Porphyria’s Lover Assignment
Pretend you are writing a letter to a psychiatrist or a deputy sheriff, like Dwight Shrute. In the letter, you are reporting the behavior of Porphyria’s lover – you want to tell how you suspect he is seriously demented and possibly insane. Find THREE quotes from the poem to use in your letter as evidence of his twisted nature, such as:
EXAMPLE:
As I was walking by Porphyria’s lover’s cottage, I glanced in the window and saw that he was “wrapping her hair three times around her neck”.
DUE THURSDAY - Typed, double spaced
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Survey says...
Hey kids -
I've compiled all of your submitted survey questions into this survey. Please consider each question and choose one to develop tomorrow in a Dover Beach model poem.
Rate the significance of the following in terms of its influence on current culture and society:
1. The first African American president of the United States
2. The Rhianna/Chris Brown story / the Michael Phelps situation / the behaviors of under age entertainers such as Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan and their influence on today's teens and young adults
3. The current state of the economy
4. Global warming and its impact on weather, habitat and wildlife
5. The threat of terrorism stemming from the situation in the Middle East and the brewing situation in Mexico
6. The moral and ethical debate over issues such as stem cell research and abortion - are those issues personal or should the government be involved?
7. Genetically modified foods vs. organic foods
8. Pressure on today's students to not just achieve but to excel in all fields of study
7. The rising cost of college education and the pressure to attend a four year academic university - is it necessary for all students to go on to college?
8. How much control should parents have over their child's decisions and when should that control start/end?
9. Globalization and its benefits versus its downside, such as human trafficking
10. Our government's recent decisions: Socialist or Democratic?
I've compiled all of your submitted survey questions into this survey. Please consider each question and choose one to develop tomorrow in a Dover Beach model poem.
Rate the significance of the following in terms of its influence on current culture and society:
1. The first African American president of the United States
2. The Rhianna/Chris Brown story / the Michael Phelps situation / the behaviors of under age entertainers such as Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan and their influence on today's teens and young adults
3. The current state of the economy
4. Global warming and its impact on weather, habitat and wildlife
5. The threat of terrorism stemming from the situation in the Middle East and the brewing situation in Mexico
6. The moral and ethical debate over issues such as stem cell research and abortion - are those issues personal or should the government be involved?
7. Genetically modified foods vs. organic foods
8. Pressure on today's students to not just achieve but to excel in all fields of study
7. The rising cost of college education and the pressure to attend a four year academic university - is it necessary for all students to go on to college?
8. How much control should parents have over their child's decisions and when should that control start/end?
9. Globalization and its benefits versus its downside, such as human trafficking
10. Our government's recent decisions: Socialist or Democratic?
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Tennyson Monument. Isle of Wight. England.
Hey kids -
Sorry I posted this so late - please read the entire poem and annotate the first two sections - underline words and phrases you feel best reveal the speaker's attitude.
http://www.metalvortex.com/poems/ulysses-.htm
Sorry I posted this so late - please read the entire poem and annotate the first two sections - underline words and phrases you feel best reveal the speaker's attitude.
http://www.metalvortex.com/poems/ulysses-.htm
Friday, February 27, 2009
HOMEWORK for Monday, March 2nd
Hey kids -
Here is a link to an online version of "A Modest Proposal".
http://www.victorianweb.org/previctorian/swift/modest.html
Please read it in its entirety for Monday and be prepared to answer questions on its content.
Also, don't forget to complete The Office: Diversity Day Worksheet, due Monday. You can catch the rest of the episode at www.hulu.com
I found the following online; it's a little blurb about the episode and its satirical nature:
The Office: Diversity Day
"During its first three seasons, NBC's The Office satirized corporate America's bumbling attempts to change its own entrenched sexist, racist, and homophobic attitudes. Michael Scott is a comic representation of the hypocrisy of the American business environment; personifying both its urge to be seen as likable and tolerant and its longing to return to a time when it could freely run on a system of white male privilege.
A manager who became successful during a time when business shamelessly ran on the good ol' boy system, Michael cannot change his sexist and racist outlook to keep up with the corporate world's new need to seem inclusive. Yet, it is he who has to lead the diversity day training (where he requires all staff to say racially insulting things about whatever ethnic group is named on a card taped to the person's head) and oversee the sexual harassment awareness training (in which he constantly sexually harasses the office women).
However, no matter how diverse his staff or how many diversity training sessions he attends (or leads), Michael continuously fails to rewrite his sexist and prejudiced views of people. Michael treats every woman as a sex interest, a matron, or an emotional fluff brain and insults every minority by mimicking stereotypical representations of their ethnic group. He is constantly surrounded by women and minorities who are far more competent than he is, but he unfailingly adjusts his view of them to match his preconceived notions of a group to which they pertain. Part of the humor of the show comes from watching people decide how to react in the face of his egregiously incorrect views. We watch people react to Michael's misbehavior and recognize the decisions we make on a daily basis about when to let an offense go unmentioned and when we should protest."
