English 9 Class Notes
Objectives: English 9 students 1) analyzed literary concepts in a Shakespearean drama, and 2) analyzed the same in a film text.
Freshmen, today we finally were able to witness the audio deaths of Romeo and Juliet! We’ll get to do the same tomorrow and Wednesday in the film, at which time I’ll also collect your final study guides.
Now that the two “star-crossed lovers” are together in eternal sleep, I wonder, could they have made it 83 years had they lived, like Clarence and Mayme Vail, who married in 1925?
AP Language Notes
Juniors and seniors, good job revising and editing today. Remember, we’ll meet in the liberry on Monday for more research and writing. I’ll make an official announcement of the revised due date for your final argumentation drafts then; please have an electronic copy of your work available to you.
English 9 Class Notes
Period 4, apart from having some time for independent reading (since we’re ahead in the text), e’erthing we did today is the same as what your peers did yesterday. Check out those notes for objectives and notes.
Linkjam!
Mostly for APELC students, here’re some links I mentioned to you which are germane to our recent activities.
After reading “On Compassion” by Barbara Ascher, I referenced “A Dollar a Day”, a recent, four-part BBC documentary. Worth listening to and wondering about when you plunk down $4.00 or more for a Starbuck’s macchiato.
Eric Wilson, author of Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy, was interviewed on NPR this week about engaging melancholy. Interesting listen in consideration of our late encounter with John Stuart Mill’s and his thoughts on happiness.
Finally, here’s an article from Newsweek, particularly noteworthy for Blaise and Eliza who’ve recently referenced the “safety” of one of Amsterdam’s most famous attractions for their argumentative papers in favor of legalized, regulated prostitution: “Turn Out the Red Light?” Seems like the fun’s over in that very special and unusually aromatic section of the city.
AP Language Class Notes
Objectives: APELC students revised their peers’ argument drafts.
Too many students waited until the last minute to take care of their timed-writing revision and second argument draft business. You all know the rules. Attend them with no excuses next time.
We’ll meet in the liberry Monday; please have electronic copies of your working drafts due to make most of the time.
English 9 Class Notes
Objectives: English 9 students 1) analyzed literary concepts in a Shakespearean drama, and 2) analyzed the same in a film text.
We completed Act IV today, frist and third freshmen, and continued on with the film version of Romeo and Juliet. Check you class page for homework details.
Have a great weekend, and look forward to finishing our drama next week.
Linkjam!
Last week I came across a series of photographs by Chris Jordan, Running the Numbers, in which he makes manifest the vast consumption habits of the American people. (His other series include another on American consumption, Intolerable Beauty, and one on the the devastation suffered in the Gulf Coast in 2005, In Katrina’s Wake.) Several APELCers asked me to post the link to the very remarkable images, and, certainly, they’re rhetorically rich and worth looking at in class.
I’ve collected a few links in the past couple of months about consumption, waste, and recycling. The first is a piece about Ari Derfel, who kept his trash for an entire year to see just what one person was capable of generating.
Another is an opinion from The Economist entitled “The truth about recycling”. This is particularly important when one considers the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, continent-sized patches of trash floating in the Pacific Ocean.
Perhaps you’re not aware of just what can be recycled, so you might check here: “21 Things You Didn’t Know You Can Recycle”. And get active and get more information from the National Recycling Coalition.
AP Language Class Notes
Period 2 juniors and seniors, you were able to get further on the Ascher piece that did your peers yesterday, but I was still able to present to you some of the issues I discovered in your first argument drafts. For all APELCers, these are the things to avoid:
- Tired definitions (”The subject of my topic is defined in the dictionary as X”);
- Statements of belief with no data or warrants (”Because I say X, X is so”);
- Rhetorical questions that imply acquiescence (”See, don’t you get it?”);
- Mere screeds, or bathetic rants;
- Trying to escape first principles, primarily the law of non-contradiction;
- Using Wikipedia as an end source.
At the level you’re now thinking and writing, it’s insufficient simply to state opinions based on intuition, feeling, preference or taste. It’s imperative that your argument include data and warrants to inform and attest your claims. Consider the following statements (which I offered to you in class):
a) Because I believe X, X is true; or
b) Because X is true, I believe X.
Which do you understand to be more accurate? In what manner are you approaching your argument? Do you have evidence to support your claims and can you connect both of the former with reasonable warrants?
Also, many of you were curious about how to cut words from your papers. Here’s the list I elaborated on in class, which we can talk about more in over the next few days:
- Cut singal phrases (”For example”, “In conclusion”),
- Condense and use pronouns where possible and appropriate,
- Use active rather than passive voice constructions.
That’s all for now.
English 9 Class Notes
Period 4, same as before. Check your peers’ notes from yesterday for objectives and details.
And don’t forget, all freshmen, to get that missing work in today by 3:05!
Fo’shizzle!
AP Language Class Notes
Objectives: APELC students 1) analyzed an author’s claims, data, warrants, and rhetorical strategies, and 2) tried to decipher comments I wrote on their argument drafts.
Fifth juniors and seniors, I perhaps mistakenly made your drafts available at the beginning of class which took your attention away from the Ascher reading. But what was initally pandemonium turned into a good discussion of your papers’ strengths and weakenesses.
Second drafts are due this Thursday for revision as are your timed-writing revisions and covers sheets. (Of course, if we didn’t meet to discuss your paper, then all I need is a blank cover sheet with a signed statement to the effect that you’ve declined the opportunity to revise.)
See ya!
English 9 Class Notes
Objectives: English 9 students 1) read independently for a sustained period of time and journaled critically, and 2) analyzed literary concepts in a film text.
