Shakespeare through Infographics

From: http://arts.uchicago.edu/event/midsummer-nights-dream

Inspired by an outstanding production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream this past weekend (University of Ch
icago's Dean's Men Production), I thought I'd take post an interesting collection of facts, quotes and infographics related to Shakespeare and his works.

For me, the brilliance of Shakespeare's work is its timelessness, and his outstanding play with language. All gifts, thrills and treats, the infographics below cannot begin to relate or express. As a result, while fun, I find the infographic limiting.  That said, they can be used to motivate, detail, and summarize aspects of The Bard's genius with language and character.

So, while I provide you with the inforgraphics below to help students and readers learn, appreciate, understand, and simply have fun with Shakespeare  - it his insults, jabs, sonnets, and prose that should be savored and enjoyed. The infographics below introduce his work - be they his "history" plays, his tragedies, comedies, famous quotes, suggested reading, life history, or interesting statistics. They are fun but should be taken and enjoyed ALONG WITH THE  reading and exploration of the texts and plays themselves.

More specifically, the infographics below relay:

• Aspects of his "History" plays;
• His tragedies - as told by their deaths;
• Interesting Shakespeare "statistics";
• His more famous quotes and where they're from; 
• Goodreads.com helping you "Choose" which Shakespeare play you want to read; and
• An "anatomy" of Shakespeare's insults

For more on Shakespeare (to supplement the infographics)  please see:

• Slam, Shakespeare and Homer...
• Saluting Shakespeare: A Study Guide...
• Shakespeare and others on the No Nonsense of Nonsense...
• Shakespeare's Saucy Slams...

So please enjoy the infographics below, but don't stop here.

INFOGRAPHIC #1: The Hollow Crown: Shakespeare's History Plays - Shakespeare's Game of the Hollow Crown designed by Ricardo Galvez and Produced/Researched by Tom McNamara. Please visit Shakespeare Uncovered (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/shakespeare-uncovered/blog/anatomy-of-a-scene/)for more Shakespeare infographics. Note these come from PBS's Anatomy of a Scene: Shakespeare like your High School English teacher never taught you.

Hamlet and Macbeth are about a lot of things. Power and revenge. Madness and the otherworldly. But, when you get right down to it, these are plays about death and dying and murder: so that you know evil when it crosses your path.

See Shakespeare’s dark world illustrated and how each character came to their bloody end. (Click on the image to enlarge or open in new window.)

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/shakespeare-uncovered/blog/anatomy-of-a-scene/

Using Shakespeare’s Richard II, Henry IV, Part One and Henry IV, Part Two as your map, follow the history of rebellion in turn of the 15th century England and the successive stories of three kings: Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V.

Richard II (Click on the image to enlarge or open in new window.)

 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/shakespeare-uncovered/blog/anatomy-of-a-scene/

Henry IV, Part 1 (Click on the image to enlarge or open in new window.)

www.pbs.org/wnet/shakespeare-uncovered/blog/anatomy-of-a-scene/

Henry IV, Part 2 (Click on the image to enlarge or open in new window.)

Look at Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It. They take place in a wood and a forest respectively. Interestingly, “wood” meant “mad” back in Shakespeare’s day. So, it makes sense that while these are settings of enchantment and escape, they are also sites of confusion–even madness: where fairy queens fall in love with ass-headed (literally) common folk; or where you don’t even know if you’re sleeping or awake.

Enter Shakespeare’s Enchanted Forest and see all the comedy (or madness) that ensues. (Click on the image to enlarge or open in new window.)

www.pbs.org/wnet/shakespeare-uncovered/blog/anatomy-of-a-scene/

INFOGRAPHIC #2: Shakespeare's Tragedies by Cam Magee and Caitlin Griffin - summarizing Shakespeare's tragedies in a nutshell. Cam Magee and Caitlin S. Griffin created a infographic that crosses Shakespeare with the people from bathroom signs. It shows every death from the tragedies, plus one of the most famous stage directions ever, from The Winter's Tale: "Exit, pursued by a bear."

http://io9.com/an-infographic-that-keeps-track-of-all-of-shakespeares-1534516437?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflo

INFOGRAPHIC # 3 William Shakespeare in Statistics The source for this infographic was http://www.riokaelani.com which I  found at View the full image at NoSweatShakespeare’s
Note that some of the personal 'items' below related to Shakespeare's personal life are believed true, but a good amount of his life was and still is not fully known to us.

