SENIOR ENGLISH 243: Shakespeare
ASSIGNMENT: Every weekend throughout the year—except during designated Homework-Free weekends
and vacations—students will be expected to (a) read at least twenty-five minutes in an independent reading
book and (b) also provide page details of their reading. Three things to do after reading: (1) integrate a
quotation in a comment about the reading’s critical or personal significance; (2) continued personal, or
philosophical, response to the reading section overall (approx. 75-100 words); (3) include two recently-studied
vocabulary words into your response.
A full-credit homework grade is given if the assignment shows full effort—that is, all components, regardless of
their correctness, are earnestly completed.
Feel free to read your 25 minutes during the school week also. And feel free to read for more than 25
minutes, too; I hope you will.
a. Read 25 minutes (at least) of weekend independent reading
b. Heading that gives details of your reading.
o Your Name
o Date entry is turned in
o Book title
o Page numbers read since the last entry (during the week or weekend), with total number of pages in
parentheses
1. Integrated Quotation. Write two or three sentences in which you integrate a meaningful quotation—or
a small section from the quotation, or just a phrase—from your reading with a comment about either its
significance to your reading or your personal response to it.
2. Continued Response. Provide a short personal or philosophical response to the reading (75-100 words).
This can be an expanded discussion of your response to the specific quotation. How does the reading
touch your own experience or thinking? How is it important to you? Briefly explore a meaningful
connection.
3. Vocabulary Application. Write two sentences with two vocabulary of the three or four words that are
related to your reading. Any loose connection is fine; the goal is make meaningful use of the recentlylearned vocabulary words.
INTENSIVE (HONORS) STUDENTS
In addition to (or instead of) a choice outside reading book to be completed for each term, honors students
must read one additional play by Shakespeare.
o Term 1—histories: any one of the plays from the Henriad: Richard II; Henry IV, Part 2; or
Henry V
o
o
o
Term 2—comedies: As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or another comedy not read
before
Term 3—tragedies: Macbeth, Othello, or another tragedy not read before
Term 4—no weekend reading requirement
Term 1
1. T 9/8—nothing due
2.
T 9/15 (Rosh Hashanah—M 9/14)—have an independent reading book chosen by the end of the week
3.
Due M 9/21 (W 9/23—Yom Kippur)—Henry IV, Pt. 1—Vocab: AUSPCIOUS, BESMIRCH, DAUNTLESS (Choose any two words.)
4.
Due M 9/28—Henry IV, Pt. 1—Vocab: EQUIVOCAL/UNEQUIVOCAL, HOBNOB, PEDANTIC
5.
Due M 10/5—Henry IV, Pt. 1—Vocab: SANCTIMONIOUS, TRENCHANT, DISCOMFITING
6.
T 10/13 (Mon—Columbus Day)—Henry IV, Pt. 1—NOTHING DUE—HW-Free Weekend
7.
Due M 10/19—Henry IV, Pt. 1—Vocab: MALEVOLENT, SUPERFLUOUS, BELIE
8.
Due M 10/26—Henry IV, Pt. 1—Vocab: BOMBASTIC, CORPULENT, WANTON
9.
Due M 11/2—Sonnets—Vocab: CAPITULATE, IMPUDENT, INTRACTABLE
10. Due M 11/9 (Veterans Day—Th 11/11)—Sonnets—Special Weekend Reading—“The Things They Carried”

Vocab: PELL-MELL, ASSAY, PERNICIOUS
Term 2
11. Due M 11/16—Much Ado About Nothing—Vocab: FLOUT, OBSTINATE, MORTIFIED
12. Due M 11/23 (Thanksgiving)—Much Ado About Nothing—Vocab: MIRTH, BLITHE, OSTENTATIOUS
13. M 11/30—Much Ado About Nothing —NOTHING DUE—HW-Free Weekend
14. Due M 12/7—Twelfth Night—Vocab: MITIGATE, MALEFACTOR, FETTER
15. Due M 12/14—Twelfth Night—Vocab: DISSEMBLE, ENIGMA, SURFEIT
16. Due M 12/21—Much Ado/Twelfth Night—Vocab: PRATTLE, PRODIGAL, ABJURE
[12/24-31—DECEMBER RECESS]
17. M 1/4—NOTHING DUE Heintzelman creative writing
18. Due M 1/11—Hamlet—Vocab: NONPAREIL, PEEVISH, CHURLISH
19. Due T 1/19 (MLK Day)— Hamlet—Special Weekend Reading—MLK’s Letter from Birmingham Jail

Vocab: MELLIFLUOUS, USURP, HARROW
Term 3
20. Due M 1/25—Hamlet—Vocab: AVOUCH, EMULATE, PORTENTOUS
21. Due M 2/1—Hamlet—Vocab: HARBINGER, IMPOTENT, FILIAL
22. Due M 2/8—Hamlet—Vocab: PERSEVER, IMPIOUS, RETROGRAD
[2/15-19—WINTER VACATION (HW-Free)]
23. M 2/22—Hamlet —NOTHING DUE—HW-Free Vacation
24. Due M 2/29—King Lear—Vocab: JOCUND, TRUNCHEON, WAX/WANE, IMPORTUNE
25. Due M 3/7—King Lear (including Taoist poems)—Vocab: LIBERTINE, BEHOOVE, BEGUILE, PITEOUS
26. Due M 3/14—King Lear—Vocab: DISTEMPERED, APOPLEXED, EXTOL, DEARTH
27. Due M 3/21 (MCAS ELA testing; Good Friday)—King Lear—Vocab: AUGURY, FELICITY, OPULENT, DERIDE
28. Due M 3/28—King Lear—Vocab: CHOLERIC, MALEDICTION, CREDULOUS, CHIDE
29. Due M 4/4— King Lear—Vocab: INSOLENT, EPICURE, PENURY, ENMITY
Term 4: NO WEEKEND READING REQUIREMENT
WEEKLY INDEPENDENT READING WEEKEND ASSIGNMENT (EXAMPLE)
Alan Reinstein
9/10/12
The Other Wes Moore
Pages Read—85-107 (22 pages)
1. Integrated Quotation. The day after Wes returns to the military school after trying to run away, he
notices and appreciates the respect the younger cadets give to their nineteen-year-old Cadet Captain, Ty
Hill. Wes writes that he “had never seen a man, a peer, demand that much respect from his people” (96)
and continues that this “was real respect, the kind you can’t beat or scare out of people” (96). Here is
the moment that Wes seems to decide that he wants to be this kind of person, which reveals the
importance of a role model not only in Wes’s life, but in anyone’s.
2. Continued Response. It does make me think of just how important it is to have role models of integrity
and decency in one’s life, and I’m thinking now of the people who have guided me in my own life.
These role models can come from anywhere—from literature, art, history, as well as from personal
acquaintance. I’m thinking of how much I’ve learned from characters in books, for instance.
Sometimes I imagine how Lao Tzu, the poet and originator of Taoism, would respond to a certain
problem I might have, what advice he would likely give me.
3. Vocabulary: AUSPICIOUS, DAUNTLESS
a. Prisoner Wes’s early struggles began inauspiciously with the absence of a father.
b. Author Wes’s dauntless leap from an airplane at two-thousand feet secured my admiration for
him.