October 29-November 2, 2012

Hello Students!
Hope you all had a relaxing weekend and are ready for the new week. We have lots to do, so with the formalities aside and greetings made, I will post the week's activities below:

Pre-APEnglish 10

Finally all that testing is behind us! I am wishing you all well in that arena. This week we will continue with our study of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. We also will share our narrative essays. The assignment is posted both on Edmodo and Write to Learn. Use the Write to Learn program to get feedback before uploading your final narrative to Edmodo. I will be grading them from Edomodo, so any not uploaded there will NOT be counted as turned in.

Don't forget that we have vocabulary on Friday. The words are the same as last week, since we missed that quiz while I was at the Poetry Out Loud workshop.

English 12

You will have a vocabulary quiz on Friday based on the words from last week's lesson. We will also begin our study of the Medieval period. You will see the transition from Old to Middle English with our study of The Canterbury Tales. I have assigned you reading and activities on your successnet related to the prologue, "The Pardoner's Tale," and the "Wife of Bath's Tale." Expect a presentation project in the next week on one of the Canterbury Tales NOT studied in class.

While we read the prologue, pay close attention to the characterization. What is Chaucer satirizing? How does he use characters to satirize?

Also, don't forget your EPIC BOASTS are due before Wednesday! We will share some of them in class.

APEnglish Literature and Composition 12

You will have a vocabulary quiz on Friday based on the words from last week's lesson.
This week we will continue with our writing of PFS's. On Monday, we will look at another poem from Poetry 180, "The Blue Bowl." From that poem, you will write a PFS containing the five critical attributes of a PFS:

(1)        includes the title of the poem and the name of the poet

(2)        is written in “literary present tense” (The poet/speaker conveys rather than conveyed.)

(3)        specifies the narrative situation of the poem (who, what, where, when, why)

(4)        includes a thoughtful, but concise indication of theme

(5)        identifies the tone(s) of the poem (These may be differing, but complementary.  Shifts in tone may be identified as well.)

Tuesday we will begin our study of Shakespeare's Othello. As we read this play, consider thematic connections with the novel Atonement, which you should be reading at home. Do NOT forget that we will have a scored discussion on the novel part one on November 8. Your questions for the discussion should be uploaded to Edmodo PRIOR to class on that day. Scored discussions will count as test grades. Remember that the highest you can earn without participating in the discussion is an 80, and that will require a thorough response to the required questions uploaded prior to class. You may, of course, refer to your questions and answers during the discussion.

In order to take advantage of the mood created for story telling in my tenth grade classes, Wednesday, our class will be reading and discussing selected poems by Robert Browning. I will expect you to analyze the narrators in these dramatic monologues.

Thursday and Friday will be dedicated to reading Othello, analyzing its structure, and analyzing characters in the play. Expect at least one scored discussion after act three of the play. I will provide you with some guided questions next week. 

See you in class!