the person who did, or who didn’t, or you will be a person who is still trying to decide.  Hamlet shows this in the scene where he meets the soldiers in the field; he thinks to himself, “Damn, here are these soldiers, fighting for honor and nothing else, while I have my father and my country to fight for, and what am I doing about it?”  We all secretly criticize ourselves for not being better than we are.  What’s interesting about this process, though, is that no matter how we think or how we act, in just a few moments we will be someone slightly different, if only because we will be able to reflect on what we have or have not done.

Try this exercise: think of someone you admire greatly.  Send them a message on social media.  Did you do it yet?  Yes?  No?  How do you feel about yourself as a result?  No matter what you did or did not do, the fact is that a few seconds have elapsed.  And in that few seconds, you have become a different person.  Before you started reading this paragraph, you had no awareness of yourself as a person who would contact your idol or be afraid to do so.  Now that you’re thinking about it, the previous you – the innocent you – is dead (i.e., “not to be”) and the present you is debating whether to take action (i.e., “to be).

Shakespeare’s allusions point to mythology and ancient history in ways that suggest Hamlet is connected to grand stories of the human condition.  In our private moments, I suspect that many of us also connect ourselves to heroic ideals.  In these stories we either find inspiration or grief at the realization we will never measure up.  When Hamlet finally has nothing left to lose and only a few seconds to live, he kills Claudius and undergoes his final transformation.  The royal family becomes food for worms and returns to the earth, like Caesar and Alexander, from greatness to the dirt beneath our feet.

In real life, people sometimes change in ways that are difficult to perceive, even if you think you know someone well.  How many attentive spouses and business partners have been duped by a person they trusted?  These changes didn’t happen overnight, but they were imperceptible in real time, like a snail or a sprinkler that doesn’t move except when you look away and look back, only to discover it’s in a completely different place.

In Hamlet, Shakespeare manipulates time and moves the main character’s thought from silent inner spaces to the spoken words.  In the moments it’s taken you to read this, your old self has died and a new version of you has been born.  What’s the difference?  That is the question.  

december 18

Today we are janitors and we are creators.

AGENDA:

1. Clean up.  Think back on any assignments you missed, or any opportunities for credit that you can still take advantage (like literature analyses or your blog or [?]) -- and get to work.

2. Build something beautiful. Think about your Big Question and write an essay that explains it.

december 17

AGENDA:
1. Discussion (topic: the connection between love and quality)
2. Plan the week
3. Return graded essays

ACTIONS:
1. Menu/story sign-up
2. Revise and post essay on your blog
3. Post your notes on today's discussion (title: WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?)

december 14

JOURNAL TOPIC: (do this AFTER you write the essay)
How well did you do on the essay?  Why?

AGENDA:
1. Final essay exam
2. Journal

december 13

JOURNAL TOPICS:
We remember big life events like weddings, births, and deaths, and we remember cultural events like holidays, but do we remember the little moments in our lives?  Describe a moment from your life that you remember clearly, but that others may not remember or even know about.  What makes this stand out in your mind?

AGENDA:
1. Journal
2. A final final review: lit terms + essay

POST:
How well will you do on tomorrow's exam?  (title: CALLING MY SHOT)

december 12

JOURNAL TOPIC:
What is the meaning of the saying, "The early bird gets the worm"?  Why do you think people think this is an important concept?  What if they're wrong?  What if the early bird shows up and the worm turns out to be bait, and the early bird is eaten by the cat, who happens to be a friend of the late bird, who is still sleeping in the nest and doesn't even like breakfast?  Huh?  What about that?

AGENDA:
1. Journal
2. Anatomy of an essay
3. Sample essay by an author I know pretty well

FINAL ESSAY PROMPT

In Hamlet, some of the characters are static and some are dynamic. What makes a character dynamic?  Choose a dynamic character from Hamlet.  Explain at least three ways this character changes throughout the book, and be prepared to support your points with textual evidence (such as a quote or an event in the plot).  Why does this character change?  How does this character's evolution reflect the overall theme and tone of the play? *NOTE: Please remember to include at least five lit terms in your analysis of the text.

december 11

JOURNAL TOPIC:
[Today's topic is a not-really-sneaky way to help you understand the play and review the lit terms.]

Take a look at your lit terms list.  Think back on Hamlet.  Find five examples of the literature techniques as Shakespeare used them in the play.  For each, define the term and describe the example.

