First and fifth periods began the final project of the second quarter. We looked at a common thread in our discussions of heroes from the beginning of the quarter: most students had identified “courage” as one of the attributes of a hero, so we began the final project by discussing, in groups, what courage is. We used scenarios that described actions which could be classified as courageous and not courageous to help determine a list of characteristics of a courageous action.

First and fifth period notes

First and fifth period notes

First and fifth period notes

Second and fourth periods began Romeo and Juliet proper, digging into the the unexpected opening scene with the servants of Montegue and Capulet. We began by practicing our long-sentence interpretation skills with the starter:

Using the knowledge from last night’s homework and yesterday’s work with the prologue, write a paraphrase of this passage from R&J.

Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
Have thrice disturb’d the quiet of our streets,
And made Verona’s ancient citizens
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,
To wield old partisans, in hands as old,
Canker’d with peace, to part your canker’d hate

We then returned to the prologue, which we began yesterday, for a final examination of the duality of imagery and linguistic structure within the sonnet.

Second and fourth period notes

Second and fourth period notes

Finally, we looked at the opening scene, examining it for Shakespeare’s use of puns and his surprisingly bawdy humor.

Homework

• First and fifth periods: none.
• Second and fourth periods:
  • review what you know about Elizabethan drama and the Globe theater to make a reasonable inference about why Shakespeare used such bawdy humor in the opening lines.
  • finish reading R&J I.1 (that’s act one, scene one).