Thursday, January 30, 2014

You need to do this.

If you were absent in class the day we watched the following video clips, you need to watch them at home.  I need a half page written response to the first one.  After you view the second one, make a T square on your paper, and write the main arguments of both professors.




Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Term 3 Calendar


January 20 MLK
1-21 Teacher Prep Day
1-22 A  Review protocol, Intro: ACT, Twain Quotes
Intro: Huck Finn
Draw from hat for presentation date. New vocabulary
1-23 B Review protocol, Intro: ACT, Twain Quotes
Intro: Huck Finn
Draw from hat for presentation date. New vocabulary
1-24 A 
Mock ACT test #1, 50 pts
HF quiz 1-4 50 pts
Doll’s House Book Card Due: 100 points
Motif Groups
1-27 B A  Mock ACT test #1, 50 pts
HF quiz 1-4 50 pts
Doll’s House Book Card due: 100 points
Motif Groups
1-28 A HF
quiz 5-8,
Three ACT quizlets, 30 pts  Motif Groups
 
1-29 B  HF quiz 5-8, three ACT quizlets, 30 points
Motif Groups
1-30 A  HF quiz 9-12, three ACT quizlets, 30 pts,
Motif Groups
1-31 B  HF quiz 9-12, 
ACT quizlets, 30 pts
Motif Groups
 
 
 
2-3 A  HF quiz 13-16, three ACT quizlets,
Motif Groups
2-4 B HF quiz 13-16,  three ACT quizlets
Motif Groups
2-5 A  HF quiz 17-19, three ACT quizlets,
Past Particples/prep for time writing
FEB 6 B HF quiz 17-19, three ACT quizlets,
Past Participles/ prep for timed writing
FEB 7 A  HF quiz 20-23,
Junior Timed Writing, 5th floor lab
FEB 10 B HF quiz 20-23, Junior Timed Writing, 5th floor lab
FEB 11 A  HF quiz 24-26, three ACT quizlets,
Quotation Marks
FEB 12 B   HF quiz 24-26, three ACT quizlets,
Quotation Marks
FEB 13 A  HF quiz 27-30,
Mock ACT test #2
Parallel Structure
FEB 14 B HF quiz 27-30
Mock ACT test #2
Parallel Structure
 
FEB 17 Presidents Day
FEB 18 A HF quiz 31-33, past participle quiz, 50 points Motif Groups
FEB 19 B   HF quiz 31-33, past participle quiz, 50 points Motif Groups
FEB 20 A HF 34-37, comma rules, MOCK ACT TEST, 50 points
FEB 21 B
HF 34-37, comma rules, MOCK ACT TEST, 50 points
 
FEB 24 A HF quiz 38-41, comma quiz,
 
 
FEB 25 B  HF quiz 38-41, comma quiz,
 
FEB 26 A HF 42-end quiz,  Vocab Quiz
Thesis statement due at the end of the period:  50  Library points:  40
FEB 27 B HF 42-end quiz,  Vocab Quiz
Thesis statement due at the end of the period:  50  Library points:  40
FEB 28 A Outline due
Blending quotations in correctly, Verbs to use in analysis
Mock ACT test #3
MARCH 3 B  Outline due
Blending quotations in correctly, Verbs to use in analysis
Mock ACT test #3
MARCH 4 ACT test for juniors.  Everyone else stays home.
  A/B day
MARCH 5 A  Huck Finn Final Test
 
Sentence variety
MARCH 6 B Huck Finn Final Test
 
Sentence variety
3-7 A  MLA
Memorized Mark Twain Quote Due:  30 points
 
3-10 B  MLA
Memorized Mark Twain Quote Due:  30 points
 
3-11 A 
Huck Finn Paper Due:  200 points
I will model the presentation.
3-12 B Huck Finn Paper Due: 200 points
I will model the presentation.
3-13 A  Presentations/
Critiquing (5)  Individual for IB, pairs for Honors
3-14 B Presentations/Critiquing (5)  Individual for IB, pairs for Honors
 
 
3-17 A
Presentations/
Critiquing (5)  )  Individual for IB, pairs for Honors
3-18 B Presentations/
Critiquing (3)  Individual for IB, pairs for Honors
3-19 A
Presentations/
Critiquing (5)  )  Individual for IB, pairs for Honors
THIS IS THE LAST DAY I WILL ACCEPT LATE WORK!
3-20 B Presentations/Critiquing (5)  Individual for IB, pairs for Honors
THIS IS THE LAST DAY I WILL ACCEPT LATE WORK!
3-21 A  Presentations/Critiquing (5)    Individual for IB, pairs for Honors
 
 
3-24 B Presentations/
Critiquing (5)    Individual for IB, pairs for Honors
3-25 A Presentations/
Critiquing (3)
3-26 B Presentations/
Critiquing (5)
3-27 A  See the message on March 19, 20 about late work.     L
Spring Break

Literature Choices for presentations:  The Crucible, The John and Abigail Adams Letters, The Scarlet Letter, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  Honors students may also use A Doll’s House.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

A Doll's House Vocabulary


1.        Spendthrift

2.       Tremendous

3.       Caprice

4.       Unassailable

5.       Ascertained

6.       Dissimulation

7.       Obstinate

8.       Inexorable

9.       Amicably

10.   Tarantella

11.   Prudent

12.   Apparition

13.   Consternation

14.   Repudiate

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Poetry Assignment

100 points

Memorized Poem: Due: On the day you signed up on the door


100 points
Poetry Log Guidelines: Due January 10 for A day, January 13 for B day

 
After reading several poems, you must select at least ten different poems by at least seven different poets to include in this collection. You may not use poems we have discussed in class, but you may use other poems by poets we have discussed in class.
Copy each poem into your collection. Be sure to include the title and the poet’s name.
You must annotate, using circles, arrows, whatever, to mark and label the poetic devices the poet used in each poem. Be thorough, as you will be deducted for glaring omissions.
You will then write (by that, I mean type) a paragraph for each poem, explicating each one. Look for a "door" into the poem. Is there a point of tension? Is there a shift at some point? You may discuss such as symbols, tone, allusions, alliteration, assonance, rhyme scheme, meter, rhythm, and any other poetic devices used, but be sure to say what those devices DO for the poem. Don’t just note their presence. That’s what the annotations were for. Make meaning. Consider the title. Consider meaning. Make a claim, and back it up. You can do this.


