Anastasia Bulgakova Blogger #7-4

12/21/2018

Aim: How does the rhetorical device of paralipsis create a sense of irony in Macbeth’s dynamic shift of character?

            In class today we presented the character wallets that we have been working on for the past three days. The objective was to create a wallet for a character from Macbeth. Some of our hot picks were Macbeth himself, Lady Macbeth, and the guards. The 6 groups in our class presented a unique wallet with items from the modern world that represented them. Some were ID cards, makeup, and gift cards for different symbolic services, such as the witches’ prophecies. Each person in a group was responsible for one item in the wallet, while presenting one would present the appearance of the item, state a literary device that it represents, and a quote that corresponds with it, including the Shakespearean way of quoting acts. 

Overall, the groups were very creative in their presentations and put a new twist to the old Shakespearean tale, as they were mostly graded on creativity, relevance, group work and amount of items. This presentation helped students understand and comprehend events in the book in a fun and engaging way while saying goodbye to 2018 on the last day of school!

George Baslous Blogger #7-3 12/19/18

George Baslous
12/19/18
Blogger #7-3
Period 7 Sophomore English

The main focus for our class today was to continue working on our wallet projects. Yesterday, we were given the task of creating a wallet with items inside to represent traits from any character in Macbeth. Without being told which character the wallet belongs to, we should we able to guess who it belongs to primarily based on the contents of the wallet. By doing this project, we are quickly learning that a person's belongings can sometimes be a dead giveaway to the type of person that they are, and also that sometimes it is difficult to express certain personality traits.

We continued to work on this wallet project in our groups, keeping in mind the rubric shown above.
As you can see, each group will be awarded with points based on creativity, group work, relevance, justification through quotes, and the amount of contents in the wallet.

Most of today was spent watching YouTube tutorials to teach us how to make a paper wallet, or a duct tape wallet.

Everything in this project can make a difference, which is motivating us to work hard and diligently with our groups on this project, but also to have fun with it and be creative/artistic. As we continue to work on this project tomorrow, there will for sure be much more progress, and we should have our final projects completed and ready to present on 12/19/18, Friday.

Agustin Ballinas, Blogger #2, 12/18/18

Aim: How does Shakespeare's use of complex character development illuminate central themes and contribute to Macbeth as a whole?

"Cluster Activity (Part 1) Exploring Ms. Fusaro's wallet... What can you determine about my character from the items you find in my wallet?"

Today in class, Ms. Fusaro allowed us to go through her wallet to see how much we could find out about a person just by seeing the contents of their wallets. She entrusted her wallet to a fellow student, George, and as he went through the wallet he would announce to the class whatever he found. As we went through Ms. Fusaro's
wallet we found out stuff about her that we didn't previously know about her, such as that she is a blood donor. She also has several forms of writing utensils in her purse as well as several different methods of payment and this shows that she is prepared for different occasions. We could use this skill in real life to find out more about a person that we have been originally not given much information about.


"Cluster Activity (Part 2) Character Wallets-Each group must choose a character (in Macbeth) and create a wallet with contents that are suitable for that character at this point in the play..."
After going through Ms. Fusaro's wallet we were tasked with creating a wallet of a character in Macbeth and the purpose of doing this was to force us to think about what each character would have in their wallet and this would help us to identify how each character was unique.

Sarah Afif, Blogger #1, 12/13/18

Sarah Afif
12/13/18
Pd. 7
Blogger #1

Today's lesson was centralized around how Shakespeare’s use of complex character development illuminated central themes and contributed to Macbeth as a whole. We broke down Macbeth's famous soliloquy in Act 3 Scene 1, and used our close reading and annotating techniques to get a better understanding of it. We also answered the following questions:

1. What is the tone of Macbeth’s soliloquy? Prove this assertion.
The tone of Macbeth's soliloquy is quite frightened. Macbeth continually repeats the he is afraid of Banquo, and Banquo threatens him reaching the throne. Banquets cleverness and smarts also overpower that of Macbeth's. We hear panic in Macbeth's voice as he is struck with the realization that if he doesn't kill Banquo and Fleance, he would have killed Duncan for no reason.
2. Identify the historical allusion in the soliloquy. How does this allusion create mood.
The historical allusion is related to Marc Antony and Octavius Cesar. Marc Antony and Octavius Cesar were notorious enemies and eventually, Marc Antony committed suicide and Octavius became emperor. This relates to the soliloquy as it signifies that Marc Antony is Macbeth and Banquo is Brutus. Macbeth thinks that Banquo is Cesar and he himself is Antony, and believes that Banquo will outsmart him and reach the throne. Therefore, this historical allusion creates a fearful mood as we know Macbeth fears Banquo, just as Marc Antony feared Octavius Cesar. We also see Macbeth's unchecked ambition. Once he kills one person to get to the throne, he would have to kill dozens of others who could get in his way. Therefore it is always tempting for him to use violence in order for him to become king, which he ends up doing because he is overly ambitious. 

