ACA: F451 Major Grade tomorrow

Our last major grade is tomorrow. Please review theme and F451 to prepare for it. You may use all of your notes and the book in order to get the best grade possible! How sad, our last big major grade.

Here's a video to review theme in literature. 

K/H: Mrs. Wise's Project

Here's my presentation. Click the link, then click the orange triangle in the bottom left corner and wait. You'll see it go through all the slides.

On a more personal note, Emaze was hard to use, and anyone in 7th period can tell you that Emaze had huge technical fails while I was trying to present. I give myself bonus points for trying something new (... and failing at it...), and YES I did practice presenting on my computer... it was frustrating.

See you tomorrow - enjoy!

Yay - I'm done!

ACA: On-Level Quiz Tomorrow

Our last vocabulary quiz of the year is tomorrow! How exciting. :)

Click here for all the vocabulary warm-ups.

If you need the notes or Quizlet link, click on the "Vocabulary Notes" link on the right side of the page.

K/H: Outline Fixes

This is what we talked about today:

1. Transform thematic subjects into theme statements which reflect the complexity of the piece. Stay away from obvious statements ("Hard work can lead to a great outcome.") and clichés ("Things aren't what they seem.")

Fix it: Go back and review the characters and situations that gave you the idea in the first place. Reread a few things. Look at my "How to Write a Thematic Statement Notes" a few times. Consider communicating some of the complexity in your piece by adding a dependent clause. Google a list of subordinating conjunctions (colloquially called "AWUBIS" words) and see if any of those words help you put your thoughts into words. Writing great thematic statements is hard, guys. It takes a lot of time and revision. Over the next day or so, I'll be fixing my outline (Mrs. Wise's Project) so that my thematic subjects are turned into theme statements. 

2. Consider your religious connections.

Think about it: This is a persuasive presentation. You're trying to convince me. If you don't know much about the religious allusions in your texts, then you may want to excise those from your outline. You are, of course, allowed to do research if you'd like to pursue these religion-based connections. 

3. Add commentary to everything.

Fix it: Add commentary to every connection you've made. Every. Single. One. What does it mean? Why is it important? Does it reveal something about a character, a conflict, or a detail about the context or setting? Hint: If there's no meat on the bone, throw it out. We'll talk tomorrow (Wednesday) about narrowing down the scope of your presentation. 

4. Make it persuasive.

Fix it: Consider the rhetorical triangle you drew today in class. 

• Logos is logic, reasons, evidence, quotes, commentary, all that good literary analysis you're writing. Considering the academic context and tone of your presentation, it is appropriate that logos is the primary means through which you attempt to persuade. Don't forget about ethos and pathos, though. 
• Pathos is an appeal based on an expected emotional response from the audience. I am your primary audience. You know me. What kinds of things does Mrs. Wise care about? Mexican food and nerd culture, of course. But more importantly, you know that I am interested in all aspects of the teacher-student paradigm, as well as issues related to education (in all aspects of your life, not just school) and character development. 
• Ethos is a little more difficult to pinpoint. Ethos is the credibility of the speaker. It is based on an assumed shared set of values between the speaker in the audience; developing a feeling that you're on the same side because you have the same goals, the same values. What can you do to enhance your credibility?

K/H Project: "Miss Wise, what do you mean by an author's style?"

When we're talking about the style of a piece of writing, we're talking about how the piece was written. Not so much the plot and characters, but how these things were written. You could write the same story - same settings, same characters - in a hundred ways and make each one stylistically different.

Some things you can consider: 

• The organization and structure 
• The use of figurative language (what purpose does it serve?)
• Complexity of sentence structures
• The use of symbols (what are they used for? how are they used?)
• POV - 1st person, 3rd person, etc.
• Characterization (indirect, direct)
• Tone (How does the author feel about this subject? If you're reading fiction, can you detect the tone of the narrator? Does this tone change?)

I found some notes that I think might help you with this part of the project - enjoy!
Style Notes

K/H: Improving your Outline

You got your outlines back today. On the whole, I'm very pleased with your progress. Good job so far! Several things I'd like you to work on for the next due date (Wednesday, 4/29/15):

1. Continue adding possible connections.
2. Add text evidence from your current book for all connections. For next Wednesday, I should see multiple pieces of text evidence from across the text to support ideas about theme and symbol. 
3. Feel free to delete anything you now deem irrelevant.
4. Add a working thesis. I call it a working thesis because I recognize it may change. 
5. If you see some connections that you're sure you'll want to talk about in your presentation, go ahead and start searching for text evidence from that connecting book. 
6. From this point forward, all outlines should be typed, Times New Roman, font size 12. 

As always, email me if you have any questions. If you have questions about something I wrote on your outline, please ask. I'd be happy to clarify. 

KH: Model Project [Updated]

I'll do the project with you as a model. I'm going to reread one of my classic favorites from college, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.

I've added quite a bit to my outline. You'll notice that there's not yet a lot of commentary - just a list of the books we've read and a list of connections I've made with them. I haven't made any decisions yet about which connections are the strongest, or which connections would make the strongest persuasive argument. We'll deal with that later. Just make a list, adding text evidence as you go. 

First outline checkpoint is Wednesday, April 22.

As I get a better idea of what my project will look like, you will see significant rearranging and changes.

My Outline in Progress

On-Level: Symbol and Theme Review

As we continue reading F451 and tracking themes and motifs, I thought this might be a good time to review some essential terms:

 

Symbols



Theme

Just watch this one until minute marker 2:30.

 

As we get closer to the end of the novel, we will work together to take the thematic subjects we are tracking (loneliness, censorship, knowledge, ignorance) and transform them into thematic statements. In other words, this book isn't just about IGNORANCE. What is the author trying to say about ignorance?

Book of Choice Project Notes

Today in class, K/H is preparing to start our last book of the year by reviewing:

Fifth Period Notes

Sixth Period Notes

Seventh Period Notes

A note about using these Google docs:
- Just click the link for your class to open the doc, find your book, and fill in the slides.
- To get credit, put your name in the appropriate space on your book's title slide.
- No need to login or send me a link. The changes will save automatically.
- If you run out of room on a slide, you may add a slide: In the upper left, there's a button that has a "plus" sign - click it and that will add a slide.
- If it helps you organize your information or make your ideas clearer, please feel free to graphically arrange your text on the slide, use pictures, etc.
- Please do not mess with other people's content.

Here is the official project assignment. We'll go over it on Wednesday, but people are asking me to go ahead and post it, so here it is: Book of Choice Project

What's next for K/H: Writing Commentary and The Metamorphosis

Now that our EOC is behind us, we turn our attention to building skills for next year. All levels of English III have an increased focus on literary analysis. (English III AP also does a lot of nonfiction/rhetorical analysis.) I know that one of the principle skills you'll need for next year is writing commentary.

Commentary in a paper looks like this: You've written an introduction. You've given a topic sentence to narrow and define the topic for this paragraph. Then, once you've given the text evidence you would like to discuss, you include some thoughtful commentary. When you are writing commentary, you are explaining the connections you made when you were reading, the very same connections you've now proven with quotes. You're not explaining the piece in a summary; that's basic. You're explaining the connections and insights and thoughts you have about whatever topic (theme, tone, satire, etc) your teacher has asked you to look for and write about. Writing great commentary requires that you have read the text with detailed attention, and calls on superb annotation skills.

So, as we read The Metamorphosis, writing commentary for literary analysis is our skills focus.

Full Text: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka