Last week, I posted a list of my ten favorite iPhone apps. Recently, I helped my young nephews (ages 5 and 7) load up their iPod Touches with some fun apps for them. I had to do some research to find the best apps, and I’m pleased to share my experiences with the Shakespeare Teacher community.

Here, then, are my top ten recommendations for iPhone apps for kids, presented this time as a countdown:

10. Cookie Doodle ($0.99) – You can select the type of dough, roll it with a roller, choose your favorite cookie cutter, bake the cookie, and decorate it with a variety of icings and candies. In the end, you eat your cookie, of course. A similar app named More Pizza! allows you to prepare a different kind of treat.

9. MiniPiano (FREE) – This is just a single-octave piano keyboard, but probably better to allow the little one to explore this free app than on your expensive baby grand. There’s also a Drum Kit that has a free “lite” version.

8. TeachMe: Kindergarten ($0.99) – This is a great little drill-and-skill app for your youngster to practice word and number skills. Correct answers earn stickers which can be placed on provided backgrounds. There is also a version for toddlers.

7. Skee-Ball ($0.99) – Flick your finger to roll the ball up the ramp and score points in this digital version of the classic arcade game. It’s fun for kids who know the real thing. There is also an Arcade Hoops app to simulate the timed basketball shooting game.

6. SpongeBob Tickler ($1.99) – If your kids are into SpongeBob, they’ll love this opportunity to poke and prod him to hear his different catchphrases. They can also explore different underwater environments, and play some fun games they’ll find there. There’s also a Phineas and Ferb Arcade for kids who like the cartoon.

5. TappyTunes ($1.99) - Select from a variety of songs from diverse categories, such as Children’s, Classical, Devotional (contains religious imagery), Holiday, Patriotic, and Traditional. The notes are pre-programmed, but they’ll only play when you tap the screen, so timing is still in the hands of the user. I would have thought this better for the younger ones, but I spent more time playing with this app than I’m ready to admit.

4. Feed Me! (FREE) - This is a fun educational game where kids drag the correct answer to a hungry monster, who makes entertaining sounds when fed. Some of the questions require some critical thinking skills. I don’t know how long this will stay free.

3. iSteam ($0.99) – Don’t let the “Hot and Steamy Entertainment” part scare you; this app is as clean as your shower door. If you like wiping steam off of glass, this app is for you. You can even import your own photos… and then wipe steam off of them! The kids love this one.

2. Treat Street ($0.99) – Mix and match parts of Halloween costumes, and then hit the street! Pick a house, knock on the door (or ring the bell), and see what you get. Most treats are good, but every now and then a mean neighbor gives you a bug. Good treats go into the bag, where they can be sorted and moved around. The little one once spent over an hour solid on this one, laughing the whole time.

1. Scoops ($1.99) - This is a great kids game, but I’ve been having way too much fun with it myself. You have an ice cream cone, and have to tilt the device to catch scoops of ice cream as they fall. Avoid the onions and tomatoes, though, because if you catch three vegetables, you’re out. As you build your cone, you eventually slip the surly bonds of earth and can pass by the moon, Mars, Jupiter, etc., which is extra fun for planet-loving children.

Actually, my nephews’ favorite app is Monopoly, but I left it off the list because you probably already know what that is. They also enjoy the Game of Life. If there are any good board games or card games you already play with them, you might check to see if there’s an app. I also left off The Moron Test (which they love) because it was on last week’s list. I also gave them a few fun apps on the presidents. I left this off the list because I don’t know if your kids are into the presidents. But whatever they’re into, check out the App Store. There may be an app for that!

And as I was typing this list, it may have already become obsolete. The iPad, basically an iPod Touch with a larger screen, has been released. It looks pretty cool, but I doubt I will buy one. I have an iPhone and Macbook Air, so all of my mobile information needs have currently been met. But I have started to think of the device, starting at $499, as a low-cost computing option for schools. But if you’re planning to get an iPad for your family, all of the iPhone and iPod Touch apps will run on it, and the device is certain to spawn a new generation of app development. So the conversation continues…

It’s time once again to check in on what searches people have done to find themselves at Shakespeare Teacher, and to respond in the name of fun and public service. All of the following searches brought people to this site in the past week.

