Of the roughly three things we've been doing in class recently, the most exciting for me has been reading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which I finished in school the day we started it. This is one of the more interesting plays for me; while I enjoyed The American Dream greatly, the message was a bit heavy handed and plain, something I've had hammered into my skull many times before. R&G is, for me, far from obvious or heavy handed, and it's a fresh idea. I greatly look forward to in-class discussion, as I think this play will really help me get a grasp of how to really read into messages that aren't obvious.
Moving on to less exciting things, we've spent the majority of our time either watching/discussing the movie versions of Hamlet, or preparing for the final exam. As I discussed the movies more last time, I'll talk more about the exam here. Our acting, of course, was far from professional, but it was interesting to see the different scenes people chose. Several of them were scenes I didn't previously think of as scenes that could be interpreted two ways, which was enlightening; looking back at the text after, I could see why they were interpreted these ways using DIDLS (dang, it's useful after all). I knew that movie producers could have different interpretations of scenes that differed wildly from my own, but it was interesting to see so many from just one class.
Lastly, we've done a lot of multiple choice practice. This is extremely helpful stuff. Every time I think I know what I'm doing, and every time I miss a couple questions that were painfully obvious. I know I'm getting better; the terms are coming a bit more easily, though all those "a" ones are still hazy, and I'm starting to learn how to cross out the incorrect more efficiently. Still, I'm getting too many wrong, even with the help of a peer group. Hopefully we'll continue this.
Oh, right, and the imagery practice. Frankly, I detest it, and I hate writing things like that as a group. I feel like we're not really using "form follows function" right at all, and it takes a painfully long time to write anything down. Those kinds of things I'd much rather do alone.
Madaleine,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you about the "fresh ideas" of R+G (excuse my laziness in typing); however, I will say I'm actually not looking forward to "cracking the nut": after the nut is cracked, sure. But I'm not exactly proficient with the whole nut-cracking yet. Let's just say while I can spot motifs, symbols, hidden meanings, etc, I can never quite figure out just what it's all supposed to mean.
I'd rather do imagery practice alone, too. Still, I keep hoping Ms. Holmes will jump in about the "form follows function" thing, which she wouldn't if we were alone. Plus, sometimes it can be nice to see other people's ideas (I'm working on this thought).
That is so impressive that you finished reading it! To my surprise, I also enjoyed reading Rosencrants and Guildenstern as it kept my attention throughout the play. I didn't find myself zoning out. I also found it interesting to see which scenes groups chose to do and how they interpreted it. I couldn't agree with you more about how helpful the multiple choice practice is! I really hope that we will be doing more of those this semester in preparation for the exam.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm with everyone else - R&G is more fun to read than are all the other plays about the American Dream. But I've heard mixed ideas about how easy it is to understand it. I think some people find it easier to read because they don't have to put up with Shakespearean English. But I don't know if they truly understand it. It took us that day of arranging quotes to figure out the true meaning of the work. Still, I think R&G does sort of lead the reader in the direction of the "correct" conclusion, especially through Guildenstern's thoughts and his breaking of the fourth wall.
ReplyDeleteThe image activity isn't that bad; it just feels like a waste of time. A group of one doesn't have to spend 5 minutes just working out what it's going to say and then another 10 on how to say it. By the time we're done, we can apply DIDLS to find a defense of our choice of tone, but the paragraph itself isn't very cohesive.