Shakespeare Lives On!

     Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love William Shakespeare's work. I enjoy reading his plays and poems--yes, I read them for "fun" as well as for teaching--especially because I think they are very timely, even 400+ years after they were written. Most of you have heard this before, I bet, but words and phrases said to have been coined by Shakespeare are still used today in our daily language. I think that's pretty cool!

     Also, I think it's pretty amazing how often Shakespeare's works have been reimagined in books, films, and musicals and how many works have "borrowed" plot ideas and themes from the "Bard." I recently came across this article, written in 2014 to celebrate the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth. In it, the writer looks at the several films and musicals based on some of Shakespeare's plays. Here is another article about films based on the Bard's plays, some of which you might be familiar with, like 10 Things I Hate About You and She's the Man.  This article examines 10 novels that are based on Shakespeare's plays. Really, he's everywhere!

    In my life before teaching, I was a dancer and singer, and was heavily involved in musical theater. Growing up, I performed in many musicals in the area and have always loved musical comedy. One musical that comes to mind whenever I think of Shakespeare is the 1953 musical Kiss Me, Kate, which is based on The Taming of the Shrew. I like this musical first because it's based on a Shakespearean play and second because the music and lyrics were created by Cole Porter, a famous composer and songwriter who was known for his witty and engaging lyrics. It's a classic musical comedy, and I just love it!

     One song, in particular, is especially fun because it specifically references Shakespeare's works. It's called "Brush Up Your Shakespeare," sung by two gangsters who are trying to teach a third man how to "get a girl." Here's a video of the film version of the scene.

So, be on the lookout--you never know when Shakespeare's words and ideas will pop up!

English Pronunciation: "The Chaos"

If you've been by my classroom lately, you might have seen or (Yikes!) endeavored to read the poem about English Pronunciation I have hanging on my classroom door. I had read it years ago, but it was recently emailed to me by one of my students. Knowing how much of a kick I get out of the English language, he knew I would like it.

I didn't know that it actually had the title, "The Chaos," which is apt. Care to try reading it?????

"The Chaos"

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité

(from www.i18nguy.com/chaos.html)

My blog is FINALLY up and running!

Hello, students at Burncoat High School! As the 2014-15 school year winds down I finally have some time to post some thoughts to my blog that I would like to share with you. Hopefully my blog becomes a resource to you as your educational journey resumes in September (or through the summer should you need to check in). If you haven't already heard (from an older sibling or someone who has already had me as a teacher), I am totally IN LOVE with the English language! It is just amazing! English gives us awesomely expressive ways to communicate and provides us with a creatively figurative voice to convey the most complex ideas. It lets us explore the human condition and reveal emotions shared with all humanity throughout history. It is immensely broad in scope, but so exacting that there is a specific, perfect word for each and every human feeling, thought, and situation. And because I love the English language so much, it only stands to reason that I also love the way authors, poets, and playwrights use it. Yes, I AM ALSO IN LOVE WITH LITERATURE!! I can't help it. I'm thrilled at the way writers manipulate the language to create conflict and drama or to make me laugh and gasp in surprise. I get giddy over the way authors urge me try to ferret out the hidden meaning in a text or the way they bring nature, life, love, history, and the human mind into vibrant, tangible being.

You might share my affection with the English language and literature, or you might not.  But in the coming months, I hope to instill in you, if not an affection, then an appreciation for the creative expression of the history's best writers and thinkers, like Chaucer, Shakespeare, Bacon, Donne, Edwards, Poe, Wordsworth, Browning, Bronte, Dickinson, Miller, Faulkner, Chopin, Collins, Walker,  and many, many others. I hope you will give yourself the chance to get to know some of these authors and their works. You will be better for it!