Beowulf links

A couple of sites with a wealth of information on Old English and the Beowulf epic:

The first, by Syd Allan, contains information on many topics related to the study of Old English literature and Beowulf in particular.

The second, by Benjamin Slade, contains, among other things, a dual-language translation of the poem, allowing us to see each line in comparison with the original Anglo-Saxon text.

Also, YouTube contains many videos, from those done by earnest amateurs to movie trailers to more scholarly presentations.

These are resources which can be explored for the purpose of creating short oral presentations in class.

Blog tips

1. Locate and use the return key. After having plowed my way through several 500-word long paragraphs, I want to say how readers enjoy consuming ideas in nice bite-size paragraphs rather than having the entire three-course meal stuffed down our throats in a single mouthful. (Blogger's formatting doesn't always recognize tab indents, so I'd even suggest a double return between paragraphs to make the divisions clearer.)

2. Put word count in parentheses at the end of your entry.

3. Keep working to create your own voice. I'm enjoying reading your early posts, and I'll enjoy them even more as you work on sounding like the authentic, intelligent self you are and not what you think I want you to sound like. Many of you are already doing so; keep it up. Your writing is so much nicer if it has a recognizable touch of your personality in it.

4. Take my e-mail address out of the "blog send" box in your settings. And if you have a PS from me, PLEASE turn off the word verification setting.

5. Act like you're enjoying it (even if you're not) and eventually you will.

Clarification

The projects at the ends of chapters in Faire Englishche will be assigned individually in class. The reading assignment is only the content of that chapter.

Sorry for any confusion--The Management

Updated schedule

I've made some changes to the assignment schedule. The new one gets us to the same place as the old one by Friday, September 10 (end of week 3 and my 60th birthday) but the order of the assignments is different. Between the JLP retreat and the 9th grade trip, there were too many conflicts to justify having a paper due Friday Sept 3. See the schedule of assignments for details.

Assignments--August 23 - October 7

English IV & AP—Major British Authors
Mr. Coon
Schedule of Assignments
August—October, 2010

Note: All assignments are DUE for the class day listed.

Week 1: August 23—27

Day 1: First day—welcome, syllabus, blog intro, assignments

Day 2: Set up account with Google Reader (see “how to start a blog,” on mrcoonsenglish.blogspot.com); write blog assignment #1.

Day 3: Read chapter 1, Our Faire Englische Tung

Day 4: Quiz 1—Multiple choice (15 minutes); write blog assignment #2

Week 2: August 30—September 3

Day 1: Read chapter 2, Our Faire Englische Tung

Day 2: Anthology, pp. 1 - 7

Day 3: Anthology, pp. 26-35 (to l. 185)

Day 4: pp.35-41 (to l. 490); vocab quiz, lessons 1-2

Week 3: September 7—10 No classes Monday (Labor Day)

1: Anthology, pp. 41-48 (to l. 835)

2: Paper #1 due Wednesday, Sept 8 for all sections (including section 3 which does not meet)

3: Multiple choice quiz 2; read pp. 48-66 (l. 1650)

Week 4: September 13—17

1: blog #3 due; read pp. 66-83 (l. 2509)

2: pp. 83-97.

3: Vocab quiz 2 (lessons 3-4)

4: Test on Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon English

Week 5: September 20—24

1: blog #4 due; read pp. 723-732 (to l. 270)

2: read pp. 778-781 (to l. 171)

3. pp. 823-828 (ll. 567-833)

4: Multiple choice quiz 3; read pp. 829-834 (ll. 886-1098)

Week 6: September 27—October 1

1: blog #5 due; read chapter 3, Oure Faire Englische Tung

2: Read pp. 112-124

3. pp. 124-137

4: vocab quiz 3 (lessons 5-6). pp. 137-154

Week 7: October 4—7—No school Friday (Fall Break)

1: read pp. 154-165; no blog due

2. drafts due for paper #2; topics to be announced

3. Papers due; multiple choice quiz #4

Heading and format guidelines

Click here for a document detailing requirements for heading and format of your papers.

Paper #1 assignment

English IV & AP
Paper #1
Summer reading assignment
Due Friday, September 3, 2010

1. Papers must be submitted both as hard copy to me and digital file to turnitin (assignment title: Summer Reading Paper). If you will be absent Friday, your paper is due Thursday, September 2.
2. Follow guidelines on mrcoonsenglish.blogspot.com for proper paper heading and format. Be sure to include the necessary information.
3. Length is 800-1000 words (approximately 3 pp) for English IV students and 1300-1600 (approx. 5 pp) words for AP students.
4. Use NO secondary sources for this assignment. Refer only to your own thoughts and the text of your selected novels. No google searches, no sparknotes, no yahoo answers, no Jstor articles, or any outside sources of any sort. Am I making myself sufficiently clear about this?

Topics

1a. (for English IV) “One of the great powers of literature is its ability to teach us what it means to be a human being. Whether the story we read is set in the past, present, or future, writers show us what is important to people, what they value most, what their deepest hopes, fears, conflicts, or dilemmas may be. Through a privileged glimpse into an imagined life, set in the context of a specific place and time, we gain new knowledge not only into that other reality but also into our own humanity.”—Prof. T-Bone McGanahan

Apply this statement to the novel you selected for your summer reading assignment. Select one character from that novel and, in an essay, explain how the writer gives the character recognizable humanity despite any differences in setting and circumstances between that character’s life and our own. Refer to the novel for specific examples to support your ideas. Avoid plot summary.

1b. (for English IV) If you both read the book and watched the movie based on that novel, write a paper comparing the two. In particular, assess the significance of the decisions made by the screenwriter and director in adapting the novel to film. How faithful was the adaptation? How successfully was the spirit and emotion of the novel translated to the screen? Be certain to use specific references to both media in your discussion.

2. (for AP students) Often, the most significant events in a novel are mental or psychological. For example, the key to understanding the novel may lie in an awakening, a discovery, or a change in consciousness (adapted from the 1988 Advanced Placement examination in English Literature and Composition).

Apply this statement to both of the novels you selected from the reading list. For each, briefly show how the writer gives internal events the same excitement, suspense, and climax we often associate with external action. Identify the internal change and suggest its significance to the novel as a whole. Refer specifically to both novels in the course of your discussion. Avoid plot summary.

Blog assignment #1--Most memorable books

Think about the most memorable reading experiences you have ever had in your life. List 10 of them in a blog post, including a brief note about your reason for including each. How old were you? Why was that book so memorable? Here are my choices, not in any particular order; what are yours?

1. Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger. When I was 15 I thought it the truest book I'd ever read. I haven’t changed my mind all that much in the years since.
2. The stories of Edgar Allan Poe. I found these at my public library the summer I was 12 and couldn't stop reading. Nearly 50 years later, I can still picture the library book and its purple cover. The Pit and the Pendulum, The Gold Bug, Murders in the Rue Morgue—loved ‘em.
3. All the Kings Men, Robert Penn Warren. Read it the first time when I was 20. I’ve gone back to it several times since. The best account of hardball politics I know, but also a great story of personal redemption.
4. Master and Commander, Patrick O'Brian. I love the whole series, all 20 volumes. I’ve read each one at least twice. The British navy during the Napoleonic wars comes alive and the characters are utterly memorable and convincing. I toured Adm. Nelson's flagship, HMS Victory, this summer.
5. Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin. A burglar, a consumptive heiress, a flying horse, and bridges from the future—what a combination.
6. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole. The most outrageously funny book I've ever read. I laughed out loud often.
7. Outlander, Diana Gabaldon--another series—I read volume 7 this summer. Time travel, romance, and history in one ever-expanding package.
8. Lonesome Dove--Larry McMurtry--my all-time favorite western, and I’ve always loved westerns. Part of a series of 4 novels, but this one stands out as the best of the bunch.
9. Gone to Soldiers--Marge Piercy--my favorite WWII novel, follows the experiences of 10 characters from the war’s beginning to its end. Some die, some go on to unexpected careers, all are profoundly affected by the war.
10. Anna Karenina--Tolstoy--read it one chapter a night before bedtime for three months—an amazing story. Lots of serious readers call this the best novel ever written.
11. Absalom Absalom AND The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner—I like them both so much I can’t choose between them. The closest thing to actually living in the Old South is immersing yourself in a Faulkner novel. Not easy, but they’re worth the effort
12. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen--my 2nd favorite 18th century novel. I've had a crush on Lizzy Bennett since I was 18, I think.
13. Tom Jones, Henry Fielding--my favorite 18th century novel. A 900-page novel I once read in 4 days.
14. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens--he may be a bit out of fashion now, but I love Dickens stories, the breadth of them, the marvelously eccentric characters, the twists and turns of plot.
15. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain--the book I've read the most times, so many I've lost count.