View the full image at NoSweatShakespeare’s Shakespeare facts & statistics infographic

INFOGRAPHIC #4: Eight Phrases We Owe to William Shakespeare found at http://dailyinfographic.com/8-quotes-we-owe-to-william-shakespeare-infographic by Grammar.net 2011

http://dailyinfographic.com/8-quotes-we-owe-to-william-shakespeare-infographic

INFOGRAPHIC #5:What Shakespeare Play Should I read by Goodreads.com and posted by Jessica on 4/23/2013 at http://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/415-what-shakespeare-play-should-i-read-an-infographic


INFOGRAPHIC #6: A Grand Taxonomy of Shakespearean Insults created by Charley Chartwell at charleycharwell.com

http://www.cooldailyinfographics.com/post/a-grand-taxonomy-of-shakespearean-insults

That's about it for this week.  Thank you for your visit. Please leave your own teaching ideas and/or your memories of the thrills and chills of reading/learning Shakespeare in the comments below.

The Quest for Quality Education: An Open Dialogue

Maybe the problem we have with developing the key to quality education is that we still haven't quite defined what that is.  Or, maybe the problem is that because each of our students is different, with his or her unique blend of skills, affinities, strengths and weaknesses, one set of definitions and /or goals just doesn't work for everyone. Or, maybe the reason why the United States is falling behind in  national educational rankings is that we don't even know what it is we need to measure.

On the other hand, each and every one of us know what a good teacher is when we meet them. For more on this please go to "Great Teacher" Judgment Call or Objective Evaluation" and to read about the economic value of a good teacher, please see "Teachers' Worth."

Art by Viktor Hachmang courtesy of The New York Times 5/4/2013 "A Talent for Teaching"

Quality teachers are those who respect their students, take learning profiles and affinities into account while keeping the bar of expectations high.  Good teachers talk with their students not to them, and good teachers find ways to make learning meaningful and exciting - their classes are ALIVE!!!

One such teacher, taught my husband Shakespeare in high school.  He developed a course called "Beatles and Shakespeare" where he got the bodies for his class by teaching about the Beatles but then moved to Shakespeare where songs of old and new came alive, and hooked his students on the Bard's work. This teacher, Eph Gerber, is now working on teacher development research and training where he hopes to find ways to help teachers  find the "ARTIST" within them. Through art - in its various forms - Eph believes teachers while keeping the expectations high will make the material more memorable and meaningful.

So, in my own personal quest to define quality education and with Eph's project in mind, I devote this post to quality teachers and their classroom contributions from articles and posts I've recently found. Below are three examples of teachers who have creatively found ways to reach students while raising the bar:

1. Peter Nonacs talks about letting his class "cheat." Nonacs, a professor in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department at UCLA teaches juniors and seniors about animal behavior.  According to an article he posted "Cheating to Learn: How a UCLA Professor Gamed a Game Theory Midterm" he notes:

300 × 273

300 × 273

Animals and their behavior have been my passions since my Kentucky boyhood and I strive to nurture this love for nature in my students...Much of evolution and natural selection can be summarized in three short words: "Life is games." In any game, the object is to win...Game Theory, is devoted to mathematically describing the games that nature plays...

So last quarter I had an intriguing thought while preparing my Game Theory lectures. Tests are really just measures of how the Education Game is proceeding...What if I let the students write their own rules for the test-taking game? Allow them to do everything we would normally call cheating?

A week before the test, I told my class that the Game Theory exam would be insanely hard...but as recompense, for this one time only, students could cheat.  They could bring and use anything or anyone they liked, including animal behavior experts...surf the Web... talk to each other or call friends who'd taken the course before...Only violations of state or federal criminal law such as kidnapping my dog, blackmail, or threats of violence were out of bounds...

On the day of the hour-long test they faced a single question: "If evolution through natural selection is a game, what are the players, teams, rules, objectives and outcomes?"

One student immediately ran to the chalkboard and she began to organize the outputs for each question section. The class divided tasks. They debated. Whey worked on hypotheses...A schedule was established for writing the consensus answers...

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215 × 193

In the end,  the students learned what social insects like ants and termites have known for hundreds of millions of years. To win at some games, cooperation is better than competition. Unity that arises through a diversity of opinion is stronger than any solitary competitor.

For more please press the links above for the article as well as for a KCRW interview. 

2. In the New York Times Sunday Dialogue: A Talent for Teaching (May4, 2013) David Greene a staff writer for WISE Services, treasurer of Save Our Schools, and former teacher mentor for Teach for America writes that:

Seasoned professionals know what works: being creative, independent, spontaneous, practical and rule-bending. Often it is the least orthodox teacher who most engages and excites students. Scripts and rules and models strictly followed cannot

replace what the best teachers have: practical wisdom...

