Click on the link below and you will see the video for Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” on YouTube.

Rick Astley Video

Did you do it? You’ve been Rickrolled, sucka!

Happy April Fools Day.

UPDATE: Okay, I’m told that you’re not supposed to tell someone that you’re Rickrolling them. So click the “Rick Astley Video” link above, but pretend like you don’t know what it’s going to be. (But it really is the Rick Astley video.)

Did you do it? You’ve been Rickrolled, sucka!

Via the Shakespeare Geek, we learn of a production of Hamlet being performed in Second Life:

This has been another installment of Things Shakespeare Could Not Possibly Have Anticipated.

My nephew’s drawing made the local newspaper today.

I’m really impressed by the juxtaposition of the different objects in the picture. This is a kid who likes to make maps, which apparently stimulates spatial thinking, so maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise.

Bing Miller put me on his meme list, which is kind of like the blog version of a chain letter.

Post a picture or make/take/create your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about and give your picture a short title.
Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.
Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network

So I’ve thought about it, and I decided to go with this image of the Globe theatre stage.

Totus Mundus Agit Histrionem

I want my students to understand that they can be performers in the world and not just audience members. I want them to understand that they can write things that affect other people. I want them to know they can have a voice in the world. I want them to learn that they way things are now isn’t the way things have always been, so they can understand that things don’t always have to be the way they are now.

My title is “Totus Mundus Agit Histrionem.” All the world’s a stage.

I invite Benjamin, Kenneth, Lee, Mike, and Ro to continue the conversation if it would please them to do so.

So I started Cymbeline with the 8th grade class today. I posted a request for suggestions yesterday, but the answer was staring right back at me from the post itself. Show the students the Taming of the Shrew video that the 11th grade students made.

We did a basic K/W/L activity on Shakespeare and the teacher was so impressed by her students’ prior knowledge that she decided to let the students choose the play. But they didn’t really know very many plays, though one student remarked that Romeo and Juliet was “so played out.”

I showed them the Shrew video, and invited them to discuss at their tables how they would do the project differently. They came up with some great ideas, and earnest critiques of the project. They also decided that they wanted to do The Taming of the Shrew. Yeah, because Romeo and Juliet is “so played out.”

We discussed some other plays, including As You Like It and Othello, which seemed to be strong contenders. One of the students asked about Cymbeline, and the teacher gave a brief description of the opening situation with Imogen, Cymbeline, Posthumous, Cloten, and the wicked Queen. I talked about how Iachimo bet Postumous that he could seduce his wife. The teacher described with some detail how Iachimo was able to “win” his bet, as it slowly dawned on me why we don’t teach this play. Still, it’s Shakespeare, and we’re totally going to get away with it. I described the beheading of Cloten, and now all the students want to do Cymbeline.

So we ended up where we started on the play, but at least the students now have ownership of the choice. I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with it.

UPDATE: The project has been completed.

I’m starting to work with a new 8th grade class tomorrow on Shakespeare’s Cymbeline. Ultimately, we’re planning to do a video mockumentary – kind of like a fake reality show set in the world of the play. I did a similar project with 11th grade students on The Taming of the Shrew and it was very successful.

Cymbeline is a play I think is underrated, and I’m thrilled the teacher chose this play. But I’ve never taught it before!

Any suggestions?

By now, you’ve probably seen the “Yes We Can” video, but I found it inspiring and wanted to post it here anyway. Enjoy!

And if you thought that one was inspiring, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet:

In a normal “Pic Tac Toe” puzzle, there are nine pictures in a 3×3 grid, like Tic-Tac-Toe. In each of the three rows, three columns, and two diagonals, there is a common theme that unites the three pictures. The challenge is to find the eight themes.

In this “Pic Tac Toe” puzzle, however, there are twenty-seven pictures in a 3×3x3 grid, like a Rubik’s Cube. In each of the nine rows, nine columns, nine pillars, eighteen lateral diagonals, and four cross-cube diagonals, there is a common theme that unites the three pictures. The challenge is to find the forty-nine themes.

Imagine stacking the three levels below on top of one another. For reference, and notation guidelines, check out my last 3D Pic Tac Toe, including the comments. The rules here are identical to that puzzle.

You can click on each image to see a larger version:

Top Level – Level A

Middle Level – Level B

Bottom Level – Level C

Please post whatever you come up with in the comments section.

Enjoy!

UPDATE: Correct themes provided by Neel Mehta (35) and Billie (7). Alternate themes suggested by Neel Mehta (2), Econgator (1), and Billie (2). See comments for discussion, or click here to skip right to the answers.

I can’t believe I’ve gone almost eleven months without a blogger feud. Let’s do this.

Nonny Nu (nonnynu dot blogspot dot com), a blogger who writes mainly about her cats, decides to throw some stones.

First, she uses a picture of my King Lear cake on a Happy Birthday posting on her blog, which is totally fine with me. But then she ends with this:

P.S. That isn’t the birthday cake. That’s just some photo I found on the web. But, can you believe some people are so serious and hoity toity as to quote Shakespeare on a birthday cake? No doubt, they will be having wine with it. *eyes*

Serious and hoity toity? I rather thought I was being whimsical and hoity toity. And what’s wrong with a little wine on your birthday?

That’s it, Crazy Cat Lady, I’m calling you out. Don’t you know it’s not nice to taunt a fellow blogger? Especially not one whom you have given temporary control over the image at the top of your blog? I just replaced it with this picture and you should just be glad I didn’t get all goatse.cx on you. (To my readers: If you don’t know what that is, just let it go.)

Let this be a warning to others. Rule number one: you do NOT mock the Shakespeare Teacher.

UPDATE: She’s got it fixed now, but for about eight hours today, her site looked like this.

UPDATE II: I just read through her comments, and she posted this image of a cake that has such a delicious self-referential paradox that even W.V.O. Quine would ask for seconds. (Who’s hoity toity now?) I think I’ll head over and offer a truce.

UPDATE III: The truce has been accepted, and what must be the shortest feud in Internet history has come to an end.

UPDATE IV: The one-day feud has now been immortalized in an anagram.

Posting has been light this weekend, but I’ve been at the NCTE conference. Perhaps I’ll blog about the conference later in the week. For now, enjoy this video of Weird Al as Obi-Wan Kenobi recounting the entire plot of The Phantom Menace to the tune of American Pie by Don McLean.