Finally, at the risk of disappointing some of you severely, I hereby confess that I’ve only read one Harry Potter book. I enjoyed it but don't feel any overwhelming need to continue the series. I enjoyed The Magicians by Lev Grossman more. It's funnier and written for a little older audience. Also haven't read Hunger Games or the Twilight series, although I do have a favorite vampire book, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, which comes close to making my list.

Blog assignment #1

Go to www.blogger.com. You should be automatically directed to their start page. Follow the "three easy steps" :
--Create your account using your PCDS e-mail account and a password of your choice (suggestion: use the same account and password for your turnitin.com account). Since your blog will only be read by me and by your classmates, please use your first and last name as your display name; that way I always know whose blog I'm reading and you get credit for having written it.
--Name your blog. Whatever you like, but it's a school assignment, so be appropriate, please. For your blog's url, use firstname-lastname so that we may find each other's blogs easily during the year.
--Select a template for your blog. Pick whichever one you like, with one condition. My eyes are getting older and I can't read text set against a black or dark blue background, so please don't choose one of those templates.

After you create your template, click "start posting" to go to the editing page of your blog. From there, you have one more crucial task. Copy the exact URL of your blog carefully and legibly onto a bookmark card and give it to me when you arrive in class.

Finally, one crucial setting. Open the "comments" tab, scroll down, and click the "NO" button next to a setting called "show word verification for comments." This one is important to save me a great deal of time and bother when I write comments back to you about your blog posts. Be sure to click "save settings" before you leave this section of your settings.

When you have completed all these steps, click the "Posting" tab and create your first blog entry.

I recommend that you write, edit, spell-check, and word-count your letter as a word document then paste it into the box on the posting page of your blog. When you're done, give it a title, click the orange button marked "publish post," and voila!—you have created your first blog entry (410).

Syllabus

English IV & AP
Major British Authors I
Syllabus
Mr. Coon; Fall 2010

I. Goals

This fall-semester course examines the origins of literature in English and traces the development of the English language from its Germanic roots to the eighteenth century. Readings include the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, excerpts from the narrative cycle The Canterbury Tales, the medieval romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night, excerpts from the literary epic Paradise Lost, and lyric poetry of the 17th and 18th centuries. A supplemental text develops a historical understanding of the growth and development of the language itself.
Some students in the course have the AP designation attached to their enrollment. These students, chosen on the basis of their interest, prior achievements, and motivation level, supported by the department’s recommendation, are expected to meet slightly higher academic standards. AP students write one additional paper, write slightly longer papers, and take occasional quizzes based on practice materials drawn from previous AP English Literature examinations. Also, students enrolled with AP designation are required to take the second half of the Major British Authors sequence in the spring semester and sit for the AP exam in English Literature and Composition in May.

II. Textbook

The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Major Authors, Eighth edition, Volume A

III. Additional texts
1. Vocabulary for Achievement, 6th course
2. Oure Faire Englische Tung: A Brief History of the English Language
3. Selected novels for summer reading

IV. Written work
The primary forum for written work is your blog. You are required to post weekly blog entries relating to the literature studied in the classroom. Your blogs will receive a grade, accounting for 30% of each quarter’s grade. Blog entries should be approximately 500 words in length (please indicate word count in parentheses at the end of each entry). I will not, however, grade by length alone; rather, quantity will be one of four criteria, along with regularity and completeness of entries, quality of style, and originality of content. Instructions about creating and posting blog entries may be found on my blog at mrcoonsenglish.blogspot.com.
Occasionally I will ask you to respond to particular prompts or questions on my blog, but often there is no set topic for your weekly entries. Rather, I ask you to find an element of the assigned reading that interests you and discuss it thoughtfully. This comment may take many forms, a few of which are suggested here:
• Discuss a character’s actions, words, personality, moral values, or humanity.
• Comment on the writer’s style, use of language, tone, irony, or imagery.
• Consider a topic or idea raised in class discussion, trying to go beyond what has already been stated.
• Raise and discuss a question about the text under consideration.
• Discuss the importance or meaning of a key passage or scene from the reading.
• For longer works, show how a scene or passage develops a theme or pattern identified in class.
• Make a comparison between a scene, character, or idea from the literature and something from another source or from your own experience
• Use an idea from my blog or from that of one of your classmates as a point of departure for your response.
• Locate relevant research material on the web, post a link to the site on your blog, and discuss your choice.

In all cases, your goals are to demonstrate close, careful reading of assigned texts, challenge yourself to creative, original thinking, and develop your fluency as a writer. In addition to blog entries, several times each semester, I will assign papers, either revisions of blog entries or interpretations of assigned novels, plays, poems, or stories.

IMPORTANT: HEADINGS FOR PAPERS—Always head your papers with the following information: your name, date, turnitin receipt number, and word count (your word processing program should perform this last task for you automatically).


V. Turnitin.com
In addition to submitting hard copies of your papers this year, you are required to submit electronic copies of all papers to turnitin.com. These instructions will help you submit your papers. Use your PCDS e-mail address and the same password for turnitin.com that you use for your account at blogger.com.
• On your web browser, go to turnitin.com. Register as a new user or login to the personal home page you created last year. You must give your PCDS e-mail address and a personal password which contains both letters and numbers to register. Click “student” as your user type. Give whatever other information may be necessary as you move through the required fields.
• When you reach your personal home page, click “join new class.” Then enter a class ID and a class enrollment password. For AP students, the class ID is 1598905 and the password “APeng”; for World Literature students (non-AP) the class ID is 1875359 and the password is “engIV”. Click “submit” when you finish. N.B: You only need to complete this step once.
• Then submit your paper. When you click on the class title, you will go to the class history page. Click on the word “submit” in the middle navigation bar. Enter the title of your paper and select the assignment with the correct date from the pull down menu. Assignments are listed by the title of the work and the date an assignment is due.
• After entering your title and selecting the correct assignment, paste your essay into the box marked “main text.” (In my experience, the copy and paste method works better than the upload method. You may, of course, find otherwise). You may ignore the boxes marked abstract and bibliography unless otherwise instructed. When your paper has been pasted into the “main text” box, click “submit.”
• Remember to put your digital receipt number on the assignment before you give it to me. Otherwise your assignment will be marked late and penalized accordingly.

VI. Participation and attendance
• Class discussion is a crucial part of the course. Therefore, it is imperative that we all treat one another with respect and behave in such a way as to contribute to, not disrupt, an atmosphere conducive to maximum learning.
• Participation in class is mandatory. I understand that the introverts have difficulty speaking in front of your peers and me; nevertheless, I expect you to contribute meaningfully to class activities and discussions. You must come to class having done the reading assigned and be prepared to discuss the material, answer questions, venture informed opinions, and articulate personal responses.
• Participation grades are assigned as follows and account for 10% of your grade in the class: "A" students are fully engaged, on time with the necessary books and supplies. They display obvious enthusiasm for the tasks of the class: reading, talking, listening, working in a group, thinking about a problem. "B" students' engagement varies slightly, sometimes at "A" level, sometimes not. "C" students are generally involved but with noticeable lapses. They may arrive late to class or frequently forget materials. They spend time on things other than the work at hand: chatting with friends, doing homework for another class, catching up on sleep, or staring off in space. "D" students exhibit these behaviors to an even greater degree, becoming a distraction to the work of the class, having a negative impact on the group's ability to get its work done, regularly coming to class unprepared.
• The first six excused absences each semester, not including those for School business (athletic competitions, class trips, performances, field trips, etc) will not be penalized. The seventh, ninth, and eleventh absences will result in a one-third letter grade penalty in your participation and attendance grade, and the thirteenth will result in a participation grade no higher than D for the semester. Latenesses to class will be reported to the Dean of Students. Detention begins on the third and subsequent lateness to each class.