Probably not. Antony and Cleopatra did have three children, two boys and a girl. Cleopatra also had a child, Caesarion, from Julius Caesar. (”He plough’d her, and she cropp’d.” See how classy you sound when you quote Shakespeare?) Antony also had children from four of his wives.

After Octavius Caesar conquered Egypt (the events depicted in Shakespeare’s Antony & Cleopatra) he executed Caesarion, and gave the three children of Antony and Cleopatra to his sister Octavia. Remember (from the play) that Octavia was Antony’s last wife, so she’s now raising the children of her husband and his mistress. Little is known of the two boys, and if they had lived to adulthood, they would probably have been mentioned in sources of the time because of their parentage. It is possible they may have secretly been killed to avoid a later challenge to Octavius. But it’s also possible that they lived on and had children of their own. There’s no way to know.

The daughter of Antony and Cleopatra, named Cleopatra Selene, was married to an African king, and they had – at least – great grandchildren. Zenobia, a third century Syrian queen, claimed to be descended from this line. So it’s certainly possible that the descendants of Antony and Cleopatra are among us today. And if so, the opportunities to multiply between the 1st century and the 15th century would be massive. Therefore, we cannot rule out definitively that the Tudors are descended from Antony and Cleopatra. But could they know this for sure, let alone trace it? No. Those 1400 years weren’t exactly known for their record keeping, and there is too much motivation for people to invent a famous lineage along the way.

Margaret Tudor was Henry VIII’s older sister. She married James IV of Scotland in 1503, and a hundred years later, her great-grandson would become King of England (after Henry VIII’s line died out).

However, if you are asking about the character played by Gabrielle Anwar in The Tudors, you’re really looking for younger sister Mary Tudor. Another Mary would have probably been too confusing, so they conflated the two women into one character. Mary Tudor was the one who married an aging king only to be widowed three months later. Mary was the one who married Charles Brandon. I’ve only seen the first season of the show, so I don’t know what the character would later become, but in the first season, Margaret’s story is that of Mary Tudor.

Shakespeare had a lot of plots that centered around practical jokes. Often, they would blur the line between harmless prank and vicious revenge, but you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, am I right? Without any further ado, then, is my Top Ten list of Shakespearean pranks. Drum roll, please!

10. The Merry Wives of Windsor – I’m not a fan of this play, and I’m loathe to include it on the list of Top Ten anything. But a list of Shakespearean pranks would be incomplete without it, so here it is at #10. Suffice it to say, there are a number of pranks in this play. I’d list them, but I can’t be bothered.

9. Henry IV, Part Two – Hal and Poins disguise themselves as drawers and listen in on Falstaff’s bragging. They reveal themselves, but not before Falstaff has a chance to badmouth the Prince behind his back. The fun comes when Falstaff tries to talk his way out of it.

8. Measure for Measure – The “bed trick” and the “head trick” are serious deceptions and can hardly be considered a prank. But what about what I like to call the “fled trick”? The Duke pretends to leave Vienna, but instead stays back disguised as a friar. I guess the joke’s on Angelo. Busted!

7. Twelfth Night – Malvolio, imprisoned in darkness, recieves a visit from Sir Topas the curate. Actually, it’s Feste the jester disguising his voice. Playing both parts, Feste drives the supposed madman one step closer to real madness.

6. Much Ado about Nothing – Beatrice and Benedick’s merry war takes a surprising turn when their friends allow them to overhear conversations to make each believe the other is in love. The prank becomes self-fulfilling. “Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.”

5. Henry IV, Part One – Hal and Poins pretend to go along with Falstaff’s plan to rob some travellers. But they enter in disguise after the fact and rob the robbers! They reveal their prank after Falstaff has been boasting about his encounter with the unknown thieves.

