165 - 194 [We discuss on Wednesday
Wednesday, November 14
195 - 223 [We discuss on Thursday]
For Tuesday, November 13, 2012, research an article from current scientific issues that connects to Frankenstein’s pursuit of immortality. What are some current scientific trends that are predicated on the extending of life? (Think: cryogenic freezing, Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD), Cancer gene manipulation, health/beautification treatments, Stem-cell research from aborted fetuses, etc.) Please find and bring in the article for group discussion on Wednesday, November 14.
* Tuesday night's reading: Tuesday, November 13 165 - 194 [We discuss on Wednesday Wednesday, November 14 195 - 223 [We discuss on Thursday] Tonight's message board (remember that it will close at 12:00 a.m. Wednesday morning): Human Nature - Innately good or evil? Visit the message board and post your response. You guys are doing a great job referencein
0 Comments
Friday, November 9 95 - 135 [We discuss on Tuesday Monday, November 12 (no school, but you are still responsible for the reading) 136 - 164 [We discuss on Tuesday] Tuesday, November 13 165 - 194 [We discuss on Wednesday Wednesday, November 14 195 - 223 [We discuss on Thursday] Forgot your book in your locker? Go here: http://www.planetebook.com/ebooks/frankenstein.pdf Message Board Post Dies at 11:59.59, Monday night, November 12th. Be sure to get your post in before then! Thank a soldier. Happy Veterans Day! Reminder: Your work is due at the beginning of class. Posts must also be completed by 12:00 a.m. Time-stamps let me know when you post, and I will lock the post at the start of class each day--server-permitting. The point to the message board is to get a discussion going, not simply to log words in to a digital space. Thursday night's message board post is here: MESSAGE BOARD
Thursday, November 8 62 - 94 [We discuss on Friday] Friday, November 9 95 - 135 [We discuss on Tuesday Monday, November 12 (no school, but you are still responsible for the reading) 136 - 164 [We discuss on Tuesday] Tuesday, November 13 165 - 194 [We discuss on Wednesday Wednesday, November 14 195 - 223 [We discuss on Thursday] So after a brief hiatus, a big, big fancy word which here means, "I haven't posted much lately, due to midterms, days off, holidays, etc." we're back. Let's begin with a reading schedule:
FRANKENSTEIN - READING SCHEDULE Monday, November 5 Pages 3 - 33 [We discuss on Wednesday] Wednesday , November 7 Pages 34 - 61 [We discuss on Thursday] Thursday, November 8 62 - 94 [We discuss on Friday] Friday, November 9 95 - 135 [We discuss on Tuesday Monday, November 12 (no school, but you are still responsible for the reading) 136 - 164 [We discuss on Tuesday] Tuesday, November 13 165 - 194 [We discuss on Wednesday Wednesday, November 14 195 - 223 [We discuss on Thursday] Your grades will be determined by: * daily quizzes/writings (100 pts.) * classroom discussion and close readings (50 pts.) * bubble (aka fishbowl) discussions/hash (50 pts.) * message board activities - 1 post per night, every night (30 pts.) * Final activity/essay (100 pts.) NOTE: These points are not a "given". You will not receive points simply for occupying space and spending time in room 1524. Oh, yes, and make sure you are awake tomorrow. Referrals will be a-plenty for sleeping in class, an incessant issue with some. Figure it out. Suck on a peppermint. Drink some caffeinated drink (before you get to room 1524). Just do it. It's time to separate the wheat from the chaff. Each day, we will conduct literary close readings with analysis. These MUST be more than simply summarizing the text. We are looking to answer the follow questions: * How does the speaker's point of view shape the content of the text? * How do shifts in style (diction, syntax, sentence types) affect the text? * What are some of the ways the writer's world view sneaks into the text? * What concepts/ideas are naturally embedded into the framework of the text? * What does the speaker indicate is his/her concern in the text, and which lines from the text prove it? * Why did the narrator use certain word choices? What are the effects of those choices? * Which elements in the text cause the text to be classifed as a type of genre? Remember that the midterm will be given on Monday. No reading homework assigned for the weekend. Enjoy the game and beat Wakefield! Now, Monday night you will read chapters 9-10 (through the end). Tuesday, we will discuss and test. Discuss + Test = Disgust. Which is how Robert Louis Stevenson would have wanted you to feel after you watch the downward spiral into depravity and decadence into which Dr. Jekyll descends. GRAMMAR - The style of Robert Louis Stevenson, who of course, is writing during the Victorian era, and who, of course, follows long, elaborate sentence structures, with latin-esque passive voice and compound-complex sentences--the import of which is a marked complexity of both style and substance. Bottom-line: Style often contradicts or complements content. Stevenson's style is elaborate, sophisticated and complex: just like his dark ideas. CLAUSE: any group of words that contain both a subject and a predicate Example: I ate a cookie. Subject: I predicate: ate main (or independent) clauses: have both a subject and a predicate and can stand on their own as a complete thought Example: I assigned homework over the weekend. dependent (or subordinate) clauses: have both a subject and a predicate and a tag that makes the thought unable to stand on its own. Example: Although I wanted to get pizza, When I see your eyes, When you combine a main clause with a dependent clause, you get a COMPLEX sentence. If you don't have a dependent clause, you don't have a complex sentence. Flat out. Period. Dang! Thus, you have four possibilities: 1) Simple. 2) Compound. 3) Complex. 4) Compound-complex So I'm sure that everyone's keeping up with th e reading for The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which puts us at reading chapters 7 & 8 for tonight (Thursday night's) homework. The sentences for list 9 were due today, but we will move our weekly quiz to next Friday, November 2. The essays (which btw have ranged from excellent to non-existent) will be due two days from our editing point. This means that when I conference with you, your end product is due two class days from the day of your conference. Please have your paper in class each day until I can meet with you. Note: this means you may need to conference with me before or after school, or during our lunch. I'll be glad to meet with you during these times, but please schedule a conference to make sure I'll be around. On FRIDAY we will take another quiz on Dr. J & Mr. H. It will cover what you've read through chapters 8. Sparknotes--a source with which there's nothing wrong--is not a good source for your quiz material. There's no substitution for you eating your own meal. Don't let others eat your delicious dinner and then spit their chewed up food into your mouth. REMEMBER: Your mid-term exam will be administered on Monday during second period. Friday is a regular day for English class. The only difference is that we will not have the vocabulary quiz on Friday. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde quiz, yes; vocabulary, no. Today, you were to catch back up from the reading/summary-response journal entry most of you missed over the weekend. Check below for Friday's entry to get the reading log and the the schedule. Tonight you should be reading through chapter 2. You WILL have a quiz on chapters 1-2 on Tuesday. You should also turn in the 2-column summary/response on TUESDAY. REMINDER- THIS IS AN ENGLISH HONORS CLASS. Do not turn in TRIPE and expect to receive anything other than a nominal grade.
