For tomorrow 12/1.

 Don't forget tomorrow at 4:00 pm is the water and cheese party at the Van Andel followed by the speaker, J. Michael Bishop at 5:00.  Remember to dress appropriately.
Also,  I've been thinking a lot about how to get all of you thinking about Jekyll and Hyde.  So,tomorrow, you will write an argumentative type response to a given prompt. It should take you the whole hour.  For homework this week, you will also be doing some writing.  You should plan on about a half an hour or so each night.  Additionally, you may have a bit of multiple choice to get through and we have the final vocab quiz on Friday, 12/5.

If you were gone on 11/24

You need to make up the vocab quiz, finish up the crosswords and read the novel for 12/1.
Reading comprehension quiz on 12/1 when we return from break.

Today was the last day to sign up for the extra credit opportunity.

The bank of words that you will be quizzed on 12/5:

languidly
sedulously
capacious
mien
multifarious
succumb
exorbitant
obsequiously
turpitude
acquiescence
denizen
propensity
astute
disparity
inscrutable
insurgent
ruminate

bated
inveteretely
irrevocably
idiosyncratic
imperious
incipient
poignant
premonitory

11/21

Vocab Quiz 11/24: Dr. Jekyll Was Quite AT Ease and The Carew Murder Case
Finish the crosswords by 11/25.
Finish reading the novel by 12/2.  I will be checking for reading completion on that day.

11/20

Today, students turned in their context clues for Search for Hyde.
Additionally, they took both the vocabulary and reading quizzes for that section.

Students received the next set of vocabulary words today for which they are searching for context clues for tomorrow.  Students should also read both Dr. Jekyll Was Quite At Ease and The Carew Murder for tomorrow. A reading quiz will be given tomorrow and the vocab quiz will take place on Monday.

Any students wishing to attend the J Michael Bishop extra credit opportunity: http://vai.convio.net/site/MessageViewer?dlv_id=6821&em_id=2502.0&pgwrap=n
Please let me know by 11/24.  There is a sign up sheet in class, but you can also notify me by email, Facebook, etc.  You are responsible for your own transportation to and from.  A short written response will be required. It is worth 10 extra credit points.  If you are a student who would like to go, but cannot provide your own transportation, let me know and I will try to connect you to others who are going and are interested in carpooling.

J Michael Bishop worked with Harold Varmus  They won "the Nobel Peace Prize for their discovery of the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes in 1989" (Mukherjee, 363).  Varmus was the one who referenced Beowulf in his acceptance speech. It isn't every day you get to see a Nobel Peace Prize winner speak.  My understanding is that his lecture is directed toward the layperson (that is every day folks) not oncologists. I'm hoping we have a good turn out. Let me know if you want to go.  All the details are on the flyer at the above link.

The vocab words for today's crossword are accost, pedant, contrive, disposition, unobtrusive, assail, ferocity, disinter, lurid, odious, conflagration, insensate,

11/17/14

Today students took the vocabulary quiz for the "Story of the Door" section in Jekyll and Hyde.
Additionally, they received the next set of vocabulary words over which they will be quizzed on Wednesday, 11/19.

For homework tonight, students are searching for and recording context clues for the vocabulary words in "Search for Hyde."  The words are as follows: iniquity, disquietude, transpire, citadel, repose, concourse, benefactor, geniality.

Also, there will be a quiz over that section tomorrow, so read carefully and closely for detail.

11/14/14

Today in class, students completed a rhetorical analysis assignment based on the first chapter of Jekyll and Hyde.  

We also discussed the Living Like Weasels essay.

For Monday, read the essay She: Portrait of the Essay as a Warm Body and make a point comparison to the essay On Essays: Literature's Most Misunderstood Form.  You might use a tri-fold to organize your ideas.  On one side, write all of the points that are unique to the "She" essay, On the other side, write the points that are unique to the "Misunderstood" essay and then in the center write about the points they share in common.  You can find the "She" essay here:  http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/98sep/ozick.htm

Additionally, study for the 14 word narrative quiz that will take place on Monday.

11/13/14

Today in class, we shared our Pithy Quotations and discussed the verities of authentic essay writing.  Additionally, we discussed the rhetorical strategies in Joyas Voladoras as a model of an authentic essay.  Today, I distributed an essay titled Living Like Weasels by another of my literary favorites, Annie Dillard. Students are reading and annotating for homework.  What are the rhetorical tools that Dillard is using to convey her ideas?  What is her argument?  What are the notable moves that she is making  with syntax, imagery, figurative language, diction? Here's a link to the essay: http://www.courses.vcu.edu/ENG200-lad/dillard.htm

After all of this, we had a bit of time left to read Story of the Door from Jekyll and Hyde.  Whatever we did not finish is homework.

On Friday, we will do some rhetorical analysis with Story of the Door and the ways in which Stevenson sets up the idea of duality.

On Monday, we will take the first vocab quiz and you will receive the next crossword for the next section for which we will again explore context clues.  We will quiz on that one on Friday, 11/ 21.

Here's something to look forward to:  I don't like for any of us to have homework over Thanksgiving, Winter or Spring Breaks.  So, there will be none.

11/12/14

Today we had our Jekyll and Hyde discussion.  Students shared their research and provided background knowledge for the reading of Stevenson's novel. In addition, students finished the pithy quotations work, but we did not have time to share.  We will do so tomorrow.

A few important announcements:

• Our vocab quiz for the first section of the novel will take place on Monday, 11/17.  It covers only 14 words.  Prepare for these to get progressively more challenging.
• Homework tonight: read and annotate the essay Joyas Voladoras by Brian Doyle.  There is much going on in it rhetorically with diction and syntax and selection of detail and imagery.  Try to determine Doyle's message.  In other words, what should the reader understand as a result of having read the essay?  If you weren't in class, you can find the essay here: http://theamericanscholar.org/joyas-volardores/#.VGNjkfnF-So

The plan for Thursday and Friday is to present the pithy quotations, discuss Doyle's essay, read Story of the Door and write a brief rhetorical analysis that focuses on Stevenson's infusion of the concept of duality.  That should keep us busy.   There will be some essay reading assigned over the weekend and a new vocab crossword on Monday.

