SHAKESPEARE FUN – Writing Exercise

Yesterday my Shakespeare class had some fun with Shakespearean insults. While none of our children would ever think…of course they wouldn’t…. of being insulting, this exercise provides an excuse to be silly and insulting. (Our rule at our house is that for a comment to be funny it must be funny to EVERYONE. This exercise produced a lot of giggles, as it should. Only you know your kids, or the group you will be working with, so provide some guidelines if you feel there is a chance the exercise could become mean-spirited. That is certainly not the intent and should not be allowed.)

First, I had two of our more dramatic students take some index cards with insults from the play we are currently working on, A Midsummer’s Nights Dream, and hurl them at each other. This had everyone laughing. Then I gave everyone an index card with various insults from lots of plays and we tossed around a haki sack (Thanks Stevie) When a student caught the haki sack they needed to insult the person, using the provided insults, that tossed the ball to them. They got into the exercise and were quite insulting. We had a few moments of concern because one of the insults included the word ‘whoreson’ (which you could obviously skip) and the student who got this one said he wasn’t comfortable insulting anyones mother.

After playing with Shakespeare’s insults for a bit the kids sat down to write some of their own…sounding Shakespearean of course. Now we have students from about 9 years old through High School so there was a wide variety of results. Below I’ve given you some Shakespearean insults and some my students made up. If you decide to try this exercise with younger kids pick some of the more obvious insults as some of Shakespeare’s language can be confusing…or google the words that baffle you. There are many great Shakespeare sites on the net that can offer explanations.

Before having students write their own insults explain that Shakespeare was known for making up words when he didn’t have one that worked for him. (Knotgrass for instance, although I found this one in the dictionary I didn’t need to know what it was to know I didn’t want someone to call me that.) Generally, the context and sound of the word makes clear it’s intended meaning. Allow (or encourage) students to do the same.

Shakespearean Insults

Go thou and fill another room in hell. King Richard

Let vultures gripe thy guts! Merry Wives of Windsor

Vile worm, Thou was o’erlooked even in thy birth. Merry Wives of Windsor

You, minion, are too saucy. Two Gentlemen of Verona

You juggler, you cankerblossom, you thief of love! A MIdsummer Nights dream

A pox o’ your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog! The Tempest

Come: you are a tedious fool. Measure for Measure

What, you egg! Young fry of treachery! Macbeth

Why you bald-pated, lying rascal. Measure for Measure

Out of my door, you witch, you rag, you baggage, you runnion. A Midsummer Nights Dream

Get you gone, you dwarf: You minimus of hindering knotgrass. A MIdsummer Nights Dream

Students Insults

Die, you hideous baboon! You lowly parisite!

You hast earned a royal room in hell, and shall tend to the royal king.

Thoust are nothing, a slave, in comparison to me.

You blueberry stock stealer!

Thou dirty pig-wench. The hogs wouldst welcome thee with they slanderous, sneaky, conniving ways into their muck pen.

Thou breath smells of heated dung.

You blasphemer of all decent things. You sniverous serpent. I entreat thee to swallow thine own forked tongue and rid thyself of our kind world.

Thou hast the brain of a city rat, and thoust also hast the courage of a chicken and thoust smells like it too. (this one is by a 9 year old)

This one requires the knowledge that one of our local high schools is Paloma and the student who wrote this father helps coach basketball at the rival high school…Perris.

Thine empty existence, be more lacking in purpose than a talent scout at Paloma.

I have many more, but you get the idea. So have fun insulting everyone.

Easy Writing Exercise Number 5

One of the marks of the truly educated person is not that they can spout off random facts and memorize details, it is that they are able to see the links between areas of knowledge. All knowledge is connected, each discipline we study adds understanding to other related disciplines. The study of philosophy can bring clarity to art or history. Grasping mathematical concepts aids us in understanding science and the world we live in.

In school we are often taught to think in terms of… Algebra, Biology, English Lit etc…and it can seem each class is an entity unto itself. That is a false view of the world however and we should rejoice each time we see our child make a connection between disciplines. It is being able to recognize and develop these connections that leads to progress and gives us fresh insights into problems that have stumped us.

