Day 30: Round Two

Technically our new grading period started on Thursday, but we were wrapping up the first six weeks Thursday and Friday was a fun day.  There was no way I was going to start anything new on a Friday.  We discussed issues in the election and watched chunks of last week's debate. 
Today we started our new unit: Drama.  Response: "Doesn't high school have enough drama without studying it in English class?"  Apparently they weren't nearly as excited about the prospect of wearing togas while reading Julius Caesar  as I was.  To kick off, I made (what I think is) an awesome prezi on Shakespeare and Julius Caesar.

Introduction to Shakespeare on Prezi

We learned "Fun Facts" such as Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway, was 3 months pregnant when she got married - as were 1 out of every 3 English brides at that time.  We learned how original Latin had no "J"s so Caesar's first name was spelled "Iulius".  We learned that it's always pronounced the River Thames - never the Thames River, and never pronounced "THAYmz".  I told them it was my job to at least make them sound intelligent, and to pronounce it like that would undo all my good work.

Tomorrow, we split: half my periods start reading the play, the other half write a research paper on Ancient Rome.  Grading period round two: Go!