After you read, first and third freshmen, we continued with Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, and finished roughly between Acts II and III. You turned in your study guides for Act IV before the end of class.
Remember, those of you that have missing work or quizzes to make up, have only until tomorrow to do so. I’ll not accept anything after 3:05.
Don’t waste this most excellent opportunity to git’er done!
AP Language Class Notes
Objectives: APELC students argued and defended a position on a current issue.
Juniors and seniors, today you tackled the following article from The Daily Mail: “Britain kow tows to China as athletes are forced to sign no criticism contracts”. In a delicious twist, I asked you to defend China’s request of participating nations’ athletes, which I thought might be good practice, that is, you fighting for a controversial, perhaps unpopular position.
The discussions were interesting, but Shawn made an incisive point when he suggested that those athletes who felt strongly about the problem of China’s human rights violations should boycott the games altogether, forsaking their training for the sake of their oppressed fellows. How might Tommie Smith and John Carlos have acted differently?
I said I’d post some links to resources that might help background the issue for those interested, and a good place to start, I think, is with the visceral event from recent memory, the Tiananmen Square massacre of Chinese dissidents in 1989. Frontline highlighted the dissidents’ oppression, first with a focus on The Gate of Heavenly Piece, a vivid documentary film ten years hence, and then in an episode simply entitled “Tankman”, which uses one figure’s “lonely act of defiance” as a critical historical lens.
Be sure to examine Human Rights Watch page on the history of China’s human right abuses. It’s difficult, maybe, to wrap our minds around the fact that other people in other parts of the world don’t enjoy the same rights we are secured here, but because it’s difficult doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try or that we shouldn’t act.
English 9 Class Notes
Objectives: English 9 students analyzed literary concepts in a film text.
Freshmen, today you began to experience Franco Zeffirelli’s vison of Romeo and Juliet. You took notes about differences you observed among the straight reading you’ve been doing on your own, the audio text you’ve been listening to in class, and the film presentation. Several of you noted that your impression of Mercutio differed from John McEnery’s live-action portrayal. Certainly, different media lend themselves better to witnessing the full drama of the play.
For those of you that didn’t bring your film permission slips, please do next class so you can enjoy the production with your peers. I’ll collect your study guides for Act IV next class.
Explanation, Quotation, Citation
Freshmen, a quick reminder of what we talked over in class about what constitutes an appropriate response to a question over the drama (on a study guide, during discussion, or any other time). Each answer you provide must have:
- An explanation (or even an interpretation);
- The quotation upon which you based the former;
- A citation including the quotation’s act, scene, and line number.
Of course, this also applies to any analysis of any text we happen to be examing in class whether it be a novel, poem, or short story. (Except, novel and short story citations incude only page numbers, and poem citations include only line numbers.)
One more reminder: You must bring the release form I handed out in class, approved and signed by a parent or guardian, to view the drama on Monday.
Dig?
Dig!
AP Language Class Notes
Period 2, check yesterday’s class notes for objectives and details, and have safe and productive weekend.
English 9 Class Notes
Period 4, nothing different (independent reading, literary analysis, blah, blah, blah), as I indicated in your peers’ notes yesterday. The big news, rather, was the opportunity I’m offering to you and your first and third colleagues, which I reiterated for you today.
You know parameters. Get your stuff in before the deadline.
Have a great weekend.
AP Language Class Notes
Objectives: APELC students 1) analyzed an author’s claims, data, warrants, and rhetorical strategies, and 2) revised their peers’ argument drafts.
Juniors and seniors, you processed and Toulminized the Mill excerpt on which you completed your timed-writing on Monday, and after that you commenced revising the first drafts of your colleagues’ argumentation papers.
Don’t wait until the last minute to begin your revisions; second drafts are due next week. Have a productive and safe weekend.
English 9 Class Notes
Objectives: English 9 students 1) read independently for a sustained period of time and journaled critically, and 2) analyzed literary concepts in a Shakespearean drama.
Nothing different from many other days so far in this quarter, except for the big news regarding missing or otherwise unaccounted for work. Because of the scattered nature of the semester (engendered by such things as my prolonged absence, the confusion with the sub, the sub for the sub, the Oracle weather day, et cetera), I’ve decided to afford you all an unprecedented opportunity to fix your grade, maybe even reset for the semester.
Many students have empty holes in the gradebook; therefore, because of the confusions, those same students will be allowed to turn-in any and all missing work and make-up any and all missing quizzes, from the first act study guide throught the third act exam, until 3:05 pm, next Wednesday, February 13.
“We can turn-in or make-up any missing work or quizzes?” you may be wondering.
“Yes,” I say in response, “any work or quizzes, including the first sudy guide and objective test.” Think of it as an early Valentine to you all.
However, please be terribly aware that any empty holes that remain in the gradebook after 3:05 pm, next Wednesday, February 13, will automatically become “missing” and will affect your grade negativley.
Have a great weekend, first and third (and any fourth freshmen who’re reading). Please heed and take advantage of this opportunity to ensure your best success.
NOTE: This opportunity does not apply to work or quizzes that you have completed and on which you’ve scored poorly.
AP Language Class Notes
Another good discussion today, juniors and seniors. Cheating turned out to be a hot topic for just about e’erone in the room today as it proved yesterday with your peers in fifth. Checks yesterday’s notes for objectives and details.
All APELCers, please remember to bring two copies of your (substantial) first draft next class: one for review by your peers, the other for me to take and enjoy in my leisure!
English 9 Class Notes
Period four, you were a little ahead of your peers so, after the assessment and independent reading, we spent the remainder of the period revieing some evaluative questions about the characters and the action of the drama. Check yesterday’s notes for objectives and details.