Sonnet Paraphrase and Meme Activity

Sonnet Paraphrase and Meme Activity

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.

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:

• https://memegenerator.net/create
• https://imgflip.com/memegenerator

To practice close reading, paraphrasing, and interpretive skills

Ungraded

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.