Response to Course Material #5

I couldn't feel more relieved than I do now that I finished annotating Hamlet. I really enjoyed reading Hamlet and annotating helped me break down the different aspects of the play, but the annotations took so long I didn't think I was going to make it. Looking back at this now, I'm definitely going to annotate more during class while we read because it makes a difference in the long run. A new thing I'm going to try is just writing down short, fragmented thoughts while reading as a class, then I'll come back to my notes and I'll focus on what I wanted to highlight add more description so I have complete thoughts. By doing this, I think I'll be able to stay more engaged with the class while still taking little notes. I thought that we spent a lot of time on Hamlet and I'm glad we were able to spend as much time on it as we did. If we sped through it, there would be no way I could catch on to the motifs and themes of Hamlet. I liked that we were able to watch the two different productions of Hamlet. This allowed us to compare how different directors were effected by Shakespeare's work. Since Shakespeare leaves several matters unclear, the audience is forced to interpret the matter differently than the person next to them. I personally liked the second movie better. I think it helped me understand the full plot of Hamlet better seeing it in action. The second movie also was more descriptive; when we were watching certain scenes the movie would help me draw the connections I was unable to or missed in the reading. While I was reading Hamlet on my own, I had discovered that the more I got into the play, the easier it was to understand and follow. I actually found myself thinking in language such as Hamlet would, it was very strange and hard to make go away!! Anyway, I really enjoyed Hamlet and now I have to focus on acing the terms test for finals, wish me luck!