Thursday

Lots of no-shows in the Web Locker for WLA 1. That's a graded deadline.

Tuesday

Click here to go to School Web Locker, where you can store your documents for the rest of the year. It is like Dropbox but I can access it, so it is a good place to put schoolwork. You can access it from anywhere through the internet. It does not have that great desktop folder like Dropbox, but you can see its usefulness.

Turn in your paper FINAL final WLA 1 at the start of your next English class period. Place your electronic file of FINAL final WLA 1 in Dropbox by midnight on the due date.

Monday

Looking at calendars makes me want to vomit, so what can I say when the schedule gets changed on me? B day class, have your final final on Wednesday. A day, have your final final on Wednesday also.

Thursday

For Monday, bring in any revisions you have made on WLA 1. It is due on Tuesday/Wednesday in its final final form. Also for Tuesday/Wednesday, read the Eliot essays and report on them and how they relate or explain "The Hollow Men."

Friday

Bring a file copy of your WLA 1 to class on Monday and Tuesday. We will work on them during class, and I will show you a couple of ways to make use of Word to proofread.

Monday

Bring in WLA 2 plans on Wednesday/Thursday. You will receive a handout to help with this. Be prepared to discuss and defend your ideas.

Friday

Performances will be on Wednesday for everyone.

 

Friday class, bring data file of your WLA 1 to revise in class and a thesis idea for WLA 2.

Thursday

For next class, be assured I will give at least 45 minutes from the beginning of class to the Prufrock preparations. If you can, begin reading or rereading your world lit material and cogitate over some good topics. Everyone may proceed with the first choice.

I have asked for the entire group for performance day so that everyone can see the work of the others.

Wednesday

All those who chose One Hundred Years of Solitude (4) or The House of the Spirits (1) as their first choice may proceed.

Tuesday/Wednesday

1. Make a list of your top three choices of world lit books for WLA 2.

2. Reread "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." You will need to be informed about your group's decisions about how the poem is divided up.

3. Write your three interpretive questions from your assigned section of "Tradition and the Individual Talent."

4. Think and work on revising your WLA 1 (no grade or checkup on this).

 

I will take your choices and try to get books into your hands as quickly as possible. Then we will discuss "Tradition." For the last 20 minutes, we will work in groups for "Prufrock."

Also, take note of the deadline. If there is a problem, speak to it NOW!

Wednesday

Complete feedback for WLA 1. Read "Tradition and the Individual Talent." Consider performance possibilities.

Tuesday

Have a happy late start day. Here is the link to the website for Andrew Allen.

I recommend Flight, The Thomas Beale Cipher, and The Emperor of Ice Cream. Most of the rest is commercial in nature.

Read "Tradition and the Individual Talent" for Thursday/Friday. Those who have not finished feedback, finish that up.

Friday

Oral commentaries are Monday and Tuesday, following a long IB tradition of moving back deadlines and running out of time. When I first moved the deadlines on the calendar (and I can hardly stand to look at a calendar), I did not consider election day. Sorry for the nerves.

Thursday

Tomorrow, Friday, both classes meet with Mr. Belk. On Monday, A-day finishes Macbeth and works on commentary prep. On Wednesday, A-day performs commentaries for a major grade. Be certain of partnerships. B-day does all on Tuesday and Thursday.

Thursday

Monday, all students meet with Mr. Belk. Tuesday is Career Day, so please find a great career. Friday, you will all take a test with Mr. Belk. I will see all of you on Wednesday and Thursday. We will finish the movie Macbeth and work on oral commentaries from the play. Be ready to perform the commentary on the first day that you return the following week. See calendar.

Donuts!

Saturday

This is a dark day. Carolina beat number one Alabama, and Clemson lost. I have lived too long.

Thursday

I have yielded to pleading and moved the group performance back one day. The individual performance due date remains unchanged.

Tuesday

See the rubrics and the calendar dates to the right.

Monday/Tuesday

Prepare your group adaptation for October 11-12; prepare your individual recitation for October 15 and 18. See calendar for affirmation.

Thursday/Friday

In addition to finishing the play, shuffle through the pages to find suitable passages of from 20-30 lines in length that express a complete idea that you will memorize and present in a dramatic monologue. Small passages by servants and others can be done by classmates. Choose three passages: one from the first third of the play, one from the second third, and one from the third third. Prioritize them. WE will lock down the passages during next class.

 

Also, with a group of two-four people, choose a crucial portion of the play (again, choose more than one so we don't all do the same portion) and thoroughly modernize the play. Consciously choose setting and thematic highlights.