VII. Vocabulary
• Three new lessons in the vocabulary book are assigned every other week. We will look briefly at the new words during the first class of the week, so please bring your books to that session. Quizzes will take place the first 10 minutes of class on alternate Fridays unless otherwise notified.
• For first semester, we will cover lessons 1-15; for the second, lessons 16-30. Quizzes will contain all 30 words from the three lessons.
• Missed vocabulary quizzes must be made up at your earliest possible convenience. After one week, barring extraordinary circumstances, missing scores will be entered as zeroes.



VIII. Grading policy

• Grades are determined on a point system in which each assignment is weighted by the number of points it contains. Points will be totaled at the end of each quarter and semester and grades determined in accordance with the percentages contained in your student handbook.
• Grades from individual assignments are then weighted into categories as follows: blogs (20%), papers and tests (50%), vocabulary and quizzes (20%), participation (10%).
• Assignments are due at the beginning of class. Work turned in during or after class is considered late and will be penalized. Late work is eligible for a score no higher than 75%, depending on the quality of the assignment and the degree of lateness. If you are absent the day an assignment is due, either have a classmate turn it in or fax the assignment to the Upper School office (602-224-6177).
• Students who miss quizzes or tests because of excused absence must make arrangements for make-up immediately upon returning to school. Missing work (quizzes or assignments never turned in or made up) will result in an incomplete grade for the quarter or semester.
• Any student who establishes a clear pattern of failing to complete the assigned reading according to the prescribed schedule will receive a semester grade of D or F, regardless of that student’s scores on other assignments. Repeated missing or poor written work, failed quizzes or tests, or the inability to supply basic factual information in class will be taken as signs of not reading.
• All assignments must be completed in accordance with the school’s honesty policy. See your handbook for details and be certain you know the difference between plagiarism and acceptable use of source material.



X. Contact information
• In person—room 311. Stop by to talk or ask a question anytime I’m free. My schedule is posted on the door of my classroom. To make up a quiz, go over an assignment, a speech draft, or a college essay, please make an appointment first.
• By voice-mail—602-956-0253 x4296
• By fax—602-224-6177
• By e-mail—Lance.Coon@pcds.org

SHK--Final projects 2010

Follow this link to project requirements and schedule.

English IV--Summer Reading List

English IV & AP
2010 Recommended summer reading

Prior to the first week of the new school year, please read at least one of the following titles, all written by authors from the British Isles or Commonwealth. If you are enrolled in English IV AP, please select at least two titles, one from list I and one from list II. You are, of course, encouraged to choose additional titles for your own pleasure reading. (N.B. “H” designates historical fiction, set in a period earlier than its date of composition; “F” represents a work set in the future.)

I. Nineteenth century
Jane Austen, Persuasion (1818)
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (1847)
Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights (1847)
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859) (H)
Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891)
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818)

II. Twentieth/Twenty-first century
Richard Adams, Watership Down (1972)
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (1986) (F)
Pat Barker, Regeneration (1991) (H)
Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1962) (F)
A.S. Byatt, Possession (1990)
Peter Carey, The True History of the Kelly Gang (2000) (H)
Roddy Doyle, The Van (1991)
Nadine Gordimer, July’s People (1981)
Graham Greene, The Quiet American (1955)
Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time (2003)
George Hagen, Tom Bedlam (2007) (H)
Nick Hornby, High Fidelity (1995)
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932) (F)
Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day (1989) (H)
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (1942)
Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall (2009) (H)
Yann Martel, Life of Pi (2002)
Ian McEwan, Atonement (2001) (H)
Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance (1995) (H)
Patrick O’Brian, Master and Commander (1969) (H)
Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient (1992) (H)
George Orwell, 1984 (1949) (F)
Graham Swift, Waterland (1983)
Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger (1992) (H) or Morality Play (1995) (H)

Several of these novels have been adapted into fine movies. Feel free to rent the film after you read the novel, as you could elect to write a brief comparison of the two for your first written assignment.

Shakespeare--important dates

Friday, April 16--Vocab 23, 24
Wed. April 21 -- Test on Twelfth Night (ID's, a few passages, a short essay topic)
Friday, April 23 -- Sonnet performances in honor of Shakespeare's (and Sarah's) birthday (thanks to Sarah A and Salona for cake and cookies)
Tuesday, April 27 -- Review plays & vocab lessons 25 & 26
Wednesday, April 28 -- Selection of final performance projects
Friday, April 30 -- Last vocab quiz (25, 26)
Thurs, May 13 -- Final project performances in Dorrance, 11:30 - 12:15, public invited
Friday, May 14 -- Last day of class
Saturday, May 15 -- Prom
Monday, May 17 -- Awards Day
Tuesday, May 18 to Friday May 21 -- Senior class trip
Monday, May 24 -- Final exams for any unfortunate souls with averages below 72.5%
Thursday, June 3 -- Graduation rehearsal, graduation
Friday & Saturday, June 4 & 5 --Greer Days celebration & parade

AP--week of April 12

Day 1--small group discussions of The Glass Menagerie. All answers must be supported by examples drawn from the text of the play.
Group 1--what are Amanda's admirable qualities? How do they add to the presentation of her character? How sympathetic is her total portrayal in the play?
Group 2--Why does Jim respond so warmly, even protectively, to Laura? What do they have in common? Why does he pull back from her so suddenly?
Group 3--How does Tom, unlike Laura, protect himself from the debilitating atmosphere of the apartment? How do his soliloquies employ irony to illustrate his methods of psychological self-defense?

Day 2--before class, read Arthur Miller's essay "Tragedy and the Common Man," on p. 1833. Which of his ideas about tragedy differ most sharply from those implied in the plays of Sophocles and Shakespeare? in class, read the handout from "The Play is Memory," by Benjamin Nelson. Discuss this question: to what extent do you agree with his implication that the major shortcoming of The Glass Menagerie is that its characters lack tragic stature?

Day 3--Read Act 1 of Fences; come to class prepared to discuss your initial impressions of all the central characters. Also, in-class exercise on AP style analysis.

Day 4--vocab 23 & 24 quiz. Short video on the career of August Wilson. Continue reading and researching your outside novels.

Monday, April 19--finish reading Fences.

Final projects--African-American Lit

Suggested reading list for final projects.
N.B. Projects must be “multi-media” in some way. That is, the reading may be accompanied by research in an area related to its theme, into African-American popular culture, into film, art, and music, and the results of this learning are to by synthesized into a powerpoint presentation involving text and either audio or visual supplements.


Alice Walker -- The Color Purple
James Baldwin -- If Beale Street Could Talk
Audre Lorde ???
Gloria Naylor -- Mama Day, The Women of Brewster Place
Ishmael Reed -- Mumbo Jumbo
Rita Dove -- Mother Love
Ntozake Shange -- Nappy Edges, for colored girls who have considered suicide . .
Toni Morrison -- Bluest Eye, Sula, Jazz
Lucille Clifton -- Adventures of Everett Anderson—all volumes
Terri MacMillan -- Waiting to Exhale
Carolivia Herron -- Thereafter, Johnnie
Barbara Smith -- Home Girls
Paule Marshall -- Brown Girl, Brownstones
August Wilson -- The Piano Lesson
Ernest Gaines -- The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
Alex Haley -- Roots
Maya Angelou -- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Walter Mosley -- Devil in a Blue Dress

AP schedule April 5 - May 6

Week of April 5--Read The Glass Menagerie, scenes 1 - 5, pp. 1836 - 1860 for Thursday; multiple choice practice quiz Friday; blog on outside reading over the weekend.

Week of April 12--reading blogs due Sunday night; read The Glass Menagerie, scenes 6 & 7, pp. 1860 - 1885 for Monday; Read Fences, Act 1, pp. 1996 - 2026 for Thursday; vocab quiz 23-24 Friday.

Week of April 19--Read Fences, act 2, pp. 2026 - 2048 for Monday; multiple choice practice quiz Friday; finish novels and JStor research for papers

Week of April 26--Write papers; five typed pages due in class Tuesday/Wednesday; final drafts due Friday, April 30 (approx 2000 words); 60-minute multiple choice practice exam Thursday April 29.

Week of May 3--Exam review; exams in Government, French, Spanish, Statistics, Calculus, and Chinese; AP exam in English literature Thursday, May 6, 7:45 AM.

No class Friday, May 7

Week of May 10--To be Announced. We will definitely have class Friday May 14 (last day for seniors)

AP--Link to reading list

Here is the assignment for the final paper of this course.

Hurston paper

English IV: African-American Literature
Paper assignment
February 2010

WHAT: A three- to four-page paper (approximately 1000 words) discussing Hurston’s development of the character of Janie Crawford in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.

WHEN: Papers are due, both hard copy and to turnitin.com, Tuesday, March 2.

HOW: Trace Hurston’s presentation of Janie through the major stages of her life: childhood with Nanny, marriages to Logan, Jody, and Tea Cake, and sitting on her porch telling her story to Pheoby. Locate and discuss evidence of the growth of Janie’s strength and sense of self. Which of her thoughts, feelings, and actions are most indicative of the woman she becomes through the forty years of her life? To what extent does she embody the lives and concerns of women in general, not just those of one semi-literate Southern rural experience?

Outside sources for this assigment are optional. But if you do choose to do any research, be certain to document the source of your content, both verbatim quotations and broader concepts or ideas, in the text of your essay and on a works cited page.

DETAILS: Include a word count and digital receipt number in your heading. Submit your paper under the assignment titled “Hurston paper”.

SUGGESTIONS: Think about the issues that affect women, both in life and in literature—issues such as autonomy, self-expression, the need for community, self-determination, sexuality, the desire to love and be loved, and equality—and look for evidence of these themes in Janie’s experience. Which are most important to Janie? Where does she make the most progress? Where does she remain the same?

Hurston journal entry

Their Eyes Were Watching God
Chapters 19 & 20

A few things stood out to me when I re-read the ending of the novel:

1. When the hurricane comes (even though that's in chapter 18) Janie, Tea Cake, and their friends on the Muck can't interpret the warning signs. The narrator even points out that the Seminoles and the local wildlife start fleeing before the storm, but ironically the Black farm workers are lulled into a false sense of confidence because they are making good money with their work and because the Whites are not fleeing.

2. The scene is West Palm Beach where Tea Cake is forced to work burying the dead from the hurricane is one of the few places in the novel where racism is explicitly addressed. Even in death, and despite the stench of decomposition, White corpses receive better treatment than the common grave of the Blacks, and local police use their power arbitrarily to force refugees like Tea Cake to labor without pay.

3. The death of Tea Cake is a powerful scene. It's not fully clear why Janie doesn't hide the gun she finds under Tea Cake's pillow, but she is conscious enough of the fear that is taking over his mind to turn the cylinder so that three empty chambers will be the first fired. As a result, she has time to defend herself, making sure to wait until Tea Cake's intentions to harm her are clear, after he fires all three empty cylinders. Only then does she use the rifle to keep him from shooting her with a live cylinder.

4. Janie's trial is curiously understated. She tells her story to judge and jury, but rather than let us hear her testimony in her own words, the narrator summarizes, telling us "she just sat there and told and when she was through she hushed." In a law court, as at Jody's store, Janie's direct voice is absent, reminding us that the only time in the novel she has consistently had a strong, clear voice was while she was with Tea Cake.

5. And in the telling of her story to Pheoby. Inspired by Janie's recounting of her life story, especially of her time on the Muck, Pheoby says, "Ah done growed ten feet higher from jus' listening' to you, Janie." Despite Janie's grief over Tea Cake's death, she has come home satisfied to be there, having learned from her life's journey, "Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got to go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves." She can sit on her porch in peace, finally able to "pull in her horizon like a fish-net." (483)

Shakespeare paper assignment

http://mrcoonsenglish.blogspot.com/2009/02/shakespeare-shylock-paper.html

Due Tuesday, March 2, both hard copy and turnitin.com

AP--February 16 - March 12

For Tuesday and Wednesday, February 16 & 17--Poetry wrap-up

For Thursday, February 18--In-class essay: Poetry analysis

For Friday, February 19: Vocab quiz, lessons 17 & 18. Read Oedipus The King, pages 1277 - 1322. Also read my Introduction to Tragedy and the questions at the end of the play. This is one of the most famous plays in all of Western literature. Why do you think that is? How does Sophocles give the play both philosophical and psychological depth in addition to developing the emotional tension which is central to the experience of all drama, especially tragedy? What does Oedipus’ story represent? How does it raise issues relevant to all human life? This weekend, group 1 will blog on some aspect of this play (entries due over the weekend by Sunday evening, please), while group 2 will post comments on at least 5 of your classmates blogs (be polite, be respectful, be responsive to others’ ideas—comments due by Monday night February 22).

[Group 1: Sarah B, Bianca, Ariel, Hannah, Maude, Basil, Yuka, Michael, Patrick, Peter, Margo, David, Margaret M, MacKenzie, Taylor, Ari; group 2: everyone else. Thank you, Spenser, for using random numbers to generate these groups.]

For Thursday, February 25: Read Antigone, pages 1323 - 1352 in our anthology. Look at the links on my blog and the questions at the end of the play. Why is Antigone’s dilemma important? What does it represent? Which character, Antigone or Creon, best fits the definition of the tragic character from the Introduction to Tragedy? Blog entries for group 2 are due Sunday evening, February 28. Comments (at least 5) from group 1 are due by Monday evening March 1. Multiple choice quiz Friday the 26th.

For Tuesday and Wednesday, March 2 & 3--Read Acts 1 & 2 of Hamlet, pp. 1470 - 1518. Prepare an oral answer to one of the questions on page 1588.

For Friday, March 5 - Vocab quiz, lessons 19 & 20.

For Monday, March 8 - Read Acts 3 - 5 of Hamlet, pp. 1519 - 1587. Blog your answer to one of the questions on page 1589.

For Friday, March 12 - Multiple choice scoring workshop, test of 1987. Read pages 1677 - 1718 in the anthology (Acts 1 & 2, A Doll's House).

Shakespeare--Performance assignment #1 (2010)

Link to instructions for Hamlet performance assignment

AP--another option for writing about poetry

For this assignment, if you wish, you might consider forms other than the expository essay as a way to "waterski across the poem, waving at the author's name." You may, for example, choose to enter into the human experience of the poem by rewriting the poem in another form. You could do so by writing an interior monologue of the speaker's thoughts and feelings, by writing a short story that contains the essential experience conveyed through the poem, by writing a letter from one character in the poem to another. Your writing could take whatever form, whether essay or something else, you think will best convey the essential qualities of the poem. The one requirement is that what you write must remain true to the original poem in some important way.

One of my favorite student pieces, written over 20 years ago by Miko McGinty, takes us into a famous William Carlos Williams poem about forbidden fruit:

Beyond What I (He) Just Said

I walked into the kitchen late this morning, and found a note from my lover. The note was a poem.

This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

I woke at daybreak. I stretched and looked at the woman in bed with me. And smiled. She was tangled in the sheets, her legs were bare, but the night had been warm, and she looked comfortable. I showered and dressed and went into the kitchen. In the icebox were two plums, so purple they were almost black. They were firm and cold and when I bit into the first one, the juice dripped onto my fingers. They were the sweetest plums I have ever eaten. I left a note for her to explain why I had eaten them.

