Curriculum Night

Who  Is Your Child's Teacher?

Melanie L. Boaz

Long-term sub for Ms. Scott-Kelly

Sept. 2-Oct. 30

How to reach me: 

Use Ms. Scott-Kelly's email:  scottkellytm@mukilteo.wednet.edu

How to get to this blog:

KA323SR.blogspot.com

My background . . . .

What Have We Been Doing?

We began with a short story unit--

• More accessible than beginning with Anglo-Saxon literature and the historical context of Britain from Roman times to the Norman Conquest 
• Allows for a review of basic literary terms that apply to fiction--useful all year, foundation for newer or more specific terms all year, fairly familiar turf for most students
• Ended with a unit test yesterday and today--Scantron objective section yesterday and a written section today
• Writing:  A "Self-Definition," which was a stepping-stone to the Personal Essay as well as a back-to-school exercise in following instructions for specific content and formatting . . .

What's Next?

• Over the next 5 or so school days students will be learning about invasion groups and cultural history; reading some short poems that help reinforce the beliefs, way of life, and social structure of that time; and acquiring some new literary terms that apply to the poetry or language of this era that just aren't taught earlier.
• Then--for nearly 3 weeks--it will be Beowulf.  The Seamus Heaney translation will be checked out to students.
• And within the next week or so, we'll begin the personal essay.  For some, that will be an opportunity to work on the college application essay, for real.  For others, it will be simply a classic late high school piece of personal reflective writing before turning our attention to literature. 

After That--

Short Fiction Test Tomorrow!

Just a useful link for you:
Homecoming Court voting is happening ONLINE at http://eballot.votenet.com/kamiak   (if it doesn’t work, be sure you're not using www up front)

Student ID is your log in

Their password is your house #   

TODAY IN CLASS
Students worked on a review assignment that can be turned in before the test tomorrow for a few bonus points.  Use the previous TWO posts for full information regarding the format and content of the test together with links to online copies all five stories.

Here is the assignment from today's class: 

For EACH story:

•  3 random details (make sure one is really important)
• 2 “multiple choice” questions (you don’t need to come up with the other options—what would the answer be?)
• 1 good paragraph question (for TWO of these, give bullet points for a potential response—obviously you should KNOW the gist of the other responses as well)

Remember that there will be a short story test on Tuesday, Sept. 29.  

• The original information regarding contents is on the post for Sept. 24.  It has been updated to include links to electronic copies in case you have lost your original short story hand-outs.
• The format of the test will include objective questions (matching, multiple choice) with responses on Scantrons, AND written responses (paragraph/extended paragraph) for which you will have to show knowledge, understanding, and insight. 
• Bring both a pencil for the Scantron section and a pen with blue or black ink for the written portion.

IN CLASS ON FRIDAY
Students wrote a brief list of what they knew about early Britain (up through 1066), and then we spent some time talking about some of the ideas that were written down. A few knew a fair amount; most will not be bored by learning something you already know!! I hope there will be new and interesting material for everyone over the next few weeks.

FOR MONDAY
Start some serious review for the short story test on Tuesday; it will be a significant grade for the first quarter.

SOME MODERN LINKS TO THE HISTORY WE STUDY
Just this week, there is new information about Westminster Abbey involving at least 50 bodies found buried just outside the current building walls.  As we were talking about the "end point" of the Anglo-Saxon period being 1066--associated with the invasion by William of Normandy--the exact information was a bit different in each class.  All of the important "need-to-know" points will be brought up in the required reading or associated information.  But in at least one class, I mentioned that William marched from the battle site at Hastings on to London in the weeks following the battle, and that he was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day of 1066.

If you've been to London and seen Westminster Abbey (or if you've seen any video of the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton) you know what an impressive stone structure it is. The present structure was begun by Henry III in 1245 (well into the medieval period) but there were earlier church buildings on that site as early as the middle of the 10th century (circa 950).