 

For both performances, prepare a statement of intent with clear context and defined features that govern your dramatic choices.

Wednesday

Everybody: finish the play by Monday/Tuesday.

Monday

Tuesday's class will not be quizzed or tested in any way, but please read through Act III before the next class period.

Wednesday

Read Act II for Friday/Monday.

Thursday

For Wednesday/Thursday, read Act I of Macbeth. If possible, watch Scarface. Think of a good movie date.

Note slight changes to "Project"

See post "Project" of September 8 below. It has been fleshed out a little, and a time limit has been imposed.

Wednesday

Both A and B day, bring STUFF to work on for your projects!

Project

The date for performance or presentation of your projects is Monday/Tuesday, September 20/21.
1. Identify work and author
2. Contextualize the passage and read aloud, or read select portions that will make sense.
3. Show what literary element, device, style choices, or other artistic methodology you notice in the extract.
4. Tell your intentions as specifically as possible, like a "statement of intent."
5. Perform or display your work.
6. Stand for questions.
7. Assessment: Columns A and B of the oral commentary rubric adjusted to 100-point scale. Detailed evidence and analysis must show.
8. Time limits: minimum five minutes; maximum ten minutes (-10 if outside limits)

For Friday/Monday

Reset: Find a passage you think is crucial in Heart of Darkness. Find something important about the methods, the ways by which Conrad communicates ideas and creates effects. Plan an alternative way to highlight these methods creatively. Have your passage and idea on Friday/Monday. Plan also to set the due date for the final work.

Wednesday

Remember to bring in your findings on the assigned passages: you are looking for images, image patterns (imagery), and making hypotheses about symbols.

Donuts are holey

Please remember to bring a buck if you want some dough.

 

Nuts, that is.

Monday

For Wednesday/Thursday, finish Heart of Darkness. Study the literary terms that are in the right hand column. You will need to use these terms next class.

Friday

OK, yall, look at the blog. You will find two versions of Heart of Darkness that are searchable. You can copy text from them too, so you do not have to write out anything as long as you have access to a printer. Commentary passages should be between 25-40 lines, so it will almost always print on a single page. Look on the right for a downloadable .pdf. Further down, under "Handy Dandy Links," you will find an internet link to an online version of the same novella. (Look up "novella" and use that word when referring to this little book).

Thursday

For Monday/Tuesday, read all of Part II, at least. Continue to note Marlow's attitude, the role of women and the imagery surrounding them, and the "impressionistic" method employed in the novella.

Thursday addendum

Donut notes: Those Krispy Kremes will be in NEXT Friday, not tomorrow! Sorry about that. However, Mr. Belk says ok for his room next Friday.

Tuesday

For Thursday/Friday, choose one extract from Part I of H of D. The extract should be between 25 and 40 lines in length. Annotate it independently as you did the first extract in class with a partner.

Annotate your extract in the following ways (at least):

1. Give a name to the point of view.
2. Identify, as clearly as possible, the speaker or speakers in your extract.
3. Note the structure of your extract as a whole, within paragraphs, and within selected sentences. Point out any movement or changes that occur (in anything!) through the course of your extract.
4. Using at least four different colors, mark things that you think, for some reason, can and perhaps should be grouped together. (Anything to do with darkness, for instance, or all complex similes, or the author's or the speaker's use of color -- like yellow).
5. After you have done this, provide a legend for your markup that shows what each color indicates: label or categorize the each color.
6. Star any striking or powerful phrase, sentence, or passage.
7. After all, note any changes you see in the speaker's or speakers' attitude.

Friday

Read pages 3-31 in H of D; paraphrase the designated passage about the "glow."

Consider WLA 2. You may see some descriptions of the variety of assignments available in the guide that is posted to your right on this web page as "IB Handbook." Check page 30 of the paper edition or page 33 of the .pdf for initial guidance. The rubric is the same as for WLA 1.

Wednesday

I'm so glad you're here. For your next class, print off one copy of the syllabus and present it in class. Also, be prepared to enter your email into my invitations list so that you can contribute to the blog from time to time. For Friday/Monday, bring in a notebook of the kind I showed you.

Read!

P.S. Third block ends for seniors, upstairs A-hall, at 1:27.

