Ms. Anderson's Freshman Blog

The vocabulary quiz will be Monday, December 7. Students should know the first 8 words on the SAT vocab list for Romeo and Juliet. I have moved the due date for the mask project to Friday, December 11.

Mask Assignment Handout

As our class reads Romeo and Juliet we will be practicing an important college skill: responding to quotes from literature. The quotes we will respond to will usually come from a speech we’ve already read, but occassionally, I will ask you to analyze something from the next scene.

Here’s an example, from Shakespeare’s Macbeth:

“Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great;
Art not without ambition; but without
The illness should attend it” – Act II, scene i

When I ask you to respond to a quote, you may not respond in the following ways:

I have no idea what this quote means.
I don’t know what to write.
This quote makes no sense to me.
I don’t understand this quote.
IDK

and you don’t want to start with:

What this quote means is…
What I think it means is…
I think…

You need to respond to the quote based on what you know about the book, the characters, the story, the setting, etc. You can also respond to the quote in a more general way, if it really makes you think about something outside of the text. Here’s an example of how one might respond to the above quote from Macbeth.

As Lady Macbeth discovers the witches’ prediction for her husband, she begins to plot a way to make the prediction come true. Instead of standing back and letting fate take its course, Lady Macbeth decides King Duncan must die and puts her husband down for being too nice to kill him. When she says that Macbeth is without “the illness” that should come with ambition, she is essentially arguing that “good guys always finish last.”

This very strong student response establishes a context for the quote, specifies where it occurs in the story, who says it, what it means, and most importantly, what it means to the reader.

We will be completing Act III and preparing for the Act III Quiz on Monday, December 7. The quiz will test students knowledge of quotes, vocabulary, plot and literary devices. Here are the worksheets that will be covered by the quiz:

Act III Quotes Worksheet
Act III Review Questions Worksheet
SAT Vocab (first 5 words)
Act III Warm-Ups

As Thanksgiving draws near we will be tackling Act II of Romeo and Juliet. On Thursday, I will assign a character study project. This project is due December 9 and will count as a test grade.

Here are the basic instructions for the project:

1.) Students will choose one character from Romeo and Juliet to study through Act I and II.

2.) Students will be responsible for writing a 1-2 page character sketch of their character–instructions will be handed out in class.

3.) Students will also need to create a mask that represents their character.

These masks can be created using any materials, but they need to follow a few basic guidelines:

In light of the school cancellations last week, the vocabulary quiz has been rescheduled for Thursday, November 12th!

Our vocabulary quiz moved to Friday, November 6! We will be giving a school-wide reading benchmark on Wednesday instead.

Remember, you need to know the following words:

Act I
pernicious
valiant
oppression
grievance
forfeit
augment
nuptial
chaste
languish
esteem

Act II
variable
procure
perjury
idolatry
conjure

As part of their curriculum, 9th graders will be watching the 1998 version of Romeo and Juliet. The movie is rated PG-13, but does include some violence. We skip over any parts that are too suggestive for school.

The movie makes the play much easier to understand! Watching portions of Shakespeare while reading is crucial for gaining perspective on the events that would have been happening on stage in Elizabethan England.

Students will be working on reading Act I of Romeo and Juliet. As much as I try to make it easier, Shakespeare is very difficult material. I do not consider it cheating if students wish to review summaries at the end of the day. That’s a very smart study strategy!

I have found several errors in Book Rags and Pink Monkey, so if you like to use these, be very careful you are also reading the play closely. Here are a few Shakespeare sites I would recommend for extra help:

Absolute Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet

MIT: Full-Text Romeo and Juliet – This is the full-text of the play for rereading.

Shakespeare Made Easy: Romeo and Juliet – I have a few of these in my classroom, and they are excellent for struggling readers and getting an overall view of what’s happening. Some of my friends have even used these in college!

Next week, we will have a vocabulary quiz on Wednesday! Our words are variable, procure, perjury, idolatry, and conjure.