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Post by summers on Jul 8, 2012 23:32:06 GMT -5
[/b][/color] Daniel finished with a flourish, shutting his book carefully. "Alright class, that's it for the day!" he told the students as they began to pack up, "I want you to answer the questions for Act II scene I for tomorrow. If you want to read ahead, be my guest." he paused and looked up as the two students he had sent out into the hall slinked back into class. "Ah, Mr. Pekham, Mr. Swann, good to have you back. I hope you've heard my instructions." he greeted them, before turning back and addressing the class as a whole, "Remember that your Soliloquy assignment is due next week, I want you to pick any Soliloquy in Romeo and Juliet," he tapped the front of his book affectionately, "And analyze it for me." It was then that the bell rung and students began to rush out, eager for lunch. "If you want extra help, I am available over lunch or after school!" he called out after the students as they left the room. With a sigh, he watched them leave before walking over to his desk and sitting down in his chair. [/size][/ul][/ul][/ul] |
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Post by ANNABEL LYNNE DALE on Jul 9, 2012 12:09:31 GMT -5
Annabel's train of thought was drifting. Why does everyone talk funny in Shakespeares stuff? Well, she knew why in a way, old English and all that, but that did not make it any less strange to her. She was half-listening to her teacher as he went on and one about the play and she was half transfixed on the small circular motions she'd started making with her pencil on the desk. She did not realise that it might be considered defacing it until about five minutes in and hastily rubbed it out with her eraser. Said eraser on the end of the pencil had gotten to that flat point where it tended to rub the led around the desk as opposed to actually erasing anything. She tried to be inconspicuous as possible in leaning down to her bag to fetch another one. She was missing large parts of the lesson in preoccupying herself with silly things like this.
Finally it was five minutes to the bell and like everyone else she was tempted to pack up already, only half focused on Mr. Summers and his directions for their assignment. Then he said 'analyse' and she had to hold back a groan. This was the same reason that she did not like poetry—she hated analysing things. She was never sure if she was getting it right and with poetry it was even worse because there often was no right or wrong. Only the poet would know for sure what they were trying to convey and often times they never explained it to anyone else. Blah.
Upon hearing the bell ring she was one of the first out of her seat, more than eager to get out of the classroom and hang out with friends, forget that English even existed in her life. She'd also probably procrastinate on the assignment, realise that she had no idea what she was doing when it finally came time to work on it, and end up begging her brother to help her out. Josh often got irritated with her when she made it clear that she had not paid enough attention in class and had been slacking. He helped her without complaint when it was clear that she really just didn't understand something but when he knew why she didn't understand, he was a lot less forgiving. Then Mr. Summers offered after-class help and she hesitated while out in the hall with her friend. "Sup, Anna?" Jennifer asked. "I... I should probably go and ask him about something. I'll catch you guys later." She didn't particularly want to but knew it was for the best.
Though she was reluctant to stay after class, for who liked it, she was social and confident enough that she was not shy and didn't linger on the threshold. Hey, he'd said that he was available after class, the door was open. "Do you have a minute?" she asked. "Or, like, several?" She laughed, the sound light. Yeah, this was probably going to take more than one or two of those sixty second wonders. "I don't really get the assignment," she told him. "Like, I get the whole soliloquy stuff but analysing...? No." She shook her head and wondered whether or not he would be able to lend a hand.
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Post by summers on Jul 23, 2012 21:02:52 GMT -5
[/i], seeing as it had been published in 2005, but it was a book all the same, and one that Daniel greatly enjoyed, and certainly didn't mind re-reading, even if he did know every plot twist and what was coming, so there weren't really any surprises. He had been just about to open the pages of Magyk by Angie Sage when he heard footsteps enter the classroom. There was no reluctance in his movements however as he set the book down on his desk and looked up at the person who had entered his room, in fact, his a smile graced his face and his eyes almost seemed to light up when he saw that it was Annabel Dale, one of the grade nine students in his English class, and a water like himself. ”Ah Miss Dale. How may I help you?” he asked, rising from his chair behind the desk and moving forward to meet her. At her request, he nodded. ”Of course I have a minute.” he told her, adding on in a joking tone, ”It's my job after all.”. His face grew more serious when she explained the nature of the problem however, and he motioned for her to grab a seat while he went and retrieved his copy of Romeo and Juliet from where he had placed it. Walking back, he stood at the desk next to her and leaned back, the majority of his weight resting on the hand that sat on the desk, holding him up, while the other open the well-worn, but well taken care of, book. ”Is it the language you're having trouble with?” he asked, trying to better understand the nature of her problem, ”Or just the concept of analyzing it?”It occurred to him that perhaps he hadn't explained exactly what he wanted well enough to the class. They were a grade nine class after all, and although many of them came from all over the country, and even the globe, he doubted they would have studied Shakespeare in grade school. 'They would have done poetry though,' he thought, 'and analyzing poetry and analyzing Shakespeare is very similar, although analyzing Shakespeare is easier, because even if it is written in old English, there usually isn't too much reading between the lines to do.' But, of course, they were grade nine students, and they had probably never seen old English before. Daniel knew that many students had trouble understanding the language, and although he didn't exactly approve of buying the books that translated it into modern English, or Sparks noting the scene, he did understand that that was the only way some students would understand the material. ”I can explain more of what I'm expecting if that would help.” he told her, ”And I'm sure I have some exemplars around here somewhere from past years.”He smiled – more to show that he wasn't afraid to admit to poke fun at his failures than anything else - and looked up at her. ”In fact, I was supposed to show them to the class. If you could remind me tomorrow, I would be very grateful.”[/size][/ul][/ul][/ul] |
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Post by ANNABEL LYNNE DALE on Jul 24, 2012 3:33:38 GMT -5
Old English did not make much sense to her and she resisted the urge to scrunch up her features at the thought. She didn't mind English too much, didn't mind many subjects much, but there were definitely aspects that she liked and disliked more than others. This was something that fell into the realm of dislike. "Uh... both?" She sounded confused even as she spoke the hesitant words and so it was clear that she was having trouble in general. "I think it's the analysing thing mostly but I'm not good with the language either." Some of it she could grasp, the more 'sensible' stuff, but there was definitely portions of it that were lost to her. She was definitely one of those students that would use sparks notes or Google or some other resource to make it easier on her if she could.
