English I students worked on their first soliloquy in the play

and met Fr. Lawrence in the process:

The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light,
And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels
From forth day’s path and Titan’s fiery wheels:
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
The day to cheer and night’s dank dew to dry,
I must up-fill this osier cage of ours
With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.
The earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb;
What is her burying grave that is her womb,
And from her womb children of divers kind
We sucking on her natural bosom find,
Many for many virtues excellent,
None but for some and yet all different.
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give,
Nor aught so good but strain’d from that fair use
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
And vice sometimes by action dignified.
Within the infant rind of this small flower
Poison hath residence and medicine power:
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
Two such opposed kings encamp them still
In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;
And where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.

Working in groups, students paraphrased various portions of the text, then gathered into larger groups to share their findings — paraphrases and summaries.

English 8 students worked on “The Drummer Boy of Shiloh.” We’re focusing on the importance of the setting and how it’s developed as well as figurative language.

Homework

• English 8: study vocabulary words for quiz later this week.
• English I Honors: 
  • complete 2.3;
  • add your paraphrases to the appropriate portion of the soliloquy on Google Classroom (this won’t be ready until a bit later in the afternoon).