remaining green days of 2015

Monday 11/30

Paired poetry analysis

preview AP poetry prompts

Read and evaluate AP poetry anchor papers

HW)  annotate assigned poem

Allison

Give All to Love

Anna

The Good-Morrow

Aine

Grief

Caleb

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, (340)

Jessica

I Hear America Singing

Madison

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

Natalie

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died - (591)

Sydney

Idea 61: Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part

Taylor

Mad Song

Wednesday 12/2

Paired poetry analysis

preview timed write prompt for poetry

paired analysis of poem

shared analysis of poem

outline timed essay for poem

HW) finish outline to prepare for timed write

Friday 12/4

poetry timed write on "The Poetry of Departure" by Phillip Larkin

impromptu paired poetry analysis

HW)  select final four of poetry choices for poetry out loud

Tuesday 12/8

evaluate top shelf student essay
create final four of poetry out loud poems for quality and performance

individual students select his/her own poem to practice and perform for class poetry out loud
paired practice of multiple choice AP test

HW) practice poetry out loud poem along with annotation and analysis

Thursday 12/10

impromptu poetry timed write

public rehearsal of POL with presentation grade for evaluation and analysis

HW)  final rehearsal for POL

Monday 12/14

POL polish

POL performance

process writing time to rewrite one of quarter 2 timed writes

HW)  word process and print out 1st rewrite of timed write

Wednesday 12/16

evaluate essay criteria

apply criteria in --

peer editing and teacher conferencing for rewritten papers
or
attend, master or rule the
Gingerbread House Contest

HW)  final drafting of rewrite

Friday 12/18

AP multiple choice practice

paired groups find best choices for MC answers

whole class evaluation of MC answers

HW) do practice one hour MC test for AP

Tuesday 12/22

review answers for practice test

intro to Hamlet

issue Hamlet books

HW) find and watch two different versions of Hamlet (e.g. Branagh or Olivier or even Mel Gibson) watch several times over holiday break

write a one page comparison of two of the films

week 13, November 23

Timed write for "the Crying of Lot 49"
Assign poems for annotation
HW)  annotate your poem and prepare for brief oral presentation

Natalie

Early Affection

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Taylor

Echo

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Jessica

England in 1819

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Caleb

Envy

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Anna

Epilogue

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Madison

Epitaph

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Aine

Epitaph on the Lady Mary Villiers

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Allison

Experience

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Sydney

Experience

Crying of Lot 49 timed write

Carefully read the following passage from The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon.  Then write an essay in which you analyze how Pynchon’s style and choice of these and other images from the novel convey the complexity of Oedipa’s understanding of reality.

            “Meaning what?  That Bortz, along with Metzger, Cohen, Driblette, Koteks, the tattooed sailor in San Francisco, the W.A.S.T.E. carriers she’d seen—that all of them were Pierce Inverarity’s men?  Bought?  Or loyal, for free, for fun, to some grandiose practical joke he’d cooked up, all for her embarrassment, or terrorizing, or moral improvement?

            “Change your name to Miles, Dean, Serge, and/or Leonard, baby, she advised her reflection in the half-light of that afternoon’s vanity mirror.  Either way, they’ll call it paranoia.  They.  Either you have stumbled indeed, without the aid of LSD or other indole alkaloids, onto a secret richness and concealed density of dream; onto a network by which X number of Americans are truly communicating whilst reserving their lies, recitations of routine, arid betrayals of spiritual poverty, for the official government delivery system; maybe even onto a real alternative to the exitlessness, to the absence of surprise to life, that harrows the head of everybody American you know, and you too, sweetie.  Or you are hallucinating it.  Or a plot has been mounted against you, so expensive and elaborate, involving items like the forging of stamps and ancient books, constant surveillance of your movements, planting post horn images all over San Francisco, bribing librarians, hiring of professional actors and Pierce Inverarity only knows what-all besides, all financed out of the estate in a way either too secret or too involved for your non-legal mind to know about even though you are a co-executor, so labyrinthine that it must have meaning beyond just a practical joke.  Or you are fantasying some such plot, in which case you are a nut, Oedipa, out of your skull.”

                                                            (Pynchon, 170-171)

week 12, November 17-19

Objectives:
Initiate evaluation process for poetry tournament
Deconstruct The Crying of Lot 49

Tuesday 11/17

• Examine circuit boards and hieroglyphs
• Seminar on chapters 1 and 2 of Crying
• Initiate Poetryoutloud tournament
• Poetry annotation set into practice

HW: 
1) read chapter 3 and 4 of Crying
2) list every person and place name in the book so far, define the name in terms of its allusion and explain in the context of the book  (e.g.  San Narcisso is the Saint of narcissism, which is ascribing sainthood (the ultimate in good character) to a negative personality trait indicating excessive self-love.  The Narcissus is a flower named from the Greek myth.  Attracted to a pool to look at his reflection, the Greek hunter of the same name drowned while infatuated with himself.  In the context of the book, many self-infatuated and attractive characters behave in self-destructive ways.
3) download, print, and annotate your assigned poem from the 64 poem tournament .  All poems found on the Poetryoutloud.org web site.

Ah! Why, Because the Dazzling Sun Aine

The American Soldier" Anna;

Amor Mundi Syd;

And If I Did, What Then? Caleb

An Apology For Her Poetry Natalie

April Love Taylor

As Kingfishers Catch Fire Madison

The Author to Her Book Jessica

Battle-Hymn of the Republic Allison

4) be ready to present and defend your analysis in the next class



Thursday 11/19

• partners discuss their poems
• Select a winner for each pair
• seminar on Lot 49

HW)  finish Lot 49 and prepare for timed write on Monday

Gatsby Timed-write

Read carefully the following passage from The Great Gatsby.

Then in a well-organized essay, analyze how the narrator’s commentary on perception, history and personal aspirations address the central themes of the novel.  In your analysis, consider literary elements such as point of view, author’s voice in terms of style and diction, selection of detail, and figurative language.

“    Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes-a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter-to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . and one fine morning. So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” (Fitzgerald 180)

week 11, November 10-13, 2015

11/10  Tuesday
Students select key passage, concept and details from last 9 chapters
Share
Examine timed write prompt for Friday
HW) outline and select quotes for timed-write prompt

11/14 Friday
Gatsby Timed write
Collect Great Gatsby
review "How to Read Literature Like a Professor"section on Crying of Lot 49
Issue Crying of Lot 49
HW)  read chapter 1 and 2, 1 page on aspects of Crying that fit the quest narrative + identify 5 allusions and explain

week 10 AP 12, November 2nd and 6th, 2015

Objectives:
Identify narrative tone
Analyze characterization
Comprehend unreliable narration
Evaluate mythic motifs


Monday:  11/2
Write a DIDLS paragraph for Gatsby
p. 14 
"The butler came back  . . . .and then ceased altogether"

Seminar on Gatsby ch 1 and 2
Reader Theater p. 31--37

HW:  read Gatsby chapters 3-6 (up to p.111)


Friday 11/6
Write a DIDLS paragraph for Gatsby p. 66
"Then came the war, old sport. . . .skimming hastily through a dozen magazines."

Seminar on Gastby ch 3-6

HW:  read Gatsby chapters 7-end (the very end)