Considering the time between the last Response to Course Materials and this one, there seems to be little to write about.
I mean, we came back from break, had two days of school, came back after the weekend, and then one week of school. And that "full" week of school consisted of two days of FLEX and a PLC day, with Thursday and Friday apparently consisting of working on a review document ("apparently" because I wasn't there those two days).
So the only meaningful thing we did in class that would be any worth discussing would be the wrapping up of our Hamlet discussions. As always, I was very uncomfortable with the theme statement that our class produced. Not that I had a better one, but it just seemed wrong to attempt to sum up Hamlet in one or two sentences. I mean, this is Hamlet we are talking about. The play that is the most quoted of Shakespeare's works. The play that is said to be Shakespeare's greatest, the greatest work from a man hailed as the creator of the greatest works of the English language. To allow mere high school students to sum up Hamlet in a few sentences seems like heresy.
And consider this: how could we possibly be like "Yup, we are done with Hamlet, we nailed it" when we are talking about a work of art? There was a book I read in 5th grade, Ender's Game (brought recently to film). Although it was a work of pulp fiction, I drew a lot of themes and meanings from it. I thought the book was, as a kid, about the sacrifices humanity is willing to make to survive. Later, when I was older, I read it again. This book, by the way, was a book I read a dozen times. And when I was older, I realized that an alternate interpretation could have been made. My first interpretation completely left out the events of a side-story, and I realized that I needed to take that into account when I evaluated the book as a whole.
So, I don't really agree with making a theme statement. I probably said the exact same thing in past Response to Course Material blogs, but doing the treatment on such a legendary work as Hamlet seems especially wrong. Considering the various possible interpretations of Hamlet that anybody can have from past experiences, how can we make one statement to encompass it all?
Andrew,
ReplyDeleteI agree that it seems wrong to sum up the meaning of an entire piece in one sentence. Still, I think the whole point is to get used to analytically responding to pieces.
The comment you made about us being “mere high school students” seems kind of funny to me. In my opinion, there may be experts on Shakespeare/Hamlet, but the point of literature is to be interpreted by many different points of view. I think that Hamlet is a complex play, that may not be given justice in one theme statement, but it should still be able to convey a theme/message to high schooler students in the same way that it conveys a message to experts.
Great job making connections and synthesizing our activities in class!
Andrew,
ReplyDeleteI do not agree with the fact that high school students can not create an accurate theme statement. Yes it is a complicated piece and there could be thousands of possible theme statements but because of this it also means no one theme is going to be perfect. Just because were in high school doesn't mean we can't understand literature and create a nice theme. In your post I think it would be helpful if you created a theme that you liked better and gave an alternate option. I do however really like how you gave your opinion and we heard your voice through the post.
Hi Andrew,
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you in that writing a theme in one or two sentences always makes me a little bit uneasy. After having multiple days of discussion I always feel as if there's no way we can possibly capture the essence of a book in just a few sentences. However, I guess that if there is a central meaning it can't be too complicated, and I usually agree with the theme statements that we come up with.
As for your comment about "mere high school students" making a theme statement, I think that's kind of the point. If there are multiple ways of looking at a book, then a high schooler's opinion is just as valid as anyone else's. Everyone has to get started somewhere, right?
This is an interesting post, and I think it started what could be a great discussion. Good job!