100 points
Original Poetry Booklet Guidelines: Due January 10 for A day, January 13 for B day

You will create ten original poems, using at least seven different forms we’ve learned about in class.
Three, and only three poems may rhyme. At least one poem must rhyme.
Use examples of every poetic device we’ve learned about. (Obviously, you can’t use them all on one poem, but over the course of this assignment, you should utilize each device at least once.)
Look back at some of our poetry experiences in class. Some can be worked up into fine poem.
You need to make an attractive cover, so that the likelihood that you will end up saving this booklet and showing it to your grandchildren is increased.

Please make every attempt to avoid clichés, those over-used, worn out expressions that we’ve all heard before. They have lost their luster, and they will detract from your poem, rather than enhance it. I’m looking for fresh perspectives, unique metaphors, the originality that only you can bring to this assignment. While I’m sure it would be very easy to get away with plagiarizing these poems, I would hope that your honor and your own sense of self would prevent that. Impress me. But more important than that, impress yourself.

Monday, December 2, 2013

Memorized Poem Options...continued


#4  Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea

#5  In honor of the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, I’m including it as an option, even though it is not really a poem.  One may, however, find in it many poetic devices. 

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
 
 

#6  This option is for the rare student who would like to challenge herself/himself with a ridiculously long and wonderful poem called “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe.  You’ll find the entire text online and in our textbook.

Memorized Poem 100 points


In addition to your Hawthorne quote, Emerson quote and your Thoreau quote, you must memorize and recite a poem by January , 2015.  There will be a sign-up sheet on the door with spots after school, in class, and during SIR.  No poems may be passed off before school.  Please do not ask if you may choose another option.  You may only choose from the following options:

#1  On Turning Ten  by Billy Collins

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

#2  Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

 

#3  Verse 52 from "Song of Myself"
by
Walt Whitman
 
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me—he complains of my gab and my loitering.
I too am not a bit tamed—I too am untranslatable;
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me;
It flings my likeness after the rest, and true as any, on the shadow’d wilds;
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air—I shake my white locks at the runaway sun;
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt, to grow from the grass I love;
If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am, or what I mean;
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged;
Missing me one place, search another;
I stop somewhere, waiting for you.


Excerpted from "Song of Myself," in Leaves of Grass.
#4  Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea
#5  In honor of the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, I’m including it as an option, even though it is not really a poem.  One may, however, find in it many poetic devices. 
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
 
 
#6  This option is for the rare student who would like to challenge herself/himself with a ridiculously long and wonderful poem called “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe.  You’ll find the entire text online and in our textbook.

Friday, November 22, 2013

"A" Vocabulary Lists


 Vocabulary List AP/IB English

A

1. abstract: (adj) theoretical, not concrete.

2. abstruse: (adj) difficult to understand.

 3. acclaim: (v) praise, applaud.

4. accolade: (n) an award, or praise.

5. acquiescent: (adj) reluctantly agreeable, compliant.

6. acrimony: (n) words or behavior filled with harshness or anger.

7. adamant: (adj) refusing to change, stubborn, unyielding.

8. adroit: (adj) skillful in physical activity, or in handling difficult situations.

9. advocate: (v) support, plead for, speak on behalf of.

10. affable: (adj) friendly, easygoing.

11. affirmation: (n) positive statement, assertion, agreement.

12. alienate: (v) to push someone away, cause him to separate from people.

13. aloof: (adj) detached, apart, indifferent.

14. altruistic: (adj) unselfish, caring.

15. ambidextrous: (adj) able to use both hands with equal skill.

16. ambiguous: (adj) unclear, vague, having several possible interpretations.

 17. ambivalence: (n) indecision, feeling of being pulled in two directions.

18. ameliorate: (v) to make an unpleasant situation better, to improve.

19. amity: (n) friendship.

20. amorphous: (adj) without form or shape.

21. analogous: (adj) similar

22. anarchy: (n) a lack of order, chaos.

 23. anathema: (n) a religious curse, or the thing or person being cursed.

 24. antagonistic: (adj) in hostile competition, opposing.

25. antiquated: (adj) too old to be useful, outdated, obsolete.

 26. antithesis: (n) opposite.
 
LIST #2
27. apathy: (n) lack of interest or concern.
28. apex: (n) top, highest point, summit.
29. appease: (v) calm, pacify.
30. arbitrary: (adj) selected by random choice and without solid reason.
31. arcane: (adj) secret, mysterious.
32. archaic: (adj) old, antiquated.
33. arrogant: (adj) acting superior, obnoxious, smug, rude.
34. articulate: (adj) able to speak clearly and effectively.
35. ascendance: (n) domination, controlling power.
36. ascetic: (n) person who rejects physical comfort and luxury for self-discipline.
36.5.  asthetic:  (n, adj) referring to beauty