Here is a link to an online version of "A Modest Proposal".
http://www.victorianweb.org/previctorian/swift/modest.html
Please read it in its entirety for Monday and be prepared to answer questions on its content.
Also, don't forget to complete The Office: Diversity Day Worksheet, due Monday. You can catch the rest of the episode at www.hulu.com
I found the following online; it's a little blurb about the episode and its satirical nature:
The Office: Diversity Day
"During its first three seasons, NBC's The Office satirized corporate America's bumbling attempts to change its own entrenched sexist, racist, and homophobic attitudes. Michael Scott is a comic representation of the hypocrisy of the American business environment; personifying both its urge to be seen as likable and tolerant and its longing to return to a time when it could freely run on a system of white male privilege.
A manager who became successful during a time when business shamelessly ran on the good ol' boy system, Michael cannot change his sexist and racist outlook to keep up with the corporate world's new need to seem inclusive. Yet, it is he who has to lead the diversity day training (where he requires all staff to say racially insulting things about whatever ethnic group is named on a card taped to the person's head) and oversee the sexual harassment awareness training (in which he constantly sexually harasses the office women).
However, no matter how diverse his staff or how many diversity training sessions he attends (or leads), Michael continuously fails to rewrite his sexist and prejudiced views of people. Michael treats every woman as a sex interest, a matron, or an emotional fluff brain and insults every minority by mimicking stereotypical representations of their ethnic group. He is constantly surrounded by women and minorities who are far more competent than he is, but he unfailingly adjusts his view of them to match his preconceived notions of a group to which they pertain. Part of the humor of the show comes from watching people decide how to react in the face of his egregiously incorrect views. We watch people react to Michael's misbehavior and recognize the decisions we make on a daily basis about when to let an offense go unmentioned and when we should protest."
Monday, February 23, 2009
Keats Homework Assignment
Hey kids - yes, that is the home of John Keats! Very exciting - I think he wrote "Ode to Nightingale" in the front yard!!!
Here is your assignment:
Read the poem (Google it).
Do the following:
1. Make a list of and identify all allusions
2. What is the speaker's mood in lines 19 and 20 and how is the mood revealed?
3. Compare the celestial images in stanza 4 to the earthly images in stanza 5 and determine the point of the contrast.
Enjoy - Due tomorrow, February 24th.
Here is your assignment:
Read the poem (Google it).
Do the following:
1. Make a list of and identify all allusions
2. What is the speaker's mood in lines 19 and 20 and how is the mood revealed?
3. Compare the celestial images in stanza 4 to the earthly images in stanza 5 and determine the point of the contrast.
Enjoy - Due tomorrow, February 24th.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Comp Entrance Essay
Hey kids -
Here is a link you can check out for tips on how to write the comp entrance essay. Although it's information about how to write the SAT essay, you can follow the advice and get a good idea of what to do and what not to do.
The #1 issue I foresee kids falling into tomorrow is the employment of vague/tired/cliche/average examples, such as "Changes do make our lives easier because we now can write essays on a computer instead of by hand which takes too long."
Remember, be specific. Use interesting, well developed examples that support your main idea. Don't write a lot of B.S. Develop an idea in a new and interesting way. Vary your sentence structure. Brush up on your grammar. USE PARAGRAPHS to separate EACH NEW IDEA!! Do not use "text speak" - capitalize words that need capitalized and don't use abbreviations or slang.
Here's the link - it's from your favorite website:
http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/books/newsat/chapter6section5.rhtml
Here is a link you can check out for tips on how to write the comp entrance essay. Although it's information about how to write the SAT essay, you can follow the advice and get a good idea of what to do and what not to do.
The #1 issue I foresee kids falling into tomorrow is the employment of vague/tired/cliche/average examples, such as "Changes do make our lives easier because we now can write essays on a computer instead of by hand which takes too long."
Remember, be specific. Use interesting, well developed examples that support your main idea. Don't write a lot of B.S. Develop an idea in a new and interesting way. Vary your sentence structure. Brush up on your grammar. USE PARAGRAPHS to separate EACH NEW IDEA!! Do not use "text speak" - capitalize words that need capitalized and don't use abbreviations or slang.
Here's the link - it's from your favorite website:
http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/books/newsat/chapter6section5.rhtml
Monday, February 2, 2009
Don't Forget to Finish The Thirteenth Tale !!
Hey kids -
I hope you are surviving midterm exams! Just a reminder - you only have ONE more weekend to finish The Thirteenth Tale!
I promised I wouldn't make you do any work related to the novel while you were reading it and I hold true to that promise... however, as of Monday, February 9th, that promise expires.
In preparation for class the weeks of February 9th and 16th, come to class each day prepared with a written answer to the following assigned questions:
Tuesday, February 10th:
Consider this quote: "All children mythologize their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won't be the truth; it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story." -- Vida Winter.
How does this quote act as a thesis for the entire novel?
