I forgot how much I laugh at the end of the year when we read A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
At first the kids are nervous, thinking it is going to be hard. But then these things happen:
- we write skits in Elizabethan English and two naughty boys perform “A Midsummer Night’s Endgame”
- they start adding eth to almost everything and I hear words like “noeth” and “oofeth” in the locker room, and I can’t help but laugh
- they laugh at words like “nosegay”, “bosom”, “virgin”
- our tableaux aren’t true tableaux because Lysander and Hermia can’t stop their shoulders from shaking in mirth as he cups her face and looks longing into her eyes
- the look of terror in Hermia’s eyes as she realizes she is about to say “O, hell” in class and the twinkle that lingers there afterwards
Next week we will write Shakespearean insults. I can hardly wait.
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