Monday, February 8, 2010

Our word of the day is lugubrious, which means sad or lachrymose.

Our holiday today is Boy Scout Awards Day and Laugh and Get Rich Day, whatever that last one means. I wouldn't mind celebrating that one repeatedly!

Gifted English II: I only have one student remaining who needs to take the JC Unit test, but SEVERAL students did not do their memorizations on Friday, and not due to lack of time, either. I am beyond annoyed and late penalties will be assessed--it's not fair to the students who did it on time, and with tremendous skill, too. See me to schedule a time NOT DURING CLASS. In class today, we are going over the testing locations for tomorrow's FCAT Writes and beginning Othello, Act I.

AP Lit and Comp: Frankenstein Unit Test and review of Frankenstein Reading Journals, due FRIDAY. I had said they were due on the tenth, but that's when I thought the tenth was Friday. Serves me right for guessing dates. Please bring your lit book with you to class tomorrow so we can analyze Shelley's "West Wind."

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Gifted English II: Your HW last night was to define ten words from Act III of Julius Caesar; your HW tonight is to craft ten sentences utilizing these words. Here are the guidelines: A) The sentence MUST reveal your understanding of the word's meaning and B) the sentence must somehow relate to Julius Caesar. Easy, yes? A tad tricky, eh? You can do it!

Today in class: The assassination of Julius. And he looked like such a nice old man. . .

APees: Introductory notes on the Gothic novel and Frankenstein, with a read-aloud from the first letter Robert Walton writes to his sister, Margaret Walton Saville. We will discuss the nature of exploration and the challenge of discerning the gender of an author from the text--and if that is even relevant to our analysis. Also, I will be distributing the reading journal assignment for the novel.

Tuesday, January 5, 2009

Gifted English II: Your HW last night was an open-play quiz on Act I; today, we transition to Act II. I have some questions you will need to answer for this part of the play, which is largely expository and not as action-oriented as the other acts. We are going to work through part of this today in class--your HW is to finish the questions.

AP Lit and Comp: We need to finish the analysis of "Preludes" and transition into Romanticism. Reminder: Please go by the Media Center to pick up a copy of Frankenstein. We will be working through the epistolary part of the novel (the first four chapters) together this week, while preparing for the semester exam/essay portion.

I will be giving you each an outline for note-taking purposes, but here is the essence of what you can expect for those of you super-organized types:

Romanticism Notes: APeees

People to Know

William Wordsworth

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Percy Shelley

John Keats

William Blake

George Gordon, Lord Byron

John Constable

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Mary Shelley

Concepts to Know

mutability

the quest for immortality

nature imagery

the paradox

spirituality

connections: landscape to sky; art to immortality

lyric poetry

the Gothic novel

romanticism and revolution

Specific Works for Reference

“The World is Too Much With Us”

“Tintern Abbey”

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

“Kubla Khan”

“Ode to a Nightingale”

“When I Have Fears”

“Ode on a Grecian Urn”

“On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”

“Ozymandias”

“Ode to the West Wind”

The Gothic Novel

Frankenstein

Jane Eyre

Wuthering Heights

The Byronic Hero

Homework for APees

(I will be e-mailing this to you via www.turnitin.com once they finish their site update; probably not until Friday or so.)

The written part of the semester test will be administered to you according to our discussion before Winter Break, and will be two essays: one, an FRQ based on something we read in class thus far, and one, an analysis of a poem. To prepare for this, I would like you to read this poem over and annotate it before you come to class on Monday, January 4. I will have copies available for annotation if you have no access to a printer, and this poem is also in your literary anthology, but I am reprinting it below under Common Use license since it is in the public domain.

T.S. Eliot is an impenetrable poet for many of you, but I think "Preludes" is just enchanting--and not in a good way, necessarily. Now that you have studied "Prufrock" and have some critical readings behind you, take a good look at this piece--perhaps for the second or third time, for some of you--and annotate. You may use TP-CASTT if you like, or merely highlight words/phrases that stand out to you.

The website where you can find the poem is http://www.bartleby.com/198/3.html.

But here is the text:

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965). Prufrock and Other Observations. 1917.

