A Pine Cone for the Class of 2012

There’s a moment in one of my favorite novels that comes to mind this time of year. Just before Holden Caulfield leaves Pencey Prep, he stands on a hill, looking down at a football game on the field below. He says that he is “trying to feel some kind of a good-bye,” but he feels empty, having made no strong connections either to the school or the people he is leaving. To me, leaving a place feeling nothing is one of the saddest fates I can imagine. But everything I have seen and heard tells me that for most of you, the end of high school is unlike Holden’s experience. Where he left without being able to take anything of value with him as he departed, you have told me and each other of the many valuable memories, connections, and experiences that go with you as you leave school. You did so in many of your senior speeches, in my class the last day, and, I assume, during the Pine Cone ceremony last week. In many important ways, then, your experiences with PCDS and with each other have differed significantly from Holden’s as you feel your good-byes from the school.

            As you contemplate your future, therefore, I hope you also feel the importance of reflecting on all you’ve done the last few years to build those many connections. Remember the hard work, yes, and the preparation you have made for success in college, but also remember the friendships you've made, all the small moments you’ve shared with your classmates, your teachers, and your families while you were in high school. 

For now that you are saying—and feeling—your good-byes to PCDS, you take with you several powerful gifts. The first is the academic preparation you’ve made. Perhaps you already know what a rare gift you’ve been given by attending a school that pushed you as much as PCDS did. As you continue your studies over the next years, I think you will realize more and more that your intellect, your creativity, and your self-discipline are important tools for your future. Use them; they will take you far in life.

The second gift is the gift of memory. Once any experience is behind us, its importance is measured largely in terms of all the ways we remember it. Even though I missed the final campfire, I’m told many of you shared important memories with each other. Some of your memories are happy, some are sad, some are funny, all are more precious than you may realize. Cherish them and keep them strong.

The third gift you take with you is that of friendship, for nothing in life is more important than our connections to others. You’ve made some remarkable friendships with each other and with your teachers. It’s up to you what you do with those friendships from here on. I’m still in touch via Facebook and e-mail with my best friend from high school and with several friends from college, even though the daily contact of those friendships ended many years ago. My younger son, who graduated from PCDS twenty years ago, still maintains several friendships with his classmates. I hope each of you has a handful of friends with whom you keep close contact for many years.

Finally, I hope many of you will maintain and build on the friendships with teachers you have formed the last few years. Several of my most prized friendships are with former students with whom I’ve stayed in touch over the years, and it is my strong wish that I may add some of you to that list of good friends.

It’s been my pleasure to teach you, talk to you in the quad, listen to your speeches, read your journals, sit beside a campfire with you, hear your singing, see your art, watch your acting and your games. This letter is my pine cone to your class. Best wishes for happy, healthy, productive, loving lives.

Change to schedule (AP)

I'd like to make a last-minute change to our schedule. For those of you not taking the Bio or Physics exams Monday, please come to English class according to our usual day 7 schedule.

There's one piece of content we never got to, the final chapters of Our Faire Englische Tung, pp. 57-78. Try to find time to read those pages; as usual, note your favorite facts to share with others in a brief discussion. Then we will try to set a new freerice record. (For section 1, Tuesday block 1, we'll combine this discussion with a few departing remarks I have for you.)

We'll still have our "final class" ritual on Tuesday and Wednesday, blocks 1 & 2 Tuesday (before and after Awards) and blocks 1 & 2 Wednesday.

Thanks for a good year; I hope the exam went well for each of you. Have a nice weekend and I'll see you next week.