The Graduation Blues with DADDY

Thursday, for Paper Two

Remember that the significant difference between Paper One and Paper Two is that the rubric for Paper Two has a "response to the question" section. The question you choose is not a prompt or suggestion but a question you do need to answer with evidence from two of the four poets: Marvell, Coleridge, Tennyson, and Neruda. Now, go do what you came for! (It's good to have a few key fragments of some poems to pull out when you might need them...things like "But at my back I always hear/ Time's winged chariot hurrying near" or "Water, water everywhere,/ And all the boards did shrink./ Water, water, everywhere,/ And not a drop to drink." You can then say lots about meter, rhyme, and line length just on that basis, at least with this particular poem.)

When the Paper Two instructions mention "works," you should regard that as the body of poems by a particular poet. Your knowledge of "works" should be informed by the part of your research we called "philosophical points applied to poems." Use a variety of poems to illustrate your answer, not just one.

Wednesday

See posts from below, reprinted here:
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Wednesday

Clearly this is a day late, but you should be doing your assignments on "Khubla Khan" and, after today, Tennyson's "Ulysses."

The nearly complete poetry pack is on Dropbox, and I will embed "Khubla Khan" and "Ulysses" right here by the end of the day.
Posted by Mr. Koon at 8:20 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Wednesday

SL students: bring in your projects for presentation on Friday/Monday. All others, listen to and score your oral.


Complete your follow-up to the structural awareness activity on "To His Coy Mistress."

The questions:
1. With two genii, arrange the poem you have received into what you think constitutes the best poem possible with the material.

2. Describe the rhyme scheme.

3. Describe the metrical pattern and write a scansion of two lines.

4. Describe, neatly and in logical order, your group's process for determining where each line goes. Who suggested what? What was the very first thing you did when you saw this cut up mess? Use paragraph form with appropriate transitions to link sentence to sentence (first, next, then, however -- that sort of thing).

5. Write your rationale for grouping the lines as you do. This part differs from process; it is not what you thought and in what order. It is a justification for the poem standing as you have arranged it.

Poem is to your right.

Tuesday

The calendar is to the right. It is to be trusted: A-day goes tomorrow.

Friday

Fine tune of assignment: You can have, as you present, ONLY copies of the poems, statements from your world-class critics, and the rubric. To compensate, your due date has been rolled back one week to Wednesday/Thursday, April 28-29. Early presentations are welcome and encouraged with a five-point bonus on the percentage score for the presentation.

Tuesday

An oral display of staggering erudition is due on Tuesday/Wednesday of next week.

 

Interested parties should look at the Voice of Democracy oral essay contest! More here soon.

Tuesday

Freud says the consciousness is a filter. It filters out the noise of omnipresent stimuli so that we can find meaning and sense. Consider in light of Coleridge.

Friday

I collected some art from the web that was inspired by Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott." See it to the right just below the calendar. The pictures are of random size, so it is a little weird. If you download the file and view it in Adobe Acrobat Reader, it looks much better.

Thursday

A-day students: I understand your concern about mock exam paper 2. The works posted on this page are eligible works. Apply the IB Poetry Prep sheet, embedded to the right, to each of these, or even to two of them. If you make exhaustive notes and study hard, you will do well by any standard on paper 2. You may also skim through the poetry pack, embedded just to the right on this blog, and choose any poems you like to apply the IB Poetry Prep questions to.

Just for this mock exam, you may also use the poetry of Eliot. You will NOT be able to use Eliot for the real exam in May, but I score these tests, so I know exactly what you have been prepared for. Study, worry as you would for any exam, but do not stress about having too little preparation because the preparer is the scorer.

Look here if you want a heads up on Paper 1. Apply the IB Poetry Prep to it and be prepared!

Wednesday

Clearly this is a day late, but you should be doing your assignments on "Khubla Khan" and, after today, Tennyson's "Ulysses."

 

The nearly complete poetry pack is on Dropbox, and I will embed "Khubla Khan" and "Ulysses" right here by the end of the day.

Wednesday

SL students: bring in your projects for presentation on Friday/Monday. All others, listen to and score your oral.

Complete your follow-up to the structural awareness activity on "To His Coy Mistress."

The questions:
1. With two genii, arrange the poem you have received into what you think constitutes the best poem possible with the material.

2. Describe the rhyme scheme.

3. Describe the metrical pattern and write a scansion of two lines.

4. Describe, neatly and in logical order, your group's process for determining where each line goes. Who suggested what? What was the very first thing you did when you saw this cut up mess? Use paragraph form with appropriate transitions to link sentence to sentence (first, next, then, however -- that sort of thing).