In class: 11/11/14

Today, we took a look at all of those context clues that students searched for last night.  I am hoping that you found this useful as a vocabulary activity. Probably, we will be prepared to quiz on those on Monday.

 I talked about the two "tracks" that are currently running through our study in AP Lang.  The first involves Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The weekend research project and the resulting class discussion tomorrow should help us build the background knowledge necessary to comprehend the reading on a variety of levels: literal, historical, etc.  Additionally, our vocabulary study is meant to help us move smoothly through Stevenson's Victorian prose.

The second track is about essay writing.  Today, we read an article in class titled, On Essays: Literature's Most Misunderstood Form. I told students that I hoped it changed their lives.  I wasn't being dramatic.  I really hope it opened some minds today about what it should be like to write and/or read an essay.  I asked students to find a "pithy" quotation in the essay.  That is one that they feel important or one that they think changes their ideas about essay writing or adds to their understanding of essay writing.  Students are putting the quotations on paper and then writing a paraphrase and a rationale for their choice.  You can find the essay here:http://www.pw.org/content/essays.

A messy vocabulary list--which is only meant to aid your comprehension-- for the essay is a follows:

Cleave:  to adhere firmly and closely or loyally and unwaveringly

Artifice: craftsmanship or conventions

Postmodernism: of, relating to, or being any of various movements in reaction to modernism that are typically characterized by a return to traditional materials and forms (as in architecture) or by ironic self-reference and absurdity (as in literature)

Machinations: crafty schemes, plots

Flagrante delicto: in the very act of committing the offense.

Metaphysical: highly abstract

Self-effacing: the act or fact of keeping oneself in the background, as in humility.

Tincture: a slight infusion, as of some element or quality:

Accrue: to happen or result as a natural growth, addition, etc.

Vacillations: a state of indecision or irresolution.

unsteady movement; fluctuation.

Amorphous: lacking definite form; having no specific shape; formless

 Protean: readily assuming different forms or characters; extremely variable.

 Averse: having a strong feeling of opposition, antipathy, repugnance, etc.;opposed

 Narcissism: inordinate fascination with oneself

 Distillation: the purification or concentration of a substance, the obtaining of theessence or volatile properties contained in it, or the separation of onesubstance from another, by such a process.

The assignment for the pithy quotations is as follows:

Pithy Quotations

The idea of the assignment is to select a quotation which you consider to be important or “pithy.” (The pith of a plant is that center part of the stem that contains and carries nutrients to the rest of the plant; hence it is its most rich and important part.)   You will need to choose what you think is important or meaningful in the reading and apply it to your own experience and your understanding of essay writing.

The “Pithy Quote” assignment has three parts:

v  The first is to find a section of the reading that you consider important or meaningful and quote it directly.  Write it out on the poster board provided for you.

v  The second part is to paraphrase the quotation (on your own lined paper that will be turned in).  Put it into your own words.

v  The third part is to write an explanation for your choice.  How does it help you better understand the assignment? What does it teach you about writing?  Explore the wider implications by comparing the ways in which the information from the quotation matches up to your previous knowledge or experience.  How has it changed your thinking?  How has it added to your understanding of essay writing?

v  Be prepared to present all of this to the class.

Jekyll and Hyde Vocab Study

Today, students began the hour with a "pre-assessment" crossword that focused on the first 14 vocabulary words from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  After giving students a chance to figure out the words on their own, we then took a look at the complete list of words and tried to think our way through finding answers to the crossword.  Sometimes, it came down to counting letters.  :)  That's okay.  It is still thinking and using process of elimination which is a valuable skill for standardized tests and--dare I say it?--life.

The tricky part about learning vocab is that all students need to understand that language is complex. You can't always use synonyms interchangeably without having them sound ridiculous. For example, one of our words today is "countenance."  A synonym for that word is "face."  But I wouldn't say, "This morning I woke up and put some make up on my countenance."  Countenance is really more about expression and appearance, but the dictionary tells us that "face" is a legitimate synonym. That was the problem with the vocabulary narratives that students wrote for the Beowulf vocabulary.  Many times, the words sounded forced and the language inflated because of the student's attempt to swap one synonym for another.

 I have been reading a bit of research lately about vocabulary acquisition.  Researchers say that kids learn vocab best when they are forced to search for context clues that support the meaning of a word.  So, that is what we did today for the first 14.  I distributed some charts and we spent the rest of the hour, searching through the first section of Jekyll and Hyde for context clues and recording them in an attempt to fully understand the nuances of each word.  We ended the hour with an impromptu quiz--not for credit--to see if the researchers were correct.  First hour was kind of quiet today with only nine students in attendance, so the results are inconclusive.

It is going to be difficult to recreate this experience for folks who were absent today.  The first 14 vocabulary words are as follows: austere, sentiment, apocryphal, affirmative, eminently, countenance, reprove, sordid, singularly, catholicity, negligence, florid, ravage, coquetry.

Find the words in the section titled, "Story of the Door."  Determine the context clues that enable a reader to determine the meaning of the word.  For example, on page 3, Stevenson writes,

"Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance who was never lighted by a smile:"

Probably, if I did not know teh meaning of the word "countenance", I could figure out that it means "expression" because of the "never lighted by a smile" context clue.  So, those are the words that I would record. Students should have all 14 finished for tomorrow.  Additionally, prepare your research for our background discussion on Wednesday.