4. The Tempest – Prospero uses his magic to get revenge on those who have wronged him. But the havoc only lasts the afternoon and there’s no real damage done. The whole play is one big prank.

3. A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Puck changes Bottom into an ass. And Titania, having been spiked with a love potion by Oberon, falls in love with the creature. Hilarity ensues.

2. Twelfth Night – Maria forges a letter from Olivia to Malvolio, hinting that she is in love with him. Toby, Andrew, and Fabian spy on Malvolio as he reads the letter, which tells him to come to her in an outlandish manner… and he does.

1. Othello – Iago tricks Othello into believing that his wife has been unfaithful, so he kills her. Not really a prank, you say? Check out this video.

There are a lot of good monologues for men from King Lear. To start with, you can find monologues from Lear here, from Edmund here, and Edgar here. The female characters in the play have some great speeches, but nothing I would particularly pull out as a monologue.

You may be looking for Shakespeare: The Animated Tales, a series of half-hour condensed animated versions of Shakespeare plays. But I’ve also done a lot of work with students creating animated versions of Macbeth, As You Like It, and The Tempest. And since this is Shakespeare Teacher, I’ll offer some information about how to do it.

When I did these animation projects, the students did the artwork in HyperStudio, they recorded the sound in SoundEffects, and they aligned the two in iMovie. It was frame-by-frame, which is time consuming, but HyperStudio had a card-and-stack interface that made it go much more quickly. That was quite a few years ago, though, and I do mostly video projects now. I don’t know if HyperStudio is even still around, and people use Audacity for sound recordings today. iMovie is still the best game in town if you want to coordinate frame animation.

I know a lot of people who like to use the website Scratch for student animations. The one problem with Scratch is that you can only view the animations from the Scratch website. You cannot download the movie file and post it to YouTube.

I’ve heard, particularly from Shakespeare teachers, a lot of enthusiasm surrounding Kar2ouche. I looked at it once, a long time ago, and I dismissed it because there are a lot of pre-made templates, and I wanted my students to visually interpret the characters themselves. But time being a factor, I would probably recommend it, and I’ve seen some Shakespeare projects that look really sharp. Every so often, someone asks me if I’ve heard of Kar2ouche.

Of course, if your kids are into Second Life, there has been some animated Shakespeare coming from that quarter as well. There is also stop motion photography, which can be done with a digital camera, iMovie, and a lot of patience.

I can interpret this in four ways:

1. Was Queen Elizabeth the illegitimate child of Shakespeare?
2. Was Queen Elizabeth’s illegitimate child Shakespeare?
3. Did Queen Elizabeth’s illegitimate child actually write the plays of Shakespeare?
4. Was Queen Elizabeth an illegitimate child according to Shakespeare?

Elizabeth was older than Shakespeare, so #1 is a clear No. I don’t know of any illegitimate children of Elizabeth. This seems to me to be something easier for a king to pull off than a queen. If she had gone through a pregnancy, I doubt she’d have kept the nickname “the Virgin Queen” for very long. So we can answer a No for #2 and #3 as well.

As for whether Elizabeth herself was illegitimate, that’s a fair question. It all depends on how legitimate you consider the annulment of Henry VIII and his first wife. But Shakespeare certainly wouldn’t have painted her as illegitimate. When she was alive, he wrote plays that glorified her ancestors, and long after she died, his play Henry VIII treated her birth as a moment of great hope for the future of England.

So I’m not sure what you’re asking, but the answer is probably No.

I leave the task of responding to the remaining search terms to my readers:

I’ve noticed a lot of people I know have new iPhones lately, possibly because of the holidays. The iPhone is a fantastic device right out of the box: a phone, an iPod, a web browser, a voice recorder… what more could you want? Well, there’s plenty more you could want, and you can get quite a bit of it at the App Store online.

The iPhone is basically a mini-computer, and a computer’s nothing without software. I’ve been making the same set of recommendations to my friends, and I’m pleased to share them with the Shakespeare Teacher community.