That is the big picture. Working with metaphors is a small, manageable exercise in making connections between unrelated subjects. When we spend time working with words and making up new combinations it helps us to think outside the box, to let our imaginations run a bit and find a fresh perspective. So, while we may do these exercises to help our children develop into better writers, there is a larger goal being worked on here. We are also helping our children pay attention and notice connections. In the words of J.D. Casnig, “The Metaphor reminds us that the universe is full of cousins.”

Okay, enough of that, let’s move on to the exercise. (If you haven’t read Easy Writing Exercise Number 4, you need to back up and read that first, it is foundational for the exercise that follows.)

When we did exercise Number 4 we were writing metaphors that were phrases or sentences. In this exercise I would like to challenge your student in two ways.

First, if you have begun to keep a notebook of metaphors, or if you have a list of some metaphors that you have spotted during your hunting in Exercise 4 I want you to go back over that list and highlight those metaphors that are a bit tired from overuse. For instance, a knife in the back, might have been quite clever when first written but now it is a cliche. Once you have identified those make a pact that you will avoid using them for the next 3 months in your writing, instead try to come up with some new fresh metaphors of your own. Revisit Exercise 4, only this time make your list with more intentionality. Look at your list of overused metaphors, identify what is being communicated, and then see if you can come up with a new, fresh metaphor that would work better.

Second, try developing a metaphor through an entire paragraph rather than just a phrase as we did earlier. There are times when a metaphor brings clarity to a difficult subject and it is beneficial to develop it a bit further. In the following lines from Shakespeare we see him comparing our lives to a drama being enacted upon a stage.

“All the World’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances.

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,”

(William Shakespeare, As You Like It. Act 2, Scene 7)

As you can see it would be possible to continue to play with this metaphor for awhile. If you have children who love sports that is an easy place to begin. Compare their life, friendships, or family to their favorite sport or team. A child with a perennially messy room may want to use that to illustrate some other facet of their life. Growing a garden, riding a bike, or doing the laundry could all be used for an extended exercise.

A word of warning to the Type A personalities out there. I would resist getting hung up on whether or not your child is mixing metaphors, simile’s, comparisons, or idioms. Yes, there are differences, and depending on the age of your child you may want to go into them, however, the point of this exercise is to improve their writing by using a new tool. In exercising that tool they may cross a few lines not sticking strictly to the narrow definition of a metaphor, let it go for now. If they are using comparisons to bring clarity and creativity to their writing we’ll call it a success.  (Of course if they are actually using a mixed metaphor you may want to point that out, and if you have no idea what I’m talking about…don’t worry about it.)

Fun with Shakespeare

As you’ve probably deduced from past posts I think everyone should be exposed to Shakespeare. My Shakespeare class is studying Twelfth Night, and last night we were able to go and see a production of the play at Cal Poly Pomona, which hosts the Southern California Shakespeare Festival.  6 guest actors joined 9 student actors for this production. If you are free next weekend you should check it out. (Check availability of tickets in advance as the show could be sold out.) It was performed in a small, intimate theater and had a fabulous cast, the perfect introduction for many of my students who had never seen one of Shakespeare’s plays performed. Twelfth Night is funny, quick moving, and although we’ve only worked through Act 1 in class, the kids (some as young as 9) didn’t have any trouble following the story and enjoying the antics of some of the more ‘out there’ characters.

At the end of the play we were able to stay and have a brief question and answer time with the cast. The kids got to hear a little more of what goes into putting together a production. All in all it was an enjoyable and productive evening. The kids are already asking about coming back in the spring to see Romeo and Juliet…so success. As I’ve said in a past post….’Every student is entitled to make the acquaintance of genius. Shakespeare remains a genius of outstanding significance in the development of English language, literature and drama. All students should have opportunities through practical experience, to make up their own minds about what Shakespeare might hold for them.’

While the kids enjoy studying the plays in class and playing with scenes themselves…nothing can replace going to see a performance. After all Shakespeare was meant to be watched, not read. So if you get the opportunity, GO!.

For those wishing more information about the Festival, here is a copy of their mission.

