Space Tourism Reading (future tense -will- going to review) Lesson Plan

    This lesson was very interesting for me because I did not prepare any worksheet for the lesson.  I had to use the student's book and there was a reading passage, exercises...  I used some of the exercises on the board.  It was a very enjoyable lesson.

Here is my lesson plan:





I taught vocabulary in my warm-up stage.  These words are in the text, so they became ready for the text.  I stuck them on the board after showing with my hand.  Each flashcard has a picture and a hidden name of it.  At the back of the card, Turkish translation was written.

This is the copy of the book. The students scaned the text and found the words in it.  Then, They read the text and did exercises 3 which are comprehension questions of the text.

After the reading and comprehension questions,  I stuck prediction situations on the board.  It was written on the book and I told "will" is used for predictions, so they chose one situation and created sentences. This is the version of the book: 

This is my version on the board :

After eliciting the answers, I divided the students as groups and gave one phrasal verb to each group :

This is the reward for the winner teams : 

After finishing the lesson, one of my colleaque Özge taught the future tense and continuous and applied some activities in the second lesson.  This lesson was very enjoable, too. :)   Below, there is a story about one couple to show the students the difference of talking about the future.

What is your favorite word ?

       This is a both simple and difficult question because most people do not think of it. However, some people have already thought about this like below the video.




       A language is alive like humans, animals and it can born and die.  A language can change because of many things, especially interaction with the other cultures and inventions. But which inventions?  I heard what have you thought now :)  Computer and internet. Nowadays, the word of "internet" seems very usual. However, it is a nice word and it means a lot. All words like internet have a history in it like humans.  The other popular word is "blog".  Bloggers, blogging, blog etc.. , many words are occuring with the help of the technology and these words can be someone's favorite words.  David Crystal, who is a linguist, is one of these people.  Let's hear his favorite words !



        If you ask me , my favorite word is "write".  It seems usual, but the important thing is what you attribute a meaning to a word and what kind of value the word itself has in your life... :)  I love to write. "Write" is everywhere in my life and it is the most beautiful invention according to me. 

My study of Students’ Opinions about Blogs

• INTRODUCTION

      The Blog started to become a popular tool on the internet. Generally, its reason is that blogs do not need any programming skills on the computer or on the internet. Therefore, blogs are used in so many areas. One of those areas is the education.  Especially language learning can be obtained via blogs. The aim of this study was to explore how blogs are seen by the students and effects of blogs on language skills such as reading, writing and listening and advantages and disadvantages of using blogs for language learners.

- READING

      Learners read each others’ blogs and they learned something about their friends’ worlds. A friend’s blog could be considered as an authentic material so learners became more enthusiastic to read their blogs. Because of that these readings on the blogs were simple and shorter than other readings, learners liked reading blogs. In a study , a learner said that “ I think it’s the most beautiful tool of the world and it allows us the most magic thing…” ( Downes, 2004, p.14) 

-WRITING

      Writing on a blog was partially different from any writing assignment, because learners might not understand the assignment’s main content. However, learners had to have a purpose while writing to the blog and they thought there were other readers. This thought  made them aware of what they wrote (Ward, 2004, p.3)

-LISTENING

      The teacher might put some listening activities into his/her blog and students might go there. To illustrate, Banville (2010) suggested jigsaw listening and he used free audio editor and recorder Audacity. He made his own listening test to give it to his students.  If this activity had been put on his blog, students would go there to improve themselves in listening whenever they want.