And if you’re one of those “I don’t pay for apps” people, you really need to get over that. The ten apps I am recommending total less than sixteen dollars. If you think of the hundreds of dollars you paid for your iPhone, the marginal cost of upgrading it with a few apps is laughable.

These are listed in the order they appear on my iPhone:

1. Gorillacam (FREE) – Gives you a range of additional options when taking pictures with the iPhone. My favorite feature is that you can make the whole screen the camera button, so you don’t have to find that little button while you’re trying to catch the baby’s attention.

2. AppBox Pro ($0.99) – A collection of useful utilities, including a currency exchange calculator, random number generator, unit exchange calculator, and even a translator!

3. RedLaser ($1.99) – Use the camera to scan a barcode, and compare prices for the product online. I mostly use this to capture book titles when someone shows me something that looks good, as the results remain saved in memory.

4. Unblock Me ($0.99) – There are a number of iPhone apps in the “Rush Hour” family of sliding block games. This is a good one, because it has a lot of levels, so if you get hooked, it will last you a long time. There is also a FREE version if you want to try before you buy. I also like Blocked and Parking Lot, which are basically the exact same game.

5. Electric Box ($1.99) – This is my hands-down favorite game on the iPhone. You have to use a combination of logic and insight to place a variety of components on a grid to carry electricity from a power source to the Electric Box. It’s a very fun, addictive puzzle game.

6. Phase 10 ($2.99) - This is a card game, kind of a cross between Uno and Gin Rummy. I resisted the buzz on this one for a long time, but now that I have it I CANNOT STOP playing it.

7. 200 Great Books ($1.99) - If you want to read on your iPhone, this is a really convenient way to carry around a library of the classics. The interface allows you to change the font, size, and color of the text, and to auto-scroll, and tilt the device to adjust the speed! (There is also a Kindle reader for the iPhone if that’s more to your liking.)

8. U.S. Historical Documents ($0.99) – An amazing collection of U.S. Historical Documents for your browsing pleasure.

9. MyPhone+ for Facebook ($2.99) – You can sync your phone contacts with your Facebook friends. The most fun part of this is that when one of my Facebook friends calls me (if he or she is already in my address book), the Facebook photo comes up on my screen! (There now seem to be cheaper alternatives to do this, but this is what I have.)

10. The Moron Test ($0.99) - This is very silly, but a lot of fun. Follow the directions, but watch out for tricks. The latest version includes three different tests.

For this list, I avoided the official apps for well-known Internet services like Google, Wikipedia and Facebook, since you probably already know if you want them. And you’ll probably notice the Readdle Shakespeare app is not listed above. This is a fantastic app, but not everyone is a Shakespeare fan, so it’s not usually one of the apps I recommend. But if you do love Shakespeare, you should have this. There is also a new paid upgrade, which I’m planning to get. Among other features, it links specific words to a Shakespearean glossary. It looks great, but I haven’t used it, so I can’t recommend it yet. Stay tuned, loyal readers.

The recent discussion about teaching information literacy skills on this post got me thinking about how our students would evaluate different sources of information. I’d like to do a version of this exercise, but with our students in mind.

I will list ten sources that a high school student might encounter, and I’d like you to consider their relative reliability on the topic of, let’s say, the American civil rights movement. That is, if a high school student received conflicting information from two of these sources, which source should be given the greater weight?

A. A 2010 high-school American history textbook.

B. A book on the American civil rights movement from the public library, published in 1991.

C. A high-school commencement speech, given by a well-known community activist.

D. A high-school English teacher who has been teaching American literature for twenty years.

E. A high-school social studies teacher who has been teaching American history for six years.

F. A television interview with a university history professor, who specializes in European history from 1700 to the present.

G. A website on American history maintained by a college junior majoring in American history, with a professional-looking design, well-organized information, and a straightforward writing style.

H. A website on American history maintained by a graduate student majoring in American history, with little in the way of graphic design or organization, but with well-written and insightful text.