The practical wisdom of good teaching is more than being creative or spontaneous. It is knowing when and how to use best practices. It includes how to prepare and use great questions, and knowing when to veer to places students take us. It includes when and how to use the science of teaching as well as the art. Practical wisdom is not following a script prepared by others who do not know your students and how they work.  Teaching is both an art and a science...a great teacher inspires.

 3. Sue Mellon teachers poetry to 7th and 8th graders by integrating science, technology, engineering math and art with Robert Frost's poetry. As Barbara Ray writes in Mind/Shift's "Combining Robotics With Poetry? Art and Engineering Can Co-Exist" (4/4/13):

Poetry isn't always easy for students. But with hands-on engagement, they gain new understanding. Take Robert Frost's "Pasture." Instead of just reading and discussing the work in a typical classroom setting, students make 21st-century dioramas with robotic tool kits containing sensors, motors, LEDs, and a controller...

A lot of kids aren't crazy about poetry," Mellon said. "But we have to help them engage with it. After spending two weeks analyzing the poem and creating visual imagery and symbolism for their dioramas, they really understand the work and get quite passionate."

Stories like Mellon's can be found all around the Allegheny School District these days as the area, already renowned for its groundbreaking work in STEM, takes on STEAM. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math...But as STEM took hold, some began to wonder if there was a component missing. Enter the STEAM movement...STEM needs to include art and design...the A is the creative ART element...[and the Congressional STEAM Caucus was launched.]

For those loyal readers who have read my other posts, I prefer not repeating some of the other inspiring teachers I've already spoken about. But for the uninitiated visitor, I urge you to read about the inspiring slam poetry of Taylor Mali - Part I  and  Part II , and the real-life math lessons of Lockhart's Lament.  They too are inspired and inspiring teachers.

Finally, there are the fictional teachers from movies.  And, while they may be fictional, their characters and lessons spark and inspire teachers and students alike:

• Mr. Glenn Holland (from Mr. Holland's Opus)
• Professor John Keating (from Dead Poet's Society)
• Mr. Mark Thackeray (from To Sir With Love)
• Miss Riley (from October Sky)
• Mr. Forrester (from Finding Forrester)
• Professor Melvin Tolson (from The Great Debaters)

In closing, the teachers and lessons above do involve a confidence and 'artistic' twist.  Successful teachers and lessons pull on passions in acting, gaming, performance skills, even cooking.  So maybe Eph is on the right track.  What do you think?  

Please leave your impressions, experiences and reactions in the comments below.

And as always, thank you for your visit!

Poseidon: Earth Shaker

Poseidon, brother of Zeus, son of Kronos and Rhea, ruler of the seas and creator of storms, tempests, and tsunamis that shake the earth, is back in live action and color thanks to George O'Connor and First Second Books. This book has breath-taking art, great story-telling, a detailed Greek god family tree to help us mere mortals follow their royal lineage, Greek Geek notes, discussion points, and links for extra reading. Aside from O'Connor's continuing to bring the Greek Gods to life rivaling  D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myth's mantle, this book belongs in home and school libraries.  Let's take a closer look why:

This fifth volume of the Olympian series is absolutely AWESOME as George O'Connor tells his story through a powerful combination of image and text story-telling.  In telling Poseidon's story, O'Connor focuses on a few themes, all of which serve as vehicles for further discussion and learning, and all of which can be used in integrating Common Core State Standards:

• Throughout the book Poseidon questions his "choice" to rule the seas and whether it was a choice at all.  Was Zeus' idea to draw lots the best way to divide the cosmos? This, in turn, can lead to discussions for readers of all ages about decisions and decision making, and whether our decisions are as 'free' as we think they are. For example, on pages 4-7 O'Connor relays how Zeus and his brothers divided the spoils of the battle of the Titans.  He notes that, "Zeus was awarded the sky. He alone of us grew up knowing it...there could be no other way...I of course, drew the sea. As with my brothers, this was the only way it could be... Or was it?"

Poseidon: Earth Shaker by George O'Connor Image courtesy of First Second

• O'Connor also relays Poseidon's role in  Odysseus' story from Poseidon's perspective.  As a result this book can be used for classroom or independent reading on Greek mythology as well as a preview for Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and James Joyce's Ulysses. This is also a way to introduce 1st-person versus 3rd-person narratives and the value of perspective (complying and integrating Common Core State Standards).