Above is the PDF example sheet for a SPES argument. Now, one could certainly go nuts with the verbal play on words of SPES and specious; however, if done well, any paragraph with a SPES structure will at least have form--if not, arguably, valid content. In other words, you may not succeed in building a decent argument, but if you use SPES, you will at least build a decent paragraph. The goal is to build both persuasive paragraphs and awesome arguments. Please keep in mind that the above PDF is NOT intended to make a political statement whatsoever. As a matter of fact, we'll go ahead and fictionalize the authors: Paragraph 1: written by "Richy Republican" and paragraph 2: written by "Debby Democrat." Thus the bias exhibited in both is clearly stated upfront. Neither paragraph suggests necessarily my own biases, which I do not admit upfront, other than to say that, although I do have biases, they're really not part of this discussion at all. Period. :)
Today we were introduced to two characters in Robert Louis Stevenson's classic Victorian tale of horror, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde--two characters who enjoy walking without much conversation down seedy parts of London: tne lawyer, Utterson, and the lawyer's friend, Mr. Enfield. Mr. Enfield is inspired during their weekend walk one day to relay a story about a strange door, which he begins to connect with a story about a little girl getting stepped on by a older man at 3:00 a.m. one night. That's where we stopped... Your job is to read all of chapter 1 this weekend and write both a summary and a response to it. Your summary should not be a sparknotes-esque summary that you copy and paste from the Web...just sayin'. Here's the link to the Summary/Response T-chart for you to use: Summary/Response T-chart You can find the text on our resources page, as well as in iTunes. I've posted the link to iTunes below. Remember: no excuses! Read this and respond! Keep in mind that your final draft of your essay will be due next week, after I conference with you. (On Monday, we will review the components of SPES - Statement, Proof, Explanation and Synthesis.) I have also post a reading schedule for The Strange Cases of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde below. If you want to download the book in your iBooks, it's a free download and highly useful. Here's a screenshot of what it looks like, along with your nightly reading regimen. NIGHTLY READING SCHEDULE Friday - 10.19.12 Chapter 1: Story of the Door Requirement: Summary/Response (click here for template) Monday - 10.22.12 Chapter 2: Search for Mr. Hyde Tuesday - 10.23.12 Chapter 3: Dr. Jekyll Was Quite at Ease Wednesday - 10.24.12 Chapter 4: The Carew Murder Case Thursday - 10.25.12 Chapter 5: The Incident of the Letter As we have brought our anti-hero, Macbeth, to his timely demise, we have been forced to think through whether his actions could ever be seen as justified--which, of course, is the topic of our essay. Here are several links you may find to be extremely beneficial: 1) MLA format for Microsoft Word 2007- this link is awesome! It shows you exactly how to format every detail of your pages from first to work cited! 2) Example thesis statements + introductory paragraphs
TUESDAY 10.16.12
We took the Macbeth test. Keep in mind that your papers must be in class on Thursday. We will peer edit the papers, and I will meet with you individually regarding your essay. Come prepared to revise. MONDAY 10.15.12 Your first draft of your argumentative essay was due. We reviewed for the "Macbeth-the final acts" test. I took up your first draft and checked for completion. FRIDAY 10.12.12 We finished Macbeth, and set the test for Monday. We discussed the ending of the play, and I asked you to define cartharsis for me. What is catharsis? I'm still waiting for answers... THURSDAY 10.11.12 We met in the media center and researched different theories on ethical behavior. I posted links on our resources page to guide your research. Remember that you are going to use justification for your position by referencing other sources. These sources can include books, websites, periodicals, or even religious material. The point is not to simply reference these sources just so you can check this off the checklist. The point is to back up your assertions with support. If you need to use the grid to help you type your SWBS chart, download this template and follow the example. Remember the whole point of this rigid chart is to help you know what I am expecting from you and to give you a good example of how it's done.
Remember that our focus for Macbeth is this: justification for our assertions. If we use evidence from the text or from cited sources, we are much closer to valid textual analysis. We still have work to do, but it will be much closer!* ACT V - SWBS due on Thursday
* 20 sentences due Thursday * Vocabulary Quiz on Friday (will have previous week's terms) * First typed draft due on Monday (Prompt is listed below) |
AuthorJohnny Walters is responsible for the contents on these pages. When he's not writing, grading papers, or reading books, he's playing with his kids, his banjo, or his guitar. Archives
May 2013
Categories |