Over the summer I’d like you to study the 15 sonnets by Shakespeare that we will be reading as the first of our Part 4 works.
1. Please go to my public folder, here—
http://public.me.com/ericmacknight
— and download the three documents concerning Shakespeare’s sonnets: an introduction to the sonnet, the 15 sonnets you will be responsible for, and a set of 20 questions about them for you to answer in writing over the summer holiday. The path is
Handouts / IB English A1 / Shakespeare’s Sonnets.
Please submit your answers to the 20 questions as a post on this blog, marked with the category ‘Sonnets’.
Before you can post to this blog, you will have to send me an email message (ericmacknight AT mac DOT com) so that I can enrol you as a contributor.
We will use the sonnets as an opportunity to practice literary commentaries, both written and oral, as commentaries count for 40% of your final grade for the course; and to practice comparison-contrast essays, which you will need for World Lit Assignment 1 and Paper 2 on your IB exams. It’s very important that you complete your answers to the 20 questions and post them to this blog before the 2010-11 school year begins.
2. Please look up and learn the meanings of the following poetic terms:
- sonnet, English and Italian
- scansion / metre
- iambic pentameter
- blank verse
- trochee
- dactyl
- anapest
- tetrameter
- trimeter
- prose vs. poetry
- stanza
- couplet
- triplet
- quatrain
- sestet
- octave
- alliteration
- assonance
- consonance
- half-rhyme / slant rhyme / off-rhyme
- eye rhyme
If you have any questions or problems with this assignment, leave a comment on this post and I will respond to it.
Cheers,
etm
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