3. Explain the significance of Macbeth’s dynamic shift to the plot and theme of the play. 

Macbeth's shift shows that he is losing himself and becoming more like Lady Macbeth. He begins to be "a snake in the grass" and hides his true feelings. This is significant as it leads to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth becoming susceptible to guilt. It also brings up the association between manliness and cruelty. Lady Macbeth firmly believes that men should be cruel and she convinces Macbeth to believe the same thing. Therefore, for the majority of the play, Macbeth lacks moral constraints and ends up killing dozens of people.

Today's lesson brought forth many of the vital themes of Macbeth including: 

-unchecked ambition

-how cruelty and manliness are related

-fate

All three of these themes intertwined in the lesson we learned today. Macbeth now believes that in order to be a real man, he must perform acts of violence and be cruel (an outdated concept if you ask me). This correlation that he believes exists, leads him to kill again and again. This is also due to his unchecked ambition, as he will do whatever it takes to get to the throne. Fate also plays a role in this as Macbeth is driven to insanity by the witches prophecy of Fleance taking the throne. This is another contributing factor to Macbeth's brutality. 

1. How is Macbeth motivating the murderers?

He is “brainwashing” the murderers in a sense. He uses reverse psychology, accusing  the murderers of being less manly if they don't murder Banquo. He says their lives are full of poverty because of Banquo and he challenges their manliness. 

2. How do the murderers feel about life?

They feel that they had a poor life that was worth nothing, and Macbeth takes advantage of this by blaming this on Banquo. He says that Banquo is the reason for the murderers poor fortune, trying to give them a motive to kill.  

3. Why doesn’t Macbeth commit the deed himself?

Macbeth doesn’t commit the deed himself because him and Banquo share mutual friends and therefore, he could not be seen doing such a deed because their friends would get suspicious. 

4. What is Fleance’s fate?

Fleance’s fate is that he will become king, as the Witch’s prophecy states that Banquo’s sons will be kings. 

5. What is the connection between Fleance’s fate and the witches prophecies?

The witch’s prophecies predicted that Fleance would be a threat to becoming king.

Class Blogger #7-34 12/12/18

We began today's lesson with an analysis of Banquo's character. Specifically, we took the lines "Thou hast it now - King, Cawdor, Glamis, all as / As the Weird Women promised, and I fear / Thou played'st most foully for 't." (III, i, 1-3) Here, we looked at Banquo's thoughts and feelings in this point in the story. After a general class discussion, we concluded that Banquo is suspicious of Macbeth's behavior due to everything in the prophecy from earlier in the story coming into fruition.

Then we began our reading of Act III, Scene I as a class. Several of our classmates read and acted out the parts of the scene.

In addition to that, we would occasionally interrupt with our own analysis. At this point in the story, Banquo and Macbeth are very wary of each other. Macbeth fears that because of the prophecy, Banquo's children will take the crown from him and his family. Banquo, on the other hand, fears that Macbeth might murder him on his path for power. With this, we lead into the discussion about character foils.

Character foils are characters that come from the same background or position but have opposing ideologies that counter one other.

Thor and Loki from the Marvel Cinematic Universe are a notable example of character foils. The two of them are a pair of brothers that were raised together. However, Thor's traditional heroic ideologies oppose Loki's dishonest ones. Other examples in media include Scar and Mufasa from the Lion King in addition to Anakin and Obi-Wan from Star Wars. Jack and Ralph from the Lord of The Flies which we read previously is another good example of this.

In Macbeth, Banquo and Macbeth are character foils. Both men were war heroes that were in great favor with King Duncan. Macbeth, however, is consumed by ambition and is willing to do anything to gain power whereas Banquo, though he has ambitions, settles for whatever fate gives him.

Lastly, at the point in the story where we left off, Macbeth is trying to convince two poor and desperate men to murder Banquo. He blames Banquo for their troubles and mocks their masculinity. This is strikingly similar to what Lady Macbeth does earlier in the story. Earlier in the story, Lady Macbeth tries to convince the passive Macbeth to murder Duncan by both mocking him and enticing him. Now, Macbeth uses the same strategies to convince the two men to murder Banquo. Everything in Macbeth keeps changing and roles keep getting reversed. As the quote goes, "Fair is foul, foul is fair".

Blogger #7-33 12/10/18

Monday, December 10, 2018
Mrs Fusaro-Pizzo, Blogger #33
Artem Yatsenko
Sophomores 2019, Period 7

Aim: Vocabulary Word Game

Do Now: None

        At the beginning of the class, we looked at Mrs. Fusaro's google site, which had some information about her classes, as well as the Senior Syllabus. The Syllabus included information about the SITech senior mythology classes, as well as some of the assignments and projects that the seniors are doing right now.



       After this, we started the Unit 5 Vocabulary word game. The game required two members of different teams to write the vocabulary word after being given the definition. The team member who wrote it first would win, while the other team member would lose points. If both team members couldn't guess the words, they would both lose points and be required to draw a glazed donut, which was what they were.