ADVANTAGES of using blogs 

1. Interaction :Blogs made learners interact not only with the computer, but also with others. For these learners, a computer could be considered as a medium for communication. Blogs do not like bots as Alice (http://alice.pandorabots.com/ ). Alice was an artificial intelligence bot that you could chat in English. It could not answer all of the questions correctly because it was arranged beforehand by an administrator. Also it was not real. However, blogs were more realistic so that people, not computers, could ask you questions and answer your questions.
2. Self- expression:  The posts on the blogs were served as a kind of diary. Moreover, they could be witness for their improvement. That is, it was recorded chronologically and whenever  learners wanted , they could see their previous writings or comments on others’ blogs. They developed themselves consciously or unconsciously. However, at the end, they could understand its advantages. 
3. Simplicity:Blogs were easy to use. Its users did not have to get knowledge of all computer or program skills. Then, some class discussions could be counted as an advantage of using blogs. That is, a blog might be a place where students discussed any topic.

DISADVANTAGES of using blogs

1. For reading skill: Hammersly (2003) found that there was a disadvantage for reading skill. Learners read blogs superficially on the computer screen. Therefore, they could not improve their skills. Moreover, he justified that technological communication had a negative effect on writing skill, too. That is, learners used the literacy in a wrong way.
2. Being offensive: Some people or learners might be offensive while criticizing or commenting on their peers’ blogs. Students could be demotivated.
3. Privacy settings:Some students posted their  diaries, personal information and their photos and they might not know privacy issues. Strangers might make sarcastic comments on learners’ blogs.
4. Plagiarism: Learners posted some information on their blogs without knowing copy-right issues.

• DATA COLLECTION AND PARTICIPANTS

                  A quantitative survey was used in this study. ten Turkish students, one male and nine females, ages 20- 40, were from several hometowns and in the second, third or fourth year of classes at the same college. Students used an individual blogger account and they commented on each other’s blogs in the semester for one of their courses.

• RESULTS

They got enjoyed while writing on the blog and reading it :  60%

The students were visiting their blogs often: 80%

The students thought that they were aware of  benefits of blogs:  50%

Disagree with the power of the blog on the listening skill: 30%

The students had not used a blog for educational purposes until the course: 80%

The things the students like the best in blogging:

Also, in the questionnaire, the students commented on the other ways that a blog could be useful in their language development :

•  It can be used for developing their vocabulary knowledge.
•  Class discussions can be organized  in blogs.
• To see others’ use of language can be useful.

According to participants: 

         The most important advantage was encouraging them to write something. The second one was providing communication via blogs. The other advantages were to create a friendly environment, to be good for extrovert people who like to talk, to help connect to the world,  to share ideas, to get different ideas from people or articles, to develop an ability of self-expression of the students, to improve language learning skills, to be good for the participation of shy students, to get feedback for posts and to interact with the foreigners who speak the target language as a native. 

According to 30% of participants:

They said : the blogs were not interesting for some people, they were boring, they included unnecessary information,   they needed ability of using computer programs, they took too much time of the students,  they could be terrible because of internet problems, they could be waste of time because using it is according to your position in your life and they could be dangerous in terms of privacy settings.

Conclusion:

This study demonstrated that the language learners could mostly improve their writing, with the help of using blogs in lessons. Moreover, the survey supplied learners, who did not know what a blog was really and its benefits with costs, a general and meaningful view on blogs. If  the disadvantages of using blogs were cleared away, the students would get more benefits from the blog by writing on the blogs more and doing it intrinsically...

My Comparative Study of Refusal Speech Acts in Turkish and English in a College in Northern Cyprus

• INTRODUCTION    

            While learning another language, one may not understand or comprehend the given sentences alone.  To make clear these sentences to the learners and to establish a relationship between linguistic forms and people who use these forms are the research areas of pragmatics.  According to pragmatics, a language is perceived with the situations.  That is, pragmatics is related to speech acts.  Speech acts are the terms and actions such as apologies, suggestions, complaints, refusals etc…  Most language learners often use refusals in their daily lives.  However, when they rejected demands of others in the second language, learners may use their own communicative strategies as they used in their native language (Yamagashira, 2001, p. 259).
              Focus of this study was to explore what strategies Turkish speakers and English speakers used for situations differently and similarly.