5. Write your rationale for grouping the lines as you do. This part differs from process; it is not what you thought and in what order. It is a justification for the poem standing as you have arranged it.

Poem is to your right.

Find format guide

on Dropbox. It is called "WLATitle.body.wc.format.doc"

 

Look at it carefully and format accordingly. Note the translators included in the works cited.

Tuesday

Be sure to read yesterday's posting first; bring in electronic copies to review in class Wednesday.

 

DO NOT EXPECT ANY EMAILED PAPERS to count toward your WLA 1 or WLA 2. You must have printed copies of both papers with you on Friday.

 

Good luck, but do it right!

Deadline

On my last handout I gave you a deadline of March 10 because of an IBO deadline of March 15. However, Mrs. Cox has clarified: that is not enough time to ensure their timely arrival. It is clear that these papers must be completely finished and in the mail by Monday. Thus, the DEADLINE is Friday, March 5, and that deadline is DEAD! Papers printed, formatted, proofread, and signed.

Bring in electronic copies of WLA 1 and WLA 2 for final packaging NEXT CLASS PERIOD!

Friday, Part Deux

The following people have no record of WLA 2 in the gradebook: SC, KD, JG, NL, AM, IS, DS, WT. From A-day: AB, AC, ME, JJ, CK, IM, BM, AM, DP, LY.

 

That's a lot.

Friday

I have WLA 2 papers that I cannot identify. Please check in if this could be you.

Thursday

SL students with Powerpoints or videos: I need some kind of evidence that you have drafted your project well. A printout of the slides or some equivalent would be good, perhaps with a statement outlining what you plan to say.

Monday

Post comments if you have questions in class and I will do my best to respond to them before day's end. Remember that your intermediate deadline is Thursday; for B-day, it is Friday. I changed this to equalize the number of classes for each block.

Be sure to sign up for orals!

Thursday

Bring materials to work on your WLA 2 assignment. A-day, have a working thesis and a plan to discuss with me tomorrow. B-day, you have the same things on Monday. On the 15th and 16th, have a draft of your paper completed for review in class.

Wednesday

Revisit, in your notes pertaining to oral commentaries, your section on THEME. Be sure you are exposing a statement the extract or work makes about a thematic idea. A theme is not "isolation" but "Urban accumulation creates an unresolvable isolation" or "Vast accumulations of knowledge in the modern world create a new kind of ignorance." See, it's universal (can fit several works of art, not just "Preludes") and makes a statement. Moreover, it allows a thesis to "move." You prove a point. A thesis then might read, "Eliot uses blah, blah, and blah to reveal that the city brings people together only to isolate them still further" or "...that all our knowledge of one another is partial and fragmented but is still bridgeable by strenuous exercise of imagination."

Tuesday

Both the WLA 2 assignment and the "Additional Ideas for SL" assignments are in Dropbox.

 

Orals the week of February 22 (SL focus on Conrad and Shakespeare).

WLA 2 or alternative week of March 1. Plan for intermediate deadline around the 15th. Bring materials and thesis idea to class tomorrow.

Tuesday

Yall: These oral commentary notes are not to be scratchy little scant things. You should have an EXHAUSTIVE ANALYSIS of your extracts written in a neat and orderly arrangement, preferably typed and well-formatted, with examples tied to ideas.

Tuesday

Have your notes neatly laid out when you come to class on Wednesday/Thursday. I will take up the notes you use.

Tuesday

See calendar: oral commentaries on selected texts next week.

Tuesday

Kevian -- send me an email from each account you have used in the last year. That will help me search archives.

Monday

Although I do not recommend it because I think you should run screaming out of here with your hands up on Friday, you may defer your presentations of the Eliot poetry until one day after our return in January. That would be January 6 (A) and 7 (B).

Monday

Ok. A-day can have one more day to prep for WLA. Friday will be your due date. See you Wednesday!

Monday

This week, complete revisions of your WLA 1. Begin work on your presentation of an Eliot poem by the end of next week. See format guide in the Dropbox, which includes a title page. Add this: in the header that repeats at the top of each page (the place where you put your last name and the page number at the upper right), center your student number.

Monday

Please bring your WLA 1 for in-class review: I will have laptops, so you can revise if you bring the file.

What does it take to be a real man (or a real woman) according the play Macbeth?Find at least one pair of supportive passages that reveals one of the Macbeths contrasted with a foil character and analyze according to at least two literary criteria. Write your thoughts in a well-formed essay that concludes with your own thoughts on the main idea. Shape your essay as if it were a commentary. Both the essay and each internal paragraph should have a clear beginning, middle, and end. To earn an A, your paper must have a WOW factor. I need a little WOW. See today's instructions. Papers are due Thurday/Friday, Dec. 3/4.

