Exeunt 232

Shakespeare, you have been engaged!

When I woke up yesterday morning, I must admit I was a little stressed out. Amy hadn't made it to class and I hadn't received the recordings of the book to send on to J.J. and Austin. BUT when I got on my computer lo and behold, there was an email with the recordings! So I quickly downloaded them and then proceeded to piece them together using Windows Movie Maker. While that was saving I went online and looked at LibriVox and Audible to see how I could have the world hear our book.

There was no luck. It seemed as if you needed to download their software. So I came up with the next best thing and headed to YouTube! When my movie finished making itself I uploaded my first video ever on YouTube. Success!! We are online (here is the link again and we've had three views!).

After getting the video on YouTube I proceeded to choose a cut for our sample for Engaging Shakespeare and then I sent everything to J.J and Austin, and we were ready to go! Here's the sample that we chose to play, I think people really liked it!

That night when it came time to go to Engaging Shakespeare, I put on a purple dress and went up to the JFSB! I arrived and walked in the door to see the art group putting up their pieces. They looked great! I was super impressed with how many pieces each person in their group did. As the night progressed and we saw what everyone had done I was even more impressed. Everyone was so good and you could tell a lot of work went into all of the projects.

I thought that the audience also got more interactive as we went on. I really enjoyed telling them not only about our book project and the work that we had put into them, but also about my blog post. It was really fun to see people respond to something I had written about and had such a fun time doing!

Learning Outcomes, you have been met!

Gain Shakespeare Literacy

I would say I have definitely gained a breadth and a depth of Shakespeare's work. I have never read four of the plays this semester, let alone heard of two of them! But I actually enjoyed these ones so much. I especially loved a Winter's Tale. It was also reading a Winter's Tale that I feel like I really started getting into blogging and analyzing the text. I think it's evident in these two posts.

What I loved even more was being able to see this play performed on stage. I thought that the performance was phenomenal and it really captured the emotions I had been hoping to see come through after reading the play. Seeing the play also helped me understand the role of the Clown and the Fool in Shakespeare's plays. I understand now why he incorporated them into his plays and how they are much funnier in a performance than in the reading.

While this isn't related to a Winter's Tale, I also enjoyed seeing parts of other Shakespeare's plays, or at least related themes, pop up in books I was reading this past semester. The most obvious one is the connections I drew through my reading of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, but I also found connections in All Creatures Great and Small.

Analyze Shakespeare Critically

I got better as the semester went on analyzing Shakespeare both textually and contextually. I must admit that the contextual analysis took me longer to catch onto and it was harder for me to do for a while, but I think that I finally caught onto it. Here are a some of my textual analyses posts and a few of my favorite contextual analyses posts.

Engage Shakespeare Creatively

I think that this aspect of the learning outcomes was mainly fulfilled in the final project. I consider the recording of an audiobook to be a performance in many ways. We were each first of all assigned to cut down the script (which I think we did rather effectively). Then we were cast into our characters, which we had to, or at least I did, consider motives and emotions behind the lines. Then there was the recording and the rerecording! It got easier as we went on and we all, well at least I did, got more comfortable in the sound booth the more we recorded.

I also think some of my creative engagement with Shakespeare has been in my attempt to connect with nature in the text. This was harder at the beginning but the more I got into the works the more connections I was able to find. This might just be because King Lear has so many nature, especially bird, connections!

Share Shakespeare Meaningfully

I think the blog posts were a big part of helping me share Shakespeare meaningfully because they gave me time to think about and then talk out my ideas. The project also helped with this as did the requirement to try to connect with people on a local and global level. I think I did this through the previous assignment, but the final project also now helped with this because our book and all the other projects are on the web!

Adieu....

Well I guess that's everything. I can't believe the semester is over! It went so fast and I can't believe that we got through six of Shakespeare's works in that time! Hopefully I'll continue to see Shakespeare in the world around me and I'll remember all of his insights. I guess if nothing else I can just pick up another play and start reading on my own. In some ways the conclusion of this class is just another end leading to a more enlightened beginning.

Midterm Self-Assessment!

Learning Outcomes:

1. This course has really helped me in understanding Shakespeare. Before I really struggled with Shakespeare and understanding what was going on in the plot. But I have found that as I have continued through the course, I understand more what it happening. Don't get me wrong, I still have big help! Not only this but when I read the Dover Thrift Editions I understand the symbolism a lot more because of the footnotes. In class I have also gained a greater understanding of the conceits, analogies and themes that are repeated throughout all of Shakespeare's works. I guess what I'm trying to say is because of this class I definitely have a greater appreciation for Shakespeare's rhetoric.problems sometimes comprehending what just happened, but at those hard times I have found that Sparknotes is a

2. We have been challenged to critically analyze Shakespeare in our readings. I have done this in some post by simply breaking down lines and

talking about what I think they mean or what Shakespeare is trying to convey. Again I have done this by trying to find a common theme in all of the Shakespeare plays, specifically I have tried to find ties to reality (and dreams), that is how people construct or conceive their own. I also have tried to look at why Shakespeare makes certain stage and plots choices (see this post). I find that when I do this, I get more excited about Shakespeare and the messages he is trying to convey.

3. Engaging in Shakespeare creatively has been one of the harder things for me to do. I am a science person and we aren't very often encourage to be creative in our school work, we are more formal. So it has been difficult for me to try getting out of my solely academic mind frame. But I have tried. One of my more recent attempts has been to show how names play a role in Shakespeare's plays, specifically The Tempest. Another way I have attempted this is to compare Hamlet to one of my favorite novels The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.