• METHOD

          A questionnaire in English was given to five native speakers of English.  The questionnaire in both Turkish and English was given to Turkish students who learned English. Participants answered the situations by rejecting them.  According to their rejection types, the answers were categorized and separated according to their native of English or Turkish. The categories were refusals to a request, refusals to an invitation, refusals to an offer and refusals to a suggestion.

• RESULTS

            Findings showed that they gave similar refusals to the scenarios generally. Why they had so similar thoughts while refusing something can be that native speakers of English stayed in Cyprus more than two years. They interacted with Turkish people. The reason of differences can be their different status and their different ages because Turkish participants were students. That is, they could just imagine the situations. Maybe, They did not have these experiences. However, native speakers of English had some experiences due to their ages and their status.
            Moreover, it was concluded that when the study was done with more participant, results became more satisfactory.  In this study, Turkish participants used more daily language while refusing in Turkish language.  However, when it came to English, they chose being formal to refuse the interlocutor.

Counting and writing the numbers until nine in English- LESSON PLAN

In young learners lesson, I prepared a lesson plan for my final project.  You can see and comment my work. :)

Here are the background information about my students and the lesson.



Here is the lesson plan :





These are the appendix pages in my lesson plan:





And finally, this is my poster presentation of my lesson:

I had fun while preparing this lesson, I hope it becomes useful for you! :)

Reported speech- Lesson Plan

I applied this lesson plan to upper- intermediates as you see in my lesson plan.  However, some small problems occurred because the students were just 10 people in that day and my mentor teacher had told me that they would cover the reported speech until I came to teach there for my internship. But, it did not happen, they could not remember reported speech and I recognized it after ı gave them their first worksheet. Although these negative things which does not lie at my door, I believe my lesson plan worked well and my students enjoyed very well.  Below is my lesson plan and I will support it with my pictures.






I sticked a picture from "LOVE ACTUALLY" movie and I asked questions.

I gave them a worksheet about the movie.

After they complete the sentences, they checked their answers from the movie by watching two times.

While I explaining reported speech, I said " we can use reported spech in our gossips.  Pardon, in these days people do not say they are gossiping, they say : We are just analyzing the situations and people.  So, we'll just analyze the situations and people, we don't gossip never ever."  Then, I told them I had invited three gossip girl characters.

After I explained my topic superficially and told them the difference between "say" and "tell" , I gave them a classic worksheet for 10 minutes.

After eliciting the answers, the game started.  There are isolated students near the wall and their english is very poor.  Therefore, I did not want them to be in the same team for the game.  I divided the students into two groups by telling them in order "you are red, you are blue, you are red, you are blue..."  Red ones gathered in one corner, and blue ones gathered one group.  I gave them small papers to write and wanted them to select a writer.  I read direct sentences and they changed them to reported sentences as soon as possible.  They wrote their sentences on the papers and  showed me by raising them up. After each correct sentence, the group will go further until they scored a goal.

I gave a reward for the winner team.

I had a contingency plan, but I did not apply it.  There are some sentences which were told by famous people.  I would have wanted the students to change the sentences into reported speech.

My journal for ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD

• After we finished discussing Waiting for Godot , our last play for this semesterwas Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. As compared to Beckett’s play, Stoppard gave us a long introduction like in Death of Salesman. We got knowledge about the two main actors, their environment and the time before we read the play. Moreover, we could generalize that one character was related more to intellect and the other  one was related to more bodily things of humans in Waiting for Godot. However, in Stoppard’s play, I could not do this separation. They looked like a bit similar to each other. Maybe Guildenstern (Guil) was a bit smarter than Rosencrantz (Ros) because Guil was questioning the situations instead of accepting it.

•              While I was reading this Stoppard’s play, I started to think the previous play. There were some similarities, according to me. For example, the main characters in the two plays were waiting. Vladimir & Estragon were waiting for Godot and Guil & Ros were waiting for revealing what Claudius wanted them. Additionally, Guil & Ros were waiting to do what Claudius wanted. These characters spent their times with unnecessary things. To illustrate, Guil & Ros were flipping the coin. Moreover, these characters did not know anything. That is, Vladimir and Estragon knew just they should wait for Godot. They did not know why. Also, Guil & Ros knew just they were called from the palace. They did not know why, either. They did not know even who was who because on page 7, Ros introduced himself as Guil to Player.

