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?