I read the note, and smiled. He enjoys life, he takes pleasure in small things, events. He is teaching me to enjoy them too, by sharing. He is considerate--his leaving a note tells me that. He did not take those plums for granted. He is not a taker, he ate them and appreciated them. He gives to me his love, he gives his experiences. He gives me this note. Through the poem I share in the eating. I can see him biting the plum, his skin as dark, though the color of the earth instead of the color of the night sky. He savors the flesh, he sees the beauty in the event. Of course I forgive him. I love him.

I think about her, finding the note, perhaps smiling. I think about how the plums are like our life together, delicious and sweet, meant to be enjoyed. I know she understands the underlying message--the love that I wove into the note. It is wonderful that we now live together, that the icebox is not hers or mine but just "the" icebox. It is wonderful that I can leave a note explaining I ate "the" plums, not her plums. It is wonderful that I can leave a note that addresses day to day life.

He leaves me this note, just a short note. But it says more than I ate the plums, it says we live together, it says I want to share with you. It just says I love you.

AP--Poems for Discussion

Section 1
M 1/11--LCC--My Last Duchess 668
Tu 1/12--LCC--Metaphors (771) & "Swan and Shadow" (885)
Th 1/14--Christina--"The Silken Tent" p. 780
Fr 1/15--Brian--"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" p. 1102
Tu 1/19--Sarah--"Those Winter Sundays" p. 1173
Th 1/21--Sophie B--"My Papa's Waltz" p. 674
Fr 1/22--Kevin--"When I Have Fears" p. 1129
Mo 1/25--Alex--"Dover Beach" p. 1078
Tu 1/26--Ariel--"Death Be Not Proud" p. 1101
Th 1/28--Hannah--"The World is Too Much With Us" p. 912
Fr 1/29--Maude--"That Time of Year" p. 1163
Mo 2/1--Sophie L--"Her Kind"--687
Tu 2/2 Basil White Lies 680
Th 2/4 Yuka Lady Lazarus 934
Fr 2/5 Katie When You Are Old 1190
Mo 2/8 Michael Dulce et Decorum Est 698
Tu 2/9 Patrick To an Athlete Dying Young 1124

Section 2
M 1/11 LCC My Last Duchess 668
W 1/13 LCC Metaphors 771 & Swan and Shadow 885
Th 1/14 Peter The Unknown Citizen 690
Fr 1/15 Margo My Papa's Waltz 674
W 1/20 Bianca Traveling Through the Dark 991
Th 1/21 Spenser Death Be Not Proud 1101
Fr 1/22 David White Lies 680
Mo 1/25 MargLiu Neutral Tones 897
We 1/27 MargMc Those Winter Sundays 1173
Th 1/28 Taylor One Art 998
Fr 1/29 Josh When you Are Old 1190
M 2/1 Zach The World 912
W 2/3 Katharine When I Have Fears 1129
Th 2/4 Mackenzie Dover Beach 1078
F 2/5 Asmit Batter My Heart 709
M 2/8 Ari Since There's No Help 858
W 2/10 Diana 100 Love Sonnets 973
Th 2/11 Devika The Silken Tent 780

Why We Read Books

When you have read a book, you have added to your human experience. Read Homer and your mind includes a piece of Homer’s mind. Through books you can acquire at least fragments of the mind and experience of Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare—the list is endless. For a great book is necessarily a gift: it offers you a life you have not time to live yourself, and it takes you into a world you have not time to travel in literal time. A civilized human mind is, in essence, one that contains many such lives and many such worlds. If you are too much in a hurry, or too arrogantly proud of your own limitations, to accept as a gift to your humanity some pieces of the minds of Sophocles, of Aristotle, of Chaucer—and right down the scale and down the ages to Yeats, Einstein, E.B. White, and Ogden Nash—then you may be protected by the laws governing manslaughter, and you may be a voting entity, but you are neither a developed human being nor a useful citizen of a democracy.


--Poet and Professor John Ciardi, from a 1954 speech

AP--Waiting for the Barbarians

What does the magistrate learn from his experiences?

1. He is wrong when he tells the barbarian girl, "Don't make a mystery of it, pain is only pain" (31) He cannot understand the meaning of what happened to her by having her tell him what Colonel Joll did to her. Doing so is compassionate but misguided. Pain cannot be understood second hand; it must be experienced to appreciate its power.
2. In the face of pain, nothing else matters any longer. "My torturers are interested only in demonstrating to me what it meant to live in a body, a body which can entertain notions of justice only as long as it is whole and well, which very soon forgets them when its head is gripped and a pipe is pushed down its gullet and pints of salt water are poured into it till it coughs and retches and flails and voids itself. . . They came to my cell to show me the meaning of humanity, and in the space of an hour they showed me a great deal" (113). The truth learned by every brutal regime, by every political prisoner, by every torturer and their victims, is that pain is more powerful than dignity, than humanity, than justice, than truth. Where there is pain, there can be nothing else. It is the only reality.
3. If one difference between the civilized and the barbaric is the existence of law, The Empire forfeits the right to consider itself civilized. The Magistrate, who represents and administers and believes in law and the force of law, who wants from the Empire nothing more than his day in court, his moment before the law, discovers that the law no longer has any meaning in a corrupt Empire run by its secret police. "They will use the law against me as far as it serves them, then they will turn to other methods. That is the Bureau's way. To people who do not operate under statute, legal process is simply one instrument among many" (82).
4. Nothing, not even the Empire, is more powerful than History: "Empire dooms itself to live in history and plot against history. One thought alone preoccupies the submerged mind of Empire: how not to end, how not to die, how to prolong its era" (131). Prolonging its era is the mission of agencies like the Bureau, but eventually their methods backfire, they doom themselves to defeat, and the forces of history, as they did long ago with the civilization the Magistrate has studied for the last twenty years, once again prevail.
5. No matter how painful the knowledge, the Magistrate must accept his own complicity in the nature of Empire. The events of the novel shatter his naive belief that the outpost under his rule was a benign, harmonious environment where Empire and Barbarian co-existed peacefully, where neither harmed the other. He is not, as he wished to be, the opposite of the Colonel, merely the other side of the coin: "I was the lie that Empire tells itself when times are easy, he the truth that Empire tells when harsh winds blow. Two sides of imperial rule, no more, no less" (133).

AP--end-of-semester schedule

Week of November 30
Day 1--Read WFB, part 4, to p. 119; begin student-led discussions; blog 1 contfor WFB due if not written last week.
Days 2 through 4--Finish reading WFB; continue student-led discussions. No quiz.

Week of December 7
Day 1--Blog #2 due for WFB. Topic: Make a meaningful connection between WFB and Conrad's HOD. Before writing your blog, read "Three Ways of Going Wrong" by Douglas Kerr on JStor, (Modern Language Review, vol. 95, #1, http://www. jstor.org/stable/3736367) esp. pp. 21-27. Length: 400-500 words.
Day 2--Finish discussion of WFB. Both sections meet both Monday and Tuesday.
Wednesday, December 9--Reading Day. No classes meet.
Friday, December 11--Office Hours. I will be available to answer questions from 11:00 AM (following the math exam) to 12:30 PM. Please bring a specific question you would like answered.

Week of December 14
Semester Exam Monday December 14, 9 AM, Hormel Arts Center. Format: AP-style multiple choice questions (one-third), essay analyzing prose passage (one-third), essay on WFB/HOD (one-third).

English IV-final paper

For your last essay of the semester, identify an important area of human life, human nature, or human values and write a paper of five to seven pages (1600-2000 words) discussing the theme you have identified. In your discussion, refer generously to three works we have studied. Choose one work from each of the following groups. Your third work may be chosen from either group.

Group A—Antigone; Things Fall Apart; A Doll's House; One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich; Much Ado About Nothing; The Post Office

Group B—“War,” “Torn Lace,” “The Heavenly Christmas Tree,” “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” “Sunrise on the Veld,” “Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants,” a Garcia Marquez story, “Forty-Five a Month,” “Interpreter of Maladies”.

