Oedipus Reading Schedule

Tuesday and Thursday we will be working with the text of Oedipus in your red book (pages 896-936).

Our class discussion will focus largely on:

- moments when Oedipus shows his arrogance
- moments when fate is mentioned
- irony
- recurring motifs (eyes, nets, etc)

Please gather these plot references so that you can contribute them to the class discussion during the student led portion.

For Tuesday:

Please have read 896-900 by Tuesday. We will be doing some closer text analysis of this section (tip and middle of the triangle). Be prepared to comment on the characters' use of diction, argumentation, allusions, insights, etc. This should get you off to a good start for understanding the remainder of the play.

Gregor Beetle Due Monday

Create a beetle and attach the following assignment to him:

5 meaningful adjectives
3 significant quotations from the story
1 picture of symbolic importance
1 poem (minimum of 5 lines) honoring Gregor's spirit
1 philosophical, thought provoking question for us to ponder.

Due Thursday

"The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka.

Due 11/30

Prose Prospectus Assignment:

You will need to choose 3 of the 4 passages you were given and complete a prose prospectus for each. The "frame" for the prose prospectus is printed below. The example of the analytical unit is available here.

Title and Author of Passage:

Approximate Era of Passage: Victorian, Modern, Contemporary, etc

New Vocabulary: Write down fancy new words from the passage and their definitions.

Answer to the prompt (as specific as possible) to serve as a thesis:

Proposed Outline of Essay Organization:

Devices you would mention in your essay: Remember, these do not have to be full paragraph topics, but just appropriate literary words that you could use in your essay.

Insights/Inferences/Interesting stuff/Speculations that address the prompt:

Key Quotations for support You may either retype these quotations OR turn in a highlighted, underlined, copy of the text indicating which quotations you would use.

One Analytical Unit: This should be an excerpt from your essay that uses a targeted quotation(s) and says important stuff about it. Try to sound insightful, fancy, and make good inferences. See example above

College Admissions/Scholarship Essay:

Make sure you have submitted your college admissions essay assignment by 12/3. Please include the prompt at the top of the passage.

Catch-up:

If you have fallen behind, this upcoming week is a great time to get caught up. So far in this unit we have read:

"Living Like Weasels"
"Once more to the Lake"
"The Yellow Wallpaper"
"The Short Happy Life of Francis MacComber"
"A Rose for Emily"

Due Tuesday

Make sure to have read the short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper". An online copy is available here if you forgot to take your book home.

Your O'Brian assignment is also due.

Due Tuesday

For the Patrick O'Brian prose passage, please perform the following steps:

1. Read and mark the passage
2. Write 5 inferences about character on the back of the passage
3. Hand write a 40 minute essay answering the prompt at the top of the sheet. Make sure to use sufficient quotations to support your ideas. You can determine how best to structure your essay.

This assignment will be graded on completion.

Due Tuesday, 11/10

The AP Language document that we looked at in class today is available here.

Reading due:

"Living Like Weasels"
"Once more to the Lake"

Please note that the two essays above are primarily narrative, but still make use of many of the stylistic devices discussed in your AP Language packet. Please try to identify some and their effects as you do your reading.

The Beast Cometh...

Your poetry exam, affectionately nicknamed the Beast, is on Tuesday, November 3rd. Please use this weekend to study your terms on the poetry placemat and in in your notes. Your test will consist of the fill in the blank questions followed by an in-class essay. Sample questions are available below:

_______________ The representation of sense experiences through language.


_______________ A metrical line containing five feet


_______________ The repetition at close interval of the vowel sounds of accented syllable or important words.

_________________ A period of English literature producing poems that often presented an argument and elaborate comparisons.

_______________ The poet’s choice of words in a poem





Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?


____________________
(Time period of poem above?)

Contemporary Prospectus Revision

I am modifying the assignment for the contemporary prospectus on "The Century Quilt". Please feel free to read the poem and mark the text, but wait until receiving information in class on Wednesday before progressing any farther.

Due Thursday, and Monday

We will be completing three more poetry prospectuses through Turnitin with the only difference being that you will need to choose your poems from specified time periods, and submit them separately. The first of these will be due on Thursday, and the second due on Monday. Below you will find information outlining these expectations. Numbers in parenthesis indicate the section of your book containing poems from this time period.

Step 1: Review your comments on prospectus set 1 on Turnitin. I made comments so that you will be able to apply them to your next prospectuses.

Due Thursday 10/22: Renaissance prospectus (583-606)

Due Monday 10/26: Romantic prospectus (617-652)

Due Thursday 10/29: Contemporary prospectus (to be determined)

FYI: Your poetry exam is set for November 3rd! There really IS an end to the poetry unit!