The mission of the Southern California Shakespeare Festival, SCSF is to establish a classical, professional repertory Theatre Company, dedicated to nurturing artists, student-artists and enriching the diverse community of the Inland Empire. SCSF endeavors to explore the eternal human questions seeking to enlighten and excite contemporary audiences with the timeless relevance of Shakespeare’s literature. We are committed to providing the Inland Empire with a professional theatre company of multicultural actors and students that will reach our audience.

Shakespeare’s England

Since I’m sharing on the blog things I’m writing or thinking of I thought I’d post this. It’s a quick summary of Shakespeare’s England I just wrote up for my students. (With some help from several sources…all easily available on the internet. One has to love the ease of research these days.)

This is how Shakespeare described England in his day.

This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-paradise,

This fortress built by Nature for herself

Against infection and the hand of war

This happy breed of men, this little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea,

Which serves it in the office of a wall,

Or as a moat defensive to a house,

Against the envy of less happier lands,

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

In 1588, under the rule of Queen Elizabeth, England was a force to be reckoned with. The Tudor dynasty had been around for 100 years or so. Queen Elizabeth (Good Queen Bess to her friends) had blown the Spanish Armada out of the water, a feat some said could never be done, and emerged as the dominant sea power in Europe. She was also expanding her colonial empire. Within England itself, art, literature and music were flourishing. (Although since she didn’t have an heir she would also be the end of the Tudor’s, and James would start off the Stewart’s.)

This was during the Renaissance, or rebirth of Europe. It was a time of incredible advances in art, science, scholarship, and literature during the 15^th and 16^th centuries in England. (Although Italy was the birthplace of the movement in the 14^th century.)

This was also the time of the Reformation, a movement away from the dominance of the Roman Catholic church as leaders of the movement sought ‘reforms’. In England the movement was begun when Henry VIII split from the Pope and founded the Protestant Church of England so that he could marry Queen Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boelyn.

As if that weren’t enough, this is also the Age of Exploration. During this era there was a huge expansion in terms of geographical knowledge and trade and commerce. This is the era of Columbus, Cabot, etc. as they sought India and instead found new lands (the America’s) that they hadn’t known existed. They also began to explore the continent of Africa. New knowledge of the rest of the world was flowing into Europe at an unprecedented pace.

Age of Discovery is also used to describe the many scientific discoveries made during this period. We discovered that blood circulates, that veins have valves, that planets move, and how to make a telescope. Science was infused with new scientist who began to examine the world in a truly scientific fashion.

The English Renaissance was at it’s height under the reign of Queen Elizabeth and this time came to be known as the Elizabethan Age. Shakespeare was able to cash in on this because Queen Elizabeth’s gathered the best and the brightest around her. This provided financial stability and respectability, something actors and those involved with the theater had rarely experienced in England.

While this may have been an exciting time to live if you were royalty or wealthy, it was still a very difficult time for the average citizen. Richard III comments in one of Shakespeare’s plays, “Now is the winter of our discontent.” Most families lived in the countryside barely scraping up enough food to eat. Disease and disasters were a given. The population was growing faster than crops and famine frequently threatened. Many people, in desperation, fled to the cities. London grew in size. In 1563 London had 93,000 people, which grew to 224,000 people in 1605. The Bubonic Plague was the number one killer as it spread across Europe carried by diseased rats who lived among the filth that was Renaissance Europe. Sanitary conditions was a concept whose time had not come. Even the toothbrush wouldn’t be invented for another century. Ditches were used as public toilets. Trash, slop, and bedpans were emptied out windows onto the streets. Butchers threw their carcasses out into the streets to rot…it was not a pretty place. The Plague was not the only threat, smallpox and tuberculosis were also spreading. (Small wonder.) Most people had rotten teeth, running sores, and constant stomach aches.

People needed distractions from the realities of their lives, and the theater was one of their favorites. There was also bear of bull-baiting. (dogs attacking the bull or bear which was tied to a stake…seems pretty unfair, but there you go.) There was cockfighting, public executions and burnings, and your general riots and brawls. Not a very ‘civilized place.