Your papers are due Monday, December 14 by 11 AM, hard copy with turnitin receipt number (turnitin title: 2009-Final Paper). Papers are to be turned in at the Upper School office. They will be collected as soon as my exam is over at 11 AM; papers arriving after that time will be marked late and penalized accordingly. Use MLA parenthetical style for textual references with list of Works Cited.

Schedule:

Week of November 30:

Day 1: Finish Much Ado about Nothing discussion, including examples of findings of search teams

Day 2—Much Ado About Nothing Quest

Day 3—Preliminary thesis and list of texts for final paper due, in writing, with a short note on each explaining why it was chosen—10 points

Day 4—Outlines brought to class for discussion and approval—10 points

Week of December 7
Monday, December 7—Three pages of draft due in class for editing—10 points

Tuesday, December 8—Five-page drafts brought to class for editing—20 points

Week of December 14

Monday, December 14—11 AM—papers due, both hard copy and turnitin.com, 1600-2000 words—150 points

(N.B.-point values may be adjusted slightly, as this assignment is weighted as 25% of the semester total by Upper School policy.)

Sample Questions (develop your own variations):

What does it take to be a successful human being in the world? Is “success” a matter of getting what one wants, of attaining a desired result—love, money, power, freedom, social status—or is it a question of character, of developing within the self those qualities most essential to a complete human being: virtue, wisdom, compassion, spiritual enlightenment, moral insight, ethical depth, duty, honor?

Can social institutions, cultural traditions, or rituals help develop successful people, or does the literature portray these customs more as impediments to growth?

What is a “complete” human being? What components are most important in defining what a human being “should” be?

Under what conditions do the characters’ worlds become traps, bringing out the worst in people, debasing their lives and stripping their existence of meaning or purpose? What happens to the hearts and souls of those who live in such worlds?

Professor Robert George of Princeton says, “the conquest of the self is part of what it means to lead a successful life.” Which characters have inner demons or parts of themselves they must conquer? How successful are they?

William Faulkner said that literature is composed of “old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed—love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.” Which of Faulkner’s truths find most powerful expression in the literature we have read this semester.

Dr. Carl Hammerschlag, a psychiatrist, writes, “Mental health . . . can be described as having your head, mouth, and heart in a straight alignment. Mental health happens when what you believe in your heart is the same as what you say with your mouth. You are mentally healthy when what you feel is something you also believe. . . .You have to keep in balance if you want to stay healthy.” In these terms, which characters are healthiest? Which are not? How do they achieve balance? What are the costs of not finding it?

Many works we have read center on characters who, because of their personalities, beliefs, or personal circumstances, find themselves in conflict with their society. Choose three important characters from different works and discuss the ways in which they are out of synch with the world around them. For each character you discuss, say whether the conflict primarily reveals a flaw in the character or in the society’s assumptions and moral values.

You may of course find other similarities around which to build your papers. An ethical issue, a question of human relationships, a political question, the idea of conscience, the issue of identity—any of these or a wide array of potential topics lie at your disposal. But choose wisely. You want a topic that lends itself to the three works you will discuss, and it must be not too broad an issue to develop specifically in the assigned length. For example, the question “What is human nature,” while intriguing, is too general to be useful here. Pick something narrower and try to go deeper in your discussion.

AP assignments November 09

Week of November 2

Days 1, 2, and 3--Finish discussion of The Sound and the Fury; continue second round of mini-blogs

Thurs/Fri--multiple-choice quiz #4, questions 39-53.

Day 4--(Friday November 6) Style analysis exercise for Heart of Darkness--read the opening paragraphs of the story, especially paragraphs # 2, 3, 4, & 6, more than once, and make notes in the margin. Consider diction, syntax, tone, organization, & tension, and the introduction of the character Marlow.

Monday, November 9--in-class essay on The Sound and the Fury; also, read part 1 of Heart of Darkness, pp. 3-31.


Week of November 9

1. Heart of Darkness: read part I for Day 1, part II for day 3 (pp. 31-54), part 3 for Friday, November 13 (pp. 54-77). Continue annotating the text, noting significant passages, key images, new vocabulary, and examples of Conrad's stylistic devices. Cite specific passages in mini-blogs.
2. Vocab quiz, lessons 11 & 12

Week of November 16

1. No class day 1, Monday, November 16.
2. Begin reading Waiting for the Barbarians: read parts I & II (to p. 55) for Day 4
3. Blog: Read your assigned section of background and criticism; summarize its most important ideas on your blog in a series of bullet points; due before class day 2 (T/W), to be presented in brief oral summaries.
4. Cumulative Vocabulary Review Quiz, lessons 1-12 Friday, November 20. Begin presenting mini-blogs on Waiting for the Barbarians day 4.

Week of November 23

1. Waiting for the Barbarians: Read part III (to p. 74) for Monday.
2. Both sections meet both Monday and Tuesday, no school Wed-Fri (Thanksgiving holiday)
3. No vocab quiz
4. Blog: due day 1 describing initial responses to characters, style, and content of WFB (approx. 300-400 words)

Essay assignment: Things Fall Apart

Topic choices for a three- or four-page paper on Things Fall Apart (approx. 1000-1200 words)

Topic choice and thesis due in class Friday 11/6
Draft due in class Monday or Tuesday (day 1) depending on section, 11/9 or 11/10.
Paper due in class and on turnitin.com by class time day 2 (Tuesday or Wednesday 11/10 or 11/11).
Other assignments:
Day 3--Read "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings," p. 577 in anthology
Day 4--Read "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World," (handout); vocab quiz, lessons 11 & 12.
Monday, November 16/Tuesday 17th--begin reading Much Ado About Nothing, Act I
Friday, November 20--Cumulative Vocabulary Review Quiz, lessons 1 through 12. (Rescheduled)

Choose one of the following topics to develop into an essay based on your understanding of the novel Things Fall Apart. In your essay, refer to specific passages and examples from the novel to support your ideas. This is an interpretive essay based on your reading of the novel; no outside sources should be used.

•Is Okonkwo a tragic figure? Review what you know from our study of Greek tragedy and assess to what extent those ideas apply to Things Fall Apart in general and Okonkwo in particular.

•How does Achebe’s narrator both endorse and critique the values and practices of Ibo culture? Why does he present some elements of the culture as problematic or flawed and others as sources of strength for the Ibo people?

•How does Okonkwo determine right from wrong? Choose three examples of decisions Okonkwo makes and examine what belief systems, values, laws or traditions he uses to choose a course of action. Evaluate the wisdom or effectiveness of these decisions.

•What kind of leader is Okonkwo? Choose three strong actions which demonstrate his leadership. Identify the values, beliefs, and/or traditions on which he bases each action and evaluate its effectiveness.

•Of his daughter Ezinma, Okonkwo thinks, “She should have been a boy” (p. 64). Why is it necessary to the story that Okonkwo’s favored child be a girl?

AP--October 15 papers

• The written portion of the assignment is a paper of approximately 5 pages (1500 words) in which you cover three key points: your reasons for choosing the story, some biographical background on the writer, and an analysis of some aspect of the story using the methods and vocabulary we have discussed and practiced in class. The analysis will be approximately two-thirds of the entire essay, the other sections a paragraph or two each.
  
• Drafts of your papers are due in class Thursday October 16. Final papers are due, both hard copy and turnitin.com, on Friday, October 17.
• Documentation should be included for the following information: titles and sources of all stories you read as you made your decision, source of biographical information on the author (Wikipedia is getting better but still needs independent verification for academic purposes). Mention the source of the information in the body of the essay or in a parenthetical citation, and include full documentation on your works cited page.
  

AP English

October , 2009

Study guide for The Sound and the Fury

I. Characters—Identify each of the following characters and gather information about their actions and personalities:

Benjy (Maury)

Caddy (Candace)

Mother (“Miss Cahline” or Caroline)

Father (Mr. Jason)--actually Jason III

Jason IV (usu. referred to simply as “Jason”)

Quentin (brother)

Quentin (daughter of ??)