Poseidon Earth Shaker by George O'Connor  image courtesy of First Second Books

• To introduce Poseidon's son Theseus, O'Connor relays Poseidon's regret that "my children have always tended to be monstrous (Polyphemos the cyclops, Triton, Otus and Ephialtes, to name a few), and his reflection (on page 26) that "The desire to produce a suitable heir drives so much of what we do." This theme is found throughout history and literature and can be used, for example, when discussing the lengths Henry VIII took to have a son or  Shakespeare's King Lear's quest to find the right child to inherit his kingdom(to name a few).  This clearly fits the new Common Core State Standards integrating literature, non-fiction and history with multi-modal story telling. This can also be used as a writing theme (creative or analytic) on parenting roles and perspectives.

Poseidon: Earth Shaker by George O'Connor image courtesy of First Second Books

• Visual literacy -relates to our ability to use and understand images to tell emotional, meaningful and memorable stories. This is especially evident in the vivid images and story O'Connor presents as Poseidon wrestles with his 'choice' of being god of the seas.  As Poseidon gently falls to the bottom of his realm, for example, he begins to wrestle with this 'choice.' While he feels the seas aptly reflects his temper and moods, his tempestuous nature builds as "the waves slide from my dark hair...from the roaring deep my voice thunders...I am Poseidon, earth shaker, ruler of the boundless sea, creator of storms, swallower of ships." This building of emotion is done brilliantly through the use of image and page/panel design and begs deeper analysis. O'Connor's portrayal of Thesues' role in mastering the labyringh and slaying the minotaur is also a classic example of how image can tell a story.  Here are some discussion points to consider when critically reading and evaluating any portion of this book:
• Point out the use of color, lines and shading to build the story around the text
• Discuss how emotions are relayed in the images (especially in pages 5-12)
• Discuss the use of panel arrangement to help tell the story.  On pages 37-42 O'Connor tells the story of Theseus and the Labyrinth.  Here in particular O'Connor playfully uses panels to help tell the story.

  

  Poseidon: Earth Shaker by George O'Connor image courtesy of First Second Books

Thank  you for your visit.  

Please leave your reactions and other teaching point in the comments.

And, please check out the links below for more on Poseidon.

More links for Poseidon and for Poseiden Earth Shaker by Geroge O'Connor, First Second Books:

• Interview with George O'Connor
• All about Poseidon from http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Poseidon.html
• All about Poseidon from http://www.mythindex.com/greek-mythology/P/Poseidon.html

Saluting Shakespeare: A Study Guide

Shakespeare is believed to be the most read author in the Western Hemisphere other than the Bible.  Whether this is true or not, his work is integral to our cultural past, present, and future.

Why is his work so popular and integral to our culture?

• Shakespeare's work uncannily captures the good and bad in human nature in such a way that even today we can easily relate to the issues and emotions faced by his characters;
• He took (familiar) older stories/poems/myths and reworked plot and /or language in such a way that audiences easily related and understood the passions, challenges, loves, hates,and motives of all his characters - and yet there is nice depth to them;
• Shakespeare was the master of the art of language.  He fabricated meaningful and nonsensical words making sure audiences were involved in the performance (and not just those down by the stage), he toyed with puns, curses and saucy slams, and he spoke of the people and to the people with wit, passion, humor, insight and sensitivity.

And yet, given all this, his work is often hard for younger audiences and today's students to understand. 

Why Shakespeare may be challenging and helpful hints and tools to tackle his great works:

•  Inconsistent writing format:  Shakespeare's plays are part verse, part prose. While verse follows a regular, rhythmic pattern (usually iambic pentameter), prose has no rhyme or metric scheme as it is the language of everyday common conversation.  This can often make reading Shakespeare more challenging for beginners. 
• Helpful hint #1:  In modern published editions of his work, each line in a multi-line verse passage begins with a capital letter; while each line in a multi-line prose passage is in lower-case letters, except for the first line or beginning of that passage. 
• Helpful hint #2: Shakespeare typically used verse to express deep emotion, share deep insights, inject irony, or simply share a lyrical poem.  He typically used prose to relate commonplace discussions, make quick one-line replies, poke fun at characters who lack wit or to suggest madness (in King Lear,  Lear speaks almost exclusively in verse for the for half of the play but wavers between verse and prose as the story and his madness progress).
• Artistic liberty: In Shakespeare's time, there were no official English dictionaries. As a result, Shakespeare 'penned' words as he chose to spell and use them, often taking words from Italy, France and other countries.  Furthermore, when words did not exist, or could not fitinto the meter of his works, he would make them up (see the next bullet). These 'creative' spellings and word usages make reading his works fun for some, challenging for others.
• New words: William Shakespeare used approximately 17,000 words in his plays, and almost 2,000 of those, were words he 'tweaked' or made up. He did this by changing nouns into verbs, verbs into adjectives, adding prefixes and suffixes, and coining a few all on his own. Consider the following list of fifty plus words that, as far as can be told, were first found in Shakespeare's writing:

accommodation             aerial                   amazement            apostrophe       assassination                 auspicious              baseless               bedroom            bump                             castigate                 clangor                countless           courtship                        critic                     critical                  dexterously             dishearten                     dislocate                dwindle                 eventful       exposure                        fitful                       frugal                   generous                 gloomy                          gnarled                    hurry                  impartial          indistinguishable         invulnerable             lapse                   laughable          lonely                           majestic                 misplaced              monumental          multitudinous               obscene                  pendant                 perusal       premeditated                pious                      radiance                reliance                    road                             sanctimonious         seamy                   sneak                sportive                      submerge                  trippingly              useless

•  New compound words: Aside from coining or 're-minting' individual words, Shakespeare combined and connected words never before used together, creating new compound words such as:

barefaced      civil-tongue      cold-comfort      eyesore      fancy-free      foul-play     play-fair      green-eyed      heartsick     high-time      hot-blooded      lackluster      leap-frog      laughing-stock     itching-palm     lie-low     long-haired     love-affair     ministering-angel     sea-change     short-shift     pinch-battle     primrose-path     snow-white     tongue-tied     towering passion 

• Weird sentence structure: Shakespeare frequently shifted his sentences away from "normal" English arrangements in order to:

• create the rhythm or rhyme he sought;
• use a line's poetic rhythm to emphasize a particular word; or
• give a character his or her own speech pattern and /or to identify his or her social status (i.e. in Romeo and Juliet, the servants and nurse have very different speech patterns from Romeo, Juliet, and their social peers).

How did he do this?

1. Look for the placement of subject and verb.  Shakespeare often puts the verb BEFORE the subject.  For example, in Act 1, Scene 1 in Romeo and Juliet, line 140, Montague says, "Away from light steals home my heavy son." (Instead of "...my son steals home.")
2. Sometimes Shakespeare placed the object or adjective before the subject and verb. For example in Act 1 Scene 2 line 4 of Romeo and Juliet, Paris says "Of honorable reckoning are you both."

• Imagery and figurative speech. Shakespeare frequently used literary devices such as:
• Hyperbole (exaggerations);
• Simile (comparing one thing to another using "like" or "as");
• Metaphor ( comparing one thing to another without "like" or "as");
• Oxymorons (combining words opposite in meaning, such as 'freezing fire', usually to startle the audience and make them think);

• Archaic speech. some words used in Shakespeare's plays have fallen into disuse or their meanings have changed.  Here are a few:
• anon = straightway
• buckles = small shields
• marry  = indeed
• heavy = sorrowful
• o'er = over again
• morrow = morning

Given all these challenges, reading, studying and acting out Shakespeare's plays is just loads of fun.
Shakespeare Starter Suggestions:

• Find and share his insults.  Here is a link to begin: Shakespeare's Saucy Slams
• Start them with the stories, with the magic in the stories, great characters.  Some of the easier plays are the ones with a lot of dialogue (and not necessarily the famous soliloquies) such as Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night,  and The Tempest.  Macbeth can be fun for the more morbid kids, kids into witches and high drama.
• Watch classic video clips.  Here are a few of my favorites:
•  Great slams:  Beatrice and Benedick arguing in "Much Ado About Nothing"
• The games people play in (and accepting) love: David Tenant and Catherine Tate in Much Ado About Nothing

• Great motivating speech:  Henry V St. Crispin's Day Speech to the troops from Henry V

• On bigotry, antisemitism and revenge; Shylock's monologue from The Merchant of Venice

• On life, living, the seven ages of man, and the 'stage' - from As You Like It

Some additional Shakespeare resources:

•  Folger Shakespeare Library
• http://shakespeare-online.com/biography/wordsinvented.html
• http://www.rhymezone.com/g/shakespeare/coinages//
• http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/resources/shakespeare-words/
• http://www.shakespeare-w.com/english/shakespeare/words.html
• http://www.shakespearestudyguide.com/ 

I hope you find these resources helpful.  Please share some of your favorite teaching/viewing/reading Shakespeare moments of your own in the comics.  Thanks for you visit and have a great week.

The No Nonsense of Nonsense

This post is a follow-up to an earlier post "Jabberwocky & Dr. Seuss:  A Lesson in Nonsense" (although one can be read at the exclusion of the other).

Playing with nonsense is important to language learning, critical thinking and creativity...aside from just being so much fun!