• In the class, we did a different activity. We prepared some questions and answered each other’s questions in a group. I liked one of the questions which were about connection between Hamlet’s conclusioned and this play’s conclusioned. Hamlet was questioning why these people were suffering and they preferred living. He added the reason was to suffer in this life is better than going somewhere unknown. While he was dying, he said rest is silence. Guildenstern said at the end of the play, on page 64, death was the absence of presence. They defined death slightly different.

• We also learned existentialism is to choose something and even not to choose means a kind of choosing. In the play, on page 55, Ros and Guil understood that they would die. However, they chose not to do anything for saving their lives. According to existentialism, men’s fate should not be controlled by the others and they should be active in their lives. Rosencrantz said: “I wish I was dead.”.  They gave up. Moreover, they did not exist from the beginning of the play because they did not have control or choices about their lives. To go back to real death, Guildenstern defined the death as not existing on page 55 again.

•             One of the play’s themes was fear. At the beginning, they flipped the coin but it always came up heads. Guildenstern feared about how it can be possible. Then he questioned this probability. Guildenstern said on page 4 : “ A scientific approach to the examination of phenomena is a defense against the pure emotion of fear.”. The fear was death. The science makes unknown things clear for us, so it helps us not to fear. As we know more about what is going on our environment, we feel more in secure.

•             The predictable thing in the play and in our lives is one day all of us will die. On page 35, Guildenstern said even thought of death was terrible. According to him, the death cannot be showed in the play like a real act. That is, we, as mortals, cannot know how it is. However, Player thought one talented actor can act like a dead very well. On page 38, he said: “There's nothing more unconvincing than an, unconvincing death.”. Nowadays, we see a lot of deaths on TVs and we suppose the deaths in the movies were real. Then, we cry. Although we do not know how it was, the effect of being dead can be presented to us.  Moreover, on page 35, Rosencrantz talked about in any part of our lives, we must have lived this feeling that we will die and our lives will finish.

My journal for WAITING FOR GODOT

• This week, our play was “ Waiting for Godot”. I started to read it before coming to class. While I was reading it, I thought I missed somewhere  because I did not understand how they came to another topic. I was very confused. When I finished it, the end did not fit with my expectations. A week before, I finished A Doll’s House and it has an ending. In Beckett’s play, there was no conclusion. On the contrary, there was a lasting cycle which occurred while waiting for Godot. It went on each day. Moreover, I thought there was no meaningful communication at all while I was reading the play. Sometimes Vladimir and Estragon were talking about different things while trying to communicate. An example was on page 7:
• ESTRAGON:
• Who?
• VLADIMIR:
• What?
• ESTRAGON:
• What's all this about? Abused who?
• VLADIMIR:
• The Savior.
• ESTRAGON:
• Why?
• VLADIMIR:
• Because he wouldn't save them.
• ESTRAGON:
• From hell?
• VLADIMIR:
• Imbecile! From death.
• ESTRAGON:
• I thought you said hell.
• Estragon asked irrelevant questions to Vladimir. Similarly, in A Doll’s House, there is no serious communication between Torvald and Nora. However, at the end of the play, Nora and Torvald made their first serious conversation.

•             Some of my thoughts which are above were partly pointed out in the class also. Additionally, the most attractive thing at the beginning of the play was related to background knowledge. There was no detailed information. I could only know that there was a country road and a tree. When compared to A Doll’s House, this information was just a little because we could get the idea of how the environment was in Ibsen’s play with the help of detailed description of background and the stage.