Uncle Maury

Dilsey

Roskus

Versh

Frony

T.P.

Luster

II. Events—How many different scenes or events does Benjy remember?

What are the key elements of each memory?

What does Benjy love? What upsets him most?

Who died?

Who was married?

What were the four siblings (Caddy, Quentin, Benjy, and Jason) like as children? Who was their leader? Describe the various relationships among them. What have they become as adults?

Why are there two Quentins? What happened to the first? Who is the second? Describe her relationship with her Uncle Jason.

What happened June 2, 1910?

Why did it happen?

III. Images and motifs—climbing up trees to look in windows, climbing out windows and down trees, running away, funerals, weddings, swings, water (the branch), fire, smells, crying, golf, Uncle Maury and the Pattersons, “Sasspriluh,” sickness, watches, time, virginity, child support payments

AP assignments October 2009

October 12-16

Day 1--No school Monday--Fall Break
Day 2--Finish Sound and Fury, pp. 3-75 (April 7, 1928)
Day 3 (Th)--Begin part II of Sound and Fury, pp. 76ff. (June 2, 1910); drafts of short story papers due
Day 4 (Fr)--Continue part II; vocab quiz 7 - 8; short story papers due, hard copy & turnitin

October 19-23

Day 1--Finish S&F, pp, 76-179
Days 2 & 3--Read a scholarly article from JStor regarding the novel; begin reading pp. 180-264.
Day 4--Multiple choice quiz; continue reading part III (April 6, 1928)

October 26-30

Day 1--Finish reading S&F, pp. 180-264; blog a comment on your scholarly article. Give the citation of the source of the article, quote a brief passage or summarize an idea you found helpful, interesting, or just plain puzzling, and write a brief comment in the form of a blog entry.
Day 2--Begin reading pp. 265-321 (April 8, 1928)
Day 3--Continue
Day 4--Finish pp. 265-321; vocab 9 & 10

English IV assignments for October 2009

Week 6: September 28-October 2
Finish reading One Day; work on reading guide; vocab 5-6; reading quiz

Week 7: October 5-9
Day 1: Blogs due: One day in the Life of . . . .
Day 2: “Quest” on One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (day 3 for section 2—Carroll-Villadolid)
Day 3: “Interpreter of Maladies” handout (day 2 for section 2)
Day 4: No school Friday, Fall Break

Week 8: October 12-16
Day 1: No School Monday
Poetry day for section 1 Tuesday—Attaway-Troutman
Tuesday: "Interpreter of Maladies," (handout) for section 2 (Carroll--Villadolid)
Wednesday: "Forty-five a Month," p. 495 in anthology, both sections
Thursday: "The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket," p. 464, section 1
Friday: "The Post Office," p. 411, both sections; vocab 7 - 8 quiz

Week 9: October 19-23
Day 1: “A Sunrise on the Veld,” p. 308
Day 2: “Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants,” p. 316
Day 3: Begin reading Things Fall Apart (paperback), chapters 1-3
Day 4: TFA, chapters 4-6

English IV blog assignment (One Day)

Follow this link to this week's blog assignment, due BEFORE day 1 of the upcoming week.

AP--Paper on additional short story

In addition to the short essay on the story you have been assigned, your final assignment for our study of short fiction is to research and write a paper on a story you choose based on your own interest. Listed below are the requirements and guidelines for this assignment:

• Your story must have been published for the first time in the last 5 years, that is 2005 to the present.

• Your story must have actually been “published”; no self-published internet pieces by amateur writers, please.

• Since I am asking you to research the author and write an analysis of the story, I strongly suggest that you read several stories,  minimum three, from a variety of sources, then choose the one you enjoyed the most. As you read new stories, I encourage you to post short responses to them as part of your weekly blogs commenting on our assigned short stories.

• Published short stories are not as abundant as they were 50 or 75 years ago. Nevertheless, you may find excellent material in a variety of places: New Yorker magazine publishes short stories regularly, and Mr.Thommen has set over 100 issues out in the reference section of the library. Also, Mr. Thommen has begun a subscription to a periodical called One Story, each issue of which contains, you guessed it, a single short story. The Best American Short Stories series publishes a new edition every year (guest editor for the 2007 edition was Stephen King), and I have ordered copies of the two most recent collections. Finally, literary journals in libraries often contain new stories, and both single-author and anthology collections of stories may be found in bookstores as well. For example, Jhumpa Lahiri, author of The Namesake on my summer reading list, has a new story collection called Unaccustomed Earth.

• The written portion of the assignment is a paper of approximately 5 pages (1500 words) in which you cover three key points: your reasons for choosing the story, some biographical background on the writer, and an analysis of the story using the methods and vocabulary we have discussed and practiced in class.

• Drafts of your papers are due in class Thursday October 16. Final papers are due, both hard copy and turnitin.com, on Friday, October 17.

English IV--September 11-October 2

Week 3: September 8-11
Friday, September 11— Read A Doll’s House, Act I, pp. 140-165; introduce Spiderman blog assignment

Week 4: September 14-18
Day 1—Spiderman blogs due
Day 2—A Doll’s House, Act II, pp. 165-184
Day 3—A Doll’s House, Act III, pp. 184-202
Friday, September 18—Vocabulary quiz, lessons 3-4; bring hard copy of spiderman blog to class for peer edit workshop

Week 5: September 21-25
Day 1—Revised Spiderman blogs due as hard copy and to turnitin.com
Day 2—“The Heavenly Christmas Tree,” pp. 121-125
Day 3—“How Much Land Does a Man Need,” pp. 126 – 138
Friday, September 25—Begin reading One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich; start Wednesday night, average, 20 pages per night Thursday night and all weekend, finish reading by Monday night September 28

Week 6: September 28-October 2
Day 1—Continue reading One Day
Day 2—Finish reading One Day, possible quiz
Day 3—Continue discussion of One Day
Friday, October 3—One Day blogs due; vocab quiz lessons 5-6

Spiderman blog

Reread Jim Hall's Spiderman poem "Maybe dats your pwoblem too." Think about how the metaphor of a "fwame-wesistant" suit might apply to people other than Spiderman. Perhaps the suit represents, for example, a part of our life we cannot escape, some aspect of our identity difficult or seemingly impossible to shed, even if we would like to do so, to be able, as Hall says Spiderman wishes to do, to become "someone different, something new."

Consider the following questions:
How might this metaphor apply to all of us?
Can you apply the metaphor to yourself? Are there parts of your "suit" you would like to burn?
Which pieces of our identity are most difficult to rid ourselves of ("fwame wesistant")?
Are there times when people would most like to "buin der suits"? Why? What can lead to such a desire?
If you could reinvent yourself, what would you do to make your "heart beat at a diffwent wate"? What prevents you?

You needn't try to answer all these questions. Do some brainstorming and choose your strongest ideas to develop into a personal piece of some 500 words. And since it is a personal piece written for a public audience (your classmates and me) choose how much personal information you wish to include.

You may, if you wish, consult the poet James Hall's blog and read what he says about his poem. Be aware, however, that Hall says a poet should never be the final authority on what a poem can mean to a reader.

Finally, here is a link to the poem itself.

Blog starters for Antigone

Follow this link to some ideas that occurred to me as possible topics for your Antigone blog. To be written any time between now and next Tuesday September 8. Also, look at section III of the course syllabus for other suggestions of blog starters that may be used with any literary work. Suggested length: 400 to 500 words.

See you Tuesday.

AP--short story unit

Here is a link to the document describing various responsibilities for presenting material from the short story anthology in our textbook.

The list of story titles and page numbers may be found on the current assignment schedule.

Pride and Prejudice essay--AP

Write an essay of approximately 600-750 words (2-3 typed, double-spaced pages), in which you discuss in as much detail as space permits the significance of the following passage to the work as a whole. In your discussion you may focus on an appropriate combination of the following elements:

• How does the passage characterize its participants and Austen’s methods of characterization?
• What is the relationship of this scene to the “action” of the novel? Does it contribute to either the complication of the action or to its resolution?
• How does it embody or advance themes important to the novel?
• In what sense is the scene “comic”?
• How does it most significantly illustrate Jane Austen’s style?