Whether playing with nonsense words (as in Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky) or nonsense ideas, places, and things (Edward Lear's The Owl and the Pussycat or Dr. Seuss' The Lorax), the author invites the reader to:

• play with language - in terms of phonics and vocabulary;
• play with language - in terms of allegory, and metaphor;
• play with concepts - considering greater depth, inference, detail, fun and surprises as they pop up in the reading journey; and
• play with reading making it more active and interactive as author and reader play with words, sounds, and sentence structure.

Shakespeare, Carroll, Lear, Dr. Seuss are just a few authors well-known for their integrating nonsense words, verse, and ideas in their writing.

Shakespeare created his 'words' combining alliteration, onomatopoeia, and word play as he took two unrelated words and combined them to express some often-foul-filled image such as "boil-brained" to create a new, scathing curse or slam [Here is a link to create your own slams from Shakespeare's word lexicon].

Lewis Carroll used nonsense words to play with the sound and structure of language. He also integrated sound, onomatopoeia, illusion and alliteration and, in the case of Jabberwocky, was more inventive in terms of words /word choices (go to: for complete text):

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Yet, even with Carroll's truly nonsensical words, given their use and placement in the sentence, the reader can create an image and story. And upon closer examination, many of the nonsensical words are quite similar to ones we might substitute.  "Gyre" alludes to gyrate, and "mimsy" is close to whimsy, and whether intentional or not, the reader has fun actively constructing his or her own sense of meaning and intent.

Edward Lear, a third English author also integrated nonsense words with nonsense ideas (an owl marrying a pussycat, and the important thing is a ring?)  in his works, often in limericks and songs that he asserted were "nonsense, pure and absolute." His best known songs are probably The Owl and the Pussy-Cat and "The Daddy-Long-Legs and the Fly." [For more, visit Edward Lear Home Page. ]

Owl and the Pussy-Cat Verse II

Pussy said to the Owl, 'You elegant fowl!

How charmingly sweet you sing!

O let us be married!too long we have tarried:

But what shall we do for a ring?

They sailed away, for a year and a day,

To the land where the Bong-tree grows

And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood

With a ring at the end of his nose,

His nose, 

His nose,

With a ring at the end of his nose.

The Daddy Long-legs and the Fly - Verse 1

Once Mr. Daddy Long-legs,

Dressed in brown and gray,

Walked about upon the sands

Upon a summer's day;

And there among the pebbles,

When the wind was rather cold,

He met with Mr. Floppy Fly,

Add dressed in blue and gold.

And as it was too soon to dine,

They drank some Periwinkle-wine,

And played an hour or two, or more,

At battlecock and shuttledore.

Dr. Seuss' nonsense words were both like Shakespeare's in combining two unrelated words to create a third, and like Lear's and Carroll's in their play on sound, language, and sentence structure (as seen in Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please go Now):

 Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now!...

You can go On a Zike-Bike 

If you like....

You can go in Crunk-Car 

If you wish...

You might like going in a Zumble Zay...

You can go by bumble-boat...or jet

I don't care how you go.  Just get!

[For those of you who love political satire, here's a link to Dr. Seuss' play with political satire - as he sent a copy of Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now! text to columnist Art Buchwald in July, 1974, with Marvin K. Mooney crossed out and Richard K. Nixon plugged in "Richard M. Nixon Will You Please Go Now!"]

"NONSENSE" in these instances in not nonsense at all - it is, in fact WORD-PLAY and we should be encouraging this with our kids as they learn to read, write, create, and express themselves. 


Lanaguage: Playing with nonsense words in rhyme, as Dr. Seuss does, allows young readers and language learners to:

• play with long and short vowel sounds;
• play with consonants, and consonant blends;
• play and experiment with sentence structure (using this along with mapping is integral for verbal and written expression)
• play with vocabualry, alliteration, onomatopoeia (Do you like the "piano tuna" ...create your own with your child!)

Critical thinking: Dr. Seuss, Edward Lear, nursery rhymes and fables all encourage children and readers in general to:

• compare and contrast to distinguish the 'real-life' from the fantastical fantasy. 
• infer - gaining greater understanding and expertise with metaphor, allegory, double/multiple meanings;
• brainstorm and  imagine our natural world not just for what it is, but for what it could be or might be.
• create - seeing and reading famous works about nonsensical characters, animals, and places encourages young writers to create their own worlds, to learn to exaggerate, to create and to express humor and metaphor. [Like this greeting "WHISK"ing you a Happy Valentine's Day!...make your own!]

