Recently, we have been doing a ton of work with Hamlet. From reading it as a class to annotating to watching several versions of the movie I feel like I have had enough of Hamlet for the rest of my life. However, the more that I work with the text, the more I understand it. When annotating I was able to pick up many different things that I did not through the first read. Particularly, how different scenes can be read in different ways. For example, the end scene when Gertrude drank the wine, did she know that poison was in the cup or was she completely unaware? Also, in the scene where Cladius is praying, did he know that Hamlet was there about to kill him? I thought that these questions could be answered when watching the movies, but sometimes it just made it even more unclear. In the three versions each director made decisions that could change the interpretation of the play. This made it even more unclear to me since each was different. In the first two versions that we watched Gertrude had no clue about the poison but in the last one she did.
We also have been doing a few forums. One in particular I found very interesting, this was involving Ophelia. While reading the text I was unsure what he intentions were. I was torn between her being sweet and crazy or being manipulative and calculating. In this forum we were given the opportunity to explore more with her character. First, the poem we read depicted Ophelia as innocent and naive. But as I read the poem, and re-read the scenes mostly concerning Ophelia, I found myself differing from the viewpoint of the poem. Throughout the play, I believe that Ophelia did everything for a reason and was not as innocent as most may think. Especially in the "flower" scene, although she seemed crazy, each flower was given for a reason, not by chance. This made me believe that she is truly manipulative and more like her father.
Lastly, we got our chapter 4/5 essays back. I did not do as well as I had expected and that was a wake-up call for the AP exam. I now know that I need to clearly read the directions, since that was mostly were I was lacking in my essay. But I was happy to learn, that I was able to answer the prompt using a true tone rather than describing the mood of the piece.
Incomplete when posted.
ReplyDeleteI like what you said about Hamlet here; I agree that the more we read it and watch different productions, the more we can understand about the text. But I am sort of conflict about it, because we have spent so long on it. It has all been quite interesting, but I think we may have been past the point where it was teaching us anything for the AP exam by the end of the unit. I also didn't do as well as I might've hoped on the chapter 4 and 5 essay. But I think it's important to remember that assignment was from early in the year. We've all probably come a long way since then. And it seems that this semester Ms. Holmes is going to focus much more on preparing us for the exam itself. At least it seems that way from the multiple choice practice we did last week.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there always seemed to be a new hidden meaning to discover every time we watched a new version of Hamlet, but I didn't have the same conflict you did. For me, the multiple versions offered several different interpretations to consider, but I didn't have to accept all of them. If I disagreed with any alternative interpretations, I noted it and didn't give it any further thought, so I didn't struggle to figure out which interpretation seemed best. I just judged the interpretations on whether they made sense to me.
ReplyDeleteI hope that Ms. Holmes does focus on exam preparation more this semester, because we haven't done much to get ready for the AP specifically. I think the activities we're doing recently point to that possibility - we're doing more multiple-choice practice, and the warm-up exercises have shifted from learning about different tone words and using them in single sentences to coming up with whole passages that actually employ a tone.