•             The process of waiting in the play was very boring. However, when I thought the play reflected us, it gained a meaning. For example, if we leave our works to do and look at our surroundings, we can see many examples like Vladimir and Estragon. They were mostly us. They did not make any important changes in their lives. The only thing they did was just to wait for the death, hope or God. While waiting, they filled their times with some insignificant things which were talking about boots, watching the dance of Lucky or imitating Pozzo and Lucky’s roles. They even thought committing suicide by hanging themselves on the tree. To turn to our lives, we were born and we will die. While waiting the death, we filled our lives with some enjoyments. Like Vladimir and Estragon needed each other, we need somebody to talk, to enjoy or to die with together in our lives. Like Vladimir and Estragon did not move even they said “I am going” on page 6, we have some plans but if we do not make an effort, our plans stay just as words.

•             In the play, the dreams stood out me. Estragon’s dreams were never emerged. Vladimir said on page 12: “Don’t tell me!... Let them remain private. You know I can’t bear that.”  When Estragon said : “I had dream.”. I think, Vladimir did not want to hear hopes , which would not come true, or uncertain things about their lives because Vladimir represented human’s intelligence in the play. He was more realistic than Estragon, so he found dreams nonsense.

•             Pozzo was very attractive character. He may be a symbol of God, Hitler, employer or the government when I thought of Beckett’s life. That is, Pozzo controlled Lucky and he told people what to do or when they should think. On page 51, Pozzo wanted lucky to dance and think. If he was a symbol of God, this would be a good example. That is, God has some plans and we apply them in one way or another. If he was a symbol of employer, Lucky would be a symbol of workers. In those times, employers threatened workers as if they were slaves.

•             I also wondered that why they always forgot what they did a day before. For example, Estragon said that they had been to same place; however he could not prove it . He was not sure what they did in the previous days. Estragon said on page 11: “(very insidious). But what Saturday? And is it Saturday? Is it not rather Sunday? (Pause.) Or Monday? (Pause.) Or Friday?”.  The answer of what I wondered was hidden in this statement that I understood they did not care the time and each day was similar to the other day. Therefore, they did not need to remember everything. They lived just this moment.

• Pozzo’s speech on page 43 was quite funny. His speech tone and the sentences he used looked like one of Hamlet‘s soliloquy. While he was saying “What is there so extraordinary about it? Qua sky. It is pale and luminous like any sky at this hour of the day. (Pause.) In these latitudes. (Pause.) When the weather is fine. (Lyrical.)”, we can understand he was acting. Like in Hamlet, he acted as someone else although he acted as Pozzo also in the play. Although Hamlet’s soliloquies were thoughtful and tragic, Pozzo’s speech was looked like a comedy because he forgot the words.

•              While I was thinking, I found that Lucky, who was the minor character in the play, was actually lucky despite of that he seemed ill fated. Vladimir and Estragon were waiting for Godot to come. They did not have a purpose. On the contrary, they were just waiting and they did not know even if Godot came, what they would do with him. When I looked at Lucky, he had his Godot who was Pozzo. Of course, Pozzo threatened Lucky very bad. However, Lucky was not grumbling because he had a purpose and he had works to do. Maybe this can be the message that if we do not consider the life as meaningless, we are lucky ones. In the second act, on page 126, it was written in Pozzo’s speech that “On. (Lucky, laden down, takes his place before Pozzo.) Whip! (Lucky puts everything down, looks for whip, finds it, puts it into Pozzo's hand, takes up everything again.) Rope! Lucky puts everything down, puts end of rope into Pozzo's hand, takes up everything again”. Lucky’s and Pozzo’s roles changed in this act. I cannot decide in this act if Pozzo was master of Lucky or Lucky  had some power on Pozzo.

•             In the beginning of act II, Vladimir sang a song loudly. There was an important point in the song that it had also repetition, like what they lived for each day. In the first act, Vladimir and Estragon talked, Pozzo and Lucky appeared, they spent some time together, a messenger child came to say Godot would not come today . The second act was the repetition of the first act. The sequences of the events were mostly similar, but there were some changes in details. The song also was like the summary of main idea of the play. Vladimir said on page 69: “A dog came in the kitchen, and stole a crust of bread… A dog came in the kitchen And stole a crust of bread.”. To sum up, according to this, the next day will be the repetition of the previous day.