 

But the most important thing, is that this kind of word play is fun, it is engaging, it creates multiple memory paths and it is incredibly interactive.  So have fun with nonsense.  Read some of the masters' works and create your own.  

In closing - here is a ditty my daughter wrote when she was young - her take on "Oowey Goowey":

The original

Oowey Goowey was a worm,

A gooey worm was he.

He sat upon the railroad tracks

The train he did not see....

OOOOweyyy Gooweey!!!

My daughter's version:

OOwey goowey was a slug
He was slimy and fat
He crawled upon the railroad tracks...
Chugga, chugga SPLATT!

Please leave some of your fun, nonsensical ideas in the comments so we can all laugh and enjoy!

X- Rated Cursing and a Bedtime Story for the Sleep Deprived Parents. What is Acceptable?

 








 I submit this post in honor of a (belated) Fathers' Day and "X" week at ABC Wednesday. I hope I don't offend anyone as I offer this bedtime story by Adam Mansbach, read by Samuel Jackson. It was forwarded to me by my sleep-deprived cousins as they learn to juggle life with their second child and I now share it with you:

THIS IS NOT A CHILDREN'S BOOK.  IF you are having trouble with bedtime and getting your kids to sleep, please see my blog post: http://departingthetext.blogspot.com/2011/04/getting-them-to-sleep-bedtime-rituals.html




So, with a smirk on your face and the kids asleep.... let's talk X-rated mouths:  What is your take on cursing?

I was raised by conservative parents who would not stand for cursing.  (They threatened to wash my mouth out with soap if I cursed.  I was a good girl - for the most part). As a result, I tend not to curse but I must confess, there are times when a good well placed curse (with emphasis)  makes all the difference in the world! [Just ask my husband!]

What is your take on cursing?  Is it alright to curse in front of your child?  To your child?

An educator's perspective on cursing in front of kids: Don't do it (at least not regularly or intentionally - we all have our moments).  There are so many truly colorful onomatopoeic expletives that can be used in lieu of cursing that present wonderful intellectual and verbal challenges to the creative communicator.  I also think that aside from the well-deserved curse, using crass curse words too frequently cheapens our language.  That said, I do love the delicately placed colorful curses as they add depth and diversity to conversations (and often just feel good releasing).

Here are some alternative expletives:

• persnickety
• shoot
• nuts 
• whoopsadaisy
• fiddlesticks
• freaking
• sugar
• knucklehead
• halfwit
• dimwit
• numbskull
• lewd
• warped
• cavernous
• tedious

In my opinion, however, Shakespeare was the master insult / curse-writer.  Below are two clips from Much Ado About Nothing which illustrate his craft at cursing.  Explore these clips (or the entire film/play) and the list of selected insults and curses below on your own or with your kids, and please add your favorites in the comments:

• I would my horse had the speed of your tongue! (Much Ado About Nothing)
  
• Thou art like a toad; ugly and venomous. (As You Like It)
• Thou art a flesh-monger, a fool and a coward. (Measure for Measure)
• A most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise breaker, the owner of no one good quality. (All's Well That Ends Well)
• Thy tongue outvenoms all the worms of the Nile (Cymbeline)
• You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian!  I'll tickle your catastrophe! (Henry IV Part 2)
• Go, prick thy face, and over-red thy fear, Thou lily-liver'd boy (Macbeth)
• Thine face is not worth sunburning. (Henry V)
• A foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.  What a piece of work is man! (Hamlet)
• My two schoolfellows.  Whom I shall trust as I will adders fangs. (Hamlet)
• Scurvy, old, filth, scurry lord (All's Well That Ends Well)
• You are not worth another word, else I'd call you knave. (All's Well That Ends Well)
•  I desire that we be better strangers. (As You Like It)
• Beg that thou may have leave to hang theyself. (Merchant of Venice)
• Four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one. (Much Ado About Nothing)
• This is a subtle whore, a closet lock and key of villainous secrets. (Othello)
• Hang cur, hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker. (The Tempest)
• Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood. (King Lear)
• It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing (Macbeth)
• milksops
• braggarts
• artless
• bawdy
• base-court
• beetle-headed
• beef-witted
• boil-brained
• clay-brained
• barnacle
• beslubbering
• clapper-clawed
• canker-blossom
• craven
• curish
• errant
• dankish
• fobbing
• frothy
• earth-vexing
• fen-sucked
• folly-fallen
• haggard
• haughty 
• lewd minx
• loggerheaded
• lout
• maggot-pie
• mewling
• paunchy
• ill-breeding
• malt-worm
• mammet
• puny
• puking
• minnow
• rutish
• roguish
• reeky
• rank
• pernicious
• plume-plucked
• pox-marked
• surly
• ratsbane
• swag-bellied
• scut
• strumpet
• timorous wretch
• vassal
• villainous
• wart-necked
• urchin-snouted
• whey-faced
• yeasty

This list is a mere sampling.  Explore the remainders on your own or with your child, friend, or nemesis. In the meantime, here is one more clip.