Friday

See notes in dropbox one more time: I am about to assign credit for them if I can read them.

Monday

Look in dropbox at the Shakespeare notes. See how useless it is to write notes no one can read. If your notes are blank, please redo in DARK INK -- neatly.

Thursday

There is a copy of the mini-me research project rubric in Dropbox.

Tuesday

I will not be there Tuesday. Work on orals, log notes from Act I (to be scanned in); present little histories.

Scholarship money!

See Optimist Club essay contest below the calendar to the right. Do it! Or I'll be sure my daughter gets it!

A-day did a great job on the recitations today. Look at the calendar and the previous post for deadline clarifications.

Through Wednesday

I've adjusted the calendar a little because it takes so long to share findings:
Friday/Monday: recitations all day; if we finish, then we report research findings until the bell
Tuesday/Wednesday: complete reports on research; turn in notes on Act I (rather than write them on the board). I'll give you a handout for this. Then begin oral commentaries on the parts you memorized.
Thursday/Friday: finish orals; maybe a reading check; begin movie of Macbeth

Wednesday/Thursday

Prepare for a mini-oral on your memory selection to perform individually on Wednesday/Thursday. Organize as before with clear title, author, context, importance/purpose, and focusing thesis. Prepare for one or two elements or angles. Your commentary should be 4-6 minutes in length. DO NOT WRITE IT OUT. It will be assessed by classmates and me.

We will also go to the library for a little on-the-go research about the background, and we will have a language quiz reviewing the sentence patterns and simple diagrams. We might not get it all done...

Monday/Tuesday

Prepare your individual memory selections and analyze them in the same way you analyzed your assignments from Act I: context, speaker, audience, situation, purpose, imagery, motif, irony -- other elements if you notice them to be more dominant.


By the way, if any of you have one of your old "Who Am I?" powerpoint shows from ninth grade, I could sure use a couple of them for examples for my third and fourth blocks. Thanks!

Thursday/Friday

List your top three choices for a memory piece. Read the rest of the play. Be prepared to report on the images, motifs (or possible ones), and ironies in your selection from class Tuesday/Wednesday.

Reminder of fees

>>> Elissa COX 10/26/2009 9:26 AM >>>

If you all do not mind, please remind senior IB students this week that the EXAM FEE is due October 30 along with their signed registration form!!! 

 

Tuesday-Friday (revised!)

For Tuesday/Wednesday: make your choices for memorization from Macbeth and complete the handout on Act I on a separate piece of notebook paper (or type it). Finish the play entirely by Thursday/Friday.

The memorization choices I gave you do not match the Holt book (thanks Sarah and Maddison). So Row 1 (by the window) gets Act I
Row 2 gets Act II
Row 3 gets Act III
Row 4 gets Act IV
Row 5 gets Act V
Row 6 (by the computers) gets Act III

As you read, choose a passage from your assigned act. The passage should be 10-15 lines in length for one speaker, or if you want to act a little scene with a partner, 20-30 lines. Choose crucial speeches and exchanges, important ones that look as if they could be extracted for an oral commentary. If your individual speech is longer than 20 lines, I will score you with a bonus. Thus, you should read and choose carefully for an important speech or exchange, prioritize two or three passages in case you do not get the one you want, and tell me your choices on Thursday/Friday. You will have one week to prepare for your recitation.

Exceptions to the act assignment are possible if you have a desire to do a famous or important speech from another act, but have good reasons.

For Thursday/Friday: finish reading the play

For Thursday/Monday

Complete this assignment for Thursday/Monday:
1. Perambulate about the premises until you find the perfect subject: an object or person you can observe minutely. As an exercise in PAYING ATTENTION, write 150-200 words describing your chosen object or person in perfectly objective language -- but with a theme.
2. In a second paragraph, write your thoughts and develop the theme overtly. Make it explicit -- clear to any moron -- what you implied in the first paragraph.
3. Effectively clench the piece with a final short paragraph that shows what you can do. I'd like to have the breath knocked out of me. (Wouldn't you?)

Be prepared to read your piece to your classmates when you return. The final step will be to reflect on the experience. Grading will be on observed effort and not on close reading on my part.

