Sonnet Paraphrase and Meme Activity
Title
Sonnet Paraphrase and Meme Activity
Creator
Instructions
Working in pairs, translate your assigned sonnet into modern English prose. Once you are done, create a meme based on the sonnet. The meme should express the core argument or meaning of the sonnet. Type up the sonnet and post it with the meme in the discussion board on our class website.
Resources
Example Paraphrase: Shakespeare Sonnet 147 My love is like a sickness, one where I want to keep eating the thing that made me sick in the first place, prolonging the illness as if I might even like being sick. My logical mind offered me solutions, but when I ignored what it said, I became unable to think rationally. Now I’m desperate but learning from experience that desire—the very thing that caused me to reject reason—is death. My sickness can never be cured, because my rational mind no longer cares and has given up on me. I’m going mad, with my brain and words going in every direction, never able to tell the truth, never making any sense. All of this is because I lied to myself and said that the lady was fair and bright when she was black as hell and night.
Example meme below.
Meme Generators:
Example meme below.
Meme Generators:
Outcomes
To practice close reading, paraphrasing, and interpretive skills
Suggested Rubric
Ungraded
Notes
This assignment is particularly good if students are having trouble grasping the literal meaning of the sonnets, and builds the basic foundations to then explore the way Shakespeare's sonnets play with language. It's an opening activity, rather than a concluding one.
Files
Collection
Citation
Patricia Taylor, Briar Cliff University, “Sonnet Paraphrase and Meme Activity,” Teaching the Middle Ages in Higher Ed, accessed May 3, 2024, https://medievalhighered.omeka.net/items/show/28.