Due Monday and Tuesday

On Monday, you will be completing your first assessed in-class poetry essay. Make sure you have reviewed your returned essays and comments and know what you will want to focus on as areas for improvement.


For Tuesday, please do a line-by-line (or thought for though) "translation" of the poem "Essay on Man" by Alexander Pope on page 609 in your text book. This assignment will be turned in for points, so make sure it is on a separate sheet of paper and not just in your notes. You will most likely need to look up definitions for words you don't know and allusions that you are not familiar with. At the bottom of your paper, please include a list of words and their definitions that you looked up.

Due Thursday

Please do a dual turn in of your poetry essay. Submit an electronic copy through Turnitin, and hand in a paper copy to be graded. THE PAPER COPY WILL DETERMINE IF THE PAPER IS CONSIDERED ON TIME, so make sure you have a back up in case your printer decides to hate on you.

Due Monday

Please complete your reading on Rhythm and Meter (480-492). We will be having a quiz on Monday over the specific terms associated with a study of Rhythm and Meter. Many of these terms will come from the notes we took in class. HOWEVER, there are several terms that are only presented to you in your reading. If you encounter a technical term associated with Rhythm and Meter while during your reading, learn it! Again, you will need to use whatever study technique works for you to learn all of these terms.

Also, you should really be making progress on your essay this weekend. Do not save it for Wednesday night.

For Thursday

Please read or review the information on quotation incorporation as you begin working on your paper. Please note that the styles of incorporation at the bottom of the page are considered more mature sounding than those on the top. Therefore, you should make it a goal to become comfortable with those methods.

You should also be progressing on your poetry essay. Make it a MINIMUM goal to have thought about the poem, developed an initial thesis, and begun gathering your quotations for evidence by Thursday. You will want to know what you are having troubles with before this weekend so you can ask me questions.

Due Tuesday

Please have completed your reading on the sections on Symbolism and Allegory (547-464) and Syntax (465-472). Make sure you are able to articulate the difference between symbolism and allegory. Your book does a good job discussion general effects of syntax, and we will do note taking on additional varieties of syntax in class.

Please make sure that you are keeping your long term assignments in mind and making progress towards their completion.

Due Monday and Beyond

Due Monday:

Have your "Manifesto" packet reading completed.

Begin thinking about your first poetry essay on the Cummings poem. Come to class with any questions.

Begin planning for your poetry prospectus assignment. Come to class with any questions.

Due Friday, October 1st:

Your first poetry essay on the poem "When Serpents Bargain for the Right to Squirm" is due. Obviously this is a take home essay, so DO NOT consult online resources for this poem. You need to develop your independent thinking brain. This will be a standard 5 paragraph essay following the analytical format given and modeled for you in the Manifesto. You will be typing this essay and submitted it both online and on paper.

Due Monday, October 12th:

You will be turning in 4 poetry prospectuses that follow the format available here. Each poetry prospectus will be based on a poem of your choice from your anthology. Please do not choose poems that the book explains or that we have analyzed in class. Your poem selections should be unique to you, so please do not choose the same poems as your bff. Please pace yourself so that you complete one prospectus per week. This assignment is quite reasonable if you do work along the way. It will feel ridiculous if you try to complete it the night before it's due. These will be submitted online, so please type them. (Let me know if this will be a problem).

Due Thursday

Complete the reading on diction in your book (pages 436-444).

Carefully read the packet entitled "Thesis Generation". This packet was designed to be especially helpful for you, so please give it the attention that it's due.

Using the information in that packet, come to class with a complex thesis statement written on the poem "The Battle".

Due Tuesday

Make sure you have read the handout "The Happy Synergy of Interpretation and Analysis".

Please create a chart similar to the one at the bottom of the last page for the poem, "The Battle" on page 456 from your reading over the weekend. Your chart should include 3 examples of figurative language (not imagery) and own your thoughts in the "what" "where" and "how" columns.

(For my example on the chart in the packet I actually provided two examples of personification which would count as two of your three examples. I was just trying to save space. You can do two of the same device, but try not to do three of the same device.)

Your assignment should be completed in your notes.

Due Monday

Read "Imagery" (444-451) and "Figures of Speech" ((451-457) in your AP English book. There will be an "accountability activity" on the literary devices introduced in this section. You should find around 15 literary devices and you should use whatever technique (flashcards, quizlet, flippy charts, Cornell notes) you need to learn them. When reading the poems in the section, you should be looking for examples of those devices and considering their effects on the poem. Most poems are followed by some good thinking questions. The "accountability activity" will be focused on the definitions of the terms, not information about the poems.