The model text:

MARRAKECH (1939) by George Orwell
As the corpse went past the flies left the restaurant table in a cloud and rushed after it, but they came back a few minutes later. The little crowd of mourners-all men and boys, no womenthreaded their way across the market-place between the piles of pomegranates and the taxis and the camels, wailing a short chant over and over again. What really appeals to the flies is that the corpses here are never put into coffins, they are merely wrapped in a piece of rag and carried on a rough wooden bier on the shoulders of four friends. When the friends get to the burying-ground they hack an oblong hole a foot or two deep, dump the body in it and fling over it a little of the dried-up, lumpy earth, which is like broken brick. No gravestone, no name, no identifying mark of any kind. The burying-ground is merely a huge waste of hummocky earth, like a derelict building-lot. After a month or two no one can even be certain where his own relatives are buried.

When you walk through a town like this-two hundred thousand inhabitants, of whom at least twenty thousand own literally nothing except the rags they stand up in-when you see how the people live, and still more how easily they die, it is always difficult to believe that you are walking among human beings. All colonial empires are in reality founded upon that fact.The people have brown faces-besides, there are so many of them! Are they really the same flesh as yourself? Do they even have names? Or are they merely a kind of undifferentiated brown stuff, about as individual as bees or coral insects? They rise out of the earth, they sweat and starve for a few years, and then they sink back into the nameless mounds of the graveyard and nobody notices that they are gone. And even the graves themselves soon fade back into the soil.

Sometimes, out for a walk, as you break your way through the prickly pear, you notice that it is rather bumpy underfoot, and only a certain regularity in the bumps tells you that you are walking over skeletons.

for Tuesday/Wednesday

1. Wear shoes you can walk outside in and enough clothes to stay warm. We'll go for a nature walk.
2. Bring in your written conclusions about style in either Conrad or Orwell. See Dropbox for handouts.
3. Late reminder: quiz on language notes

For Friday/Monday

Your video projects are due! Also, reread "Down the Mine" by Orwell and bring in a copy of it if you have it printed. The Friday class will be observed, so show up with what you need!

Tuesday

There is some sort of meeting for seniors tomorrow at 8:45 with Jostens about ordering graduation supplies. Do not let this get in the way of your assignments!

Retest opportunity

You may review notes and retake Language Quiz 2 on Tuesday morning before class or Tuesday afternoon IMMEDIATELY after school if you made below 80. The highest grade awarded on this retest will be an 80. It will concern Patterns 1-5 and will NOT be the same quiz. You will need to recognize patterns and diagram five sentences. See me before then if you have difficulties. I also recommend that you tutor each other on this material.

Wednesday/Thursday

1. Read all Orwell essays by Friday/Monday.
2. Due next week –
Orwell and Conrad: Pinhead or Patriot?
Create a video with your group that shows each author to be either
PINHEAD or PATRIOT!

*Video must be between 2-3 minutes. (-5 for each 10 secs)
*Team must be of 3-5 members who act, direct, and edit.
*Formatted like the O'Reilly Factor segment (0 or 10)
*Talking head asserts and evaluates (unlike O'Reilly did here) in a way that clearly demonstrates why each man is either a PINHEAD or a PATRIOT. (0, 10, 20, or 30)
*Clips demonstrate evidence with direct quotes from assigned texts spoken by actors portraying authors (0, 15, or 30)
* Video:
Editing clean, professional, done till done right (0, 5, or 10)
Audio clearly understandable; music appropriate (0, 5, or 10)
Visual quality and appeal (0, 5, or 10)

Tuesday

For tomorrow and Thursday, read "The Spike" and prepare for the language test on notes from days 1-10.

For Thursday/Friday

Check updated calendar.

Read "You and the Atomic Bomb" by George Orwell.


Complete this preparation for commentaries -- Keep this work very neat and orderly:
As you did for homework with symbol, do also with situational and verbal irony. Find and list four examples from "Shooting an Elephant" with at least one representative example for each type of irony.

Do the same for tone, and extract three passages that prove what you say. See board for adjectives describing tone.

On a comparative T-chart, describe the narrative stance of each story, the novella Heart of Darkness and the essay “Shooting an Elephant.” (Note punctuation AND genre.)

Continuing this chart, describe the similarities and differences in each author’s purpose.

On the chart, describe the similarities and/or differences in tone.