Wednesday, February 11th
Margaret tells a tale in the book of becoming so engrossed in reading a book that she falls off the wall where she is sitting. She suggests that this proves that "reading can be dangerous."
The Thirteenth Tale shows that reading is powerful, and that the dangers of reading are far more pervasive and can be far darker than Margaret's amusing childhood tale would allow. These dangers are not confined to the naive reader, nor can they be limited to childhood. Reading is a dangerous pastime; words have an inescapable physicality and can work for profound good or profound evil. Do you agree with Margaret about the danger of reading? Why, or why not?
How does this connect to our study of Blake's Three Stages of Being?
Thursday, February 12th
When Margaret challenges Miss Winter on the many versions of her life story she has already told, the author replies "It's my profession. I'm a storyteller." For Miss Winter, Margaret's pursuit of biography, her insistence on working with facts, is "horribly dull...Don't you think one can tell the truth much better with a story?" (p. 46). Who do you agree with more, and why? What makes someone's life story fiction? A biography? A memoir?
Friday, February 13th:
Like the book whose secrets are hinted at by its cover, houses reveal much about their owners. This is especially true in The Thirteenth Tale, where houses are virtual reflections of their inhabitants. Margaret's room above her father's bookshop, Angelfield, and Miss Winter's Yorkshire home all reveal much about the people who live in them, as does Aurelius's cozy cottage. What did you think about the meaning of houses and other structures in The Thirteenth Tale? What do the characters' surroundings say about them and their role in the novel?
Tuesday, February 17th:
Consider our study of Romanticism and apply the definitions we drafted in class to the following: What does Dr. Clifton mean when he tells Margaret that she is "suffering from an ailment that afflicts ladies of romantic imagination"?
Also, choose one character from the novel and gather 10 quotes from the book that reveal, directly or indirectly, that person's true "character".
Wednesday, February 18th:
The Thirteenth Tale is, at its core, a novel about secrets and the ways that the characters are shaped by secrets, their own and the secrets of those around them. Vida Winter is "as famous for her secrets as for her stories" (p. 11), and Margaret is forever scarred by her discovery, at the age of ten, that her mother has kept a secret. What role do secrets play in the story, and which ones did you find most surprising?
I hope you are surviving midterm exams! Just a reminder - you only have ONE more weekend to finish The Thirteenth Tale!
I promised I wouldn't make you do any work related to the novel while you were reading it and I hold true to that promise... however, as of Monday, February 9th, that promise expires.
In preparation for class the weeks of February 9th and 16th, come to class each day prepared with a written answer to the following assigned questions:
Tuesday, February 10th:
Consider this quote: "All children mythologize their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won't be the truth; it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story." -- Vida Winter.
How does this quote act as a thesis for the entire novel?
Wednesday, February 11th
Margaret tells a tale in the book of becoming so engrossed in reading a book that she falls off the wall where she is sitting. She suggests that this proves that "reading can be dangerous."
The Thirteenth Tale shows that reading is powerful, and that the dangers of reading are far more pervasive and can be far darker than Margaret's amusing childhood tale would allow. These dangers are not confined to the naive reader, nor can they be limited to childhood. Reading is a dangerous pastime; words have an inescapable physicality and can work for profound good or profound evil. Do you agree with Margaret about the danger of reading? Why, or why not?
How does this connect to our study of Blake's Three Stages of Being?
Thursday, February 12th
When Margaret challenges Miss Winter on the many versions of her life story she has already told, the author replies "It's my profession. I'm a storyteller." For Miss Winter, Margaret's pursuit of biography, her insistence on working with facts, is "horribly dull...Don't you think one can tell the truth much better with a story?" (p. 46). Who do you agree with more, and why? What makes someone's life story fiction? A biography? A memoir?
Friday, February 13th:
Like the book whose secrets are hinted at by its cover, houses reveal much about their owners. This is especially true in The Thirteenth Tale, where houses are virtual reflections of their inhabitants. Margaret's room above her father's bookshop, Angelfield, and Miss Winter's Yorkshire home all reveal much about the people who live in them, as does Aurelius's cozy cottage. What did you think about the meaning of houses and other structures in The Thirteenth Tale? What do the characters' surroundings say about them and their role in the novel?
Tuesday, February 17th:
Consider our study of Romanticism and apply the definitions we drafted in class to the following: What does Dr. Clifton mean when he tells Margaret that she is "suffering from an ailment that afflicts ladies of romantic imagination"?
Also, choose one character from the novel and gather 10 quotes from the book that reveal, directly or indirectly, that person's true "character".
Wednesday, February 18th:
The Thirteenth Tale is, at its core, a novel about secrets and the ways that the characters are shaped by secrets, their own and the secrets of those around them. Vida Winter is "as famous for her secrets as for her stories" (p. 11), and Margaret is forever scarred by her discovery, at the age of ten, that her mother has kept a secret. What role do secrets play in the story, and which ones did you find most surprising?
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