3. Preludes

I THE WINTER evening settles down With smell of steaks in passageways. Six o’clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days. And now a gusty shower wraps 5 The grimy scraps Of withered leaves about your feet And newspapers from vacant lots; The showers beat On broken blinds and chimney-pots, 10 And at the corner of the street A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps. And then the lighting of the lamps. II The morning comes to consciousness Of faint stale smells of beer 15 From the sawdust-trampled street With all its muddy feet that press To early coffee-stands. With the other masquerades That time resumes, 20 One thinks of all the hands That are raising dingy shades In a thousand furnished rooms. III You tossed a blanket from the bed, You lay upon your back, and waited; 25 You dozed, and watched the night revealing The thousand sordid images Of which your soul was constituted; They flickered against the ceiling. And when all the world came back 30 And the light crept up between the shutters And you heard the sparrows in the gutters, You had such a vision of the street As the street hardly understands; Sitting along the bed’s edge, where 35 You curled the papers from your hair, Or clasped the yellow soles of feet In the palms of both soiled hands. IV His soul stretched tight across the skies That fade behind a city block, 40 Or trampled by insistent feet At four and five and six o’clock; And short square fingers stuffing pipes, And evening newspapers, and eyes Assured of certain certainties, 45 The conscience of a blackened street Impatient to assume the world. I am moved by fancies that are curled Around these images, and cling: The notion of some infinitely gentle 50 Infinitely suffering thing. Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh; The worlds revolve like ancient women Gathering fuel in vacant lots.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Welcome to the first day of school!

Every student will need to report to HOMEROOM. Alphabetical lists will be posted at Guidance, the Media Center, the 1300 building, and every hallway. If you are lost, find a teacher and see where you need to go. We will all help you. Homeroom should only last about ten minutes.

Gifted English II: Please bring your two summer reading books with you each day this week. You will not be picking up your course textbook until next week, but honestly we don't use it that much. Most of our material is either given directly to you in class or out of a paperback novel. Today's agenda:

1. Syllabus and course expectations--please share with your parents. It's a little snarky in places but that's just how I roll.

2. Distribution of the material you need for the week, including:

A. 120 Literary Terms (6 units of 20 words each)

B. The Death of a Salesman essay assignment, rough draft due Friday

C. Writing Log

3. Each of you will fill out the requisite index cards I need for info about you.

4. We will discuss elements of both works for tomorrow's check-reading test.

Please bring a pencil tomorrow!!! Author of the Day will begin Wednesday and I will explain more in class.

AP Literature and Composition: Welcome to class! Please bring your summer reading materials all week.

1. Syllabus; you can read, but I do want to go over a couple of policies regarding e-mail. Please share with your parental units.

2. Index card

3. Distribution of materials:

A. AP FRQ Questions (keep all year in your notebook)

B. Literary Terms for review

C. Madame Bovary discussion questions

D. AP grading rubric for Friday's focus paper

E. Homework for tonight (don't worry--it's fun!)

4. Discussion of Friday's paper and possible topics. Lecture elements include le mot juste, naturalism v. realism v. Romanticism, the focus of materialism and class consciousness in Flaubert's vision, and female archetypes.

Plan Ahead:

Sophomore Assembly is Thursday period 3 in the gym.

Senior Assembly is Tuesday period 2 in the gym.

I will be taking ALL of my seniors to College and Career on Thursday to go over FAFSA and college applications. This is very important for your futures, particularly considering that most colleges opened their admissions on August 1. Mrs. Cadman is the single best advocate you can imagine.

I will be hosting a travel meeting on Thursday, September 3 at 7 p.m. for my last two overseas adventures with BHS kids. During the week-long Thanksgiving break, students who are 18 or older (or seniors with parent permission) can accompany me and a small group of art lovers to Paris for the whole week. Next Spring Break is the all-ages trip to Ireland. I have a few spots left for each, so if you are interested, see me ASAP and plan to attend this meeting. My past trips have been fabulous experiences for kids; we went to Germany last spring break, and last fall's grad trip was to Prague and Vienna. Over the past ten years, I've traveled with students through Italy, England, France, and Greece, and I have loved it, but now that I'm hurtling towards forty I'm losing my mojo a little. I know international travel is expensive, but it can be really worthwhile.