4. Sharing Shakespeare meaningfully is another things I have tried hard to do this semester. I find that a lot of times the way I

posts I actually incorporated pictures of children I had worked with in orphanages this past summer. I also have tried to talk about nature in some of my posts because I am a Wildlife and Wildlands Conservation major. In addition to blog posts I have also talked to my roommates a few times about what we have

learned. For example after watching A Winter's Tale, I was really excited about the productionhave done this is through some of my blog posts. In one of my and bothered by Paulina's character, so I talked to my roommates about it. I told them the cool aspects of the play and tried to vent some frustrations. But I guess the most recently I have shared Shakespeare meaningfully was actually through this past assignment about sharing globally and locally.

Self-directed Learning:

I think I can definitely improve on my self-directed learning. I think a big part of this is getting the plays in text again. For the for few plays I obtained the Dover Thrift Editions to read and these actually really helped with my comprehension and with what I was getting out of the text. The last couple of plays I haven't been able to get a hold of and had to read online instead and I noticed that I just didn't get as much out of it. However, I always have kept up on the reading and I have tried to critically analyze the text. I don't feel as if my documentation of my learning through my blogging is always a good portrayal of what I have learned though. Sometimes I can't adequately describe what I am thinking or how I feel through my posts. This is especially true with the strange fascination I have with reality. It is really hard to document what I have been thinking or discovering about this. I guess finding some research or psychology papers about how people construct their own reality.

(By the way my blogging and my reading of the assigned plays has always been on schedule and I have been able to keep on top of everything. I have also been able to make it to both of the live productions, and I really loved Winter's Tale.)

Collaborative and Social Learning:

I like working in assigned working groups because they really help me discover new things about Shakespeare and even fuel some of my own ideas. However I do think that it would be nice sometimes to get together with another group so that we can get fresh ideas moving. I do really like when my group has a text to work with, and I know I can do better on bringing a written text to refer to, so hopefully I will be able to obtain a copy of the next play. I have found that Chris is especially involved in my blog and helps me think of new ideas. Kara has also inspired me a few times or caused me to think about new thinks in Shakespeare that I hadn't even considered before! As far as it goes for involving others in my learning experience I have talked to my roommates, my mom and even coworkers about Shakespeare. A lot of times it is as am thinking about what I am going to blog about. But sometimes I get too excited about it and I just want to tell somebody what I am thinking.

Looking Ahead:

I think I can definitely try bringing in more outside sources in my learning experience. That is researching more instead of just looking at the text so much. I mean I have done both but I can for sure use more research. I also need to work on making my blog posts more personal and so I am going to try to break out of my academic bubble and let myself shine through in my blogs. Part of bringing in part of my personal interest and hobbies I hope to bring through the final project. I hope to be working with Avril on the one act. I was talking to her on the way up to The Tempest and we came up with a few ideas and actually a whole new direction. She is thinking we may actually hope to write a play showing some of the common character and theme choices that Shakespeare has. I think this would be really fun and since I would be more personally involved in this I think I could be more open in my blog posts.

Manly Men?

Love's Labours Lost is fraught with rhetoric as we have discussed at length in class. What I think is interesting not only in this play, but also in most of Shakespeare's works is that there are so many references to other stories that were, and still, are popular. It is just another way that Shakespeare uses the world around him to drive a point home. Here are a few that I noticed in Biron's confrontation to his friends in Act Four referencing famous characters.

To see great Hercules whipping a gig,

(Hercules was a Greek legendary demigod with extraordinary strength. Whipping a gig is another way of of saying to spin a top.)




And profound Solomon to tune a jig,

(Solomon is a Biblical king known for his great wisdom given to him by god. To tune a jig simply participate in a dance or music.)



And Nestor play at push-pins with the boys,

(Nestor is another character of Greek mythology. He was an Argonaut who fought centaurs and hunted the Calydonian Boar. Push-pin was a game geared toward very young children.)





And critic Timon laugh at idle toys!

(Timon was an Athenian philosopher. And, well, idle toys are just that, toys that aren't moving and are in essence, for babies.)



What Biron is trying to say is that the love of the women these noblemen have, is turning them into children. However Biron is hypocritical because the same thing is happening to him!

The Fateful Beginning

I've always loved Shakespeare, even if I didn't always understand it. I loved the eloquence and flow of the words and I loved the drama that occurred in the Bard's pages of text. As I entered high school and read his sonnets I was hypnotized by his lyrical sonnets and the diversity of his plots. However I never really had to opportunity to read many of his works. Sure in my ninth grade we read Romeo and Juliet, but it was when I saw Hamlet that same year that I saw some of the depth of Shakespeare. In that same year I ended up reading Shakespeare's sonnets as well as Twelfth Night and Macbeth. But then life picked up and the Bard fell in to the dust along with the Great Depression, variables and hydrogen bonds.

It wasn't until the beginning of my freshman year at BYU that the Bard came to my attention again. I have always been a theater freak, and though my major isn't theater, I decided to be in a Mask Club production of The Taming of the Shrew. I was a minor role, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself and thought how I would love to take up Shakespeare. I watched movies that were modern, but Shakespearian, such as 10 Things I Hate About You and She's the Man. I was hooked and decided that I would have to take a Shakespeare class to become more exposed. Sadly, I've had to wait a year and a half to finally make it to this fateful day. In that time I have acquired a new favorite book based off of the story of Hamlet (The Story of Edgar Sawtelle),seen a BYU production of Shakespeare, and yes, watched Gnomeo and Juliet. These spurred me forward in my quest to conquer Shakespeare and I am now excited and ready to begin the adventure and at the same time, once again immerse myself in The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.