Kiss my oxlips

Kiss my oxlips.

Day 2 of Ludwig’s book and right now my goal is just to have my son memorize the Mid-summer recitation (my project is only two weeks long, then I teach summer school). Ludwig proposes that by the end of the book, readers will be able to recite 25 excerpts from Shakespeare. (After the work it’s taken to have Emery memorize just the first two lines

Here’s a reconstructed conversation we had in the car this afternoon.

Him: “Where oxlips and the nodding violets grow . . .”

Me: “it’s one violet, so grows rhymes with blows” I say in the hope that the grammar rule will help him.

Him: “nodding violet grows”

Me: (hands him a mint for reciting all two  lines correctly three times in a row).

And if my husband keeps mentioning Pearl Buck (long story), I’ll give up by the end of the week.

On the positive side, we did enjoy discussing the imagery of the scene and the upcoming events in the play. Ludwig does a good job of providing the adult with helpful language.

Now, being an educator, I know the importance of pre-assessment in differentiating instruction for students. Therefore, I told my son that we were going learn about Shakespeare this summer and I asked my son what he knew about Shakespeare.

1.    He held out his hand and asked if he was going to be able to speak to the head of Billy Bones (my husband thought he was recalling the character from Treasure Island which we read together a couple of years ago), but he was thinking about the name he gave his skeleton last year for Halloween.

2.    He summarized Romeo and Juliet for me “two people meet, fall in love, and then die.”

3.    He then asked me if the play we were going to read was sad.

So, he got the love and death part right—won’t he be surprised with the supernatural element that rounds out the Shakespearian triad? So, basically based on this evidence, I need to convince him that all of Shakespeare’s plays are not about death, but maybe they are. He couldn’t quote any lines (surely, he’s seen Spongebob cite the infamous “to be or not to be?) or give any information about Shakespeare the person, so this is a good start.

I was hoping he would remember the performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream we saw two years ago (complete with construction workers and puppets) in a park in Brooklyn (performed by PLG Arts http://www.plgarts.org/daydream.htm—alas he did not. I swear he enjoyed it. 

Emery’s comment :I named Billy bones AFTER the guy from Treasure Island! And I sort of remembered the play thy just needed to think about it!