If you have any other questions about ANYTHING you can e-mail me at jennifer.hilley@ocps.net OR hilleyj@gmail.com.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Yes, it looks like we've missed a day here, but honestly, what would be the point of listing assignments for a day in which all of my beloved sophys spent the whole morning taking PSAT, and then my equally-beloved APees had 20-minute long class sessions? At least I got to read my pop-up book of Coleridge to the seniors. That was fun.

On to Thursday!

Sophys: Brief deconstruction of the PSAT experience, followed by Author of the Day presentations from Josh, Morgan, and the regularly scheduled peeps for today. We need to finish reviewing Antigone and deciding what to do about the Antigone test--today or tomorrow? It's super-short (33 little questions) but we need to do it. Reminder of CMC peer edit experience tomorrow.

HOMEWORK FOR TENTH GRADE: Count of Monte Cristo Rough Draft. NOTE TO TENTH GRADE: I still need to schedule some make-up work for a handful of you. See me ASAP, please. Kthnxbye. (See? I can speak AOL.)

APees: Cartoon Day, in one view; Introduction to Hamlet Day, in another. There will be some bad art, some Lion King analogies, and a lot of lecture. Please come prepared to NOT interrupt me for once. I love you guys--especially some of you gregarious types--but please lay off the espresso. For serious. Notes on Hamlet to follow in an upcoming post.



HOMEWORK FOR APees: Act I, scene i--read, understood, analyzed. It's short so make it so. NOTE TO APees: Several of you are missing work due to absences. Please see me ASAP to schedule the love. Grades are due next Friday for this quarter, people, after which NO work will be accepted nor resubmissions evaluated.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Another great day on the Res!

Here's some semi-random clip art to share:







Cookie Monster!

Now on to the World of Academics:

Sophys: Author of the Day presentations, followed by shared Awesome Homework Assignments. I want to go over some PSAT tips and let you know where you are testing tomorrow. Good luck to all; it looks like I will be proctoring the test for juniors from Ca-Cu.

APees: 4th and 5th will take multiple choice practice test #2 from the CLIFF book; 6th and 7th will be going over the Frost poem and then reviewing both the sonnet and the prose passage from Dickens. I will also be going over the relocation list for tomorrow's PSAT.

AP Lit Homework

For those of you who gleefully celebrated Senior Skip Day despite the written drubbing I offered the experience in an earlier post (or those few who were legitimately ill or on Coach K's northern odyssey) here is the AP Lit homework that we will be discussing extensively on Monday.

I can't imbed pdf files from home, and since I still can't log into the blog from school due to Rules and Regulations That Have Not Been Rethunk, here it is in all of its cut-and-pasted glory:

AP Literature

Macbeth Unit

Read the following poem and relate it to the brief speech in Act V, scene v from which Frost took the title in a brief essay of 150-200 words. Treat this as an articulated journal entry; how does the content of THIS piece relate to the existential dilemma discussed in the play? How does Macbeth’s view of the world compare or contrast to Frost’s?

(Yes, this may be difficult; writing about poetry often is. However, the AP Literature exam is one-third to one-half poetic analysis, so let’s get going!)

"Out, Out—"
by Robert Frost
The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood, Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it. And from there those that lifted eyes could count Five mountain ranges one behind the other Under the sunset far into Vermont. And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled, As it ran light, or had to bear a load. And nothing happened: day was all but done. Call it a day, I wish they might have said To please the boy by giving him the half hour That a boy counts so much when saved from work. His sister stood beside them in her apron To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw, As if to prove saws knew what supper meant, Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap— He must have given the hand. However it was, Neither refused the meeting. But the hand! The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh, As he swung toward them holding up the hand Half in appeal, but half as if to keep The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all— Since he was old enough to know, big boy Doing a man's work, though a child at heart— He saw all spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off— The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!" So. But the hand was gone already. The doctor put him in the dark of ether. He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath. And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright. No one believed. They listened at his heart. Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it. No more to build on there. And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.