Please leave comments on how you handle cursing, cursing with kids, and cursing alternatives.   PLEASE  leave some of your favorite gems!

Reading, Graphic Novels, and Memory

In my last post, I discussed how reading and comprehending graphic novels demand large chunks of attention: attention to detail, attention to background, attention to language, and attention to art and lettering (size, font, and shape).  This week I would like to focus on graphic novels and memory.

Prose vs. Graphic Novels and the demands reading them place on memory.

Prose Novels: When reading anything in print we have to remember:

• The shapes and corresponding sounds of letters;
• We have to remember the corresponding sounds of letter blends, 
• We have to remember vocabulary (recalling the spelling of words to more efficiently decode them as well as their defintions), 
• We have to remember what we just read and if it makes sense vis-a-vis what you read a few sentences ago (metacognition - keeping track of our comprehension), 
• We have to remember rules of grammar and punctuation, and 
• When reading we have to constantly keep track of plot, time, motives, names, places and events.

Reading places demands on short term memory, long term memory, and active working memory.

Graphic Novels:  When reading graphic novels, we have to remember:

• ALL the demands on memory listed above for prose novels PLUS:
• We have to remember not only the words we read, but the sequence scenes we view in the panels.  
• We have to remember what occurred in the previous panel while constructing and inferring what was not included in the gutter.  
• We also have to remember the artist's different use of font and panel borders.  (Sometimes, for example squiggly lines around a panel means someone is thinking, sometimes it can mean they are angry.  
• We have to keep track of the particular artists' intent in the choice of letter fonts and sizes, and panel divisions and borders.  The art, while adding an emotional and very engaging component, also adds additional demands on memory.
• When reading comics or a graphic novel series we also have to remember small sequences of the story over a long period of time.  With comics, only a small segment of the story is printed at a time, with weeks between issues.  The reader has to keep track of plot, motives, intents, etc. [And, while we do this as well with sequels for books, the stories in each prose novel book are complete and easier to remember than the small segments readers are given at each comic installment.  The disjointed story makes it more difficult to remember.]

How to use graphic novels to build memory skills:

• Read comic books in regular installments.  Read them together with your kids and:
• Talk about them.  
• Brainstorm where you think the author(s) will take the next installment.
• Before reading the next installment, review what has happened so far.
• Discuss how the art helps you remember certain aspects of the story.  
• Discuss how the art provides cues to help your mind read and not have to think or remember reading strategies.  For example, different fonts and borders may help you realize this is a flash-back. Also, different art styles within a comic can cue your mind in terms of which sequence panels should be read in.  Once you realize the artist's intent, it frees your mind to focus on other issues.
• Whether reading these books together or individually, you may want to create story maps to visually "see" where the story is going (and help remember details). 

There are now many kids non-fiction and historical fiction graphic novels.  Pairing these graphic novels with science, social studies, history and language arts in the classroom will help provide graphic images as well as complementary content that will help make the educational content more meaningful and easier to recall.  Here are a few young adult nonfiction and historical fiction graphic novel suggestions (recommended age ranges vary):

•  American Born Chinese (Yang, G.)  a perspective of growing up as a multicutural minority student (recommeded for middles school and above);
• Laika (Abadzis, N.)- provides a Russian perspective to the Space Race (third grade and above);
• Mouse Guard (Petersen, D.) - perspective of life in the Middle Ages (fourth grade and above);
• The Olympians (O'Connor, G.)- provides a wonderfully visual account of Greek myths (third grade and above);
• Persepolis (Satrapi, M.) - the story of childhood in Iran (recommended for mature middle school - high school);
• Kampung Boy (Lat) - about a Muslim boy growing up in rural Malaysia in the 1950's (middle school and above);
• Malcolm X:  A Graphic Biography (Helfer, R.D.) - critiques the Civil Rights Movement and Malcolm X's life (recommended for high school);
• Campfire Graphic Novels have published re-tellings of classic stories such as Treasure Island and Moby Dick and some of Shakespeare's classics (Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, for example) that you may want to check out.

Most of all, you want to enjoy the reading experience!  Let me know what your favorite non-fiction and historical fiction comics/graphic novels are.