Ali Preston

Ms. Quinn
Topics in Humanities
November 18, 2011
Act 1. Sc. 3 page 27
"We have strict statutes and most biting laws,

The needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds,

Which for this fourteen years we have let slip,
Even like an o' ergrown lion in a cave

That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers,

Having bound up the threat' ning twigs of birch

Only to stick it in their children's sight

For terror, not to use- in time the rod more mocked than feared- so our decrees,
Dead to infliction. to themselves are dead,
And liberty plucks justice by the nose,

The baby heats the nurse, and quite athwart

Goes all decorum"

I decided to portray this scene as inside the mind of the Duke. I drew it as
if he was thinking about things and it turned out to be a kind of Alice in
Wonderland like daydream. I chose these lines because I think they illustrate the
Duke's motives behind doing what he is doing and gives clear reasons as to why.
I decided to portray these lines mostly literally, while taking some artistic
freedom. For the word laws I put teeth on the "s" because he calls them "biting"
and after fourteen years I wrote "laws" falling out of the bubble and the "s" has
duller more rounded teeth. I did this because the laws are no longer as forceful
as they were before. Also for statutes I drew the Statue of Liberty being strict and
telling a little kid not to do something. I drew an oversized lion in a cave with a
bunny right outside the cave, but the lion will not go out to get the bunny because
he is too big and lazy to care about it. The lion can also show the Duke in a way.
The lion is too lazy to go out and find food, while they Duke can't enforce his laws
as well anymore. All of the little side pictures or taken from two or three lines of
the text and briefly show what the Duke was saying. I drew weeds with their
tongues sticking out to illustrate the headstrong weed line. The glitter glue is
supposed to add a dreamlike layer of mystery, because I wanted this to be his
inner thoughts. Also I tried to sort of color code the glitter glue. The green is sort
of rebellion and people wanting to do what they want. The blue is sort of for
justice or lack there of. And the red is also for rebellion, but it is children rebelling
against their parents or caretakers. The silver and gold have no real meaning. I
think this section is key in for the Duke. This is when he starts to think about how
the people that he is in charge of act and what these laws are actually doing. I

Ali Preston 12/8/2015 12:17 PM

Comment [1]: I really liked this
assignment. The teacher took a more
expressive approach to grading. If we could
explain why we decided to show the scene
the way we did we got full credit. No points
were taken off for spelling or grammar. I
think that both Fulkerson and Williams
would be ok with the way this paper was
assessed.

Ali Preston 12/8/2015 12:18 PM

Comment [2]: This assignment asks
students to work in a genre that they might
not be comfortable using. Devitt talks about
the importance of teaching genre to
students. By teaching genre, students can
learn things about their own writing that
they might not have if they had not been
given that experience.

like that he compares the laws to the birch twigs that ultimately end up getting
laughed at and mocked because they are never actually put to use. This shows
that just because you have something does not mean that people will fear it
forever. You have to actively enforce you laws and decrees in order to maintain
peace and stable rule. Without this sense of discipline everything will dissolve
into chaos.

This assignment would be good to give to students who have trouble

expressing themselves with words. You can still see if the students
understood the reading and what was going on by having them draw it out.
Students could even create a short video. This could be good to give to
ELL students or use as an activity to help teach code-switching.