•             I liked the way Beckett showed what happened in real life during the wars. For example, in the act II, Pozzo was blind and he fell down on Lucky. They needed help; however, Vladimir and Estragon dealt with another thoughts and things while Pozzo was saying “Help!”. They created different approaches about if they should help Pozzo. They did not think his pain. Like in the real life, people are shopping, going concerts, chatting etc… while other people are suffering from the wars or struggling with the wars or starvation. This was one of the scenes I like best.

• The child in the play had a role as a messenger. He brought a message from Godot for Vladimir and Estragon. While discussing this in the class, most of us thought that the child represented an angel. The question was why Beckett chose a boy as an angel or why Beckett did not choose a good man instead of the child. I thought and said that all of us believe children have no sin and they are innocent. Therefore, he might choose the child because of this reason.

My journal for A DOLL'S HOUSE

• I loved Ibsen’s style and the solution to the problem. Although he presented the problem and found a solution, he also left it open for a discussion as to whether the character’s action was right or wrong. To illustrate, Nora left Helmer at the end of the play when she opened her eyes and recognized some realities about her life. The action she did might not be right, according to some people. Some women choose to stay with their husbands whatever happens. This is a debatable action.

•             I found an interesting point that women could not borrow money in Ibsen’s times. I knew women were under control of their husbands or their fathers, but I did not know this borrowing situation. I searched from the internet that what the women’s rights in those times were. Then, I found “Married Women’s Property Act”. The reason of the act’s start is that a woman could not sell or transfer any freehold and make contracts. This male dominated society has changed since Ibsen’s times, but not completely. Even now, this dominance can be felt by a lot of women. In the lesson, one of my friends defended that women want this system. According to him, we, as women, do not want to join parliament or any government stuff. On the contrary, Esra said men were controlling the written things, so women did not have equal right with men. I agree with her. For example, in the play, Nora said :“… a wife has no right to save her husband’s life? I don’t know much about the law..”. Nora did not know the law because her father and her husband did not think that it was necessary for Nora. Nora was perceived just as a doll.

•             After I read A Doll’s House, I wanted to find out in this play what the similarity differences from Death of Salesman were. I learned in the lesson, Ibsen’s play was realistic. Therefore, everything in the play was related to the real life. I mentioned about male dominated situations. These events, like not being considered as an individual may happen to anyone in Ibsen’s times. In Death of Salesman,  Willy had “American Dream” and in those times, a lot of people had these thoughts which means working hard help you to have a better life. To talk about the differences, while reading A Doll’s House, we forget that it is a play. I found myself into the play because it goes chronologically like TV serials. However, in Death of Salesman, there are flashbacks. That is, Willy lost himself in his memories and the scene immediately turned to past. It was hard to follow while reading it. The other difference is related to the importance in the plays. For example, while in A Doll’s House, presenting and solving the problem was important, expressing feelings, sorrows or hopes was the important thing in Death of Salesman.

•             One of the lies in the play is about eating macaroons. Can these macaroons be a sign of something ? I think they can be some taboos which were related to woman’s rights. Torvald did not want her to have them. I searched on the internet to find out what else these macaroons may represents. I found it can be a symbol of rebellion. I agreed with this statement. It was to be rebellious against her husband.

•             Everybody could recognize that Torvald called Nora as a little, cute animal. This was very annoying for me because Torvald treats Nora as a father likes his daughter. For example, on page 8, Helmer called Nora: “… the squirrel…my lark…” all the time. Moreover, on the same page, Torvald did an action like a father got angry with his daughter. It was written that “[ He goes up to her and takes her playfully by the ear]”.