LCC

Lit List for AP 2012

An updated Lit List

Things Fall Apart

Othello

Hedda Gabler

Macbeth

Catcher in the Rye

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

A Mercy

The Great Gatsby

Death of a Salesman

ID book

The Sun Also Rises

Summer reading 2011

Beowulf

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Grendel

Frankenstein

Hamlet

Gulliver’s Travels

Pride and Prejudice

Heart of Darkness

The Importance of Being Earnest

Spring novel 2012

AP Exam Review 2012

A few suggestions to keep in mind from now to Thursday the 10th.
1. Make a list of the literature you've read the past two years. You will need to choose one of these for essay #3 (40 years of topics are available here). Concentrate on the plays and novels, but include Beowulf and Sir Gawain also. For each title, refresh your memory about the names of the main characters, the most important scenes, the setting, and a couple of key themes or ideas. If Othello was one of your favorite pieces, go back into sophomore year also. Having some specific information at your fingertips makes your choice.
2. If you want to look at more multiple-choice questions, check the AP course description for additional materials. Also, several years of essay topics are available here.
3. Look over the poetry vocabulary list I gave you (here's the link). One or two terms may come up on a multiple-choice question, and you will definitely be asked to identify the relevant techniques used by the poet on essay #1.
4. Review the elements of prose style for essay #2: Syntax (sentence structure), Organization (how information is presented), Language (figurative, literal, colloquial, highly poetic), Imagery, Diction (word choice, connotation, denotation), Detail (what is included, what is left out), Irony (always good to note its presence), Point of View (how does it influence our reactions, more sympathetic, more distant), and Tone (overall and especially where it shifts).

Short Story final project

The Short Story

Final Project

Spring 2012

 

Project requirements:

 

1.     Choose a “new” story, one written since the year 2000. Use the resources in the library to help you locate your story. Choose a story which was “published” by a journal or magazine or in a book; no self-published internet stories.

2.     Make enough copies of your story so that we may all read it.

3.     Assemble a final project with the following content:

4.     An expository element, one or two pages describing a theme or character or idea found in your story.

5.     A biographical component, with information about the author taken from more than one source.

6.     A creative element, designed to accompany your story and to present an interpretation done in a creative format, perhaps rewriting part of the story from another point of view, a letter from one character to another detailing a key decision or moment from the story, a revised, new or different ending, or a visual, artistic collage of images chosen to represent elements from the story.

7.     An oral component, in which you become the teacher for part of the hour, presenting ideas and information from your written project and research to the rest of us.

8.     Projects are due Thursday, May 10 and we will present and discuss both that day and the following day, Friday, May 11.

9.     On May 11, we will finish presentations to accompany our “class luncheon.” We will begin at 12:10 that day and finish by 1:00 for an early dismissal.

Notes for final paper

Some works of literature seem to advocate changes in social or political attitudes or in traditions. For your final paper assignment, read one additional work from the list below, noting which attitudes or traditions the author apparently wishes to modify and the techniques the author uses to influence the reader's views.

The literature of social commentary are those texts that examine a widely held or accepted tradition, belief, custom, or value in such a way as to call it into question, whether through ridicule (satire), exaggeration, irony, or by considering its human consequences or effects.

The objects of social commentary are many. They may include topics of law and legal injustice, power and its corruption, inequities of gender or race or class, religious intolerance or hypocrisy, economics, politics or politicians, exploitation of one group by another, conformity to commonly held beliefs or prejudices, social institutions such as marriage, professional life, family, or many others.

The techniques of social commentary are equally varied. Narrative voice, characterization, irony, and tone are its beginnings. Essentially, what authors seek is to make us as readers feel a certain way toward the topic or subject of the text. The more strongly we feel the need for modification or change, the more successful the social message of the novel.

Your task for this final assignment is to write a paper of approximately 1500 words comparing some aspect of your chosen work to one of the works studied in class this semester. Show how both works suggest a social, cultural, or political problem (not necessarily the same for both works) and determine what you take to be the authors’ implied attitudes toward these issues. What does the writer want you to feel and how does the author accomplish that goal? You may refer to additional sources if you wish, but be certain both to cite these sources correctly, to distinguish carefully between their ideas and your own, and, above all, to draw your own conclusions.

NOTICE!

PLEASE BRING VOLUME B (Yes, we are using it this year) to class each day unless otherwise instructed.

Also, read one chapter of Heart of Darkness for each of the next three classes, beginning on p. 2326 with the author intro. There are three chapters. Create one bookmark for each chapter. Something specific.

I'm off to The Great Gatsby today (Tuesday). See you tomorrow.