Due Thursday 9/10: Syllabus Signature and Poem Pretest

Write an analysis of the following poem. You may wish to consider such things as structure, diction, figurative language, and imagery. DO NOT CONSULT ONLINE RESOURCES! Please submit your assignment online through Turnitin.com. This assignment is graded on completion, so please don't worry and just show me what you can do. This entire assignment (thinking and writing) should take 40 minutes. Stop where you are when that time has elapsed, even if it is in the middle of a sentence.

Design

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all*, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth --
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth --
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.

* heal-all: a flower that is normally blue

Robert Frost


A copy of the course syllabus is available here if you need it.

Due Tuesday

Read through chapter 79.

Due Monday

Please read through chapter 13 of Things Fall Apart for Monday.

Optional 2001 Essays

Each essay on 2001 should be about 2 pages double spaced.

Essay 1: Analyze three film techniques and how they are used to contribute to meaning in the film.

Essay 2: Develop and support an interpretation of the movie.

End of the Year Essay Info

Is available here!

Please note the part about the senior picture.

Due Wednesday and Beyond!

Due Wednesday: Chapter 4 of Portrait. Notes available here.

Review Sheet Assignment: (Due the day of the AP test)

Review Sheet Assignments
You must create a complete review sheet for each of the plays and novels we have studied in class this year.

NOTE: THIS INFORMATION CANNOT BE LIFTED FROM THE INTERNET!! YOU WILL RECEIVE A SCORE OF ZERO IF THIS HAPPENS. IT ALSO CANNOT BE MASS PRODUCED AND SUBMITTED AS A GROUP.

Oedipus
Hamlet
Tartuffe
A Doll’s House
Death of a Salesman
Raisin in the Sun
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Wuthering Heights
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Each review sheet must address the following:

 Title of Work
 Author
 Approximate Time Period
 Main Characters: Names and Relationships
 Brief Plot Summary
 Handy Plot References
 A Meaning of the Work as a Whole
 Relevant Literary Techniques
 If I write on this work, I will be sure to mention...
 Quintessential Quote(s) [Easy to memorize, sure to impress]

A Condensed Example (Yours will be more detailed)

 Title: Metamorphosis Author: Franz Kafka Time: Early Modern
 Characters: Gregor-Salesman and Bug Grete: Sister and aspiring musician
Mr. Samsa, Mrs. Samsa, Charwoman, Lodgers
 Plot Summary: No space— but self explanatory. Can be done as bullets.(Do not plagiarize!)
 Handy Plot References: Rocking to get out of bed, desire to go to work, never miss a day, arrival of boss, attempt to communicate, picture with girl, saving furniture, apple attack, walking on walls, borders, sister playing violin…
 Meaning of Work as a Whole: The essential alienation of mankind from a world that seems to value only the material contributions he can make.
 Literary Techniques: Narrative voice, symbolism,
 I will be sure to mention: Symbolism: picture frame, apple, music, bug. Lack of explanation for transformation, Gregor’s desire to keep working.
 Quotations: “When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams…” “Was he an animal…”

Due Monday

Please read the first half of chapter 1 of Portrait. Notes on the text that might help you understand your reading are available here. Additionally if you forgot to acquire a copy, there is a free etext through project Gutenberg available here.

Due Friday

1. Please read the introduction to Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. My apologies on behalf of the print people if you got a crazy copy. Please hunt for pages 7-18 and read them; I think you have them all, even if they are out of order.

2. I changed the "on-time" submission time for the WH research essay from Friday at 11:59 am to 11:59 pm. We decided that if you want to be cool and work on a Wuthering Heights assignment as your Friday night activity, then that should be encouraged.

3. Your first reading assignment from Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man will be due on Monday. Please make sure you have a copy to use by checking one out from our library, buying one, or using an ecopy. This is our last reading before the AP test, so get off to a good start by not falling behind.

Assignments over Spring Break!

Step 1: Finish reading Wuthering Heights. Your reading is due the Monday after break.

Step 2:

You will be reading a critical essay of your choice from an academic source and writing an essay analyzing that essay and Wuthering Heights. I recommend using JSTOR for your research, although some of you may have a book with critical essays in it. Your essay will be 2-3 pages (doubled spaced, and MLA) with the first half presenting a summary of the critical essay using quotations from it as evidence of its premise. The second half of the essay is your evaluation of the validity of the essay's claims using quotations from WH to support your opinion. Please note that the second half of the essay must be written in formal voice, so no "I think that..." allowed. This is a time for you to learn from and model the critical voices that you have read.

