Sunday, November 4, 2012

hamlet essay

Using what you've learned about Hamlet the character and Hamlet the play, evaluate the impact of performative utterance on Hamlet and your own sense of self. How does the way Hamlet speaks constitute action in itself? How does it impact the characters and the plot? How does this compare with your own "self-overhearing"? How does the way you reflect on your experience create a sense of memory, expectation, and real-world results? Use the text, your reading/lecture notes, the experience of memorizing the "To be, or not to be" soliloquy, de Boer's paper (and Bloom's/Austin's theoretical frameworks), and the many online and offline discussions we've had.

Please comment to this post by COB Monday 11.5 with any questions/ideas about the topic and ways to write about it. Please bring a hard copy (typed or handwritten) to class on Tuesday, 11.6.

38 comments:

  1. 1) What do you mean by "your own sense of self"?
    2) We're not summarizing anything correct? We're simply writing a 5(+) paragraph essay with everything you requested and cited notations?

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    1. How does the way you talk to yourself and to others shape your idea of who you are?

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    2. Re: question #2 you are correct. As the AP exam implores in an overwhelming majority of essay prompts, "Avoid summary."

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    3. Can u explain performative utterance?

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    4. You can see my explanation-- and the explanation of the author who wrote the paper-- in comments to this post for last year's class:

      http://drprestonsrhsenglitcomp.blogspot.com/2011/10/october-26.html

      Feel free to cut and paste anything from there to here if you think it will help your colleagues.

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  2. Do you want us to answer all these questions or?

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  3. What experience are you referring to?

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  4. What I got from the discussion today in class:
    - Iliana said that performative utterance is something along the lines of the act of saying something which then becomes reality because saying therefore means doing.
    - Amanda helped Pablo and I understand that our sense of self is how you view yourself compared to Hamlet
    - The way Hamlet speaks is his dialect ie. Hamlet acting mad is an action in itself.

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  5. Now when you say "when Hamlet speaks to himself" can you also be referring not only to dialect but rather him 'speaking through his actions' as well? Or is this purely verbal?

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  6. I've found that the way I remember something always affects my attitude towards it. I could probably start there, and go into other examples. That's how I'll start, I hope it helps.

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  7. I'm somewhat stuck on how I want to start this essay... I'm not quite sure whether to focus more on Hamlet or equally elaborate on how performative utterance effects me...

    Alex's comment actually helped me and I have a few ideas and examples but I'm still having troubles on how to start it... haha

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  8. Alex's comment helped me write my whole essay, which is crap btw. I need to work on my essay writing skills...

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    1. This isn't an easy assignment and we won't treat this draft as "one and done," so start thinking about the skills that make one essay crap and another literature. We'll compare notes after I read.

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  9. Does Hamlet ever figure out who he is? I don't think he ever really accomplishes his goal of self-awareness but he dies with this peace of mind knowing he is in fait's hands and he has finally taken action even though it wasn't necessarily his choice.

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  10. I wasn't here today so If someone could recap the discussions we had in class that would be great...

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  11. I found out from the Socratic seminar more about performative utterance. we also went over Hamlet. We also talked about the nature of the blog. we talked about what to say on the essay. we talked about the course in general too.

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  12. I found out we had an essay due for the most part...also tips and ways to help improve my blog and to stay more informed about assignments as they are posted.

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  13. What do you mean by "self-overhearing?"

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    1. From de Boer's essay (p.3):

      "The question which Bloom leaves unexplored, and which is tantalizing, is whether this is an act of self-revelation-- if there is some "real self" which is revealed through self-overhearing-- or if this is an act of self-creation, if the characters define themselves with their utterances and then, through self-overhearing, come to believe in the authenticity of these created selves."

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  14. I recorded 3rd periods Socratic seminar on tonight's essay topic, however unfortunately I'm having trouble with uploading it. Because it was such a long video it's taking a while to download, 2 hours to be specific. Sorry for the delay I'll have it posted to my blog asap.

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  15. I wasn't sure on what to emphasize in my essay but I put a rough draft up on my blog

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  16. The essay is pretty straight forward, if you read the "performative utterance" of course

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  17. I am grouping as follows:
    Using what you've learned about Hamlet the character and Hamlet the play, evaluate the impact of performative utterance on Hamlet and your own sense of self.

    How does the way Hamlet speaks constitute action in itself? How does it impact the characters and the plot?

    How does this compare with your own "self-overhearing"? How does the way you reflect on your experience create a sense of memory, expectation, and real-world results?

    Throughout:Use the text, your reading/lecture notes, the experience of memorizing the "To be, or not to be" soliloquy, de Boer's paper (and Bloom's/Austin's theoretical frameworks), and the many online and offline discussions we've had.

    I'm going to focus more on my experiences and relate them to Hamlet, not the other way around.

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    Replies
    1. I actually really like your idea...I've been thinking of how I am going to start my essay and you just gave me my inspiration. Thank you for that :)

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    2. I did the same thing you did, but I separated all the questions and took notes on each question.

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  18. I took a video of zero period's socratic seminar and it is up on my blog. So, check it out...

    http://jthompsonrhsenglitcomp.blogspot.com/2012/11/socratic-seminar.html

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  19. With Michelle's help and my zero period, I was able to comprehend the essay topic.

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  20. Are we working on a rough draft for tomorrow? Because I have so many questions to ask on how to start this essay and make it cohesively flow without having to write a ten page essay. Everyone's input on how they wrote it is helpful, but I'm not necessarily understanding this multi questioned prompt and how to make it into one essay that is what we call "Preston Worthy."

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  21. A few key points I was able to get down from third period's discussion:
    -Hamlet never made a promise to avenge King Hamlet; he needed something concrete to solidify his plan
    -a tragedy typically involves some plan getting disrupted (Hamlet's revenge, Romeo and Juliet's elopement)
    -Performative utterance essentially refers to the physical effect of spoken words on character, intention, or the general environment

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    Replies
    1. This was helpful, you mentioned things our zero period class didn't. Thank you!

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  22. -A point that stood out the most to me was the fact that Hamlet never directly guarabteed he would get revenge in honor of his father.
    -Alex took control of the seminar (shocker) and really helped us all in what performative utterance really is.
    -From the semimar, I learned that saying is doing when it comes to performative utterance.

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