I. A website on civil rights maintained by a well-known citizen activist organization.

J. A Wikipedia entry with no controversy alerts.

Once again, I have lettered them instead of numbering them because you may wish to rank some or all of these ten sources in order from most reliable to least reliable.

And I do realize that it may not even be possible to definitively rank these sources (especially since my sources are much vaguer than they were last time), but the exercise might help structure your thinking about what reliability means to a teenager, who may not always be encouraged to question what has been presented as authority. Whether you post your rankings or not, your contribution to the discussion is welcome.

And I’ll get the ball rolling by saying that I think Wikipedia gets a bad rap. Yes, you can certainly list incorrect information that has been found on the website, either through honest mistakes or the deliberate promoting of an agenda. But can you show me which of the other nine items on the list above doesn’t suffer from the same problem? With that said…

Where can high school students find reliable information?

It’s been a turbulent year, and there hasn’t always been time for blogging, but I would like to finish out 2009 with a quick listing of my ten favorite posts (and the discussions that followed them) of the last twelve months. Enjoy, and I’ll be back in 2010!

1. Conundrum: The Big Picture (July 28)

2. Arrested Development: A Freudian Analysis (October 16)

3. Word of the Week: Community (March 18)

4. Augusto Boal (1931-2009) (May 3)

5. Othello Prank’d (June 23)

6. Did You Know – Three Point Oh (May 13)

7. Good Questions (May 5)

8. Question of the Week (May 4)

9. Conundrum: Shakespeare Invites (May 26)

10. Your Move: Thursday Morning Riddle (February 19)

The word of the week is community.

It’s a word I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, as I’ve been doing a lot of leaning on my own community over the past few weeks. I’ve also been thinking about how new technologies and changes in society affect our idea of community.

Today is Wednesday. Since last Wednesday, I…

• attended a Bris for my cousin’s son.
• ended my 30-day mourning period for my mother.
• participated in a live reading of The Comedy of Errors with a group I found online.
• reconnected via e-mail with a close childhood friend I lost touch with 15 years ago.
• participated in a learning community seminar about 21rst century schools with my work colleagues.
• was called for an aliyah at the Bar Mitzvah of another cousin’s son.
• visited my sister in the hospital and held my 10-hour-old niece.
• conducted a day-long data workshop that helped a school identify a pervasive student learning problem.
• began teaching The Merchant of Venice to an 8th-grade class who will be creating a video project based on the play.
• joined Facebook.
• was invited to present at a conference at the Folger on teaching Shakespeare in the elementary school.
• participated in a webinar, cosponsored by the Folger and PBS, that brought together 176 Shakespeare teachers from across the country.

Traditional community structures such as family, school, religion, and professional networks are supplemented and even augmented (though never replaced) by technology and an increased focus on interconnectivity and collaboration. What I learned this week, though, is that there’s no substitute for being there in person.

Welcome to the world, Elena. You have big shoes to fill.

I’ve decided to celebrate the end of 2008 here at Shakespeare Teacher by selecting my favorite post from each of the last twelve months.

Enjoy!

January: Question of the Week

The question was simple: “Who is today’s Shakespeare?” The answer was not so simple, but led to one of the most interesting discussions the blog has ever seen. Aaron Sorkin, David Mamet, Joss Whedon, Steven King, and Bob Dylan all got their day in court, but can there ever really be another?

February: Hey Nineteen

This was a short month that was shorter on posts, but I did enjoy this one. President Bush’s approval rating had dropped to an embarrassing 19%. An old Trident ad once boasted that four out of five dentists recommended sugarless gum. Bush was less popular than sugared gum among dentists.

March: Bad Clue

Due to my obsessive Shakespeare pedantry, I noticed an error in a Jeopardy! clue. It did not affect the outcome of the game, but I was happy to see the error noted in the J! archive, using the identical wording I used in the blog (which I had also posted to the Ken Jennings message board).