She had went to a rather prestigious private school and they'd went over some Shakespeare plays but they'd never been asked to analyse before. When she'd taken her classes they had focused more on the play itself rather than the meaning behind it. She recalled having a fun time as they put together the play as a class and goofed around a lot. This was nothing like back then. She knew she didn't have much choice but to do the work, though, which was why she'd opted to stay back after class instead of shirking it. Putting things off was satisfying in the temporary sense but it never really worked out well in the long run.
She thought about that for a moment, then nodded and smiled. "That might help, yeah." Sometimes she misinterpreted her teachers and ended up getting the meaning of the assignment wrong. Of course a lot of this was due to the fact that she tuned them out often. Annabel could not help that she had a low attention span for things that she considered 'boring' or 'pointless'. "I've never really, uh, analysed anything before. So I don't know how I'm supposed to know if I'm getting it right." A friend of hers in grade ten was analysing poems for English and she was really good at it but it didn't make much sense to Belle. Maybe she was simply bad at understanding what sort of points people were making. Hopefully Mr. Summers could help her out.
She chuckled, amused by his casual admittance of the mistake. It was nice when people didn't get all weird about stuff like that. "I'll try and remember," she told him. She didn't have the best memory in the world but she wasn't notoriously bad at retaining things, either. "I could use an example or something so that I know what I'm doing." She wouldn't cheap out and then use that example for her actual work. He wasn't stupid, he would notice. She really was just clueless. That was what teachers were for, right? To help?
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Post by summers on Aug 14, 2012 22:15:24 GMT -5
[/b][/color] he paused, trying to think of how to properly explain what he wanted when he asked the students to analyzing something, but unable to come up with a good explanation at the moment. When she said she had never really analyzed anything before, he frowned thoughtfully. "The exemplar I have might help with that." he told her, "One sec, let me go find it." Turning away, he walked over to his desk, rummaging through the papers in the one drawer to try and find it. There was a reason he had a folder for each class, it was so he could at least try to be a little more organized. Unfortunately, the folders weren't very useful if he forgot to put the right papers in them. He had almost had a mini panic attack thinking that the paper wasn't there, but luckily, there it was at the back of the class folder. Pulling it out, he scanned over it to make sure it was the right one. Satisfied that it was, he grabbed his Romeo and Juliet book and walked back over to where Annabel was. 'Why don't you sit down?" he asked, placing the paper on a nearby desk, "I can go through this with you."[/size] [/ul][/ul][/blockquote] |
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Post by ANNABEL LYNNE DALE on Aug 16, 2012 0:08:44 GMT -5
Annabel shook her head. The play was pretty long, or at least she considered it to be long (since she wasn't their biggest fan) and so she didn't expect him to sit down and give her a full run-down on what every single word in the script meant. "I mean, like... I get that thou is you and all that basic stuff but some of the wording and expressions they use confuse me." It was hard to believe that this had ever been considered a normal way of writing. It sounded awfully silly to her now. She remembered doing homework for English a few times and dramatically narrating the reading to her online friends. It got a few good laughs. Maybe she should be taking her schoolwork a little more seriously but it was hard when she couldn't see it as being serious.
Belle huffed as she tried to think of how to explain herself. "I guess like... most of my problem is the way things are said... if that makes sense? Um, phrased?" Why were words so difficult? She knew what she wanted to say and what she meant but getting it across to others sometimes felt like more of an effort than anything else. "Like... I know what most of the individual words mean but sometimes they're put together all weird and stuff." She hoped that she wasn't making herself sound like an idiot or anything like that. She was pretty decent when she was dealing with modern English and modern phrases but once it started getting into more artful things like Shakespeare and poetry... yeah, that was generally what tended to trip her up.
She smiled and looked relieved. "Yeah, all right." If he was willing to help her that meant that not all hope was lost. She didn't like going to her brother about English because she knew he didn't like it much—he was really smart and he knew a lot about it but she could tell by his lack of rambling whenever he explained something for an English class that he wasn't all that into it. Science or Math? Yeah, she could definitely go to him for those. For this it was better to trust her teacher, whom she'd definitely hope was into English given that he taught it and all. She sat down when she was asked to with an, "Okay!" There were probably better ways to spend her break but ah well.
Once she was situated, she glanced over Act II and tried to find a good example of what she had meant earlier when it came to being confused by things. She twirled her finger in the air over the script for a moment, then gestured at a certain point and said, "Oh, like that!" Feeling a little silly, she reminded herself that, duh, this was the English teacher, and read, "Be not her maid, since she is envious; Her vestal livery is but sick and green. And none but fools do wear it; cast it off." She shook her head. "What does that mean? And what the f—heck is, uh..." She blinked and read over it again, "vestal livery, anyway?" All right, so she got 'thou' and 'dost' but now it was losing her.
[omg trying to dumb myself down to fit into annabel's mindset is hard xD]
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