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The Renaissance: Background to Shakespeare’s World

Our Learning Goal: understand and explain some key facts about the background to Shakespeare’s world, the Renaissance, and some important Renaissance artists.

This week we have been studying some background to Shakespeare’s world.

 

  1. What does Renaissance mean, when was it, and what happened during this period?

Renaissance means “rebirth” or “revival”, and it was called that because it was focused on learning the olden ideas of Romans and Greeks. It occurred in the 15th and 16th centuries and one of the greatest English writers, Shakespeare, lived in the time.

  1. Who were the two rulers of England during Shakespeare’s time?

They were Elizabeth I and her half-nephew James VI of Scotland

  1. In which city and country did the Renaissance originally begin?

It began it Italy, in the city of Florence.

  1. We learned a bit about four famous artists of the Renaissance: Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Rafaele, and Donatello. Here is my slideshow about them, which is called 

‘Not the Ninja Turtles’:

One interesting thing about the Renaissance is that many of the artists met each other, and worked together, but there are not many collaborations between them.

I would like to find out more about the inventions of Leonardo da Vinci.

The Elizabethan World View.

Today in English we learned about how people saw and view the world in Elizabethan times (Which was

when Shakespeare lived and also the time of the Renaissance).

We learned that the Elizabethans saw the whole creation as a hierarchy, a great chain of being that had God, the creator, at the top, and non-living things such as minerals and stones at the bottom.

The Elizabethans believed that the human body was controlled by the 4 humours:

Yellow Bile(or Choler): Causes anger and irritability.

Black Bile (or Tears): Causes sadness.

Blood: Causes happiness and excitement.

Phlegm: Causes boredom.

The writers of Elizabethan times (notably Shakespeare) used the idea of the tragic flaw to expand their writing. A tragic flaw is a flaw in the personality of the character which would eventually be their downfall. For example, Macbeth’s flaw was his ambition.

Together, all these Elizabethan ideas can help us deduce the writings of Shakespeare.

Lets Talk about….. The Movie BOY!

Our goal this week, in Slice of Heaven (Humanities), was to learn about the protagonist/antagonists, characters, and themes in the film BOY by Taika Watiti. Also, we wanted to learn about the view points of the director and main character in interviews to know their motivation for acting and directing the film.

We identified the traits of the characters in the film, what things children expect from their parents and what their parents expect from their children. We also did tasks about how Rocky (Boy’s brother), and Boy uses imagination to help with their loss.

I was kind of sick on the day that we gathered into groups of 3 to discuss about how the expectations of different  groups were linked together, so I felt kind of tired. I just basically ignored it. Ms Quinn supported everyone by giving us ideas and suggestions.

Next time that we have a group discussion activity, I am looking forward to (hopefully!) not being sick and able to participate in everything fully.
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