You MUST include a works cited page and this essay will be submitted online through Turnitin and graded on comletion/requirements. Please do not submit an essay shorter than 2 pages.

This essay is due April 3rd.

Due Wednesday 3/18

Your ivory colored progress sheet needs to be completed and turned in on Wednesday.

We will most likely only have time to discuss what we have already read in WH on Wednesday, so no additional reading is due today. You will need to have the book finished for the Monday after Spring Break.

Oh, and REGISTER AND PAY FOR YOUR AP TEST!

Due Monday and then Due Tuesday

Due Monday: Please print, read, and mark up the text available here. Approach the passage with the following prompt in mind:

Prompt:

The following excerpt is taken from the Victorian novel Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope. In it, Lucy Robarts converses with the mother of the man whose offer of marriage she has refused. Read the passage carefully and analyze what the characterization of the two women reveals about social expectations of the time.

Due Tuesday:

Chapter's 1-8 of Wuthering Heights. If you forgot to acquire a text, it should be a free download for Kindle and iBooks and a link to the text is available here.

Drama Test and Essay Practice Info

Drama Test Study Guide

Choose ONE of the prompts below and write a 40 minute open ended essay on it that will be handed in for completion points on Monday. If possible, try to write using one of our plays that you have not written an essay on yet.

A symbol is an object, action, or event that represents something or that creates a range of associations beyond itself. In literary works a symbol can express an idea, clarify meaning, or enlarge literal meaning. Select a novel or play and, focusing on one symbol, write an essay analyzing how that symbol functions in the work and what it reveals about the characters or themes of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.


Form B. Many works of literature deal with political or social issues. Choose a novel or play that focuses on a political or social issue. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the author uses literary elements to explore this issue and explain how the issue contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

40 minute practice essay due Wednesday

Please write a practice 40 minute open ended essay on the following prompt:

In a novel by William Styron, a father tells his son that life “is a search for justice.”
Choose a character from a novel or play who responds in some significant way to justice or injustice. Then write a well-developed essay in which you analyze the character’s understanding of justice, the degree to which the character’s search for justice is successful, and the significance of this search for the work as a whole.


Be sure to focus on analytical topic sentences, causal connections and PLOT REFERENCES!

Due Tuesday before Finals

Please print the document below and use it to practice your two columns of marking the text (literal summary on the left and device analysis on the right.)

Bring your marked up document to class.

Practice Shakespeare passage

Due Thursday and Finals Info

3. Do a level one review of plot events of Act II, scenes 1 and 2, stopping before the players enter.(around line 380).

2. Do a level two reading (think carefully about literal and analytical ideas) of Act II, scene 2, Hamlet's speech beginning with "I will tell you what, so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery", but focusing on the "Oh what a piece of work is man..." portion.

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not
me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling
you seem to say so.

1. No marking the text required.


Your final will consist of a passage analysis essay (Shakespearean passage) and an objective, fill in the blank component. Study guide available here.

Due Wednesday

Perform a level three review of the remainder of Act I.

Perform a level 1 (marking the text) on the "Too too solid speech." Text below.

HAMLET
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: and yet, within a month--
Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!--
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she--
O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month:
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not nor it cannot come to good:
But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.

Due Tuesday

There are three levels of review that you will be performing, listed in order of most basic to most complicated. Only on the last listed below, do you have to write anything down, although you are welcome to mark close text reading for those speeches listed under step 2 below if you want to go the extra mile.

3. Review plot events for scenes 1 and 2 of Act I.

2. Review the following speeches, practicing our close text (literal summary and analysis techniques) in your head. You do not need to write anything down, but can if you choose.

- Act I, scene ii beginning speech by King Claudius: "Though yet our memory..."
- Act I, scene ii, speech by Hamlet: "Seems madam? Nay, it is"

1. Mark close text observations on the following speech, using your left margin for literal summary and your right for analytical analysis and associative thinking. If you are using an etext (or don't want to write in your book), I'll include the passage below so you can copy and paste and print it for ease of marking the text.

- Act I, scene ii, speech by King Claudius: "'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature Hamlet..."

KING CLAUDIUS
'Tis sweet and co
mmendable in your nature, Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father:
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
In filial obligation for some term
To do obsequious sorrow: but to persever
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool'd:
For what we know must be and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd: whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died to-day,
'This must be so.' We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us
As of a father: for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne;
And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father bears his son,
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire:
And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.