You would think that by know, historians and archaeologists would know all there is to know about Westminster Abbey, but you would be wrong.  Here's something that was just published last week:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/23/westminster-abbey-medieval-burial-remains-demolition-new-tower

And although I'm not going to go into the details of the search or the proof now, the body of King Richard III was found a couple of years ago under a "car park" [parking lot] in the city of Leicester.   Richard III is the king whose death at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 ended the Wars of the Roses and led to Henry Tudor becoming king (and starting the Tudor line that lasted through Elizabeth I's death in 1603).  BUT--they have continued to dig, and this is the latest report on what else has been found:
Article on Women's Graves Found Near Richard III's

Short Story Test:
Tuesday, Sept. 29

It will cover literary terms, with a focus on the elements of fiction.  We have discussed and applied these, but not formally "defined" each one.  You probably know many of them quite well, but you can confirm what you know or learn what you need to know by using the Glossary of Literary Terms and Techniques found at the back of the red Prentice-Hall textbook (blue band on the edge; beginning on p. 1334).

Plot
Conflict
Character/characterization
Point of View
Setting
Foreshadowing
Flashback
Irony
Tone
Theme

Be sure to note how "characterization" differs from character traits (personality traits) or just a "character" himself/herself.
Also, be aware of all three kinds of irony, but know which type was at the heart of "The Story of an Hour."

Review (this might mean actually re-read, or it might just be a careful review as you skim the story, look at whatever notes/annotations you took, and try to recall what we emphasized in class.

Kate Chopin, "The Story of an Hour" http://my.hrw.com/support/hos/hostpdf/host_text_219.pdf

Katherine Anne Porter, "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall"
http://www.westga.edu/~shollenb/Jilting%20of%20Granny%20Weatherall%20by%20Katherine%20Anne%20Porter.htm

Elizabeth Bowen, "The Demon Lover"
pdf of The Demon Lover

John Updike, "A & P"
"A & P" link

James Joyce, "Araby"
pdf of "Araby"

Finally, review the poems.  Know why we  the following poems by Emily Dickinson in conjunction with "Granny Weatherall":

• "Because I could not Stop for Death . . . "
• "I Heard a Fly Buzz when I Died"

And you received a hand-out of a ballad called  "The Demon Lover"; one side was in a broad Scots dialect (which I read), and the other used more modern spellings and was easier to understand.  I'm linking that side here:

"The Demon Lover" (anonymous ballad) (There are some formatting issues here I haven't resolved--click on "Open" after the first copy comes up.)

TODAY IN CLASS
Announcement to all sections:
Test over Short Story Unit on Tuesday, Sept. 29
Will cover elements of fiction, all stories we've read, the three poems we've read; format of test will be described in the next couple of days.

All classes received a hard copy of  the James Joyce short story "Araby" during class on Tuesday. We looked closely at the first page:
Paragraph 1:  Consider the lay-out of the street, the ironic mix of the "blind" street (a dead-end street) together with  the personification with houses that "gaze." Be alert for how "vision" operates in the story.

Paragraph 2:  It starts out by stating that the former tenant, a priest, had died in the house. It describes three books in the junk room, and the state of the untended back yard.  Why?  We will never hear of the priest again, and the back garden seems unrelated to the rest of the boy's story.

Think this through . . . if you were absent see if you can figure out.  People in class should know--ask if you're not sure!!

Paragraph 3:  Students underlined references to "dark," and circled references to "light."  Do this if you were gone today and are just now reading the story at home. We were starting to debrief that when we ran out of time.

FOR TOMORROW
Finish reading the story, with care and attention. Annotation not required, but suggested! :)
If you weren't in class and don't have the link, here it is; you can read it online or print it out for yourself:   "Araby"

Self-Definitions Due on Friday!!

