Read to the end, please!

TODAY IN CLASS
An overview of what's coming up this week.

First, the Shakespeare memory work:
Not "due" until Monday or Tuesday next week, but you need to be memorizing as you go.

You can choose 12-16 consecutive lines by the same speaker in Hamlet--and you must start at the beginning of a sentence and stop at the end of a clause (preferably at the end of a sentence).
OR you can choose one of the following sonnet:
Sonnets 12, 18, 29, 30, 116, or 130.

Four of these (18, 29, 116, 130) are in your textbook online, but you can access all of them by number on the following site:
http://poetry.eserver.org/sonnets/

Whichever choice you make (lines from Hamlet or one of these sonnets), you must have a clean-copy print-out for me on the day that you recite.

The Hamlet Essay Overview
You'll be getting a more detailed hand-out tomorrow.

WORKING OVERVIEW ONLY—EXPECT MORE SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS

How the essay will work:

Tomorrow in class, I’ll give you paper.  You’ll start writing BODY PARAGRAPHS ONLY.  You’ll continue on Wednesday.  At the end of Wednesday, you should have three body paragraphs.

At home on Wednesday: 

1) You will type the hand-written pages, and submit the body only to www.turnitin.com

2) Then—AFTER the body paragraphs only have been submitted to turnitin.com—you will proceed with the rest.  You can certainly get started on step 4 on Wednesday night.

ON Thursday:

3) You will bring the hand-written body paragraphs to class with you on Thursday. I’ll collect them.  You won’t have them anymore.  But you’ll have your typed copy that’s been already submitted to turnitin.com

Wednesday night/Thursday night

4) You will write the introduction and conclusion. (Of course, you can and should get started with this on Wednesday—just be sure you’ve submitted the body paragraphs first.)

5) Copy-and-paste so that you have one cohesive document containing the new parts as well as the three body paragraphs.  PRINT IT OUT.  SAVE IT as a complete first draft.

6) You will bring the typed complete draft to class on Friday. No excuses, no exceptions; any printing at school needs to happen BEFORE school starts.

7) Friday is a peer-response day. You will leave class with important feedback, but you are still fully responsible for the quality of your essay.

Your FINAL draft is due on Tuesday, April 2; also on turnitin.com as a complete final draft.

The memory work—you will sign up for either MONDAY or TUESDAY to present in front of the class (bonus) or to me. Yes, Monday is earlier, but it’s not the same day as the final draft is due.

FOR TOMORROW

Make your choices from the topics discussed today--copied and pasted here only if you did not get home with your hand-out.

SELECTING AN ESSAY TOPIC

Note that you have choices to make as you “shape” the topics. Know which question (1-3) and which characters you will focus on.  You should not bring a pre-written draft to class tomorrow--all writing must be done in class or in a supervised setting after school or with your guided studies, etc., teacher--but you CAN bring some jotted down ideas, act/scene/lines for key interaction, etc.  I'll be taking a quick look at such material if it is out on your desk as you are writing.

1. Discuss the importance in Hamlet of either Laertes or Fortinbras as a foil character.  A foil character highlights characteristics of the main character by being similar in some ways but significantly different in some other important aspects.  Focus on one or the other as a foil for Hamlet; don’t try to compare Laertes and Fortinbras.

2) Examine the ways in which the secondary characters Polonius OR Rosencrantz/Guildenstern are used by Shakespeare to reflect the concerns of themes and motifs of the play, as well as Hamlet’s own development.  Choose either Polonius or the pair of friends and show how they are significant in these ways. Do not just write about what these people do.  Discuss how special attention to them illuminated issues of central importance to the play as a whole (i.e., deal with matters of importance to the major themes, motifs, or character development in the play, not with matters of the plot).

3. Hamlet is about family relationships, especially the relationships of fathers and sons—Hamlet father and son, Polonius and Laertes, and Fortinbras father and son—but also father and daughter—Polonius and Ophelia—and mother and son—Gertrude and Hamlet.  The play raises all kinds of questions about loyalty and duty and trust.  Find the most interesting relationship and illuminate it for the reader.