Category: Speaking

Last Saturday, Bond To won a race at Buckmore Park. He races for the ‘Kingston Original Karting’ team (KOKS).The KOKS are racing in the British University Karting Championship.Bond To qualified 10th out of 60 in the qualifier. The KOKS chose Fernando Alexandre Moreira to start the race first. Fernando got up to 2nd before he was bumped from behind and spun out. The team dropped down to 25th and on the first half hour, George Turner swapped with Fernando and drove off. George managed to bring the team back up to 15th. On the final hour, Bond To went out on track and brought the team back to 1st. Just 2 laps from finish, Bond To spun out but he still had a 25 second gap between the next person. Bond drove on to finish the race for his team and came first. The KOKS racing team are now at 20th out of the whole championship.

On Tuesday 25th February, 27 school children were reported to have assaulted an English teacher in the London Nautical School. Samuel Crampin, a student at The London Nautical School, claimed “Mr Croome is a very annoying man and he can’t teach. He shouldn’t be able to treat us like pieces of rubbish”.Henry Ademi was revealed to have led the group during the attack. There have also been many other attacks around the country since this morning.Many teachers throughout the country are very concerned due to the increase of strange activity from the school children. Arthur Davies from Birmingham said “These children are a bad influence on our future generations”. Miss Wood claimed that Jack Croome was “not a very good teacher and he “isn’t nice to his colleagues either”.The Head of The Metropolitan Police said “Anyone who is involved will be heavily prosecuted”. Jack Croome has been relocated to St Thomas Hospital and he is reported to recover in six months.

I asked my cousin “When is your birthday?”. It is a primary source because I asked him directly and accurately.

The paragraph below is my “Step 3”.

We asked Liang-Jie when his birthday was and he replied “My birthday is on the 17th September”. He told us in person and directly. Therefore, as it is his birthday, he was born on the 17th of September 1995.

This is a very basic example of a primary source.

For my essay, I was given a question. “How does William Shakespeare explore the idea of fate in Romeo and Juliet?”

William Shakespeare explores the idea of fate in Romeo and Juliet in many ways. Fate is what predetermines what will happen in your life. The chorus in the play uses fate to decide what happens to Romeo and Juliet.  It describes them as “A pair of star-cross’d lovers” destined to “take their life”. The Elizabethan era was the beginning of the Renaissance where people began to believe in astrology which is the study of celestial bodies and how they affect human affairs and events. Shakespeare was fascinated by astrology and uses many references to it in Romeo and Juliet and also in other plays. He uses metaphor and motifs to explore fate further. He also brings up questions on whether we can blame fate for the tragic deaths of Romeo and Juliet. Fate could actually be an excuse used by the characters to excuse their irresponsible actions. Friar Lawrence is an example of this. When the letter is not sent to Romeo, he blames fate for it not getting to him. At the end of the play, he tells the Prince that it was “lamentable chance” but it was him who came up with the plan for them so is Friar Lawrence responsible for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet?

At the beginning of the play, the audience is told about what is to come in the play. It puts the audience in an almost god-like position or even fate itself as they know what is going to happen.When Romeo and Juliet end their lives, maybe it was fate making a better future for Verona because the two families stopped their feud . Maybe fate decided that Romeo and Juliet were meant to die for the greater good of Verona.

Fate is used frequently in Romeo and Juliet. It is almost as if the play is controlled by it or that’s the first impression that Shakespeare wants the audience to have. Romeo being misinformed of Juliet’s plan could have been fate itself. Shakespeare made the characters speak of fate controlling their lives. An example is when Romeo talks about how the pilot (a small ship which guides bigger ships through harbors)is fate and is guiding him through his life. When he is about to kill himself at the end of the play, he says “I defy you stars!”. That’s also a reference to astrology as fate.

Some of the characters seem to talk about what’s expected. When Romeo said “Some consequence yet hanging in the stars,” he meant that his fate is somewhere in the stars and there will be a consequence for something that he will do. Later on in the play, he is banished from Verona for killing Tybalt. During the party when Romeo and Juliet meet, Juliet says “my grave is like to be my wedding bed”. It means that if she does not have Romeo her grave will be her wedding bed.

Shakespeare used fate as excuses for his characters in his play but he might not have believed in it. Normally, if you went to see Romeo and Juliet in the theatre, you wouldn’t analyse that much. Shakespeare might’ve wanted us to analyse the play deeply so that’s why he made it seem that it’s fate but if you look deeper, then you would understand that fate is used as an excuse for the characters impulsive actions.

ROMEO:
From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
Here’s to my love!

Romeo seems to talk a lot about body parts, movement and sound. He talks about them almost as if his body is dying bit by bit. An example is the first line, “From world-wearied flesh. Eyes,look your last!”. Another example is “Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you”. I think this means that his arms and lips shall embrace Juliet for the last time.Another metaphor is the part where he is talking about the “pilot”. A pilot is a little ship that generally guides bigger ships safely around the harbour. He talks about the pilot as if it is guiding him and he has had enough of it as this is the part in the play where he kills himself. The bit where he says “bark” is him describing another type of ship. He is metaphorically saying that he is a ship and he’s being guided by a “pilot” boat.

Your task is to identify the metaphor present in the following excerpt and then write a paragraph that explains the metaphor and its effect on the meaning of the passage it is embedded in.

ROMEO:

From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
Here’s to my love!

Feel free to re-watch the presentation explaining how to identify and explain metaphor:

For the Romeo and Juliet Project choices are: The Analytic Essay, Dramatic Monologue and Film a scene.

Baz Lehrmann’s interpretation of “Romeo and Juliet” is different to the play because the setting is slightly different. In the film, it is near a beach which is one of the main settings of the film whereas in the play the setting is in Italy but it is not near the coast or beach. I think Baz used the beach as a setting because people in America (who might’ve watched the film)  might be more interested in it because it is set in a typical American beach scene.  Furthermore, he makes the film more modern by using guns instead of swords which is also another way he can hook in younger audiences (E.G. Teenagers). Baz also shows his interpretation by making the characters wear different clothes. The Montagues wear slightly more casual clothes whereas the Capulets wear suits. However in the play, they wear more medieval-like clothes. Baz used these ideas to make a more modern version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet but he also used these ideas to make an alternative to the play. However, the alternatives still have the same meanings as it does in the play. An example is the servants being replaced by TV reporters/presenters.

Hello and welcome to your personal online journal.

This platform has been created to enhance and enrich your learning at the London Nautical School. Its purpose is to provide you with an audience for your work (or work-in-progress) and you have the choice (by altering the ‘visibility’ of your posts) of whether your work on here is visible to the world, or only to your teacher.

Anything you post here in the public domain represents you and thus it’s important that you take care with that decision, but don’t be afraid to publish your work – as the feedback you may get from people at home, your peers and people from around the internet is only likely to enhance it.

Remember you can always access your class blog and all manner of resources through the Edutronic.net main website – and by all means check out the sites of your peers to see what they’re getting up to as well.

If you have any questions for me, an excellent way to get an answer is to create a new private post on this journal. I am notified of any new posts and will reply swiftly to any queries.

Make the most of, and enjoy this new freedom in your English learning.

Righto!

Mr Waugh