Drafts are due in class day 3 for peer editing and essays are due Friday, September 4, both hard copy and electronically to turnitin.com. Here is a link to the formatting requirements. Here is a link to the syllabus, section 5 of which details turnitin.com procedures.

Passage:

“Tell me once for all, are you engaged to him?”

Though Elizabeth would not, for the mere purpose of obliging Lady Catherine, have answered this question, she could not but say, after a moment’s deliberation, “I am not.”

Lady Catherine seemed pleased.

“And will you promise me, never to enter into such an engagement?”

“I will make no promise of the kind.”

“Miss Bennet, I am shocked and astonished. I expected to find a more reasonable young woman. But do not deceive yourself into a belief that I will ever recede. I shall not go away, till you have given me the assurance I require.”

“And I certainly never shall give it. I am not to be intimidated into anything so wholly unreasonable. Your ladyship wants Mr. Darcy to marry your daughter; but would my giving you the wished-for promise, make their marriage at all more probable?” . . . .

Her ladyship was highly incensed.

“You have no regard, then, for the honour and credit of my nephew! Unfeeling, selfish girl! Do you not consider that a connection with you must disgrace him in the eyes of everybody?”

“Lady Catherine, I have nothing further to say. You know my sentiments.”

“You are resolved then to have him?”

“I have said no such thing. I am only resolved to act in that manner which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.”

My Most Memorable Books

1. Catcher in the Rye, Salinger (when I was 15 I thought it the truest book I'd ever read)
2. The stories of Edgar Allan Poe (the summer I was 12--couldn't stop reading--I can still picture the library book)
3. All the Kings Men, R. Penn Warren--first time when I was 20--lots of times since
4. Master and Commander, P. O'Brian--the whole series, 20 volumes--counts as one for me. Read them all at least twice.
5. Winter's Tale--Mark Helprin--a burglar, a consumptive heiress, a flying horse, and bridges from the future
6. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole--the most outrageously funny book I've ever read.
7. Outlander, D. Gabaldon--another series--volume 7 is due out next month.
8. Lonesome Dove--Larry McMurtry--my all-time favorite western
9. Crossing to Safety--Wallace Stegner--wonderful story of friendship between two married couples lasting 40 years
10. Gone to Soldiers--Marge Piercy--my favorite WW2 novel
11. Anna Karenina--Tolstoy--read it one chapter a night before bedtime for three months--amazing story.
12. Absalom Absalom, W. Faulkner--even better than the Sound and the Fury, which I also love.
13. Pride and Prejudice, Austen--my 2nd favorite 18th century novel
14. Tom Jones, Henry Fielding--my favorite 18th century novel
15. Great Expectations, Dickens--he may be out of fashion now, but I love Dickens
16 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn--the book I've read the most times, so many I've lost count.

English IV & AP--blog assignment #2

For FRIDAY, August 28, all sections:

N.B. This blog assignment is NOT subject to the usual suggested length of 500 words.

This summer, one of the topics bouncing around facebook between me and some of my friends went something like this:

What are the 15 books you have ever read that have stayed with you the longest and made the greatest impression on you? Don't think too hard about this topic. Just list the ones that come into your mind first as books that have made a lasting impression on you.

I'd add the following notes: a) your lists don't have to be 15 titles long, although I hope you have at least 5 or 10 you can honestly name that have stuck in your mind; b) for each title on your list, write a sentence, two at the most, explaining why it's on your list.

2 PS's: Remember to turn off "word notification" if you have not done so already; it will speed up my process of replying to your initial blog posts; second, if I have your url, delete my e-mail address from the notification box. If I don't have your url, well, you're already a bit behind, so please get with the program.

Blog vs. essay

Revising a blog

FROM BLOG TO ESSAY IN FIVE EASY STEPS

1. Look at the blog entry you’ve chosen for the idea that you can develop into an essay of several paragraphs. It may or may not be the topic most addressed in the blog, but it should be one which forms a considerable part of your blog discussion and which you think you can develop further in essay form.

2. Rewrite the current opening statement or write a new, brief opening paragraph. Keep your opening concise, identify the focus of the essay, and, at the end of the paragraph, make a clear, specifically worded statement of thesis, the interpretive idea whose validity you wish to prove in the essay.

3. Look at the middle paragraphs of your blog entry. Are they too long? Too short? If they don’t already begin with sentences that state ideas rather than facts, add clear topic sentences that relate to your thesis. Check within each of those middle paragraphs for a balance between specific textual evidence, preferably both examples and brief quotations, and your own commentary designed to identify the significance of your evidence and fully develop the depth of each paragraph. Finally, make sure each of these middle paragraphs helps support the validity of your thesis.

4. Check your final paragraph. Make sure it does not simply repeat what you have already stated. Draw a conclusion from the evidence you’ve presented. Save your most important idea, the one everything else in your essay leads up to, for last.

5. Last but certainly not least, read all your sentences out loud for clarity and clutter. Have you expressed your biggest ideas in simple words? Have you taken out who, which, and that whenever possible? Are you varying the length of your sentences, alternating complex and compound sentences with simple ones? Does the punctuation of your sentences help make them clearer and more meaningful? Have you caught the spelling mistakes spellcheck won’t catch?

Headings, formats, and style tips

HEADINGS FOR PAPERS—Always head your papers with the following information:

• Your name,
• Course and section number (Monsters 2, Time 1, for example)
• Paper ID number from Turnitin.com
• Word count (your word processing program should perform this last task for you automatically).

FORMATTING:

• Use 12-point font
• Choose a font with serifs (Times New Roman, for example)
• Set 1 inch margins all round
• Give your paper a title which indicates its subject; when writing about literature, give more than just the name of the text you are writing about.
• Double space text
• Keep quotations brief; for quotations of FIVE lines or longer, block the passage with one and one-half inch margins and single spacing.
• Remember to put novel and play titles in italics, poem and short story titles in quotation marks, and to give your paper a title different from the literary work it discusses.

STYLE

• Use American spelling and usage: double quotation marks, not single; toward, not towards; judgment, not judgement; gray, not grey; honor, not honour, and so on.
• Avoid "naked" pronouns: this, that, which.
• Whenever possible, omit who, which, and that--make the relative clause either the main clause or a participial phrase.
• Simplify your language; use everyday words to express important ideas.
• Omit unnecessary words from your sentences, unnecessary sentences from your paragraphs, unnecessary paragraphs from your essays. Be studious of brevity.
• Whenever you face a choice between a general term and a specific word, opt for the latter.

  ATTRIBUTION

• Use parenthetical citation for primary texts (the literature from the course)
• If you looked at any outside sources, be sure to cite them fully and accurately. This responsibility extends both to direct language (in quotation marks) and paraphrased ideas (your own words, not in quotation marks, but clearly cited).

English IV--assignments to September 8

English IV—World Literature
Mr. Coon
Schedule of Assignments
August—September 2009

Note: Assignments are DUE on the day indicated.

Week 1: August 24—28
Day 1. First day—welcome, syllabus, blog intro, assignments
Day 2. Set up account with Google Reader (see “how to start a blog,” below); write the blog entry indicated in the instructions after you establish your blog; vocabulary intro (bring books)—
Day 3. Print blog entry, bring to class for discussions and workshop (blog to essay in five easy steps); begin peer review
Day 4. Continue peer review; begin revision and re-writing of draft 2

Week 2: August 31—September 4
Day 1. Essays due, both hard copy and turnitin.com; introduction to tragedy
Day 2. Read Antigone, pp. 14 to 32 (to line 593 “enter Ismene”)
Day 3. Antigone, pp. 32-44, to line 1034;
Day 4. Antigone, finish reading to page 57; vocab quiz 1, lessons 1 & 2

Week 3: September 8—11 (No school Monday--Labor Day)
1. Read “Torn Lace,” pp. 73--77
2. Read “War,” pp. 79-82
3. Writing activity TBA