There was a strict social order in place in Elizabeth’s England. Just as rulers ruled the country, father’s ruled families. People didn’t marry outside of their class, race, or financial groups. The church and the state were tightly connected with made for it’s own challenges. This structure had been in place for a long time, but it was beginning to crumble from within. Just as science was beginning to challenge the idea that the Earth was the center of the universe, and geographers were challenging the idea that Europe was the only great civilization, so people were beginning to question the social order at home. The unrest that this brought is often reflected in Shakespeare’s plays.

On a side note, most of us have been taught that people married younger in Shakespeare’s day, but that seems to actually not be the case. Although there were brides as young as 14 or 15 like Juliet it was less common than you may have been led to believe. Most people had the practical consideration of having to feed and provide for their families so having too many children was a real problem. In a world where birth control was non-existent most people just waited longer to get married. The average age for a woman was 25 and for a man 28. Considering that the average life expectancy was only 20-30 years, well, often marriages were short.

TWELFTH NIGHT

Here are the details of our visit to see Twelfth Night at Cal Poly Pomona. We will be going on Friday Sept. 19th. We need to be at the school at 7:00.  I will need to reserve our seats so we will not be able to refund your money if you can’t go at the last minute. Tickets must be paid for by Tuesday classes before the performance…that would be Sept. 16th.  Students are $12 and Adults $15.  See you there.

Why Teach Shakespeare?

In preparation for my class this year on Shakespeare (one of my favorites to teach) I’ve been doing some reading. One book that has been helpful in practical ways in organizing my lessons is Teaching Shakespeare, by Rex Gibson. Here is a summary on why we should continue to teach Shakespeare, even to young students. Much of the following is taken directly from the book, in some places I’ve just altered it enough to connect the ideas. If you want some creative and practical help with this topic you really should consider this book. (My class will have students from 4th grade thru high school all working together, it works surprisingly well and each time I teach it I’m surprised by the insights of some of the younger kids and that they will argue their position with students much older than they are.

The first reason to continue to teach Shakespeare is that
Shakespeare deals with familiar and abiding concerns. Shakespeare’s characters, stories and themes have been, and still are, a source of meaning and significance for every generation. For example, students will find the discussions between Juliet and her controlling father recognisable and familiar, and an excellent spur to discussing parent child relationships. In all of his plays the emotions expressed reach across the centuries; love, hate, awe, tenderness, anger, despair, jealousy, contempt, fear, courage, wonder. The plays raise questions of morality, politics, war, wealth, and death. Many of the plays explore the gap that exists between public appearance and private practice…a problem that is just as relevant today. As characters struggle with the interconnections between the individual and society students are forced to question their own moral choices and how much they, personally, are affected by our societal values, and our American culture.

Secondly, to study Shakespeare is to acquire all kinds of knowledge, not just the knowledge of the plot of another play. It might be an increased vocabulary, or an understanding of the Elizabethan stage. The Tempest can motivate students to research the colonisation of the Americas , or the growth of Renaissance science and literature. The history and Roman plays offer opportunities for developing different kinds of historical understanding.

Studying Shakespeare also allows an addition to knowledge as students explore human feelings in ways that give mental, physical and emotional realese, but in the safe condition of a classroom. Enacting Shakespeare can help students generate self-confidence and learn to confront and control their own emotions. It can lead to greater understanding and empathy. To express it less prosaically, Shakespeare develops the understanding of the heart.

Third, Shakespeare uses many different styles of language and plays all kinds of language games. His language provides students with rich models for study, imitation, and expressive personal re-creation. Shakespeare was fascinated by language and constantly explored and stretched it’s power and limitations. As students come to grips with the language in active explorations, they gain insight into the power of language and become enfranchised as readers, writers, speakers, listeners, and actors.

Fourth, and my personal favorite, education is about ‘opening doors’. It is concerned that individuals should not be imprisoned in a single point of view, confined solely to local knowledge and beliefs. Education shows that ‘there is a world elsewhere’ beyond the familiar and everyday. Shakespeare invites students to develop a deep acquaintance with those characters, to experience their extremes of emotion, to imaginatively inhabit their remote worlds, and to learn from those close encounters with otherness.

Every student is entitled to make the acquaintance of genius. Shakespeare remains a genius of outstanding significance in the development of English language, literature and drama. All students should have opportunities through practical experience, to make up their own minds about what Shakespeare might hold for them.