April: Shakespeare 24

Riffing on the title of a global Shakespeare event, I put together an hour-by-hour plot summary of a fictional season of 24, using Shakespeare plots, characters, and devices. If you know both sources, it’s pretty funny. A later attempt at a Greek Tragedy 24 was too “on the nose” to really be funny.

May: Shakespeare Anagram: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

In the last act, Theseus is asked to choose a play from among four choices. I did an anagram for each of the four play titles looking for secret messages, and lo and behold, there was a message in each of them claiming authorship for Sir Francis Bacon. A later anagram clarified that it was all just a dream.

June: Pic Tac Toe in 3D, Part IV

It’s not easy fitting 49 themes neatly in a puzzle, and I’ve often had to rely on some weak connections to make it work. This was the first 3D puzzle where I felt that all 49 themes were strong and interesting. And based on the 70 comments in the thread, the puzzle was a hit with solvers as well.

July: Shakespeare Anagram: Hamlet

This is far and away my favorite of all of the anagrams on the site. I took five of Hamlet’s most famous speeches and adapted each of them to be a perfect anagram of the first 14 lines of the “To be or not to be” speech. Links to the originals are included, so readers can see how close I was able to come.

August: Thursday Morning Riddle: Special Edition

The blog’s 100th riddle had a self-referential answer: 100. Neel both solved the riddle and guessed the meaning. In the comments, I promised “Next week: Riddle 101!”, meaning that it would be the 101st riddle. But when the time came, I couldn’t resist, and the answer to the following riddle was 101!

September: Shakespeare Anagram: Henry VIII

In celebration of Shakespeare’s pro-Tudor slant on history, I took the unlikely speech in Henry VIII where Henry reacts to the birth of his daughter Elizabeth, and anagrammed it into something much closer to what he actually would have said. Something about this one really tickles me.

October: Shakespeare Anagram: Henry IV, Part Two

There’s not much to choose from in October, but I was pleased with this anagram. Henry IV is giving advice to his son about how to conduct himself in the next administration, and the anagram is about an interview with five former Secretaries of State, giving advice to Obama.

November: Top Ten Reasons to Vote

I made a commitment to post every day in November, so there’s a lot to choose from, but I think I’m proudest of this one. Did I convince anyone to vote who wasn’t going to already? Probably not. But I think for those of us who do vote, the post was a nice reminder about why we do. It was for me.

December: Shakespeare Lipogram: Hamlet

I had so much fun with the lipogram experiment! The Hamlet lipogram wasn’t the most difficult (Measure for Measure was), but I spent more time on it than any of the others. It’s just not Hamlet without the speeches, and adapting those took a little extra effort. But it was a labor of love.

Happy New Year!

I know, voting can be a hassle. And it really won’t make much of a difference anyway, right?

But here are ten reasons you may want to consider showing up and making your voice heard on Election Day.

10. Because It’s a Ritual

You may not be personally deciding who the next president is going to be, but taking part in the process is a ritual that has more than symbolic value. When you personally go to the polls and perform the physical act of voting, you are establishing yourself as a member of a democratic society who has an investment in the outcome. Complaining is passive; voting is active.

9. To Create a Personal Narrative

Your voting patterns over the years can form a personal history. Were you a Reagan Democrat? Did you support Perot in 1992? I still remember that, two months after I turned eighteen, I participated in my first election. I strutted into the voting booth, and proudly cast my ballot for Michael Dukakis. That’s not a good example, but I think we understand each other.

8. Because You Never Know

In 2000, the final count in the Florida election put Bush ahead by just 537 votes. This decided the election. Your state’s presidential pick may be a foregone conclusion, but there are plenty of down-ticket races where you just might make a difference. The League of Women Voters has more examples of close races.

7. Because They Don’t Want You To Vote

In this case, “They” describes the people who have the polar opposite views as you do. They disagree with you on every major issue. They would take the country – in your opinion – in the absolute wrong direction. And they hate you. They don’t want you to vote. They have invested considerable time and resources into discouraging you to vote. Drive them mad.

