In light of recent events that have made me seriously question the logic of being a public school teacher, please allow me to reiterate some basic principles for functioning in 313:
1. Listen when I am speaking to you.
2. Turn off AND put away all electronic devices in class.
3. Do your work to the best of your ability and with integrity.
That last element is the most important; as the school year winds toward the conclusion, even the most diligent among you are losing focus. Friday's events will NOT be repeated or I swear I will run screaming into the hills and leave you to fend for yourselves. I am a firm believer in second (and even third) chances, but I am growing weary of chaos management, which second period in particular seems to relish.
Please think before you act. Every action has consequences. I take full responsibility for crafting an environment of informality; I was trying to create a safe place in which you could express yourselves. it is becoming increasingly clear to me that self-expression is not a problem for some of you, but self-restraint is. It would be unethical and irresponsible of me to allow this to continue, so expect regular reinforcement of expectation henceforth.
That said, here are the lessons:
1st Period Gifted English II: Othello Act II review and final tips for FCAT Writes!
AP Lit and Comp: John Keats, "When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be" and "Urn."
Here is the first poem, a sonnet of significant dolor:
| WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be | |
| Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain, | |
| Before high piled books, in charact’ry, | |
| Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain; | |
| When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face, | 5 |
| Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, | |
| And think that I may never live to trace | |
| Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; | |
| And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! | |
| That I shall never look upon thee more, | 10 |
| Never have relish in the faery power | |
| Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore | |
| Of the wide world I stand alone, and think | |
| Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink. |
What is Keats most sorry to abandon? What seems to be his central fear? How does our knowledge of his plight add to our reading of this poem? What kind of sonnet is this?
