Pun Intended: Class Log & Discussions

The Last Week!

After the excitement of last week, let's finish with a smooth run.  Today we finally finished Lysistrata and took our test on it, then had time to catch up on unfinished work.  After break we read Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proprosal" and answered some questions about that famous bit of classic satirical Swift, (I love him).  We then filled out our ten vocabulary words and (ideally) read Catcher in the Rye.  There was LOTS of make up time today and last Friday, so I don't want to see any missing assignments from ANYONE. 

Crash & Burn

As may be apparent, I did not update this page yesterday.  That is because my computer, may it rest in peace, died a slow and tortured death on Tuesday night while I was at the theater seeing "Transformers."  I am lucky to have my files recovered.  The world is lucky I have my files recovered.  Some one would have paid. 

Yesterday afternoon was spent (literally) replacing my computer that was an HP from their summer 04 runway.  This one on my lap is a new HP, and it is pretty and glossy.  Goodbye paycheck.

Anyway, back to business.

Wednesday: We watched Everything is Illuminated, based on the book by Jonathan Safran Foer, a discussed how to "read film."  Of course there was a fun worksheet to accompany our journey through the Ukraine.  We finished off the day with some vocabulary and Catcher in the Rye.

Thursday: We read an excerpt from Chuck Klosterman's book A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas, then answered some questions about what makes a "counter" culture and what gives different artifacts and ideas from a particular culture their value.  We followed this up with a look at some more slam poetry by authors featured in the books Spoken Word Revolution and Aloud, as well as a poem by Fayetteville's Russ Ritter, and, most importantly, there was even some semi-slam, mostly not, poems by me, because as I always say - I love a good little jolt of public humiliation.  We then wrote our own poems following the example of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself."  After break we closed with some grammar, vocabulary, and came close to finishing Lysistrata.  Thank you to all of our boys who bravely took on the roles of angry Grecian women.

humpty hump day

NLR English III: another long day!  I suppose a four hour stretch of anything is is a lot.  Today we began reading A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah.  We followed this up with our vocabulary.  The words/phrases today were: oral tradition, narration, narrator, parbale, plot, exposition, resolution, denouement, point of view, and protragonist.  We continued reading Medea, then resumed after break to write a persausive letter, following, (sometimes not following), examples from the book Letters From a Nut.  We concluded the day with a few grammar sheets.  In between, we began working on chapter guide questions for The Catcher in the Rye.  Productive day!

UB Spanish: Today was the dreaded test day.  Tomorrow we begin our "body biography" projects, be prepared to get creative!

UB Literature: First we broke in to groups to find examples of dark/light and blind/sighted imagery, ideas, occurences, etc. in the play Oedipus Rex.  Then we continued reading.  Read through p. 15 of your packet tonight

Are you serious it's only Tuesday??

NLR English III: With a little (HAHA, try hours) of preparation, we were able to do a WHOOOOLE lot more today.  We started by defining our ten vocabulary words, which today were comprised of: epithet, fiction, folklore, folk tale, genre, hero/heroine, legend, motivation, myth, and nonfiction.  Then we read a chapter from How to Read Literature Like a Professor, entitled "He's blind for a reason, you know," to follow up our lesson on "Cathedrals" and introduce our Greek tragedy, Medea, (can you tell I'm on a Greek kick??  Porbrecitos...), which we read till break.  Then we resumed with some poetry from Edgar Allen Poe, Todd Alcott, and Big Pappa E to get an idea of the range of poets we will be covering.  We finished off with a look at nouns and pronouns, and used, (ideally) our extra time to begin reading The Catcher in the Rye, one of my favorite books. Wow, that's a lot of stuff.

UB Spanish: Test tomorrow!!  Did you get that yet??  Test tomorrow!!  Today we reviewed all verbs, and learned the verb "ir" (to go) and how to use it properly with constructions involving the word "a" (to or at).  We then played fly-swat vocabulary review.  Congrats to the winnders of five bonus quiz points.

UB Literature: Today we continued reading Oedipus Rex.  The tension was so thick you could have sliced it with a butter knife and served it on bread.  Or something.  All I know is, if I were Creon, I wouldn't want Oedipus for my friend!  Or brother-in-law.... or nephew... whatever.

Homework: I want you to think about the possibility that Euripides wrote this play as a warning against engaging too deeply in intellectual/philosophical pursuits.  His protaganist, Oedipus, was determined, even down right ready to maim and deface, anyone who stood in his way as he pursued the truth about himself.  In your blog, tell me what truth about himself does Oedipus discover?  How does his truth stand as a metaphor for the truth(s) that exist about ourselves?  Is it easy for people to face the true nature of themselves?  Why or why not?  Do most people ever even accomplish the act of facing their true selves?  Why or why not?  Do you know the absolute truth about yourself, and if not, would you want to?  How could you go about discovering it, (short of murder and accusations of treason, etc.), or if you feel you already have, how did you do it?