•             Do Nora has any similarity with other characters in the plays which we read during the semester? The answer is yes. I think Nora resembles Jocasta and Linda. They were loyal to their husbands and they loved their husbands so much that these women could do anything no matter what it took. For example, Jocasta and Linda gave up their kids to protect their husbands. Additionally, Nora committed a big crime by imitating her death father’s signature and borrowing money as a woman for her husband. All of these actions were only for their husbands.

• Through the play, Nora was changing in terms of her character and her thought. In the first act, Nora was acting childishly and believed that the law might forgive her for her crime which was about imitating the signature and borrowing money. Also, she thought when Torvald learned the truth; he would pay Nora’s debt money. She said : “ If my husband gets to know about it, he will of course pay you off at once …” on page 26. In the second act, Nora used Dr. Rank’s love for her own benefits. She asked him to keep Torvald in the room while she was dealing with Krogstad. Although Nora told Dr. Rank about her past memory which was to love her father and her servants in two different ways (One of love which she had for her servants was because of their talking. Nora’s love for Dr. Rank looked like this.), Dr. Rank did not care and helped her.  In the final act, Nora turned to an adult and she gave up her childish behaviors. After Torvald captured Krogstad’ letter, Nora realized Torvald was not her husband she had known for years.On page 63, Torvald said: “ You have destroyed my whole happiness. You have ruined my future…”  She did not expect this reaction from her husband. While leaving from her husband, she said she did not believe in miracles anymore. I mean, she opened her eyes now. Therefore, I concluded that Nora changed totally.

•             Briefly, I wanted to see differences between Nora and Linden. Therefore, I wrote their similar features on a piece of paper. I found that Nora was more energetic than Linden. As I mentioned before, Nora, like a kid, did some actions without thinking about their consequences. However, Linden was more thoughtful and believed that a marriage should have honesty. Also at the end of the play, their roles changed. Nora destroyed her marriage while Linden was finding her happiness with Krogstad.

•             When I finished to read the play at first, I thought the end was a bit disappointing from the point of Torvald’s view . After Nora decided to leave her husband, she said “.. I take nothing from strangers.” on page 71. Nora spent her years with her husband, but she called her husband now as a stranger. Although Torvald begged her, Nora’s decision was to make herself happy. These thoughts came to my mind just one minute while thinking. Then I strongly agreed with Nora’s decision. Torvald deserved loneliness. In the end, I thought he was selfish. When Helene brought a letter which was from Krogstad and about withdrawing his threat, Torvald became happy because He would not fall into disgrace in front of the society. He did not think Nora saved his life by borrowing money before he took this letter.

My journal for HAMLET

• This week we are cheek by jowl with Hamlet’s study guide and the play of Hamlet. I learned information from general overview of Hamlet’s plot, characters etc…There are two generations as old and young. Youngest ones represent humanism. Hamlet and Fortinbras is in this generation. Although Hamlet hesitates to get revenge and questions everything, Fortinbras gets revenge. I didn’t understand where humanism is in Fortinbras. If I don’t consider this, I can say that they resemble each other. After their fathers’ death, both have nothing.

•         In general view, Hamlet resembles to Oedipus. In both plays, heroes try to find out the murderer of their fathers. At the beginning of the resolution of events, they become suspicious for the murderer identity but they wanted to prove that. To talk about the difference, Oedipus makes decisions quickly but Hamlet is thinking to take revenge during the whole play and he cannot decide.

•          One of the most interesting things in Hamlet is “acting” as thematic focus. There is a play within the play. Besides that, the actors don’t show the roles of their characters. For example, Gertrude is acting like loving wife and Claudius is acting like a great King. When I thought these acts, I found Hamlet so cleverly  written work and thinking deeply.