April 2012 reading list and paper assignment

English IV and AP

Final paper 2012

Reading List: Society and its Critics

Some works of literature seem to advocate changes in social or political attitudes or in traditions. For your final paper assignment, read one additional work from the list below, noting which attitudes or traditions the author apparently wishes to modify and the techniques the author uses to influence the reader's views. Then write a paper of approximately 1500 words comparing some aspect of your chosen work to one of the works studied in class this semester. Show how both works suggest a social, cultural, or political problem (not necessarily the same for both works) and determine what you take to be the authors’ implied attitudes toward these issues. You may refer to additional sources if you wish, but be certain both to cite these sources correctly, to distinguish carefully between their ideas and your own, and, above all, to draw your own conclusions. Drafts are due in class for editing Thursday, April 26 and must be turned in, both hard copy and electronically, Monday April 30 or Tuesday, May 1. (Turnitin title: April 2012 paper)

Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood (1984)
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (1847)

Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte (1847)

The Awakening, Kate Chopin (1899)

Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad (1900)

Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe (1721)
Hard Times, Charles Dickens (1854)

Middlemarch, George Eliot (1874)

A Passage to India or Howard's End, E.M. Forster (1924, 1910)

Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy (1895)

Catch-22, Joseph Heller (1961)
Obasan, Joy Kogawa (1981)

Cry the Beloved Country, Alan Paton (1948)

Native Son, Richard Wright (1940)

Pat Barker, Regeneration (1991)

Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1962)

Gustav Flaubert, Madame Bovary (1856)

Nadine Gordimer, July’s People (1981)

Graham Greene, The Quiet American (1955)

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932)

Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day (1989)

Yann Martel, Life of Pi (2002)

Ian McEwan, Atonement (2001)

George Orwell, 1984 (1949)

Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger (1992)

Edith Wharton, Age of Innocence (1920)

Gulliver, part 4: The Age of Reason

The Age of Reason brought about a great change in the tale of man’s sojourn on earth. Reason, rationality and enlightenment became the new ‘gods.’ For the previous seventeen hundred years the perfection of man was only to be obtained through grace after death. The Protestant revolt to the Catholic Church and subsequent ‘holy wars’ had done nothing to change the accepted underlying beliefs of society: revelation was the source of ultimate truth and could only be received as a communication from God. This was the basis of Christianity. Now, in this new age, man felt obligated to follow his own intellect, not ‘revealed’ truth. Earth and emphasis on nature became the new dogma; miracles, prophecy, and religious rites were mere superstitions. Reason, philosophically, is defined as the ability to form and operate upon concepts in abstraction, narrowing information to its bare content, without emotion. Rationality carries the dual implication of ordered inference and comprehension along with understanding and explanation. Enlightenment is more or less the application of reason and rationality to previously held beliefs resulting in broader, clearer thinking.

The Age of Reason saw the introduction of the Scientific Revolution and various progressions of new schools of thought. Dualism advocated by Descartes taught that God (mind) and man (nature) were distinct. Baruch Spinoza introduced the idea of pantheism, namely, God and the universe are one and further that, “God was a substance consisting of infinite attributes.” Believers in Deism, described as the religion of reason rejected Christianity as a body of revelation, mysterious and incomprehensible. God’s revelation, believed Deists, was simple, logical and clear-cut, a natural religion which always existed. (from allabout history.org)

 

Influential thinkers of the Enlightenment or Age of Reason:

Voltaire, Rousseau, John Locke, Isaac Newton, Thomas Paine

 

Outgrowths of the Age: Satire, the Declaration of Independence, the French Revolution

Chaucer paper instructions

Select one of the following topics or propose one of your own for a paper of approximately 4 pages in length. Complete drafts are due in class, hard copy, Monday February 6 (class #13), with final copy due the following class. (Turnitin.com title "Chaucer 2012.")

Suggestions:

1. Apply the considerations we gave to the Miller’s Tale, regarding the precise relationship between the tale and its teller, to the Pardoner’s Tale. If you choose this topic, I highly recommend that you consult only the Tale, the Prologue to the Tale, and the portrait of the Pardoner in the General Prologue. Using outside sources is likely to cause confusion and create problems of attribution.

2. Write a brief research paper on a topic relating to 14^th century England, its religious practices, culture, or history. Make a clear connection between your topic and the Canterbury Tales. Be certain to incorporate scholarly sources along with popular internet sites.

3. Read a JStor article pertaining to Chaucer or the Tales. Write a critical summary of the article. What are its main points? How do they apply to the portions we read? How helpful are they in deepening your understanding of Chaucer?

4. Read The Nun’s Priest Tale, pp. 250-263 in our anthology. The editor suggests that “this simple beast fable [becomes] a delightful satire of learning and moralizing and . . . .pretentious rhetoric.” Referring to specific passages and aspects of the tale, show how this satiric tone is created. Like topic #1, this work is best and most safely done without reference to secondary sources.

3 Estates

Please look at least briefly at the information linked here, as it pertains to our discussion of the social hierarchy of Chaucer's time.