AGENDA:
1. Journal
2. Lit terms final
3. Prepare for essay final

TONIGHT:
Review the play and decide on a theme and a way of describing the tone that you can write about (title: THE PLAY'S THE THING)

december 10

George Bernard Shaw was a famous author who wrote more than sixty plays and won a Nobel Peace Prize for his writing.  He was known for having a pretty sharp wit, and at some point he decided to take teachers down a peg by saying, "Those who can't do, teach."

Now, I love a good saying as much as anyone, and heaven knows some teachers earn more respect than others, but it just so happens that Shaw was dead wrong.  Before I prove it to you, however, two questions:

1. If you could pick one teacher to do the work s/he assigns, who would it be?  Why?

2. What do you think is easier-- doing something well or teaching someone else to do it?  Why?

AGENDA:
1. Journal
2. Fahrenheit 451 essay (that also includes Hamlet) by an author I know really well
3. Notes on writing essays & gathering evidence for the essay final

TONIGHT:
Know thy lit terms.

december 7

JOURNAL TOPIC:
Queen Gertrude?  Dead. King Claudius?  Dead.  Polonius?  Dead.  Ophelia?  Dead.  Laertes?  Dead.  Hamlet?  Dead.

Why do you think Shakespeare ended the play this way?  Why did he leave Horatio alive to tell the story?

AGENDA:
1. Journal
2. Discuss takeaways from the play and plan for the final
3. Lit terms

THIS WEEKEND:
Study lit terms

december 6

JOURNAL TOPIC:
Today we may find out if Hamlet finally "gets the point." [groan]  What is a pun?  When are puns funny, and when aren't they?  Why do so many people groan at them, and why doesn't that stop the rest of us from making them?

AGENDA:
1. Journal
2. Hamlet

POST:
What is the role of humor in Hamlet?  Give a couple examples to support your point. (title: SOMETHING'S FUNNY IN THE STATE OF DENMARK)

december 5

JOURNAL TOPIC:
Think about the "madness" in Hamlet.  Who's really mad?  The ghost, who's bummed about being betrayed and killed?  Hamlet, who lost his father (and his idea of his mother)?  Ophelia, who lost her father and was rejected?  Laertes, who lost his father and his sister?  King Claudius, who started all this nonsense in the first place?

AGENDA:
1. Journal (*which you can also use to post to your blog)
2. Continue reading Act V

POST:
Why do you think Shakespeare included the scene with the clowns in the graveyard?  What do they tell us about life and death?  (title: THE CLOWNS OF DEATH.  first sentence: "In Act V of Hamlet, Hamlet is returning to the palace in Denmark when he meets two gravediggers.  Shakespeare describes them as clowns, which suggests...")

december 4

JOURNAL TOPIC:
Yesterday we read that Laertes confronts King Claudius.  Having learned that his father is dead and his sister has gone crazy, Laertes is understandably enraged.  What do you think will happen next?

AGENDA:
1. Journal
2. Hamlet

POST:
If the story of Hamlet could be updated for 2018, how do you think mobile phones/text/internet/other technology would change the characters' interactions and the story itself?  (title: HAMLET 2.0) 

december 3

JOURNAL TOPIC:
Dr. Seuss once wrote, "How did it get so late so soon?  December is here before it's June.  My goodness how the time has flewn. [sic]  How did it get so late so soon?"

Here we are.  It's December.  In the blink of an eye, we'll be on Winter Break, and then-- but, wait.  Let's slow things down for a moment.  One of the things I love about reading is how the author's ideas sometimes connect with what I'm thinking, or feeling, or experiencing.  Sometimes connecting the dots takes a little effort, but the effort is always worthwhile, because whatever I'm reading becomes more meaningful in those moments.

So, here is today's journal question: what idea/s from Hamlet can you apply to real life?  What have the characters done or said that make you think about yourself, people you know, or the bigger issues we all deal with in 2018?

AGENDA:
1. Journal (extended time; treat this like a practice essay for our final exam)
2. Hamlet/ Ophelia loses it & Laertes returns

POST:
Set a goal for the end of your semester.  What do you want to learn or accomplish between now and finals week?  What grade are you aiming for?  What do you plan to do over these next couple weeks to achieve your goal?  (title: MY SEMESTER GOAL)

when it's not a school assignment

Friday afternoon I drove from SMHS to pick my daughter up from school.  My briefcase, lunch, and a copy of Les Mis were in the back seat.  When we got home, this is what I saw: