AP Lit: Hamlet Acts II & III: Discovery/Experiment Phases of HMW Stage "To Be or Not to Be"

We're doing a bunch of close readings, we're exploring how Shakespeare constructs this narrative, we're discussing how Shakespeare serves as a drama rather than a dogma, we're heading toward building empathy for these characters, and we are taking each class period as it comes so we can focus on the scenes, the moments that speak most to us in the moment.

Phew.  I'm tried just writing all of that.

Here are the blog prompts of last week and this week with regards to Hamlet.   The new blog tracker is up.

ACT I.
Blog: Analytical and Design.  Potent Quotable.  Choose a line from the act I you believe captures the essential TONE of the play so far.  The attitude Shakespeare as author, creator, intent driven artist is bringing to the words of the play.  Playful? Pedantic? Satiric? Doleful?

Then take that one line and illustrate with either an original photograph of your own or an image from Unsplash.com.  Use fonts and your design skills to create a visual.  Post it along with a written or recorded explanation of your intentions behind your design.  Posting your intentions is necessary to meeting the standards for media and reading.

Blog:  Critical Creativity.  Color Palette.  Use ColourLovers.com to create a three to five color color palette for Hamlet Act I. Give each color a unique name that reveals your understanding of the characters thus far.  Explain your intentions to meet the reading standard.
Due Jan 27, 2017

ACT II.

Blog post:  Casting Call.  Very few people did this one last time.  Important to do so this time around because this sort of thinking will help you with your design challenge.  Cast Prince Hamlet, Ophelia, Claudius, Gertrude, Ghost Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes and Horatio.  Creative constraint:  must be a cast that could actually exist.  In other words, you may use actors from the past, but all of the cast must be from that era.  Include a line of dialogue you can imagine the actor speaking in that role and a brief rationale for each chocie.

Blog Post: Close reading Hamlet.  Select a speech or soliloquy from Acts I or II -- any speech except for this, too, too, sullied flesh.  Unpack the speech in terms of poetic and literary devices used, allusions and references, and finally how those elements seem to contribute to a key idea in Hamlet.

Due Feb 6, 2017

ACT III.

Staging Hamlet.  Rose/Bud/Thorn.  Take a look at these three versions of Act I, Scene i.  Rose/Bud/Thorn each interpretation and record your thoughts on FlipGrid.  Then embed your FlipGrid on your blog.  (Help each other to figure out how to do this.  You can do it!)

Scoring Hamlet. (Act III.)   Create an original score for any scene in Act III using either live instrumentation, Garage Band, SoundTrap  Wolfram Tones, Beat Lab, or another online/digital music generator/creator.  Explain your intentions.

Due Friday, Feb 10th, 2017.

AP Lit: Hamlet Begins

This week we begin our work with Hamlet.  I'm currently trying out my iPad to type this so apologies for wonky formatting.  I bought a keyboard case for it but it is sorely lacking.

Monday we explored some of Shakespeare's thematic ideas that emerge in Hamlet: trust, knowledge, discomfort, awareness, observation, power, control. Of course these are just ideas and topics, not themes unto themselves -- what Hamlet forces us to consider, those will be the true themes of the play.

I didn't take any pics of our staring at one another, but that's a great deal of what we did.  And then  discussed how we felt, what we experienced; we also did an exercise in observation.

And just barely started the play.

Wednesday, we dig further into the play.  We will read a great deal of the text in class and do some close readings.

Friday, you will present your True Grit as poetry presentations and explore various productions of Hamlet.

Show Your Thinking.

Read: Hamlet Act I.  Due Friday.

Blog: Analytical and Design.  Potent Quotable.  Choose a line from the act I you believe captures the essential TONE of the play so far.  The attitude Shakespeare as author, creator, intent driven artist is bringing to the words of the play.  Playful? Pedantic? Satiric? Doleful?

Then take that one line and illustrate with either an original photograph of your own or an image from Unsplash.com.  Use fonts and your design skills to create a visual.  Post it along with a written or recorded explanation of your intentions behind your design.  Posting your intentions is necessary to meeting the standards for media and reading.

Blog:  Critical Creativity.  Color Palette.  Use ColourLovers.com to create a three to five color color palette for Hamlet Act I. Give each color a unique name that reveals your understanding of the characters thus far.  Explain your intentions to meet the reading standard.

Independent Book Project: design a solution to a problem posed by your free choice work and present that prototype next Tuesday.  Be certain to justify your prototype intentions based on the text evidence you uncover.  Empathize with your user, consider what truly meets the needs and how you know.  Present to class next Tuesday.

True Grit as Poetry.  Make the case that True Grit follows the structure, form, qualities of an epic, ballad, or sonnet.  Design a visually effective presentation to make your case.  Think about the aesthetic qualities of those poetic forms, consider the devices that best define them, consider tone, subject matter, associated with each.  This should be a challenging question to answers, case to make.

AP Lit: To Be or Not to Be Design Challenge

I've copy and pasted the text from the design challenge brief that was shared with you in your Google Drive. I thought it would be helpful for you to have here as you revise and explore new iterations. Any components of the project or documentation of your process could also serve as excellent content for your blog and standards evidence there.

To Be or Not to Be: Design Challenge

Design Challenge.  How might we create dramatic presentations of “To Be or Not to Be” to demonstrate our analysis and understanding of the play as a whole?

Soliloquy Criteria.

• Must include original Shakespearean language, though it may be filtered through any sort of creative interpretation you so choose

• Must take the form of a product that can be watched and experienced, including video, animation, animatic (storyboard w voice over), radio drama/podcast, live performance

• Must be accompanied by a 1-page well-composed rationale that explains the intentions behind the production

• Must feel like an excerpt from a larger production and be aligned to those grander intentions

To achieve that final criterion, you must also create the following “story bible”

Story Bible Criteria.

• One paragraph descriptions for each of the central six characters: Hamlet, Ophelia, Claudius, Polonious, Gertrude, Laertes

• Detailed description of the setting in which the narrative takes place

• One paragraph summaries of each Act in your production, with particular attention to the relationship these events have to your staging of Hamlet’s soliloquy; your goal here is alignment

You may include any visuals here that you believe will help convey your concept.

Design Process Criteria.

Document each of the first three stages of the design process with meaningful evidence.  

Discovery.  (Research & Exploration)

Empathy.  (Audience and User Needs; Character Empathy)

Experiment. (Doodles and Storyboards, Maps and Maybes)

AP Lit: Back from Break

Contrary to Flight307, we did quite a bit of things before break.  Got off my blogging game there . . .

Monday and Tuesday of this week we will discuss Act V and Hamlet as a whole, exploring the idea of tragedy, the tragic flaw, and the trajectories of these characters.

Wednesday and Thursday of this week, we bust out Little Bits electronics as we examine the power structures of Hamlet.  

Friday and next Monday we explore the design of Hamlet and try to reverse engineer Shakespeare's intentions.

For tonight . . .

SHOW YOUR THINKING.

Read.  How to Read Lit: When In Doubt, It's Shakespeare.

Blog.  Discuss the extent to which you see Foster's assertions surfacing in the storytelling you encounter today.  (Let that idea of storytelling take you into whatever creative mediums your brain takes you.)

Use text evidence from Foster and specifics from your contemporary examples to prove your point.

Blog. SUPER IMPORTANT.  Submit your best  evidence from the past three weeks of blogging into STANDARDS EVIDENCE 1 on the blog tracker. 

Anticipate.  Blog post related to vocabulary for next class.  

Design.  HMW 2BN2B.

Due. Next Thursday/Friday.

AP Lit: Hamlet Begins and So Much More . . .

Monday and Tuesday we start our work with Hamlet.  What I'm hoping you'll find is that we've actually been working toward Hamlet all year long.  

These next two weeks are going to be action packed to the gills with thinking, reflection, reading, analyzing and creating.

Both classes will follow the same basic outline for these next two weeks.   I'm posting the complete plan overview here and we'll get more details as we encounter the days.

HAMLET READING.  Starting Monday and Tuesday, an act per class.  Our goal is to get almost a full read in before break and then give us plenty of time in March to dig deeper.  Hamlet plus shorter supplemental readings is pretty much our 3rd Quarter text.

We will read through the play in the space of two weeks so that we may re-visit and unpack more after break.

TRACKING SHAKESPEARE's QUESTIONs.  Hamlet raises all sort of big questions.  I typically choose a theme or idea for AP Lit students to tackle via Hamlet.  How do we acquire and sustain power? How does status influence our decision making?  When do we complete the journey from adolescence to adulthood?  We're going to try something different this year.  (Haven't heard that before, have you?) 

Starting with Act I, identify the questions Shakespeare raises throughout the text.  Rather than typical annotations -- lines of significance, apparently allusions, insights of interpretation -- consider what question a passage asks the audience to consider.  For example, 

"Before my God, I might not this believe/ Without the sensible and true avouch/ Of mine own eyes." -- Horatio, I.1.66-68.

When do our eyes fail to reveal the truth?  What conditions must exist for us to believe what we see?  To what extent does spirituality filter our beliefs and capacity for observation?

You don't need to include three questions.  I did because one bred another, bred another.

We'll be using a tool called hypothes.is to mark up the text.  We'll do our first in class to get a sense of the tool and make sure we are connected. Feel free to use them as the launchpad for a blog post as well.

BLOGGING.  There are two blog posts to complete during this week into the first of next.

      BARD-CABULARY.
      1.  Identify an unfamiliar or unique word from your reading in Hamlet.  (You may want to note several as you read.)
      2.  Identify the context in which the word is used, quoting the act, scene and line number as well as the text itself.  Note the speaker of the text.
      3.  Determine the denotative meaning of the word, specifically as it relates to the use in the text.  (There are lots of definitions for some words.  You may want to identify more than one.)
      4.  Determine the connotations typically associated with the word.
      5.  Use Unsplash, your own photography or your art skills to identify an image that you feel accomplishes two tasks:  illustrates the meaning of the word AND illustrates the meaning of the word as it relates to the context of Hamlet.   In other words, how can one found image enhance the understanding of both the word AND the play.
      Bonus Extra Super Credit Time:  Fuse  the image and the quote into a well-designed visual that accomplishes the two tasks in an aesthetic and meaningful way.

      PROJECT EXPLODER.
     1.  Take a listen to any of the episodes of the "Song Exploder" podcast.   Note the format of the show, the tone, the emphasis on process and context, philosophy and intention.
     2.  Record a "Project Exploder" podcast about your Indie Book project.  You can use any audio or video recording tool to do so.
     3.  Add background music that heightens your overall podcast, fusing your words, your documentation of your project (photos, footage and/or excerpts), and sound into an overall experience.
     4.  Post your Project Exploder on your blog.

And just to keep things always interesting . . .

Remember that we have No Red Ink quizzes on Wednesday/Thursday this week over parallel structure.

And we will have a multiple choice test prep next week.  Maybe even a timed writing over structure and rhyme scheme, too.  WHAT?  Yup.  It's possible.

SHOW YOUR THINKING.

Blog. Req'd Post.

Bard-Cabulary.

Due. Next class.

Project Exploder.

Due. First class next week.

Study.  No Red Ink Quiz.

Parallel structure.  Next class.

AP Lit: Anchors Await & Modest Proposals

Big Project Week.  Thursday and Friday, we get to see To Be or Not Be.  This is exciting stuff.

Monday and Tuesday, we'll be following up with "The Century Quilt" on demand by examining some anchor papers and comparing them to our own writing and thinking.  We'll be doing a tremendous amount of mark up on the anchor packets and busting out serious degrees of Post It notes.

From there we will conduct a close reading of Swift's "A Modest Proposal" right in class.  We'll be using our SCOUT/NWW/RBT triple lens.  And this will lead us to our next writing product (not the synthesis essay yet!).

We also have a collaboration with other seniors not from around these parts that is about to happen.  It involves redefining senioritis.  We'll look at this more closely on Wednesday and Thursday.

Here's the blog prompt due NEXT FRIDAY.  March 6.  Use words/video/audio to define your now more accurately than "senioritis."  We'll be connecting with seniors in a HS in Northern Illinois around this very idea -- and perhaps elsewhere as well.  Here's an example of how one student tackled it.

HOMEWORK.

Blog. 3+ Posts.
Req'd Post:  From A to To Be.   Stack that blog full of images and explanation of your process.  Show how you got there.
Due. Friday. Feb 27.


Blog Prompt for NEXT WEEK.
Use words/video/audio to define your now more accurately than "senioritis."  We'll be connecting with seniors in a HS in Northern Illinois around this very idea -- and perhaps elsewhere as well.  Here's an example of how one student tackled it.
Due. Friday. Mar 6.

Literary 3x3:  Modest Proposal.  Bring it to your next class.
Due. Wed & Thurs.  Feb 25 & 26.

Complete the Design.  To Be or Not to Be.
Due Thursday/Friday Feb 25 & 26.

AP Lit: Hamlet & Power & Character

PROJECT SHARES.
Right out the gate.  That's where we'll start on Monday and Tuesday.

HAMLET.  POWER & CHARACTER.

Then we will carry out an experience to help us wrap our heads around both the  power structures and character development in Hamlet.

Using six-index cards, how might we create a model for the power structure within the six central characters of Hamlet? That's your challenge for the day.

Hamlet, Ophelia, Claudius, Polonious, Gertrude, Laertes

In addition to that design, you must also also identify whether each of the six characters is flat or round, static or dynamic and identify text evidence to prove your case.

All of this is in the service of developing your "To Be or Not to Be."  This is a means of exploring congruency -- determining how your soliloquy lines up with the rest of your interpretation of the work.

HOMEWORK.
Blog: 3+ Posts
Req'd Post:  Color Palette for Hamlet. Using Colourlovers.com, create a color palette for Hamlet. Each color should be given a unique name and a rationale for each. Consider how this can help you with your concept for To Be or Not to Be
Due. Fri, Feb 13.

Design.  To Be or Not to Be Design Challenge
Due.  Th/Fr Feb 26/27.

Complete.  Today's work if not done during class.

AP Lit: Projects & On Demands & Projects

INDIE BOOK PROJECTS.

We'll start with two project shares.

ON DEMAND.
From there, we complete the On Demand: Discuss Shakespeare's use of a literary device such as allusion, symbolism and characterization to develop a theme of power and control.  15 min.  One powerful paragraph.

We'll use these On Demands as well as our last rounds for an On Demand workshop, focusing on the design of an analytical paragraph.  It will also give us an opportunity to discuss Hamlet.

HAMLET.

Finally, I'd like us to do some rapid prototyping of the character card idea so we can build some congruency.  We'll take a look at considerations we should be giving when staging our "To Be or Not To Be's" and develop a deeper list of criteria i.e. costumes, portrayal, color palette, physical setting, music (I think I'm getting a lot of it here already . . .)

HOMEWORK.

Blog. 3+ Posts.
Req'd Post. How to Read Lit Like a Professor. "When In Doubt . . . Shakespeare . . ."
How might Foster's position on Shakespeare inform our reading of Hamlet and/or our design of "To Be or Not to Be?"

Due. Friday, 2/6

Complete.  Hamlet.

Read/Watch.  (Clips on Google Drive.)

Due. Monday, 2/9

Start Designing.  "To Be or Not to Be"
Dramatic Presentation & One Page Analysis/Justification
Due.  Thursday/Friday after Feb break. 

AP Lit: Hamlet: Designing To Be or Not To Be Continues: Storyboards

Today we take our best, most intriguing ideas for staging "To Be or Not to Be" into the next round of Experiment phase: storyboarding.  You will create at least 4 storyboard panels for the sequence you stage, accompanied by annotations to explain the visuals.

This will lead to determining criteria for our project.  HMW demonstrate our depth of understanding of Hamlet by designing the staging of a single soliloquy?  (I intended to dictate these terms to you folks and then realized this is a great opportunity to talk about what really matters in terms of analysis, synthesis, creativity and showcasing knowledge.)

Then we will On-Demand: Discuss Shakespeare's use of a literary device such as allusion, symbolism and characterization to develop a theme of power and control.  15 min.  One powerful paragraph.

Also, we will share two of our indie book projects.

HOMEWORK.

Blog.  3+ Posts.
Req'd Post.  How to Read Lit Like a Professor. "When In Doubt . . . Shakespeare . . ."
How might Foster's position on Shakespeare inform our reading of Hamlet and/or our design of "To Be or Not to Be?"

Watch/Read. Rest of Hamlet by Friday/Monday. See Google Drive and e-mail for clips.

To Be or Not to Be.  Due Tuesday/Wednesday after break.

AP Lit: To Design or Not to Design . . . (There Is No Question)

This week and beginning of next we are going to complete a mini-design challenge in AP Lit.  

How might we stage "To Be or Not to Be  . . ." in a way congruent with the rest of the play?

We will be doing some fierce analysis through a variety of lenses:

Rose/Bud/Thorn

Notice/Wish/Wonder

SCOUT

We will use our thinking from these lenses to inform a paragraph of written analysis and then catapult us into watching four different iterations of this soliloquy in cinematic form.

They are available in the Google Drive here.  (I recommend watching them on Google Drive.)

And here too.

We'll use analysis of these versions to inform our designing of our own.  And if we are extra awesome, we'll actually produce that version to the best of our abilities & resources.

Homework:
Read two scenes of Hamlet per night.
No req'd blogging this week.  You might want to keep in the habit for your sakes.
Revisions all due by Friday at the latest.

AP Lit: Hamlet

You asked for it, and here it is. We're finally going back to Hamlet.

It's been a while, but we really want to get through this. So today we're skipping the timed writing and completely focusing on watching Hamlet. For those of you who want to participate, we've set up a backchannel. Get ready to discuss!!

Don't forget. The analytical project deadline is fast approaching! Be sure to email if you have any questions.

AP Lit 2B/3B: Test Prep & Hamlet & Synthesis Thinking

Welcome back from vacation.  

The hard way.

Yup.  We've got a little ground to make up with the weather messing with us.

So we'll open with a test prep session: writing prompt.

You'll be given a poem and a writing prompt and fifteen minutes to complete
a) Pre-Writing
b) Thesis Statement
c) 1st Body Paragraph

That's it.

We'll then workshop your pieces and approaches.  See if we can find trends and strategies that seem to be lending themselves to more confident thinking.

From there, we'll spend some time brainstorming our next synthesis pieces by digging into "How to Read Lit Like a Professor" and the Joyce decks you've built.  We'll try to uncover some ideas and big thinking that could produce an epic synthesis.

We'll end our work today with Hamlet, as I'd like us to make some progress these next two weeks.  I think Prince Hamlet and Victor Frankenstein could have some fascinating conversations.

HOMEWORK

Blog: 3+ Posts
Req'd Post: Casting Call. Frankenstein. Please. Please. Please. Can we have a good one? Please.
Due: Feb 28

Write: Frankliners: 1st Submission
Due: Tues/Wed., Feb 25/26
Note: Be certain to put a clean "1st submission" draft in your Google Drive IN folder

Read: Frankenstein
Due: Thr/Fri. Feb 27/28
Prepare: To discuss & explore at length! 

Think & Design: Synthesis #3
Prepare: Thesis Statement & Map
Thesis & Map Due: Thr/Fr. Feb 27/28

Study: MUGS Comprehensive 1-3 Quiz
Prepare: Retakes & Comprehensive Quiz
Due: Thr/Fri Feb 27/28

AP Lit 3G: Gallery Walk & Feedback & Hamlet

Today, we'll start with a quick recalibrating -- this feels more like a start to a new quarter than last week did.

Let's climb on to NoRedInk.com for a couple of minutes, play with Apostrophes 3, explore the practice areas.  We can do this while transitioning into our next work.

We'll review effective feedback.  Take a look at all of these pictures from the way back machine when we were doling out feedback on our last round of projects.  Let's see if we can increase our rate of meaningful, effective feedback for these.

Then it is time for the gallery walk for the latest round of book projects.  Post-It Notes will abound.

From there, a few minutes with How to Read Lit Like a Professor and powerful takeaways worth putting up on the board.

We will end today with a Hamlet viewing, picking up where we left off just after "To be or not to be."

HOMEWORK

Blog: 3+ Posts
Req'd Post: Create a visual 3x3 of the town (or county) where you live.  What does that place mean to you?  How can you capture your relationship with your town through pictures?  Consider taking or drawing/painting your own.  Give considerable thought to how you arrange them.

MUGS: Apostrophes 3 on NoRedInk.com
Quiz: Thursday/Friday Feb 6 & 7

Read:  Read & and review Joyce's "The Dead" & all three other Joyce stories; be certain to 3x3 "The Dead"
Be Prepared: To work with all four 3x3s, Wed/Th/Fri

Read & Annotate: How to Read Lit Like a Professor "Geography Matters . . ."
Post: Annotations on the blog

Heads Up: Frankenstein is next!  Will need to be read by Thursday AFTER Feb break.  Let me know if you need a hard copy.  Many, many, many places to get it free online including here.