Thanksgiving Break Assignment

We will begin reading Macbeth on Monday 11/30. Over the break, read the introductory essay on Renaissance drama as well as the biographical sketch of Shakepseare and the background material cconcerning the play (pp 452-439).

Shakespeare Assigment

You may choose either prompt…regardless, this assignment will be worth 75 points. However, considering the fact that “B” is much more challenging, I will weight your score accordingly should you choose to undertake it.

Due Friday 11/20

A. Select one word or passage from each play and write a paragraph explaining how it illustrates a central theme. These paragraphs should contain specific references from the plays (you may incorporate quotes but are not required to do so) and should be grammatically and syntactically clean and precise.

B. Select one word or passage from each play and combine them into a sentence that functions as the statement of a theme for the three plays taken as a whole, then write a brief essay supporting your claim. This essay (3-4 paragraphs) should contain specific references from the plays (you may incorporate quotes but are not required to do so) and should be grammatically and syntactically clean and precise.

Week 12 Schedule

Monday 11/2 - Go over quizzes and AP Prompt Essays.
Finish A Midsummer Night's Dream
HW: Read Act I of The Tempest. Keep marginal
summarizing the play scene-by-scene. Bring BOTH the
Shakespeare comedies and your textbook to clas tomorrow!

Tuesday 11/3 - Homework check/John Donne; discuss Act I
and begin reading Act II
HW: Acts II and III of The Tempest

Wednesday 11/4 - Discuss Acts II and III and begin reading Act IV
HW: finish The Tempest

Thursday 11/5 - Homework check/Francis Bacon; discuss Acts IV & V
HW: Inroduction, "Much Ado About Nothing on Stage,"
and Act I of Much Ado About Nothing.

HW for Monday 11/2

Read through Act IV (p. 69) and keep a running scene-by-scene summary in your text.

3-Day Itinerary, 10/23, 10/26 & 10/27

Friday 10/23 - Sonnets, Essays, and Song Interpretations Due
Review for Poetry Quiz Tuesday
HW: Study poems and poetry terms

Monday 10/26 - AP Prompt Essay (9 pts.)
HW: Study for quiz!

Tuesday 10/27 - Poetry Quiz
HW: Read the Introduction to Four Great Comedies and make sure you bring
the book to class!

Sample Song Interpretation

"Out There"

Safe behind these windows and these parapets of stone
Gazing at the people down below me
All my life I watch them as I hide up here alone
Hungry for the histories they show me
All my life I memorize their faces
Knowing them as they will never know me
All my life I wonder how it feels to pass a day
Not above them
But part of them

And out there
Living in the sun
Give me one day out there
All I ask is one
To hold forever

Out there
Where they all live unaware
What I'd give
What I'd dare
Just to live one day out there

Out there among the millers and the weavers and their wives
Through the roofs and gables I can see them
Ev'ry day they shout and scold and go about their lives
Heedless of the gift it is to be them
If I was in their skin
I'd treasure ev'ry instant

Out there
Strolling by the Seine
Taste a morning out there
Like ordinary men
Who freely walk about there
Just one day and then
I swear I'll be content
With my share
Won't resent
Won't despair
Old and bent
I won't care
I'll have spent
One day
Out there


This is Quasimoto’s solo from the Disney version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The lyrics show us how desperate he is to break out of his “prison” and experience life among the people he watches every day and has come to know well and envy. Quasimoto feels fettered by the walls that isolate him from the outside world, and by his evil master Judge Frollo who has convinced him that he is ugly and that he would not be accepted in the “real world.” He has a real reverence for life and people and feels that he could die happy if he could spend just one day as a "normal" person.

HW for Friday 10/16

Read pp 299-306 and answer (in notebooks not on blog) questions 1-7 on p. 307.