•         In the wedding ceremony, I admit that Hamlet has right on his side. He is in melancholy. He used such words that affected me in act I, scene II, line 10, “defeated joy”, “dropping eye”, “mirth in funeral”. Hamlet’s father has died but that there is a wedding is very contradictory and disappointing. The other contradiction is Leartes comes for the wedding but Horatio comes for Hamlet. We can understand that who is in the part of good or bad side. Moreover, Claudius doesn’t want to understand Hamlet’s sorrow. He threatens Hamlet like a kid. He says in act I, scene II, line 94 “Tis unmanly grief”. Claudius is not gentle enough to understand this event.

•          In Hamlet’s first soliloquy, he talks about death and committing suicide. With these soliloquies, Shakespeare can easily show the characters inner thoughts to the audience or the reader. Therefore, at the almost beginning of the play, I can conclude that Hamlet is questioning his environments and some thoughts. If there weren’t a rule about committing suicide, it is forbidden in the religion and he didn’t know it was a way of going to hell, Hamlet would take his own life.

•           It is so weird that King Hamlet doesn’t want to revenge on his wife. He says to his son: “Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive/ Against thy mother aught” in act I, scene V, line 85. King Hamlet also mentioned that she will be judged in heaven. However, Hamlet is so hung up on her mother’s sexual relationship with Claudius that he always mentions about this as incestuous.

•          In act II, we meet with Hamlet’s madness. It is intentional and I think he can hide his feelings and sorrows by wearing a mad mask metaphorically.. Therefore to collect proof to find whether Claudius is the murderer of his father or not becomes easier by acting like a mad. It  is a very good idea.

•          I understand Hamlet’s feelings and he explains his feelings by giving suitable examples from life. He says Denmark is like a prison, in act II, scene II, line 245. Sometimes, people like me may feel that this country or this living place is like a prison. It is because of hopelessness and loneliness. Also when I miss the control of my life, I feel like I’m a prisoner. Maybe, Hamlet may think that his life is out of his control because he doesn’t want all of these: death of his father, leaving the kingdom to Claudius or marriage of his mother etc…

•          In act II, Hamlet arranges a play which is about one brother kills the other. Hamlet and Horatio watch Claudius' reaction and they prove his guilt with this play. I found this idea very wise. Therefore even here I can conclude that Hamlet cannot be really mad because a crazy person cannot think any of this. Moreover, in this act, Horatio is remarkable for me. He is the person who is trusted the most in the play by everybody. That is, he is witness of seeing the ghost of the King and he doesn’t tell anybody. Moreover, he is witness of seeing Hamlet’s uncle’s reaction. Unexpectedly Claudius trusts Horatio. To illustrate, in act IV, scene VII, after Leartes and Hamlet fight during the burying Ophelia, Hamlet walks away and Claudius says to Horatio look after Hamlet.

•          After Hamlet was questioning death, now he starts to question existence by sating “To be or not to be…”in act III, scene I. He doesn’t know which the best choice is : to continue to suffer or killing yourself.  After some self discussions, he is questioning why we choose to suffer. A few years ago, I read something on the internet which is related to this suffering. There is Buddha who says life is suffering. We have both physical and physiological suffering . Because of being life imperfect and complex, we have power to deal with these sufferings. However, according to Hamlet, its reason is that we don’t know what happens after the death. In act III, scene I, line 79, He says: “The undiscovered country…” Death resembles an unknown country. This is a very nice example while understanding his thoughts.

•           Does Hamlet really love Ophelia? I wondered that because I recognized there are some distance between Ophelia and Hamlet. I think they are supposed to love each other. However, they don’t have any dating or specific romantic dialogues about love. To illustrate, When Polonius asks his daughter her thoughts about Hamlet, she says nothing positive. Also Hamlet rejects Ophelia by criticizing her make-up in act III, scene I, and line 145. This nominal love can be caused by parents, because Gertrude says on the graveyard of Ophelia: “I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife” in act V, scene I, line 240.

•          Recognition scene is the excellent. It is during sword fighting between Hamlet and Leartes. Finally Hamlet tastes what the death looks like. While he is dying, he says “the rest is silence”. I think the silence here may represent that he is about to die and he cannot say anything anymore.