This Semester

As I am sitting in a hotel room 5 minutes of walking distance from The White House, I am reflecting back on this semester and scrambling to get some work done. But I decided to stop scrambling and take the time to say, wow. This is by far the smartest group of kids I have ever shared a classroom with and it is awesome. The ideas and thoughts you guys put into your projects and work is crazy to me because they are all just so good. You guys are awesome and capable of many things and I am confident that each and every one of you will do great things no matter what. I have gathered a lot from you guys this semester and I thank you for that. With that, keep up the hard work and I am excited to see what the next semester will bring.

Intro to Poetry ( Working Together by David Whyte)

1. The significance of the title is that it tells the central theme of the poem. The central theme of the poem is how working together is important and how it is beneficial. 

2. The tone of the poem is optimistic in which it is very hopeful and confident. 

3. My mood when I read this poem is hopeful about the future. 

4. There is a little bit of a shift but not a complete one. The poem starts out slow then later becomes more optimistic about how working together can do great things. 

5. The theme of the poem is that if everyone works together, many things become more achievable. 

Hamlet Act 3 Remix

Our group collaborated with phonar to find a way to remix the central theme of Hamlet. Phonar sent us a picture that sums up the central theme. In the picture, Hamlet is there but he looks like a ghost. This is exactly how Hamlet feels because he is going through a struggle dealing with his family. The picture is dark and depressing in which Hamlet's situation is. My interpretation of the picture is that it is foreshadowing Claudius' death. The dark grave to me represents Hamlet's father who has already been killed while the lighter grave foreshadows Claudius' death. Hamlet wants to revenge against Claudius for killing his Father and then marrying his mother so the lighter grave represents Claudius' future death by Hamlet killing him. 

Hamlet Essay(the madman?)

    Everyday teenagers are faced with major problems that they have to deal with and their escape seems to be social media. Hamlet, a teenager living in a time with no social media, has to deal with his problem in a different way. Hamlet is faced with a major problem which the death of his father and the betrayal of his uncle and mom. Hamlet deals with this problem by himself through his soliloquy's. Hamlet is planning to revenge against his uncle and mom but it seems as if he has gone nuts about it. Although it may seem like he has gone nuts, his maturity shows that he hasn't. Through the way that Hamlet deals with the situation presented by his uncle and mom, he shows that he has not gone nuts but rather is pretending to be mad.
    Hamlet, faced with trouble, does a good job at keeping himself serene. Hamlet deals with many negative emotions since his dad has died and his uncle, the killer of his dad, marries his mom. Many teenagers in this situation would go nuts or, nowadays, post their emotions on social media. Hamlet on the other hand, does not go nuts and he would not post his emotions on social media if it were active during the time. He remains calm throughout the play rather than going nuts so he is able to create a play acting out the scene of his fathers death making his uncle guilty by expression. His maturity and cleverness to stay calm while going through a major problem is what shows that he is not a madman.
    Many think that Hamlet has gone nuts but there is evidence that shows that it is not true. Hamlet has said things in the play that make him seem like a madman but it is all for show. He pretends to be a madman to create his plot of revenge. Hamlet pretends his actions around others so that he is able to create this play, especially the characters in his play. Another example that could lead many to believe Hamlet has gone nuts is when he goes off on his mom. He has so much anger and discontent built up inside of him that it finally just lets lose on his mom and he tells her what is going on. Another incident that could lead many to believe he has gone nuts is when he kills Lord Polonius. This may easily make it seem that Hamlet has gone nuts but the death wasn't intended for Polonius. Hamlet was shocked to see he had killed Polonius which shows he wasn't nuts but it was an accident.
    Hamlet's so called madness was merely an act. While stuck in a horrible situation, Hamlet does not reveal his real self, but rather a different self which helps his plot. Hamlet's cleverness and maturity were key traits that showed he is not a madman.

Hamlet Act 2

Hamlet

- By indirections find directions out 

- Hamlet is acting weird

- Claudius and Polonius are trying to get people to "comfort" Hamlet but they really just want to get information from him 

- brevity is the soul of wit

- Though this be madness, yet there is method in't 

- For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so

- What a piece of work is a man! 

- Hamlet knows what Rosencrantz and Guildensern are trying to do

- Hamlet is acting "sort of mad" to test them so they will report it 

- Hamlet is changing the play 

- the play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King 

Ending Hamlet soliloquy 

- starting to beat himself up

- comparing himself to the actor with his life

- Hamlet's situation is real while the actors isn't 

- The play within the play 

- He wants to make a play about his life and his fathers death to make Claudius and Gertrude guilty 

- Trying to get Claudius and Gertrude to reveal themselves not him revealing them 

Vocabulary #6

abase - verb cause to feel shame; hurt the pride of
abdicate - verb give up, such as power, as of monarchs and emperors, or duties and obligations
abomination - noun an action that is vicious or vile; an action that arouses disgust or abhorrence; a person who is loathsome or disgusting; hate coupled with disgust
brusque - adj. marked by rude or peremptory shortness
saboteur - noun someone who commits sabotage or deliberately causes wrecks; a member of a clandestine subversive organization who tries to help a potential invader
debauchery - noun a wild gathering involving excessive drinking and promiscuity
proliferate - verb cause to grow or increase rapidly; grow rapidly
anachronism - noun an artifact that belongs to another time; a person who seems to be displaced in time; who belongs to another age;something located at a time when it could not have existed or occurred
nomenclature - noun a system of words used to name things in a particular discipline
expurgate - verb edit by omitting or modifying parts considered indelicate
bellicose - adj. having or showing a ready disposition to fight
gauche - adj. lacking social polish
rapacious - adj. excessively greedy and grasping; devouring or craving food in great quantities; living by preying on other animals especially by catching living prey
paradox - noun (logic) a statement that contradicts itself
conundrum - noun a difficult problem
anomaly - noun (astronomy) position of a planet as defined by its angular distance from its perihelion (as observed from the sun); a person who is unusual; deviation from the normal or common order or form or rule
ephemeral - adj. lasting a very short time; nounanything short-lived, as an insect that lives only for a day in its winged form
rancorous - adj. showing deep-seated resentment
churlish - adj. having a bad disposition; surly;rude and boorish
precipitous - adj. characterized by precipices;extremely steep; done with very great haste and without due deliberation

Everything is a Remix

- remixing started with music 

- taking another piece to remix it 

- creativity 

- light bulb represents a moment of insight

- copy- taking a piece and copying it in the same way  

- transformation- creating variations from an already existing thing such as the steam engine, type writer, light bulb 

- combinations- taking existing stuff and merging them together such as the World Wide Web 

- movie scenes are very similar in different movies such as the  Tin man and Tin women 

- implications on originality of remixing the work of other people 

- two distortions 

- lone creator- romantic idea. dominance idea in the culture 

- ideas are property- ideas are not property. You can't take the idea from someone else. Chain of events happen

- ideas contain other ideas