6. To Represent

In the post-election analysis, pundits who suddenly have a lot of time on their hands will be breaking down the data from the election to see which demographic groups had the greatest impact. The interests of those groups will be of great interest to politicians moving forward. Just ask a soccer mom. By turning out and representing your demographic, you increase the visibility of your group and its needs.

5. For a Sense of Community

They say that all politics is local, and that always makes me think of Election Day. My polling place is an elementary school gymnasium. When I arrive, there is a bake sale in progress to raise money for the school. Elderly volunteers kindly direct me to my district’s section of the gym. And when it’s my turn, I vote. I may be alone in the booth, but we’re all in this together. I always purchase a snack on my way out – it’s for a good cause.

4. To Qualify for Jury Duty

Okay, now that’s just crazy. Isn’t that a reason not to vote? No, jury duty is every bit as much of a civic duty as voting. Sure, it can be a drag. So is paying taxes, but we do it because of what we get in return. If my house is on fire, someone will come and put it out. That’s awesome! Think of jury duty as a government tax on your time. What do you get in return? You get to live in a country where, if you get arrested, you get to be judged by a jury of your peers, not the guy who arrested you. That’s awesome!

3. To Be a Part of History

One way or another, we’re going to make history tomorrow, whether we elect a black president or a female vice president. You don’t want to be able to tell your grandchildren that you voted in that election? You don’t want to be a part of that moment in time? When the results are announced, and the numbers are tallied, you don’t want to be counted among them? I think you do.

2. Because People Have Fought and Even Died For It

That one pretty much speaks for itself. People fighting for the right to vote didn’t consider it trivial. Blacks got the right to vote in 1870. Women got the right to vote in 1920. In 1971, during the Vietnam War, the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18. The reasoning was that a citizen who is old enough to be drafted to fight for the country is old enough to vote for the people who make the decisions about war. Voting is important.

1. Because Democracy is about You

The idea behind our democracy is rule by the people. There is no special class of citizens who make the decisions for the rest of us. It’s up to each of us to take part in our democracy. That’s the only way it works. It’s this incredible experiment where a people stood up and said they didn’t need a king and that they could govern themselves. When we become apathetic about that enormous responsibility, we allow the country to be taken over by interests other than our own. Voting is not only our right as citizens; it is a solemn duty.

The system is far from perfect, and you may not fully buy into all of the reasons I’ve presented. Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all of the others. So vote for whatever reason you want. Vote to get the little sticker that says “I Voted”. Indeed, it is a powerful statement.

I’m always curious to see what search terms bring people to this site. Here is a list of all of the search terms that brought people here yesterday:

how shakespeare demonstrated “religion” in his plays
presidents with the letter y in their name
king henry viii shakespeare for children
who are the present day descendants of ann boleyn
king henry the eighth for kids
modern day descendants of henry the eighth
free shakespeare for kids
shakespeare did math
math – coins – line drawings of
saddam hussein vs. iago
textual analysis of elizabath i letter to king james vi
what play of shakespeare hads the word shyster in it?
characterize ophelia in act 3 scene 1
open-ended question of the week
who am i riddles
music tech teacher.com’
shakespeare class distinction “as you like it”
sir francis bacon blog

The word “shyster” does not appear in Shakespeare. There is a character named Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, and a popular anti-lawyer quote in Henry VI, Part Two.

Several United States presidents have had the letter Y in their names. First name: Ulysses S. Grant, Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter; Last name: John Tyler, Rutherford B. Hayes, William McKinley, John F. Kennedy; First and Last Name: Zachary Taylor; Commonly Used Middle Name: John Quincy Adams, William Henry Harrison.

As for the Ophelia thing, do your own homework.

In addition to the websites recommended earlier, here are a few more Shakespeare resources you may enjoy:

In Search of Shakespeare: The companion website to the PBS series also includes a resource page for educators.

Shakespeare Defined: A resource for looking up definitions of words in Shakespeare.

Shakespeare Resources: A Shakespeare portal by a professor in Tennessee.