18 Nov Wed -- we briefly reviewed elements which can make an artful poem when END RHYME is OFF the list of tools to be used ... went to the computer lab ... creating the third & final installment about that memorable place to which you did/will return again and again ... two or three poems about it, 300+ words total, TYPED, focusing on some tangible items or people or animals so that the poems are rich in word pictures ... what word-picture aspects of that place can you treat, not already covered in your two prose pieces?
17 Nov Tue -- multiple choice exam (poetry)
for 16 Nov Mon (HAVE YOUR NOVEL WITH YOU for checking.) ... we collect the typed VOICE piece: 1st Person Character Piece ... 222 words, typed ... voice is crucial, even if you do not attempt the dialect ... Practice it aloud several times so you can read it well ... Demonstrate understanding of the novel ... (Chloe, you are writing as Tea Cake, responding to the charge that he was a lousy husband to Janie.)
for 13 Nov Fri (HAVE YOUR NOVEL WITH YOU for checking.)
Collecting Friday … Pour your TYPED content—about some other threat or natural disaster—into this segment from p. 161. Make yours grammatically identical and include personification.
“They saw other people like themselves struggling along. A house down, here and there, frightened cattle. But above all the drive of the wind and the water. And the lake. Under its multiplied roar could be heard a mighty sound of grinding rock and timber and a wail. They looked back. Saw people trying to run in raging waters and screaming when they found they couldn’t. A huge barrier of the makings of the dike to which the cabins had been added was rolling and tumbling forward. Ten feet higher and as far as they could see the muttering wall advanced before the braced-up waters like a road crusher on a cosmic scale. The monstropolous beast had left his bed. The two hundred miles an hour wind had loosed his chains.”
for 12 Nov Thur -- annotate ch. 19 and read chapter 20 ... AND write, before the beginning of class, three good questions you would like to ask some of the main characters (Janie, Nanny, Logan, Joe, Tea Cake, and Pheoby) ... expect to be called on to read one or more of your questions
ANNOTATION: will I see clearly WHERE on the page ... WHAT you are noting?
10 Nov Tue -- bring book for annotation check today (through chap. 18) ... Timed Write Tuesday
9 Nov Mon -- by today you read carefully chaps. 13-16 ... quiz ... debrief last week's Lincoln timed write ... annotate chaps. 17-18 for Tues
6 Nov Fri --Nine in the Middle discussing p. 757 ... home room task ... poem-writing task ... read carefully chaps. 13-16 for Mon
5 Nov Thur -- annotate as a class just the first page of chapter nine, more discussion questions in groups ... for Friday carefully annotate the handout given in class (p. 757) and follow the instructions written on it
4 Nov Wed -- discussion and groups ... for Thursday annotate chaps. 11-12 carefully ... for Friday carefully annotate the handout given in class (p. 757) and follow the instructions written on it
3 Nov Tue -- Tuesday Timed Write (and annotation check) ... no specific assignment this evening, but start early in annotating chaps. 11-12
28 Oct Wed through 3 Nov Tue -- consult yellow schedule for Hurston's novel (took reading quiz on Monday)
SIX-WEEK GRADES are based on these category percentages: 10% for quizzes, 15% for tests (our timed write and multiple choice exams), 8% for participation, 10% for the summer assignments, and 57% called "performance" (basically WORK ETHIC on everything else). YES, work ethic did propel some students into the A range, despite a mediocre exam score or two, and ELEVEN of you earned an A or A- for the first six weeks. Congratulations.
27 Oct Tue -- HMK: starting with Thoreau at the bottom of page 339, harvest onto your paper the thirteen examples of parallelism you see spread over pages 340-342, underlining the parallel elements (example: "... in the outskirts of the system, behind the farthest star, before Adam and after the last man." --Thoreau) ... then TYPE up Exercise #2 (p. 343) and Exercise #5 (p. 345) ... are you aware of parallelism as a tool you use in your own writing, or is it mere coincidence?
26 Oct Mon -- James Dallas presiding and assigning homework: persuasive speech (on a topic of your choice, 3-5 minutes) with the class as target audience
21 Oct Wed -- Agincourt & persuasion ... TONIGHT (for Thursday) you choose just SIX of the terms from pp. 58-59 for which you create mnemonic device visuals ... think of six boxes on your sheet of paper, each containing a mnemonic device by which you or a classmate can better remember these SIX terms (sketch a scene? use lines & shapes? arrange clip-art well? find pictures in a magazine? harness rhyme?) ... more emphasis on visuals than words in your mnemonic devices ... the more color the better
20 Oct Tue -- multiple choice exam
16 Oct Fri -- quiz based on pp. 4-9, 58-59 ... HMK for Monday, TYPED: part two you are writing about a location to which you return(ed) again and again, this time including dialogue, focused on the SOCIAL SETTING (400-650 words) ... if needed, try one of these as your angle: 1) a singular event happening there, capturing its importance; 2) visitor/outsider who came along and did not understand; or 3) “this visit, things were different…” 400-650 words MONDAY TYPED
15 Oct Thu -- groups give persuasive presentations
12 Oct Mon -- work through part of the multiple choice test; launch groups on persuasive presentation
9 Oct Fri -- viewed some stellar student examples, evaluated stylistic elements on the piece you wrote last evening about a place ... HMK: ABSORB pages 4-9 in your textbook (no need to start into the Einstein task at bottom of page 9)
8 Oct Thu -- Questions from this morning: 1) The author several times emphasizes that “there had been no years,” or “there had always been … “ Describe clearly two elements still the same, then what has changed. (6-7 complete sentences) 2) The author comments both early and late in the story that he’s having trouble. What kind? (one complete sentence ... HINT: top one-third of p. 181 …) TONIGHT’S WRITING: Think of it as part one … simply describe a place important to you, one you think you will return to again and again. TYPE. 400-450 words. (ABSENT TODAY? I bet you can find this E.B. White piece online somewhere: "Once More to the Lake.")
