Winter Break Homework

1.  Read through Chapter 16 in The Awakening.

2.  Go to this link and do the multiple choice on pages 58 to 61 and the poetry essay on page 71.

AP Literature Course Description

The Awakening Chapter II Homework

Due Tuesday 12/11

Read Chapter II and answer these questions:

1. How does Chopin use details to characterize Robert?

2. How does Chopin use evidence to characterize Edna?

3. Make a prediction about their relationship. Use evidence to back up your prediction.

Ms. Dame's Henry VIII Essay

Take a look at my essay on Cardinal Wolsey.  Pay attention to how evidence is integrated.  Do I go in order?  If not, how do I organize the information?

My Essay  (Click the link then press the Download button in the upper right corner.)

Ms. Dame's Hamlet Essay

Your turn to grade.  What do you think of my Hamlet essay?

Ms. Dame's Hamlet Essay

How to Write a Literary Analysis Essay

Here is a very good guide to writing a literary analysis paper.  Read the paper and take thorough notes.  Show me your notes on Friday, 11/9.  You may use them to write your practice poetry essay.

How To Write A Literary Analysis Paper

"Those fellows still stick to the old notion that form is like a garment.  But no!  Form is the very flesh of thought, as thought is the soul of life."

                                                                           Gustave Flaubert

Revision Guide

Use this guide when revising your written work:

Guide to Ms. Dame's Editing Abbreviations and Symbols

Online Grammar Quizzes

You have two grammar quizzes to complete by November 14 and two more to complete by November 30.

To Log-In:

1.  Go to www.noredink.com.
2.  Click on the Student button.
3.  Use your Class Code: dcc932f5.  You do not need to provide your e-mail, but you do need to use your real name so that I can give you credit.
4.  Complete the "Subject-Verb Agreement" and "Commas, Fragments, and Run-ons" assignments first.  The program allows you to make second and third guesses, but your first answer is the one that counts, so answer each question carefully.

Note:  This program will help me understand what grammar rules I need to review in class, but if you can see you are struggling with a particular rule that we do not learn together, come see me.  I will review it with you, and if you show mastery after tutoring, I will raise your quiz grade.

Notes on Meter

Here is an excellent study sheet for meter, stolen with gratitude from another English teacher:

Study Guide for Meter

Tone Words

Here is a list of tone words you should be familiar with:

List of Tone Words

And here is the website that they came from, which will give you the definitions:

Tone Word Flashcards

Here's some more:

Ms. Hogue's Tone/Attitude Words

Hamlet Paragraph Due 10/18

Read the first two pages of the excerpt of Shakespeare After All by Marjorie Garber and answer this prompt:

How does Shakespeare use language in Hamlet's soliloquy to express his mood?

Remember a clear, specific claim and the 1:1 Rule.

A Chance to Tell Your Story on the Radio

Hey Everybody!

My friend works for National Public Radio, and alerted me to this opportunity.  A show called "Radio Diaries" has been helping teens write and record their stories for radio for sixteen years.  You can see some of their amazing work here:

http://www.radiodiaries.org/tag/teenage-diaries/

To celebrate Radio Diaries' sixteenth birthday, a website named Cowbird is looking for 300 teens who want to tell their story by writing and creating a radio short.  If you're interested, listen to some of the former stories and brainstorm what you might speak about in your own life.

I'm happy to contact my friend Sarah if anyone wants to pursuing their first radio short!

Multiple Choice Strategies

Strategy #1  Eliminate Bad Answers

Every question will have five options, and usually one or two of them are clearly wrong.  Cross those off so you can concentrate on discerning between the "maybes" and the "YES" answer.

Strategy 1.1  Jettison the "Misfits"

If one answer is unlike the rest, it is most likely wrong.  Remember the Do Now example:

a) good-looking
b) unsightly
c) handsome
d) attractive

Answer B is too unlike the others; get rid of it.

Strategy 1.2  Never Compromise

Sometimes we make compromises in life.  For example, you might choose your date for his good looks, ignoring his daft brain, or vice versa.  NEVER compromise on the AP exam.  If an answer is not totally right, then cross it out.  When presented with a paired answer (x and y) and X is spot-on, but you know Y is wrong, do not be seduced by X!  Cross it out!

Example:  Ice cream is

a) sweet and sour
b) hot and delicious
c) creamy and indecent
d) cold and furry
e) fatty and fun

A, B, and D need to go right away, because they each contain a clearly wrong answer.  Next, consider the four remaining adjectives:  creamy, indecent, fatty and fun.  Which one is least correct?  Indecent is the biggest stretch here, so C is a Maybe, but E is the Yes.