Here is the old post on tone:
Tone describes the attitude of the writer, narrator, or speaker toward his subject or audience. Tone can only be demonstrated through diction and phrasing that reveal attitude, preferably examples with more than one possible meaning. It helps if you define "attitude toward WHAT" -- the subject, character, or audience? The context determining the meaning, and the meaning so determined, demonstrate tone. The author or narrator's tone will not be "dark." That's way too ill-defined. It will be bitter, callous, condescending, contemplative, contemptuous, critical, cynical, defensive, defiant, desperate, detached, determined, didactic, diplomatic, disdainful, dramatic, formal, friendly, enthusiastic, humorous, indignant, informal, intimate, ironic, judgmental, lighthearted, malicious, mocking, nostalgic, objective, persuasive, reflective, reverent, sarcastic, sardonic, satirical, sincere, sympathetic, tragic, urgent, or vindictive. Those adjectives describe a very specific attitude. And then you have to take individual words, sentences, and relationships within the text and convince me that you are right about it.)

Prepare your paired oral commentaries, which have been moved to Monday/Tuesday. (I just changed this: I am calendar deficient.)

For Monday/Tuesday

Read "A Hanging" by George Orwell. It's in the dropbox Orwell pack.

Pick one of these questions to focus on as you read:
1. Discuss the role of these details: the dog, the puddle, the dialogue at the end.

2. What three sense details struck you most forcefully? Choose specific details, not type of sense appealed to.

3. Find two metaphors in "A Hanging." Are they decorative for simple visual appeal (many are) or do they convey and idea or meaning beyond the picture? Explain.

for Thursday/Friday

1. Neatly, on a piece of lined paper, with reference to a dictionary or literature book, define symbol in its literary sense.

2. Determine what might be symbolic in Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant."

3. Write a paragraph with a topic that states what the item from Orwell's essay symbolizes -- that is, what it stands for -- and explain how you know it symbolizes what you say it does.

for Tuesday/Wednesday

Read "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell. See what similarities it has with Marlow's narrative. 

 

I have placed it in Dropbox in a .pdf file called "OrwellEssays08.pdf"

For Friday/Monday

Prepare for an oral commentary on the extract you received last class. This commentary is to be done individually, not in pairs, and assessed by one-two classmates.

for Wednesday/Thursday

Communicate with your partner and create outlines for your extracts. The aim is to find certain literary elements and critical approaches that you can apply to a variety of extracts from Conrad. Present orally and visually (with outline) on Wednesday/Thursday.

 

Outline should have 1. Focused intro, 2. Thesis that can work for either passage, 3. At least three topic sentences that directly apply the thesis. You should be able to detail your plan in your presentation: what parts of the text will you focus on?

 

Language quiz today and tomorrow.

for Monday/Tuesday

You have now read both "The Journey Within" by Albert Guerard and "An Unreadable Report" by Peter Brooks. Again, post a 100+ word blog response that involves 1.a peer's comments, 2. either Brooks' or Guerard's comments, 3. some textual evidence, 4. a consideration of at least one of the topics below, and 5. something original of your own. You might start by considering: What was Conrad's central problem in telling this story?

topics to consider
psychology (inner journey)
lies
grave imagery
narrative
dream
truth and transmissability
intentions and reality
the limits of language

For Thursday/Friday

Read the extract below and post a comment beneath it. Bring all your thinking to bear on it, whether from criticism, discussion, or whatever. Acknowledge your borrowed ideas informally (as in "Achebe even implies that Conrad sustains the imperialist presence in the Congo.") This elements are required: 1. involve a peer's comment, 2. involve a critic's comment, 3. consider symbolism, and 4. extend with something original of your own. Your response should be at least a hundred words.

She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress. And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul.
"She came abreast of the steamer, stood still, and faced us. Her long shadow fell to the water's edge. Her face had a tragic and fierce aspect of wild sorrow and of dumb pain mingled with the fear of some struggling, half- shaped resolve. She stood looking at us without a stir, and like the wilderness itself, with an air of brooding over an inscrutable purpose. A whole minute passed, and then she made a step forward. There was a low jingle, a glint of yellow metal, a sway of fringed draperies, and she stopped as if her heart had failed her...
"She turned away slowly, walked on, following the bank, and passed into the bushes to the left. Once only her eyes gleamed back at us in the dusk of the thickets before she disappeared.

For Tuesday/Wednesday

For Tuesday/Wednesday, finish Heart of Darkness. Expect some sort of reading check. Bring in a one-page, evidence-filled written piece on one of the following ideas:

• the nature, use, and consequences of Marlow's reply to the Intended
• the function of women as symbols
• the effect of Marlow's story on the frame narrator
• Marlow's choice of nightmares
• the inner journey and the outer journey
• Or, extract a dense, rich passage and comment on it

Remember to include HOW YOU KNOW: SHOW THE EVIDENCE!

