First Impressions of Romeo and Juliet

          Romeo and Juliet. I never thought I would actually read this book, but here I am sitting in my honors english 9th grade class reading this book. This book is actually very hard to understand due to Shakespeare's word structure in which he puts the verb in from of the noun and mixes up parts of the sentence to make each line have a poetic flow with the other lines, but the more I read this book, the better I get better at understanding Shakespeare's language. Reading each scene out loud in class and pausing at parts to talk about what it means really helps me understand each scene. So far, most of the characters seem really weird, especially the nurse. When reading the book, the characters don't seem too weird, but when watching scenes of the movie, the characters seem really weird.
          Overall, the story is actually pretty fast paced and, again, the characters are really weird. I think that one of the only parts of the story in which I relate to a character in this book is when Benvolio goes to make Romeo happy and to stop him from being so depressed about Rosaline. I can relate to that scene because I have helped lots of friends when they are feeling sad or depressed. Rather than that, I don't really relate to any of the characters from Romeo and Juliet.

6 weeks done! Only 30 more weeks to go! Wait 30 more weeks???

          Wow, 6 weeks of school already over. Most of my classes have gone by very quickly, but Honors English, not one of those. Pretty much all of the classes I've ever had have been very easy, so even with miminal effort I could get a grade above 97%. Currently my grades in all my classes are above 97%, but the class that I've had to work the most to get this grade in is Honors English. In this class, I have to put in lots of effort to get a good grade on an assignment. So far I don't think we have been overwhelmed by the amount of homework, but I think going farther into the school year, we will be required to finish larger amounts of homework in a shorter amount of time, and I'm ready to step up to that challenge. I think Nova has set me up for a quick and easy transition into high school classes because my English class at Nova was very similar to this class and required me to finish large amounts of homework in a very short amount of time. So studying Word Power and writing the blog every week with ongoing homework isn't too overwhelming for me.
          Over the course of this semester, and my year as a freshman, I plan to maintain an A grade in Honors English. I will continue to work hard, and not only put quantity, but also quality into my work. I plan to throughly read the books we plan to read, and understand the new material we study. My goal for this year is to improve my vocabulary in preperation for upcoming highschool tests, and I think by studying Word Power I can acheive this goal.

Anticipating "Spear Shaking"

          I'm really looking forward to Shakespeare because I've never really read or watched any of his writings. I've literally had 0 experiences with Shakespeare and Spear Shaking. In class, I hope that we get to act out scenes in groups about what we read, and actually get graded about how we act.......actually now that I think about it, I would rather have it as we act out scenes in class, but don't get graded on it. I'm actually very excited to learn the old English language, or in other terms, "Shakespearian" language.
          The only things I know about Shakespeare is that he writes poems and plays, and that he was alive in about the 15th century. As I said before, I have pretty much no experience with Shakespeare. The only thing I know about, that is affiliated with Shakespeare in some way, is Romeo and Juliet. I think that the most exciting thing about this unit will be acting out the scenes. I also look forward to actually reading Romeo and Juliet and understanding what the play is about. So far, I can see that this unit is going to be very fun!