TODAY IN CLASS
Classes went to the computer lab to complete and type the Self-Definition assignment.   If you are still working on it, make sure that you have followed both the content expectations for each section as well as the formatting instructions.  And don't forget that TWO steps are required to complete this assignment:

• Bring the hard-copy with you to class on Friday 
• Submit the assignment to www.turnitin.com  (Deadline:  7:15 a.m. Friday morning)          

Obviously the best time to submit is when you finish Thursday evening; the morning deadline is simply to account for any first-of-the-year glitches.

If you have misplaced or did not receive the information for setting up your English class account, here is the necessary information:

2nd period:  Class ID 10725116
3rd period:  Class ID  10725140
6th period:  Class ID  10725160

The Enrollment Password for all three senior sections:  purple

TOMORROW IN CLASS
We will complete our discussion of "The Demon Lover"; make sure you have the hand-out with you.

If you have been absent and do not have the hand-out, "The Demon Lover" can be accessed online;
Story hand-out

Background material on the author, literary elements, and a text with illustrations can be found in the McDougal Littell text (HWR) here:
Textbook material 

Review of Weeks 1-3 (12 class days)

This post will be completed over the week-end as an overview of where we've been from Sept. 2-Sept. 18.

The First Post

Today's post offers a preview of the assignment I'll hand out on Monday.  It will be due on Friday, and I wanted you to have a chance to think about it over the week-end.  Over the week-end I hope to update the blog to include an overview of what we've done since the start of school.  But for now, here's what you need:

SELF-DEFINITION PAPER

This assignment serves the two-fold purpose of helping me see your uniqueness as an individual among my 90-plus seniors (and 60 or so juniors!) as well as providing an opportunity for you to begin defining yourself in ways that could lead to ideas for your personal essay.

Before starting to write (and not to hand in for this assignment):

In preparation for the actual writing task, you will need to produce at least a draft of a resume of your high school activities.  Careful formatting and exact categories don’t matter at this point, but you DO need to have a full accounting of what you’ve done in high school:  GPA/test scores, selected classes, activities (sports, ASB, band, choir, drama, school clubs, etc.), volunteer experience, and relevant outside things like club sports, community activities, whatever special honors you’ve received or offices you have held, and work experience or summer internships.

How fully does this describe you? What else should we know? Now think about how accurately, fairly, insightfully, partially, or poorly this resume actually is in revealing the “true you”—the person you feel yourself to be—and in helping others to understand what makes you tick. Your job in the Self-Definition paper is to hone in on and develop the most essential material and to provide fuller and better information about something important that the “paper trail” doesn’t cover. 

SO—Now you will write a more explanatory “Self-Definition” containing two parts.  Each part should have 200-250 words.

The first part—Expand or explain something important that DOES exist on a paper resume or a filled in chart of all the categories a college application might ask about.  Whatever you discuss here should be something that readers of your resume would notice right off as being something you’ve done.  You can explain why it’s important, how you got into it, how it has affected you (hopefully for the better!), or anything else.  What you say is up to you, but this section must spin off of something that’s on the list of high school accomplishments and activities. This section discusses “the most essential YOU” part of your resume.

The second part—However, no list of what you’ve done can capture everything important about you.  Find something that wouldn’t be listed on a resume (or is just barely there).  The choice is yours, and depends on your actual life, but the point here is to continue the process of “defining” yourself by something else that’s an important part of your life. And although these papers will not be officially shared with classmates, the idea is to discuss something that is both true a positive part of the person you are.  In sum, the second part develops something significant about an aspect of your experience or interests that is not sufficiently reflected by information on the resume.

What the final product should look like (special formatting—this is not an MLA paper):

• CENTER your name at the top, creatively enhanced as you wish (and no other heading!)
• Give your own creative title to each part; make it relevant to the specific content of each section
• Center the separate titles for each section
• Double-space throughout
• Use a 12-point font of your choice, reasonably standard but not necessarily Times New Roman

Turning it in: 

• Print out one hard copy to hand in
• Submit an electronic copy to www.turnitin.com (we’ll be setting that up next week)

Due date:      Friday, Sept. 18