week 29 - March 29 and 31

Objectives:
Master tone
Understand and use complex sentence structure
Identify and analyze advanced diction

Tuesday March 29
Diction exercise with par on 154-155  "However . . .crystal"
    select 8 challenging words, (4 verbs, 4 modifiers)  write down definition, etymology and synonyms
Discuss how selected words contribute to what Achebe claims as Conrad's practice of  "inducing hypnotic stupor in his readers through a bombardment of emotive words and other forms of trickery" ("Image of Africa")

Finale for Kurtz and misrepresentations of Marlow evaluated through student DIDLS tone work

Collective examination of prompt:
In both Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and in Conrad's The Heart of Darkness, the authors center their novels around a megalomaniac. According to wikipedia,  "Megalomania is a psychopathological condition characterized by fantasies of power, relevance, omnipotence, and by inflated self-esteem."

Contrast Gatsby with Kurtz in a well-developed essay, focusing on the layers of story-telling, the varieties of myth, the capacity for self-delusion, their place in history and the similar fates of these two larger-than-life men.


Discussion, quote selection and planning for timed write.

Thursday 3/31
Thesis comparison
Evidence evaluation

Writing time for Heart of Darkness prompt.

Collect Heart of Darkness
Issue Mrs. Dalloway

HW)  Read Mrs. Dalloway 1-28  make character book mark 

week 28 - March 22-4

Objectives:
Improve close reading skills
Grapple with tough, universal messages
Evaluate scholarly criticism of literature

Tuesday 3/22
Finish class read around of Chinua Achebel's Heart of Darkness analysis:  "An Image of Africa"
Practice close reading using DIDLS on recent passage of HoD pp116-117

DIDLS: The Key to TONE

DICTION:

• Laugh: guffaw, chuckle, titter, giggle, cackle, snicker, roar, chortle, guffaw, yuk
• Self-confident: proud, conceited, egotistical, stuck-up, haughty, smug, condescending
• House: home, hut, shack, mansion, cabin, home, residence, dwelling, crib, domicile
• Old: mature, experienced, antique, relic, senior, ancient, elderly, senescent, venerable
• Fat: obese, plump, corpulent, portly, porky, burly, husky, full-figured, chubby, zaftig

IMAGES: The use of vivid descriptions or figures of speech that appeal to sensory experiences helps to create the author’s tone.

• My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun. (restrained)
• An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king. (somber, candid)
• He clasps the crag with crooked hands. (dramatic)
• Love sets you going like a fat gold watch. (fanciful)
• Smiling, the boy fell dead. (shocking)

DETAILS:  Details are most commonly the facts given by the author or speaker as support for the attitude or tone. The speaker’s perspective shapes what details are given and which are not.

LANGUAGE: Like word choice, the language of a passage has control over tone. Consider language to be the entire body of words used in a text, not simply isolated bits of diction. For example, an invitation to a wedding might use formal language, while a biology text would use scientific and clinical language.

• When I told Dad that I had goofed the exam, he blew his top. (slang)
• I had him on the ropes in the fourth and if one of my short rights had connected, he’d have gone down for the count. (jargon)
• A close examination and correlation of the most reliable current economic indexes justifies the conclusion that the next year will witness a continuation of the present, upward market trend. (turgid, pedantic)

SENTENCE STRUCTURE: How a sentence is constructed affects what the audience understands. Sentence structure affects tone.

• Parallel syntax (similarly styled phrases and sentences) creates interconnected emotions, feelings and ideas.
• Short sentences are punchy and intense. Long sentences are distancing, reflective and more abstract.
• Loose sentences point at the end. Periodic sentences point at the beginning, followed by modifiers and phrases.
• The inverted order of an interrogative sentence cues the reader to a question and creates tension between speaker and listener.
• Short sentences are often emphatic, passionate or flippant, whereas longer sentences suggest greater thought.

SHIFT IN TONE: Good authors are rarely monotone. A speaker’s attitude can shift on a topic, or an author might have one attitude toward the audience and another toward the subject. The following are some clues to watch for shifts in tone:

• key words (but, yet, nevertheless, however, although)
• punctuation (dashes, periods, colons)
• paragraph divisions
• changes in sentence length
• sharp contrasts in diction
•  
• SOURCE  mseffie.com
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HW)  read 119-140 and write a one page DIDLS of the passage in a complete paragraph, not an atomized account

Thursday, March 24
share DIDLS of Heart of Darkness
reader theater
clips from arrive at Kurtz's camp of  "Apocalypse Now" 
HW)   read 141-end, write a one page DIDLS 

week 27 - March 14-18

Objectives:
reinforce reading skills associated with AP multiple choice questions
evaluate professional critical analysis of literature

Monday

• read aloud together connection of Morrison to Faulkner
• AP test packet:  "Aeolian Harp" 34-36
• issue "Heart of Darkness"
• background and challenges:  Joyce Carol Oates' essay pp 8- 14

HW) read 65-84 of Heart of Darkness, write a one page SOAPSTone

Wednesday

• share SOAPSTones from 1st readings of Heart of Darkness
• evaluate narrative framework
• reader theater  

HW) read 85-106 write a one page SOAPSTone

Friday

• Read Aloud and Evaluate Chinua Achebe's "Image of Africa" 
• Reconcile Achebe's Africa with Conrad's
• reader theater

HW) read 107-118 write a one page SOAPSTone

week 26 - March 9 and 10

Tuesday
Discuss Beloved 
Decode the Middle Passage narration
Character study of Stamp Paid and Paul D
HW) complete reading Beloved

Wednesday

• preview timed write
• share and compare notes and outlines
• timed write

2011, Form B. In The Writing of Fiction (1925), novelist Edith Wharton states the following:

At every stage in the progress of his tale the novelist must rely on what may be called the illuminating incident to reveal and emphasize the inner meaning of each situation. Illuminating incidents are the magic casements of fiction, its vistas on infinity.

Use Beloved to write a well-organized essay in which you describe an “illuminating” episode or moment and explain how it functions as a “casement,” a window that opens onto the meaning of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

HW) rewrite a term 3 timed write and resubmit it by Monday, March 14