Strategy #2  Restrain Your Brain:  Be Very Literal

Literature tends to encourage "big picture" thinking.  We read a story and are inspired to extrapolate new philosophies on life.  As you will see, the essay section allows more room for this type of thinking.  The MC section is NOT for "big thoughts."  They are looking to know the exact meaning of the text, and there is always a correct answer.

Very often, the question will ask about a specific line or word.  Hone in on this limited piece of text, and choose the answer that best corresponds with that portion of the text specifically.  For example, we worked in class on a question that asked if the poem "My Picture" contains a compliment to the beloved.  If we are thinking about the whole poem, we know that the speaker has a complicated and not entirely complimentary attitude toward his beloved.  But, restrain your brain!  The question is asking you a simpler question:  Is there a compliment anywhere in the poem?  Yes!

This question is a good example of how learning to "restrain your brain" and zoom in on the relevant details will save you time in the long run.

Strategy #3  Fuzzy vs Focused Answers

When you have two or more answers that are both correct, choose the more specific answer.  Let's go back to our first question-less example:

a) good-looking
b) unsightly
c) handsome
d) attractive

We used Strategy 1.1 to eliminate B.  Now, we can use Strategy 3 to find the correct answer.  Because the remaining answers are synonyms, they could all be correct.  When you arrive at a situation like this, always choose the most specific answer.  In this case, good-looking and attractive are broader, "fuzzier" words.  Handsome is a more precise type of attractiveness.  So, using test-taking logic, we know the answer is C without even knowing the question.

Stay tuned...more strategies to come!

TP-CASTT

TP-CASTT is a method of analyzing a poem.  By doing these steps in order, you can begin to comprehend complex poems from any era and in any style.

Title - If the poet provides a title, make predictions based on the title.  Why might the poet have chosen that title?  What are the literal and connotative meanings of the title?  What can we expect about the topic or tone based on the title?

Paraphrase - Line by line, carefully paraphrase the poem.  If there is a line you cannot comprehend, skip it.  It is very likely you can still get the gist of the poem. It is important to go line-by-line - finishing a stanza in a chunk may cause you to miss important shifts.

Choices - Every choice a poet makes is intentional.  Ask yourself:  Why did she choose this meter?  This rhyme scheme?  This form?  That imagery?  Hone in on important words or symbols and ask, why did he choose this image, or this symbol?

Attitude - Using specific adjectives, describe the mood of the poem. (Melodramatic?  Melancholy? Exuberant?  Reflective?)  Challenge yourself to choose precise adjectives.  Avoid overly general words such as happy or sad.

Shifts - A majority of poems written before 1800 will include a "twist," as well as many written after that.  Be cognizant of changes in tone or meaning.  These shifts often (not always!) lead you to the poem's theme.

Title Again - Revisit your predictions.  Which have come true?  Which do you need to jettison now that you have a stronger understanding of the poem?

Theme - Finally, if you had to express the "message" of the poem in one sentence, what would it be?  Always be prepared to defend this with specific textual evidence.

Narrative Structure and Worldviews

Comics are a useful way to visualize a book's structure.  This blog uses simple comics to compare the conflict-driven structure we've been taught to expect with kishotenketsu, a structure driven by surprise and reconciliation.  It also asks an important question:  do our assumptions about how narratives work affect our understanding of how life works?  Read the article.  What do you think?

The Significance of Plot Without Conflict

Does anyone read Faulkner for enjoyment?

This article recommends giving Faulkner a second, third, and fourth chance, and also brings up a good question: Did Faulkner mean to torture us?  No, says this author.  Even "difficult" fiction is, at the end of the day, poetry and wisdom offered up for our enjoyment - just perhaps a harder-won enjoyment.

Reading William Faulkner: Closely and repeatedly, ideally

Manifestos!

I had a lot of fun looking up manifestos for your Do Now.  I highly encourage you to read these, you do not want to miss lines like:  "We thought it was dead, my good shark, but I woke it with a single caress of its powerful back, and it was revived running as fast as it could on its fins."

http://www.tcf.ua.edu/Classes/Jbutler/T340/SurManifesto/ManifestoOfSurrealism.htm
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/T4PM/futurist-manifesto.html
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jenglish/English104/tzara.html

The Great Gatsby!

The Great Gatsby has been called the "great American novel," and while these superlatives always come off as a bit ridiculous, it is a truly beautiful book.  The story has epic dimensions, but real human desires at its heart, and Fitzgerald's poetic prose can be sublime.

Baz Luhrmann, the director of Romeo & Juliet and Moulin Rouge, has taken on this book, and it looks like it will be amazing.  Take a look, and thanks to AA for urging me to post it:

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/thegreatgatsby/

Life Can Be Ferocious

Maurice Sendak died this week, and this article reminded me of the poetry prompt many of you used last week.  Unlike the adults in those poems, Sendak did not shy away from topics of fear and danger in his stories.