ALSO, read two of the criticisms at the back of the book, excerpt two short passages from each that best capture the key thought, and be prepared to speak to the class and/or to me about them.

Impressionism in Conrad

See the posting below for your assignment. Here, I've excerpted a portion of HofD to show how Marlow tells his story in an impressionist style. Remember the Seurat painting we viewed in class? See how Marlow's perceptions change from his first apprehensions through intermediate stages to final comprehension (or, as AM wrote in his paper: "He begins with the heat of the moment, then he follows up by reanalyzing the situation, and then there is the aftershock." Add to that, finally, an evaluation and judgement of the situation and his own reaction to it. See how he finally comprehends the "fence":

 

     "Through my glasses I saw the slope of a hill interspersed with rare trees and perfectly free from under- growth. A long decaying building on the summit was half buried in the high grass; the large holes in the peaked roof gaped black from afar; the jungle and the woods made a background. There was no enclosure or fence of any kind; but there had been one apparently, for near the house half-a-dozen slim posts remained in a row, roughly trimmed, and with their upper ends ornamented with round carved balls. The rails, or whatever there had been between, had disappeared. Of course the forest surrounded all that..."

 

Much later, in Part 3, Marlow picks up the same thread after conversation with the Russian:

 

"I directed my glass to the house. There were no signs of life, but there was the ruined roof, the long mud wall peeping above the grass, with three little square window-holes, no two of the same size; all this brought within reach of my hand, as it were. And then I made a brusque movement, and one of the remaining posts of that vanished fence leaped up in the field of my glass. You remember I told you I had been struck at the distance by certain attempts at ornamentation, rather remarkable in the ruinous aspect of the place. Now I had suddenly a nearer view, and its first result was to make me throw my head back as if before a blow. Then I went carefully from post to post with my glass, and I saw my mistake. These round knobs were not ornamental but symbolic; they were expressive and puzzling, striking and disturbing -- food for thought and also for vultures if there had been any looking down from the sky; but at all events for such ants as were industrious enough to ascend the pole. They would have been even more impressive, those heads on the stakes, if their faces had not been turned to the house. Only one, the first I had made out, was facing my way. I was not so shocked as you may think. The start back I had given was really nothing but a movement of surprise. I had expected to see a knob of wood there, you know. I returned deliberately to the first I had seen -- and there it was, black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids -- a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and, with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth, was smiling, too, smiling continuously at some endless and jocose dream of that eternal slumber."

 

Marlow's story is the story of Africa's effect on him, and he tries to communicate the way he perceives. You can see here how first he seems to see one thing (fence posts) but eventually recognizes that those carved balls are actually human heads. His description, of course, is embedded in a tale Marlow has lived with for some time before he recalls it for the listeners on the Nellie.

 

 

For Monday/Tuesday

Read all of Part 2. Find a scene that intrigues you and illustrate it. You may be as abstract, symbolic, or realistic as you like in your depiction. Be prepared to demonstrate your close reading and to present your illustration in class on Monday/Tuesday. Be able to explain why you chose this particular scene, what the scene contributes to the book as a whole, and why you illustrated it as you did.

First day assignment

For those who struggle with the Dropbox...
Go to this link:

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1747690/First%20day%20assignment.pdf

and you can get the file directly.

for Tuesday/Wednesday

Read the remainder of Part 1.
*Pick one passage to analyze in depth, as you did today, on your own.
*Keep the passage short, concise, and rich.
*Consider tone and purpose, and USE EVIDENCE to support your analysis. Why do you think Marlow has a cynical tone? Based on what evidence?
*Write between one and two pages. Type it and bring in a printed copy to share, discuss, and turn in. I will open the gradebook and enter your scores as "Classwork."
*Also, again bring in your WLA 1, on disk and on paper, as I try to schedule the lab.
*Make sure you can get into Dropbox.

For Friday/Monday

Log into Dropbox and get the .pdf file called "First Day Assignment." It is the flipchart we looked at in class. Determine a thoughtful, concise (one-three words?) title for each extract from the philosophers.

Read pages 1-13. Stop where you read, "I felt as though, instead of going to the centre of a continent, I were about to set off for the centre of the earth."

AND (oh, geez, is this too late?) bring an electronic copy of your WLA daily for the next two weeks.