Pun Intended: Class Log & Discussions

Rage Rage

Today we organized our binders into 8 sections:

1) notes

2) journal/writing

3) independant reading

4) class novels

5) poetry

6) short stories

7) grammar

8) vocabulary

The syllabus signed by your parent, your map of "Brooklyn," and library card checks were all due/taken care of today.  If you didn't turn either of the assignments in - tough!  Remember, no late work will be accepted. 

After taking care of that business, we listened to Jackson Browne's song, "The Pretender."  We paired this with the poem, "Do Not Go Gentle," by Dylan Thomas, in order to talk about perserverance, independent thought, and whatever else came up in discussion.

Only the living attend my classes...

In all periods we mananged to finish up teacher/class/student/classmate expectations and move on to bigger and better things.  Expect a typed compilation of these to be coming soon to a desk near you. 

Today we read the story "Only The Dead Know Brooklyn" by Thomas Wolfe.  Remember - the "map" is not "Brooklyn," but it's always nice to have a "map" to help you navigate your own "Brooklyn."  With this in mind, your assignment was to draw your own map or pictoral representation of the "map" you have been given by teachers, parents, friends, religious groups, life experiences, etc.  You may depict your "map" however you like, but be sure you include short blurbs about each of your "locations."  You could also throw in a sentence or two about where you want to be going with your map.  We will revisit the maps you created at the end of the year.

Since we were talking about directions, cities and such, it was only appropriate to listen to Paolo Nutini's song "These Streets."

While we didn't read this in class, here is something to supplement our reading of Wolfe's story: Stevie Smith's Not Waving but Drowning.

Tomorrow's Friday!!

Back in the swing...

It has been a long break, (sort of), for me, with Thursday needing a sub so that I could attend a memorial service for a 16 year old car accident victim, (PLEASE wear a seat belt), and Friday no work for me so that you guys can do your work study thing.  Then the weekend!  And now.... Monday.

UB Spanish: Good job on the dialogues you guys wrote, but I'm a little unnerved that you had (count them) four days to work on them, and most of you were still scrambling to get past your greetings when you walked in to class.  Tomorrow I want the animals/verbs worksheet you did.  Today we also began reading part of a Spanish reader to help us understand things in context. 

UB Literature: There were some amusing Twelfth Night scene recreations today.  I do not regret making you suffer through my guitar and song version of "Orsino's Island," but I bet some of you all do!  Finish your Welty story for tomorrow, as well as your short chapter from Luke about the Prodigal Son, and your Buddhist folktale.  Be well versed in all three for tomorrow.

In case you want to try and out-do me in guitar, here are the tabs and lyrics to today's performance piece: isle_song.doc.pdf

Last Thursday

NLR Japan Excursion: Sushi making (veggie & crab rolls), tea cup painting, and Spirited Away!

UB Spanish: Definite and indefinite articles review, pronoun review, adjective review, and "fly swatter vocabulary" game

UB Literature: Listened to some Louie Armstrong and John Coltrane, broke into groups to find & discuss different motifs and images in "Sonny's Blues."

Homework: Read the introduction found inside your copies of Twelfth Night for Monday

All UB students: trip to Reynolds Auditorium to see the Arkansas Shakespeare Theater's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.  I loved it, and I hope you all did, too!

Friday ~ was a work day, no  class!

3rd day - going strong!

NLR Japan Excursion: Thank you so much Tim for the incredible demonstration and lesson on how to sketch, ink, and color anime cartoons!!

UB Spanish: Reviewed the basic parts of speech, personal pronouns (yo/tu/el/ella/nosotros/usted/ellos/ellas), and began to look at adjectives and how they must agree with the nouns they modify in both GENDER and QUANTITY.  Review the extra vocabulary sheets I handed out in order to start building a strong speaking base. 

UB Literature: We read T.S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land in conjunction with J.D. Salinger's short story, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish." 

Homework: Finish reading James Baldwin's short story "Sonny's Blues" for class tomorrow.  Then, in your blogs, answer the following questions based on your own thoughts and responses to the story:

• Amiri Baraka, (Leroi Jones), a contemporary black writer, wrote the following words about bebop, or new jazz, music:
  • "Bebob rebelled against the absorption into garbage, monopoly music; it also signified a rebellion by the people who played the music, because it was not just the music that rebelled, as if the music had fallen out of the sky!  But even more, dig it, it signified a rebellion rising out of the masses themselves, since that is the source of social movement -- the people themselves."   (from Selected Plays and Prose)
• Think about how music contributes to both the plot and the characterization in the story.  How does Sonny react to the new jazz/bebop of the 1950S, compared to his brothers initial reaction?  Why do you think this is?
• We have been discussing the theme of alienation in the stories we have read; what type of alienation do each of the characters experience, both individually and collectively? 
• Think about the meaning of the term "grace."  Why is this the chosen name for the daughter who dies?  Why does the narrator contact Sonny only after this occurrence?  How does the concept of "grace" figure in to the remainder of the story?  Does grace's presence or lack thereof enhance the feeling of alienation in this story, or offer a redemption from it?  How so and why?