Understanding Children Yet Wanting Them To Grow Up A Bit

AP Literature Terms

This is the beginning of a glossary we will create together in the next few weeks.  You can give me new entries as alternative tutoring assignments (if you are not taking the test) or for extra credit.

https://apliteratureterms.wikispaces.com/

Alternative Tutoring Assignment

If you are not taking the test, and you did not come to tutoring, please complete this assignment to replace that classwork credit.

Go to one of the following links, and choose a word.  Make a Word Wall card that defines that word in your own words.  In addition, hand in your definition with an example of the element or technique being used in literature.  Explain how the text illustrates your word.

http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms.html
http://www.oxfordtutorials.com/AP%20Literacy%20Glossary.htm
http://quizlet.com/6932273/ap-literature-glossary-flash-cards/
http://quizlet.com/7846378/ap-literature-glossary-quiz-part-one-tropes-and-devices-flash-cards/
http://quizlet.com/7848638/ap-literature-glossary-quiz-part-three-flash-cards/

Mostly a Plug for The Princess Bride

Lines from The Princess Bride That Could Double as Comments on Freshman Composition Papers

Vulgar Tongues: The Urban Dictionary of 1811

This will not help you on the AP Literature exam, but I will give kudos to anyone who can spread some 1811 urban slang into the Lincoln vernacular.

Good News for People Who Read the Blog!

You can do well on tomorrow's essay if you have read up to Chapter 5.  You may read to Chapter 8, but it is not required.

Adrienne Rich (1929-2012)

Adrienne Rich, an American poet, died today.  This is an excerpt from her 1993 essay in Poetry magazine.  You can read the whole interview and find out more here:  Someone is Writing a Peom

I can’t write a poem to manipulate you; it will not succeed. Perhaps you have read such poems and decided you don’t care for poetry; something turned you away. I can’t write a poem from dishonest motives; it will betray its shoddy provenance, like an ill-made tool, a scissors, a drill, it will not serve its purpose, it will come apart in your hands at the point of stress. I can’t write a poem simply from good intentions, wanting to set things right, make it all better; the energy will leak out of it, it will end by meaning less than it says.

I can’t write a poem that transcends my own limits, though poetry has often pushed me beyond old horizons, and writing a poem has shown me how far out a part of me was walking beyond the rest. I can expect a reader to feel my limits as I cannot, in terms of her or his own landscape, to ask: But what has this to do with me? Do I exist in this poem? And this is not a simple or naive question. We go to poetry because we believe it has something to do with us. We also go to poetry to receive the experience of the not me, enter a field of vision we could not otherwise apprehend.

Someone writing a poem believes in a reader, in readers, of that poem. The “who” of that reader quivers like a jellyfish. Self-reference is always possible: that my “I” is a universal “we,” that the reader is my clone. That sending letters to myself is enough for attention to be paid. That my chip of mirror contains the world.

Homework Due Thursday, March 22

Using the quotes below, and any others you think are relevant, answer the question: What is Milkman’s attitude toward his past?

“But riding backward made him uneasy.  It was like flying blind, and not knowing where he was going – just where he had been – troubled him.  He did not want to see trees that he had passed, or houses and children slipping into the space the automobile had left behind.” (32)

And then, after peeing on his sister:

“He didn’t mean it.  It happened before he was through.  It was becoming a habit – this concentration on things behind him.  Almost as though there were no future to be had. 

But the future did not arrive, the present did extend itself, and the uncomfortable little boy in the Packard went to school…” (35)

Nice Introduction to Hemingway

This article is a great place to start if you want to know more about Ernest Hemingway and his writing.

Hemingway: How the great American novelist became the literary equivalent to the Nike swoosh

The Story Behind Rising Exam Fees

Budget Cuts Threaten Access to College Placement Tests

Pilate/Pilot

A group asked today how to pronounce "Pilate."  As neither a speaker of Latin nor Aramaic, I cannot answer this question with any certitude, but we do get one clue in the book, when we learn how Pilate was named.

"I want that for the baby's name.  Say it."
"You can't name the baby this."
"Say it."
"It's a man's name."
"Say it."
"Pilate."
"What?"
"Pilate.  You wrote down Pilate."
"Like a riverboat pilot?"
"No.  Not like a riverboat pilot.  Like a Christ-killing Pilate.  You can't get much worse than that for a name.  And a baby girl at that."

