• Home
  • About us
    • Our mission
    • Our people
    • In the news
  • Our Projects
    • Experiential Learning Initiative
    • The Mangrove Project
    • ELI STEM
    • ELI WOOFF
    • Endemic Roots
    • Reefs
    • ELI Africa Foundation
  • Get Involved
    • Donate
    • Join our family
  • Dogs Stories
  • Blog
  • Contact us
  • Donate

Shakespeare and Friends

July 8, 2011 by Cédric in Uncategorized

The past few weeks really feel like they’ve been flying by. Now that we’ve gotten into a consistent schedule working at the Education Center (3-6pm Tuesday-Friday, 10am-3pm on weekends) I feel like we’ve found the sort of rhythm moving forward with our classes we’d hoped to achieve. Attendance at the Center continues to be great (without being overwhelming), and we’re all starting to really get to know the most regular students. Our work outside of the Center progressing similarly well, as Lexy and Austin got a big meeting with the Minister of Youth and Sports earlier this week to discuss their efforts to promote field hockey and basketball in Mauritius, respectively.

I’ve also been keeping in touch with our government contacts in the Ministry of Arts and Culture, who inform me that my proposal for a youth poetry prize will be pitched for approval next week. If all goes well, the Mauritian President’s Fund for Creative Writing will be offering the funding for an ELI Africa-supported English-language poetry prize. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed!

Poetry class has also been going very well. A group of about 8 students now consistently participate in the class each day, and have been doing a great job working to gain an understanding of the topics we discuss in class. In the past few days, we’ve been spending a lot of time working on Shakespearean sonnets and iambic pentameter in my poetry classes. We were even lucky enough to have McKay conduct a dramatic reading of the balcony scene from Romeo & Juliet to demonstrate the way iambic pentameter sounds when read aloud. While it was obviously challenging for students to grasp such difficult concepts initially, they’ve started to do a really good job in lessons the past few days. Today, they took a stab at writing a short verse in iambic pentameter, and here’s some of the work they produced.

(Note: due to the French pronunciation of the word, we’ve come to calling poetry class “class po-EM” in recent weeks, thus making the second syllable in “poem” the long/stressed one—an important distinction when writing in iambic pentameter):

 

I have just joined poem classes today

Maybe even Shakespeare find it boring

To write poem with just ten syllables

It is funny to write poem like this.                        -Lafouine

 

I am reading a book on science now

I want to go to Port Louis with friends

I am watching an interesting film                        -Rebecca

 

Estelle is very beautiful today

Christelle wear a beautiful pink t-shirt

Rebecca is using her mobile phone

Lafouine has just read class poem right now

Lexy has write a poem for Edward.                        -Kevin

 

I mess with my friend and I forgive him

Kevin is my best friend and we badboys

I wear my hat on my head like my bro

I am not the best but I try to be                        -Ved

 

 

Education Center iambic pentameter Ministry of Arts & culture poems poetry sample poems Shakespeare sonnets youth poetry prize
Tweet
Share
Pin it
Previous StoryHaiku Day Next StoryWho Runs the World? Girls!
You may also like these posts

Leave A Reply: Cancel Reply

(this will not be shared)

(optional field)

No comments yet.

The sidebar you added has no widgets. Please add some from theWidgets Page

About us

Our mission
Our people
In the news

Our projects

Experiential Learning Initiative
Eli STEM
Endemic Roots
ELI WOOFF
The Mangrove Project
Reefs

Get involved

Donate
Join our family

Get in touch

ELI Africa
Meldrum Street, Curepipe
Tel: +(230) 6983610
Email: contact@eli-africa.org

© 2018 ELI Africa