Pun Intended: Class Log & Discussions

Homecoming week

Wednesday: I collected the remainder of your paraphrases of Borges' poem.  We read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's short story, "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings."  We broke into short story literature circles to discuss and explore the story.

Thursday: We took a practice vocabulary test.  If you got 18-20 correct, you will get bonus points on the actual test tomorrow.  We used the remainder of the hour to finish up our lit circle notes.  You turned in the gold-colored circle notes, and took home the Bloom's questions for homework.  Don't forget your three book reports/projects are due tomorrow.

90 journals later...

My eyeballs are about to fall out of my head.

Here's today's layout:

We practiced annotation.  We used "The Story of An Hour" and Toni Morrison's opening paragraph from her novel Sula for practice.  There was much discussion and rejoicing by the multitudes... or at least a few.

Then, to introduce Gabriel Garcia Marquez's story "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings," we read Jorge Luis Borges' poem "Afterglow," one of my favorites.  This was annotated as well. 

There was much annotation; take note.

I collected journals from 1st, 2nd and 3rd period.  I will get the rest on Thursday... if I recover.  So many new things I learned about myself... and my students. 

Friday: VOCABULARY TEST, 50 words.  Look alert.

weekend!

Thursday: We read Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" and got in small groups to practice filling out a QIDIC chart using the story.  I'll be looking for these to be complete when I check your binders next Friday.

Friday: Today I collected your symbolic tattoo designs and issued our first open-binder quiz.  When you finished your quizzes, I let you have the remainder of the class to silently read your novels of choice.

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!!

Totally my fault...

Yesterday I read Harry Potter from 12:30 - 12:30 and finished it, (I did make it to the gym for an hour, though!) so... yeah, I didn't update.  But as far as the book is concerned, I was not disappointed.

Thursday: We read "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien and took our vocabulary test.  All grades were completed and report cards handed out.

Friday: Last day!  We watched "Finding Forrester," and went home!  VACATION!  (For all of three days, for me.)

Not my fault...

Typepad was down yesterday when I was ready to update, so here is all the excitment you may have missed:

Tuesday: We read A Long Way Gone, got some svocabulary out of the way, then began reading Hemingway's short story, "Big Two Hearted River."  We also finished up our group projects involving "A Modest Proposal" and the concept of satire. 

Today: We watched the movie Paradise Now and continued to think about literature/art with a social conscious and/or message.  The remainder of the hour was spent looking at grades and make up work.  Vocab test tomorrow, and all work due, also. 

Ready for the weekend!

Today I passed out progress reports, (thank God for excel!), and allowed time to catch up on some missed work.  Then we read the short story "Much Ado About (Censored)" from the collection entitled 2041.  We paired this with a fine selection of palete cleansing texts concerning censorship and its role in the world we live in, vintage NCAA as well as some pro-censorship motherships, I mean web sites.  Good discussion, guys!  We had quite a few written questions following this, so we had time to work on that, and then closed with a few poems by the amazing Adrienne Rich.  We also got to read a little bit of A Long Way Gone.  See y'all Monday!

Monday, Monday, (la la, la lala)

NLR English III: Welcome to three fun weeks!  No sarcasm intended.  Today we wrote introductory letters, read Raymond Carver's short story "Cathedrals," wrote a reading response about the difficulties of communication and the symbolism of the title, (remember the bridge discussion?), did grammar exercises #1-9 (all except #5) on pgs. 480-481, and defined the following vocabulary words: allusion, analogy, allegory, antagonist, archetype, character, characterization, climax, conflict, and dialog.

UB Spanish: today we reviewed "ar" and "er" verbs, as well as tener, ser, and estar.  We took our first look at "ir" verbs, as well as the irregular verb "hacer."  BIG QUIZ WEDNESDAY!

UB Literature: We began reading Oedipus Rex.  Stay tuned for this crazy family saga!

Since we are reading classic Greek literature, I thought I needed to show off a bit:

9th grade, Me, my friends, Library of Ephesus, Turkey

There are other pictures of the ancient ampitheatre and myself eating a picnic lunch of macaroni and cheese on it, but I'm too lazy to scan them.  But still, this is cool!

Friday!

UB Spanish: We closed out the week with a look at our stories about Maria and Enrique, then played a review game I like to call "Spanish Tableau."  Finish any worksheets you need to make up, and color your "paint by addition and subtraction" ships for extra credit.

UB Literature: We finished up our discussion of "Why I Live at the P.O." and talked about Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily."  It was a great day for romanticizing about the old south... and other fun metaphors.  One more week!

Feels like Monday

UB Spanish: still a small class - what kind of bar-b-que did our absentees eat??  Still, we perservered without them.  Today I provided all of the worksheets I have ever passed across your desks, a la carte.  Then we reviewed "ar" verbs, and learned to conjugate "er" verbs.  We concluded with a nice review of ser and estar, with a look at how to formulate ser into questions and sentences.

UB Literature: For your final week, would you rather read more stories or read Oedipus Rex?  I'll accept votes.  Today we worked in groups and discussed "Why I live at the P.O" as well as two coinciding religious parables/stories.  We will finish our charts tomorrow.  Until then, read "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner. 

Homework: Today we talked about how the context of Welty's story can be broadened into a commentary on relations between the northern and southern states, (remember the "dead letters"?)  I want you to think about Faulkner's story as a social commentary, as well.  My question for you is: what do you think he is saying about the southern states?  Think about post-civil war daily life, attitudes, conditions, or anything that he may have considered or observered.  Feel free to do a little googling on the post-war southern states to help get your thoughts going.  Happy blogging!

P.S. - creepy story, huh?  One of my favorite Faulkner pieces!!