This is already a great scene - funny and heartbreaking.  And it gets downright theological a few lines later:

"...You don't want to give this motherless child the name of the man that killed Jesus, do you?"
"I asked Jesus to save my wife."

Morrison spends a lot of time developing the significance of Milkman's entry into the world, but Pilate's entrance is equally fraught and extraordinary.  Setting aside the issue of her navel for a moment, her birth was founded on struggle (someone dies so that she may live, another parallel to Milkman), and her name is an outward flag of rebellion and radical thought, chosen by her father out of despair and a sense of divine injustice.  She comes blazing into the world, an immediate threat to the status quo.

And, we have this homonym, pilot, explicitly mentioned by the father in the naming scene.  I will not gloss that here, except to ask the question:  What do pilots do?

The People Could Fly

The People Could Fly

For homework, read the story and write a summary.

Novels of "Literary Merit"

I take any delineation of the "canon of important literature" with a heavy dose of salt, but here is a list of books that are safely within the College Board's definition of a book of literary merit:

Appropriate Books for the Open Response Question

Do not hesitate to email me at msdame3@gmail.com for recommendations.  I just reread The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and was once again floored by it.  Easy but intricate read, with astonishing prose.

Homonyms!

WARNING: This is dorky.



homonym - each of two words having different spellings and meanings but pronounced the same

Lucky's Speech

Here is a version of Lucky's speech begin performed:



It is obvious here how much Lucky's thinking bothers Pozzo.  Any ideas why?  What do we learn about Pozzo?

The World of Dickens Would Literally Make Us Sick

Funny, sad, charming or gross?  You decide.

A Visit to Dicken's World

A Very Good Bad Review of Midnight in Paris

Per our discussion of Hemingway, here is a woman in a beret giving the warmest lukewarm review I've ever seen:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2012/feb/09/midnight-in-paris-best-picture-oscar-video

P.S.  All the reviews are well worth watching!

A Journalist's Job

Katherine Boo is a journalist from the New Yorker who has just published an unusual piece of journalism covering the slums of India.  The NY Times reviews it here. Apropos of our discussions about how to represent the "other" and why, check out her last quote in the article:

 “I respect the division of labor,” she said. “My job is to lay it out clearly, not to give my policy prescriptions.” She added: “Very little journalism is world changing. But if change is to happen, it will be because people with power have a better sense of what’s happening to people who have none.”


For extra credit, look up Boo's new book or any books by Ted Conover or George Orwell.  Read the book and write a review, focusing especially on how and why they represent the disadvantaged in society.

On Behalf of Others PBA Resources

One in Eight Million: The Uncertain Gang Member Migrant Mother Photographs The Story Behind This Iconic Photo Random Family (check Amazon.com, you can use the "Look Inside" feature to read the excerpt) Two Tabloid Articles: America's Obsession With Tabloids Why We Need the Tabloids JR's Ted Talk For your Works Cited list: Febres, Joshua. “The Uncertain Gang Member.” 1 in 8 Million. NYTimes.com, October 15, 2009. Franklin, Marcy.  "America's Obsession With Celebrities and Celebrity News:  When Is It Too Much?"  <http://www.colorado.edu/pwr/occasions/articles/americas_obsession.html> Accessed 1/30/2012 JR. “JR’s TED Prize Wish: Use Art to Turn the World Inside Out.” TED Talk. Ted.com, March 2011. LeBlanc, Adrian Nicole. “Chapter One Excerpt.” Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble and Coming of Age in the Bronx.  January 19, 2004. Linkof, Ryan.  "Why We Need The Tabloids" <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/20/opinion/20linkof.html> Accessed 1/30/2012 “Migrant Mother: Photographs by Dorothea Lange.” ActivInspire Flipchart, February 6, 2012. “The Photographs of Arthur Fellig, a.k.a. Weegee.” PowerPoint Presentation, February 1, 2012.

Be A Weegee!

The extra-credit projects just keep coming!  Next up:  take a photo that some would consider sensationalist or lurid (no nudity please!), but you believe has artistic or journalistic merit.  In a well-developed paragraph, explain why you believe the photo has artistic or journalistic merit.  Also include reasonable proof that you took the picture (you can just tell me where and when.)

On Photography by Susan Sontag

Hello and Welcome Back!

I have an extra-credit project for you right off the bat.  This week, we will be working on the ethics of documentary work.  Read the excerpt from Sontag's book On Photography and create a Read20 graphic organizer.  You may browse the internet for help understanding Sontag.  When you finish, write a well-developed paragraph answering this prompt:

What is Sontag's main point?  Do you agree or disagree?  Why or why not?  (You may say "somewhat", just explain your reasoning.)

http://www.susansontag.com/SusanSontag/books/onPhotographyExerpt.shtml