Final paper 2011

English IV & AP

Instructions for final paper

Fall 2011

For your final paper of the semester, go back to the questions I shared with you the first day of class. Develop a paper around one or more of the essential questions for this course. Your papers should be approximately five pages in length and are due Friday, December 9 at 9 AM (AP) or between 9 & 11 AM (English IV).

For English IV, incorporate references and ideas from TWO or THREE of the following: Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Frankenstein, and Hamlet. You may add a character from a piece of literature of your choosing (my summer list, for example) as long as you do not repeat the choice you made for your comparison paper earlier. For AP, include two of the above plus John Gardner’s Grendel. For ease of reference, I list the original questions from the course syllabus below, plus a few new ones.

Why do stories contain heroes and monsters?

What purpose do characters with extraordinary powers or abilities serve?

Are there reasons why heroes and monsters “have to” exist?

Are all monsters inherently evil? Are some more sympathetic than others? Why?

What qualities other than exceptional powers make a character heroic? Can a character be heroic based on beliefs, codes of ethics, intelligence, or inner strength?

What qualities make a monster monstrous?

Is it always easy to tell the difference between the heroes and the monsters? Why?

What is honor?

What is integrity?

What is courage?

How do characters hold onto or lose their honor, courage, or integrity?

Is revenge moral or immoral? How do the beliefs of characters we have studied differ?

How important is loyalty? How do loyal characters choose who or what to be loyal to?

For the novel Grendel, consider the significance of Grendel’s idea (as I understand it) that the heroic ideal is a lie invented by poets to give the illusion of meaning and purpose to an otherwise brutish physical existence. Would the authors of the other texts agree or disagree? Why?

Spend some time thinking about an approach you can use to link multiple works from our reading list. Then begin to develop a series of paragraphs interpreting the works you choose in light of the question you are attempting to answer. Use whatever combination of comparison and contrast makes your ideas strongest. Your writing will be judged on the originality of your choice, your use of examples from the various texts, and the depth of your analysis. No research is required, or indeed recommended. Use examples from the readings to advance your position on the topic you choose.

For English IV, this paper replaces a final exam and is weighted 25% of the semester grade. For AP students, the paper is weighted 15% and the sit-down portion of the final 10%.

I-Search notes

English IV & AP

I-Search Word History assignment

Notes on content and process

1. Questions to include in your introduction and first page:

· What does your selected word mean to you going into this assignment?

· What do you already know about your word?

· Why did you choose it?

· Is there a specific moment or incident or association you have with your word?

2. For the body of your paper:

· Look closely at the sources you have found, both print and online, for a deeper, fuller understanding of your word's ultimate meaning. Consider evidence of your word’s “age” in English, its original meaning, how its meanings have evolved over time, and how it is being used today.

· The next portions of your paper will include some or all of the following:

· an overall description of your search

· any difficulties you experienced

· any surprises you encountered

· specific insight into the information you find about your word

· interesting examples of your word’s historical significance or prominent uses

· In the body of the essay, you will combine an analysis or interpretation of what you learned (including direct citations from your sources), along with personal commentary and reflection on that information.

3. Ideas for the concluding section of the paper:

The last page (or so) of your paper will contain your final reflection on your search, focusing both on the process and on what you learned about your word from the various sources.

4. N.B. (that’s nota bene or “note well” in Latin):

· This is an I-search paper; therefore you will combine analysis of the information you uncover with personal reflection on your research and learning processes as you investigated your word.

· You will include a Works Cited page at the end of your paper, so be sure to keep records of the full bibliographic information for each source you consult.

· Keep track of your notes, printouts, and photocopies. Organize them in a logical manner with key information highlighted and/or annotated. These copies all go in your binder along with the peer-edit draft and final copies of your paper.

Word search online sources

a page of links to several good online resources for gathering more information about your word.

Check the assignment itself for source requirements.