7 Oct Wed -- info about the PSAT; everyone has Monday's text carefully annotated; Nine in the Middle; no HMK tonight
6 Oct Tue -- Timed Write Tuesday consists of a multiple choice section from the AP exam ... Is there a way to prepare? ... think about the study tool you created over the weekend, whether you have internalized these elements and the skills to spot/analyze them promptly
5 Oct Mon -- tonight or Tuesday evening madly annotate this text by an unknown author; The Nine in the Middle will discuss this text on Wednesday
2 Oct Fri -- HMK: create a TYPED, one-page study tool--a reference sheet that charts/organizes this week's elements SO THAT that I can see you THOUGHT through this visual organizer, incorporating these items: 1) the list of diction labels from the whiteboard, 2) the terms from pp. 58-59 glossary (minus their definitions or examples), 3) content from last two paragraphs on p. 56 and first paragraph on p. 57, and 4) the list of EIGHT effects of parallel structure on a piece of writing (generated by the class on Thursday)
1 Oct Thur -- did you underline all the parallelism in Kennedy's speech, or get that from someone? HMK: again you are pouring your CONTENT (a childhood scene or endeavor, even if you have to make one up) into an existing FORM (the first two paragraphs of Kennedy's speech on p. 54) so that yours is grammatically identical, the exact same length, and TYPED ... are you noticing what happens to TONE in this exercise?
30 Sep Wed -- in class we transferred pp. 58-59 onto our own paper copies of the speech as reference tool ... absorb these terms & examples
29 Sep Tue -- teams of two worked on the speech on pp. 52-54 ... write out your answers to Diction questions #1-4 (p. 55, four to five sentences for each question) and know for Wednesday the terms from p. 59 (but not those on p. 58)
28 Sep Mon -- HMK: you took notes today in class based on pp. 167-170 ... TYPE the answers to Exercises 1, 2, 3 on pp. 170-172; for Exercises 2 and 3 you will need to type out the sentences
28 Sep Mon -- REVISED final draft of Hawthorne paper due, WITH DRAFTS ATTACHED, including editors' comments ... TYPED, 600 to 1111 words, Times New Roman 12, double-spaced, including at least two rhetorical questions as you support your position ... the phrase "BASED ON OUTSIDE READING" need not be limited strictly to your reading of literature, but can include your reading of science, history, the news--showing your alertness to the world around you
25 Sep Fri -- any day is a good day for a quiz ... DO NOT WAIT for me to announce quizzes or urge you to stay current on your terms, what I've assigned to your mind
24 Sep Thur -- view scored samples of Okefenokee passage, look at scoring guide, discuss revisions to your essay
23 Sep Wed -- peer editing in class ... tonight start revising based on editors' comments ...
22 Sep Tue -- collect your version of SWAMP; do in-class timed write ... tonight TYPE it up with just your I.D.# at the top
21 Sep Mon -- during class, delve back into the SWAMP passages ... tonight TYPE and pour your CONTENT into the FORM, namely the last five sentences of Passage two--grammatically identical and the same number of words, noun for noun, prep phrase for prep phrase--as you describe a room in your house or a portion of your property
18 Sep Fri -- final Scarlet Letter discussion group in the middle ... this weekend memorize the first two stanzas of Lewis Carroll's poem "Jabberwocky"
17 Sep Thur -- Scarlet Letter discussion group in the middle ... tonight re-read chap. 24 of Scarlet Letter AND: 1) list & explain HOW the many threads tied up in this chapter do provide a sense of resolution (300 words), and 2) write TEN discussion questions on chap. 24 to help the discussion group unpack the language. TYPE. TYPE. TYPE.
16 Sep Wed -- tonight's HMK for Thurs: be ready to discuss chapters 13-14 of Scarlet Letter in class
15 Sep Tue -- timed write (in class) based on nonfiction passage ... (one person to make this up ASAP in the classroom)
14 Sep Mon -- take quiz, group task (SOAPS template) ... HMK: go to Silva Rhetoricae web site, under Trees; absorb the pages on "What is Rhetoric?" and "Content/Form" and "Dialectic"
11 Sep Fri -- focus on timed write prompts you may see on Tuesday's timed write, structure of that essay ... HMK: go to Silva Rhetoricae web site under Trees and absorb BOTH the definitions and examples (in red) for the persuasive appeal terms LOGOS, PATHOS, & ETHOS; be ready for a Monday quiz on which I'll give you a topic and you will persuade me, in a paragraph, using these three appeals
10 Sep Thur -- revisit the close reading ... HMK: finish both sides of the info sheet about yourself
9 Sep Wed -- collect summer assignments, close reading, template statements ... HMK: Google "Silva Rhetoricae" and carefully familiarize yourself with this university web site (the Forest of Rhetoric!)