Welcome Back! Jan. 5-6, 2012

Greetings students!

I hope you all had a restful vacation and are ready to get back into the swing of things. Every class will meet but once this week, but we still have plenty to do. Next week will be an A week, so plan your schedule with that in mind.

Prepare for the following activities this week:

Grade-Level English 12:

We've just completed the section on Medieval Literature, so be prepared for some Renaissance reading. We will begin with a brief lecture on and introduction to Christopher Marlowe's writings, including poetry and one of my favorite plays, Dr. Faustus, the first written Faustian tale, which predates the other well-known Faust, by Goethe by about a century. You should be easily able to distinguish this writing from the previous texts we have read. No longer are we dealing with early or middle English. Like Shakespeare, his contemporary, Marlowe wrote in early MODERN English. I know many students feel that this archaic writing is anything but modern, but comparatively speaking, it is. Still, to assist you in your understanding of this text, I will post an annotated version with helpful explanations for your perusal. We will read the original version in class.

APEnglish Literature 12:

You should have read The Turn of the Screw over the holiday, but in case your family plans did not allow for such, we will delay our discussion of, writing about, and MWDS for this text for a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, we will look at a variety of poems in your text book. You will need to bring it to class next week. On Friday of this week, we will break into groups for two activities. First we will review some of the MC from your midterm, and then we will develop thesis statements with controlling ideas such as those you will need to use when writing timed essays. These thesis statements need to be more concise and exact than those of longer, take-home papers.


Pre-APEnglish 10

As you know, you were to read Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter over the break. Some of you, however, did not get a copy of the text. Others, I am sure, were inundated with family and holiday activities; therefore, I will not expect you to complete the novel for several more days. Keep reading, and fill out a Major Works Data Sheet. I will give you a link to a MWDS, but you can easily find a blank one by googling AP Literature Major Works Data Sheet Blank. If they are not formatted exactly the same as the one I link to, that is fine, so long as the information is basically the same. You may even choose to write the information simply under bold headings instead of typing in the boxes. I would like you to upload your MWDS to Moodle before Jan. 20.

All English 10 Classes

This week we will continue our study of Puritans and delve into Puritan poetry. We will read "Upon the Burning of our House, July 10 1666" and "From the Author to her Book" by Ann Bradstreet. While studying these poems we will discuss the use of and effectiveness of conceit, or extended metaphor. If time permits we will also read poetry by Edward Taylor. Tayor's poems also employ conceit, and it will be your task to decipher what the metaphor is each of the poems, "Huswifery" and "Upon a Wasp Chilled with Cold," and how to interpret the poem based on the conceit.