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Writing 12’s Stratagem

6 October 2015
Jaclyn C, Alex ‘16
There is a distinct percent of the population that would rather be tortured than go to a movie theatre and watch a play from the 1700s. Thankfully, the Writing 12 class is too punk rock to be in that percentage. This past Thursday, Mr. Collis sprung about 10 of us from prep and took us on an adventure to a different dimension, otherwise known as the SilverCity movie theatre in Victoria (*cough* Langford, actually). Together we experienced a broadcast of “The Beaux’ Stratagem”, a delightful comedy from The Royal National Theatre in London. Written by George Farquhar as he was dying, it first premiered in London in 1707. Farquhar was dead by the show’s second week. Despite the author’s unfortunate state of health, the play is witty and playful. With dynamic characters such as the scheming Aimwell and the hilarious Scrub, the Writing 12 students—myself included—were laughing to the point of tears on several occasions. To quote Wyatt T, Ellis ’16: “Scrub is love, Scrub is life”. It was a humorous occasion as we got on the bus, as we are not used to seeing each other. Writing 12 meets to submit the pieces that we are assigned at the beginning of the month. These submissions include a journal which consists of 10 free writes, 3 poem transcriptions, and a book review. In addition to the journal, we also have to submit assignments. September’s assignments were 1) write and submit a short story to The Duncan Journal 2) annotate anything interesting in The Elements of Style and 3) write our own version of B. J. Novak’s “Except for that one thing” radio sketch.  In third term, however, all of our time will be devoted to our final project, which is different for everyone, and yet to be determined. Students in this course had the option of taking this as a sixth class (supposedly using their spare) or in some cases as a fifth class (using one block as a work period for Writing 12, and still retaining their spare to work on other things). With September’s assignments just handed in, we have gotten our first glimpse at what this class will be like for the next few months, and I, for one, am extremely excited. It was a bit up in the air about whether this class would exist this year, but I believe it will be great benefit to all the young writers who are in it. Whimsically working on Writing, Jaclyn C, Alex ‘16

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