Word Search List

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· Anger

· Atonement

· Beauty

· Belief

· Bliss

· Brave

· Burden

· Calm

· Chance

· Chaos

· Charity

· Charm

· Confusion

· Courage

· Courtesy

· Cruel

· Cunning

· Curious

· Curse

· Darkness

· Despair

· Destiny

· Doom

· Doubt

· Envy

· Evil

· Faith

· Fame

· Fate

· Fear

· Fortune

· Freedom

· Friend

· Generous

· Genius

· Glee

· Glory

· Glutton

· Good

· Grace

· Greatness

· Greed

· Guile

· Guilt

· Happiness

· Hatred

· Heart

· Holy

· Honor

· Hope

· Human

· Idea

· Ignorant

· Illusion

· Imagination

· Inspiration

· Jealousy

· Journey

· Joy

· Justice

· Kindness

· Knowledge

· Love

· Loyalty

· Luck

· Lust

· Mercy

· Mind

· Miracle

· Natural

· Normal

· Pain

· Passion

· Patriot

· Peace

· Pride

· Quest

· Rational

· Reality

· Reason

· Redemption

· Revenge

· Riches

· Righteous

· Romance

· Sacrifice

· Savage

· Serene

· Shame

· Sin

· Sorrow

· Soul

· Spirit

· Sublime

· Success

· Terror

· Trust

· Truth

· Valor

· Vanity

· Weird

· Wisdom

· Wonder

Word Search 2011

English IV & AP November 2011 “I-Search a Word” assignment (paper #3)

Assignment: Write a paper of 6 to 8 pages containing an extended definition of a single word, a commonly used word, but one with an abstract or intangible quality to its meaning. In your paper you will make full reference to the sources you have consulted, but the style of the paper will be a first-person account of your search for the word’s ultimate meaning and an analysis of what you learn along the way.

Sources: Consult the following sources to include all the necessary information in your paper:

1. The Oxford English Dictionary in our library—what are the earliest uses and contexts for your word recorded in the English language. Does the OED mention the word occurring in either Sir Gawain or Beowulf? What meanings have evolved over time?

2. A good unabridged or international dictionary—what key definitions does the dictionary give for the word?

3. A print or online thesaurus—what are the most important synonyms for your word? Include a list from the thesaurus in the sources section of your folder.

4. A Concordance to Shakespeare—in which plays does the word occur? Copy the speeches containing the word and the plays in which they are found. Give an example of an interesting or original way in which Shakespeare uses the word.

5. A Concordance to the Bible—list the verses containing the word and copy these verses onto a page in your sources section. How do they help you understand the full significance of your word?

6. A statement of what the word means to you, both before and after you conduct your research.

7. For AP students, two of the following: a poem in which the word occurs, a citation from an online quotations list, a work of art or music, a book about words and language, a work of history, a newspaper article, cartoon, television show, or movie. (One such source is optional for English IV.)

Process: Gather your findings in a binder. The first thing in the binder you submit will be the final copy of your paper, then your draft, edited by two peers and one other person (optional--a third peer, a parent, a friend), and a section containing the printouts of all your research materials with sources clearly indicated in full MLA format.

Rationale: According to Edward Jenkinson and Donald Seybold, “it is extremely difficult for anyone to define a word that does not have objective [meaning]. Yet the ideas, feelings, and emotions that are most significant in our lives are conveyed [by such words]. . . .Everyone who uses such words as freedom, rich, or love has slightly different notions about what those words mean, [yet] we frequently act as if we are talking about the same thing when we use such words.” Thus, this assignment is to sift through our assumptions about one abstract word to find relevant historical information about its uses and meanings throughout the history of the English language.

Schedule:

· Have your word chosen and approved by me by the beginning of class 29 (November 4 & 7. (Everyone must have a different word.)

· We will spend parts of two classes in the library looking at the OED and other source material.

· Your blog for class 30 will include your previous understanding of the word along with a brief statement of why you chose the word. It may be incorporated in some fashion into your draft later.

· Class 35 (November 18 & 21), bring your drafts to class, five pages minimum to earn credit for this part of the assignment.

· Binders are due in my classroom by 3PM, Tuesday, November 22 for all sections.. Final drafts must also be submitted by that time to turnitin.com (assignment title: I-Search a Word).

Style: Write your paper as a first-person account of your search for the ultimate meaning of your word. Use your sources to make your analysis of the word credible, but connect those sources to your personal quest for the word’s meaning, your previous understanding of the word, and what you learned along the way, both about the word and the research process. You should both summarize and analyze the information you gather from your sources in the body of the paper. Information should be cited parenthetically, linked to a list of Works Cited at the end of your paper.

What word interests you sufficiently to spend two weeks researching and writing about its history and most important meanings? After we review this assignment during class 28, November 2 & 3, I will accept email requests for words beginning Thursday at 1:30 PM. By class 29 (November 4 & 7), everyone must have selected a word to work with.