      At the beginning of the game, a team could either gain or lose 20 points depending on if they could guess correctly. As the game progressed, this was increased to 50 points, and eventually to a number between 50 and 100 points, which was agreed on by the two team members. During the game, my team, Spooky Bois, lost the most points, at almost 150. This made my team have the lowest amount of points of all the teams by far, with 160 points.
  

Aim: How is Pathetic Fallacy used to illustrate the unnatural order of the Macbeth universe?
At the beginning of the lesson, we discussed a series of quotes and dug deeper into the meaning behind each of them.

“The Second Look” brief explanations for each quote:
 1. The Fool’s Rule, Porter is being drunk and foolish.
2. He’s pretending to be the porter of hell, he’s trying to be funny, example of dramatic irony, and it he’s trying to say that sweating out water means you’re not going to be cleaning anything.
3. Referring someone to being cold, which means they have no feelings, or no heart.
4. Even though Macbeth is planning on killing all these people, he’ll eventually get caught, Macbeth is being phony, he talk his way out of this scenario, but not the big picture.
5. Makes Lady Macbeth brave and makes the guards pass out, which all in all led to the murder.
6. Relating back to the talk about lechery, Macbeth had this desire to kill Duncan, but now he’s freaking out, made him believe he can do something, but now he feels terrible about it.

We then discussed the meaning of karma:
The class agreed on the meaning, “what goes around, comes around”

Then we were introduced to a new form of personification known as Pathetic Pallacy.

Pathetic Pallacy - “poetic practice of attributing human emotion or responses to nature, inanimate objects, or animals. The practice is a form of personification that is as old as poetry, in which it has always been common to find smiling or dancing flowers, angry or cruel winds, brooding mountains, moping owls, or happy larks”

It is another way for the author to illustrate was is happening in a certain scene.
Nature is going to respond to what is happening.

For example Macbeth kills Duncan, and in the play, the owl makes noise all night, the earth shakes, and people begin to hear things.

Blog #31, Richard Chin, Blogger #7-31

Monday, December 3, 2018
Mrs. Fusaro-Pizzo, Blogger #31
Sophomores 2019, Period 7

Aim: How does Shakespeare employ the use of “comic relief” to simultaneously lighten and darken the play?

Write Now: (On Google Classroom) STEP BACK & REVIEW

“Is this a dagger I see before me..”

“Macbeth does murder sleep”

Let’s review these chunks from Act II

Using your knowledge of symbols, what is Macbeth talking about? Why is this language to describe his act so provocative?

Reviewing on what we sophomores read in “Macbeth” by William Skakespeare in Act II, we analysized what made Act II seem so deep and meaningful: the vivid imagery, the overwhelming senses of emotions, and the symbolism.  For example:

• “Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?” —In this quote, Macbeth is hallucinating a dagger which he would use to kill King Duncan (the “will be” formal king of Scotland), due to the harsh consideration Macbeth is having before committing the murder.
• “Macbeth does murder sleep”— In this chunk, Macbeth is having a guilty conscience of killing King Duncan, committing evil by taking advantage of a man’s most vulnerable state (sleeping with innocently)

After the write now/do now, Mrs. Fusaro taught us what passive-aggressive and comic relief was, giving several examples of each one in order for us to understand the concept.

Passive-Aggressive is an indirect resistance to the demands of others.

Some ways people can be passive-aggressive in real-life are:

• Not doing work or do it late for someone else in order to emphasize your unhappiness without directly stating the fact that you're unhappy.
• Complaining and whining to a co-worker (acting like a child while you're an adult), not telling your boss about your problems

The purpose of comic relief in Shakespeare's writing in "Macbeth" demonstrates to play an essential role in the flow of emotions throughout the play. Comic relief allows to lighten up the play, allowing Shakespeare to add even more dankness and intensity to sink into the audience's minds as Macbeth commits even more crimes as well as Duncan's dead body.

The Fool Rule in Shakespeare (Fun Fact): He added fools in his plays/stories as the wisest characters. He did this because he didn't like how the poor had to watch his plays from the balcony because they didn't have the money to enjoy his shows like the rich people did (the rich showing little respect to the poor).

Using these definitions our teacher gave us, we headed on to reading Act II Scene III of "Macbeth."

In the beginning of the scene, a porter is revealed to be the comic relief after the cruel murder of King Duncan. It takes the audience away from the "dark moments" by focusing on the porter, who spouted out humorous ramble about the effects drinking alcohol does for you towards Macduff and Lennox (who came to see Macbeth). The porter also mentions about the theme of equivocation. In this case, "drinking" is the equivocator, which is how the truth of Duncan's death is going to be manipulated into lies.

By observing literary techniques Shakespeare used to make his books the successes they are, we as students can learn to input these literary techniques in our own writing in order to make it more interesting and deep.