Princess Bride

Class,

Remember, we will be watching The Princess Bride in class this week, so try to arrive a little earlier than usual. We can start the film around 12:45, so fifteen minutes early should be fine. Now, we've discussed literature and rhetoric for most of this class, and I want to see if you consider film to be literary, and if so, are they using any specific rhetorical moves? A couple of things to consider with this particular film: Does this film follow the Hero's Journey? If so, how? Which elements do they leave out? Second: Do fairy tales have any merit? Or should we stop telling them and focus more on realistic stories?

Feel free to bring in any movie candy you like. I have some popcorn. :)

TSI Practice

Class, tomorrow in class, we will spend 50 minutes working on a practice TSI essay. You will need paper and a pen/pencil for this. For those of you that prefer to type yours, you may do so if you bring in a laptop and email me a copy of your essay. I will give you the prompt in class tomorrow, plus some tips on writing for the TSI.

You will also need to bring in your research paper assignment from last week (it's here on the blog if you forgot). We will work on this the last half hour of class.

The Research Paper

Your final paper for this year is a research paper. Each week, you will be writing a section of this paper until it is completed. For this week, you need to find a topic you are interested in exploring more in-depth. There are number of topics to choose from, but you can explore just about anything you find intriguing: another culture, a religion, a historical event, a specific person or writer, a genre of music or art, something you find fascinating in science, a political issue you want to better understand, etc. Once you have picked your topic, you are to find THREE resources with some crediblity (Wikipedia is fine for one of them). Read them, analyze them, and print them out. Bring them into class next week, April 8th. We will work on thesis statements and outlines in class. You should have some idea of what you want to say about this topic by the time we meet.

The week of April 8th, you will write your introduction and first section of your roadmap. This should be approximately 2 pages. The week of April 15th you will write section 2, which will also be about 2 pages. The week of April 22nd, you will write section three (2 pages) and your conclusion. Your final paper should be 6-8 pages long PLUS a works cited page. This will be due by email to me on April 29th. I will grade your paper and email it back with my comments.

We will be reading two more books over this next month, A Midsummer Night's Dream (2 weeks) and The Art of Dancing in the Rain (2 weeks), so it is imperative that you manage your time well. Do not wait until the last minute to try to cram a week's worth of work into one day's homework assignment. This much work may take you 90 minutes a day. That's fair for high school level work, and you are all working very well now. Remember, this is our last month, so get ready to hustle. Summer break is around the corner. :)

Literary Terms Week 3

"Heroes and Villians versus Protagonists and Antagonists"

Nearly all literature, with maybe the exception of some poetry, is character driven. Stories are about people. And like most people, there are some we can trust, and some we cannot. You'll have to decide this for yourselves. Sometimes we hear about people (or characters) from their own stories (1st person), sometimes someone else tells us the story, like a narrator or another character. These are important details for us to consider. Just like in our everyday lives, sometimes we can trust our sources, and sometimes we are only getting part of the story. Now, enough about who's telling the story for now, let's look at the characters themselves.

In order for characters to hold our attention, they need to do things. They should go on quests, fall in love, go off to battle, fight against dark forces in intergalactic wars, or fill millions of balloons with hot air and sail away to Paradise. Sometimes, these journeys are great. Sometimes they are simple--a conversation with a visitor, a letter arriving, or a drink in the bar. Th emain thing, is the character needs to change. They must grow, learn, mature, or whatever. If they do not change at all, they are static characters, or flat characters. They stay the same. These flat characters can also be stock characters, "the mad scientist," "the cheerleader," "the dumb jock," "the wizard." But the most interesting characters change, are complex, and are often more realistic than the other characers. These are round characters. Our round characters are almost always the major characters. Sometimes, we have a great foil character, which helps us to better understand our main characters by revealing traits in our major characters. Think Dr. Watson with Sherlock Holmes, or Ron Weasely with Harry Potter. 

Now that you have a basic understanding of character, I want to leave you with a caution: Characters are not people. Now, I know this is quite disappointing. At least it was for me considering Mark Darcy, and I realized that although I greatly adore Gandalf, the closest person to him in my reality is my cat named in his honor. But here's the real takeaway from this message: While characters might, in fact, be constructed after a real person, they are not really that person. A writer is a puppet master. They can will their character to do and say anything they wish. And just because a writer might have based such a character off of somebody in their life does not mean we can then ascribe said details to the actual person, or in literary analysis, vice versa. Characters are constructed of words. And these words, so carefully manipulated to bring life to the character, give us a couple of really cool lenses to make meaning. First, we have the products of the writer's imagination. Second, we get a product of our own imagination, and this is the part that is most fascinating to me, and will likely inform the assignments you will have in class. For example, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a little novel called The Great Gatsby. Perhaps you've heard of it. Within this novel, he created a character named Daisy Buchanan, whom both he and many other critics love to hate. She's vain, vapid, and poor Gatsby loses everything trying to please her. Or, at least that's a version Fitzgerald and many others like to give us. But I read into her character something different. I felt sorry for her. I thought she was getting a lot of blame and mistreatment from some of the other major characters. We rarely get to "hear" from Daisy ourselves, only those around her. And I've never been a fan of gossip. When I look at her character and keep a healthy dose of skepticism for my narrator, I bring another "reading" to the character. Remember when I said that sometimes we can't trust those folks telling us stories? Those are called unreliable narrators, which is just a fancy and nice set of terms for someone who bends the truth (a liar) to persuade our interpretation.  We'll talk more about narrators in class, and we will read some stories for you to see if we should trust a narrator or not.  

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 Here are some helpful terms.

Character—"any personage in a literary work who acts, appears, or is referred to as playing a part" (219).

Personage--A personage may or may not be a human being, but will "have at least some human qualities" (219).

Types of Characters--

Major characters—Characters "we see more of over time; we learn more about them, and we think of them as more complex and, frequently, as more 'realistic' than minor characters" (220).

Minor characters--often created to simply "fill out the story" (220). 

Foil—Minor characters may sometimes have important roles and may function as a foil or "a character that helps by way of contrast to reveal the unique qualities of another (especially main character" (220).

Round characters--"Characters that act from varied, often conflicting motives, impulses, and desires, and who seem to have psychological complexity" (220).

Flat characters—"Characters that  behave and speak in predictable or repetitive (if sometimes odd) ways" (220). Also known as Static characters--Characters who do not change

Stock characters—"Flat characters who represent a familiar, frequently recurring type--the dumb blond, the made scientist, the inept sidekick, the plain yet ever-sympathetic best friend" (221).

Archetypes--"Characters that recur in the myths and literature of many different ages and cultures" (221).

Dynamic characters—Characters who change. "Roundness and dynamism tend to go together. But the two qualities are distinct, and one does not require the other: Not all round characters are dynamic; not all dynamic characters are round" (220).

Essay Prompt for Night

Essay Prompts: Please Choose one of the following choices for a minimum of a five paragraph essay. A rough draft is due next week.

Theme: Why do you think the memoir is called Night? Why does he keep saying: “Night was falling?” “Night Fell?” “Night had fallen.” etc.

Character:  Eliezer says that the flames consumed his faith forever. Why do you think they consume his faith forever? Analyze his journey of faith in his God and how his experience effects that deep part of him. 

Setting: “How could it be possible for them to be burning people—children—and the world to remain silent?” This is a great question—an important question. Why do you think it is possible for tragedies to happen in the world and people not do anything? Why do you think the world doesn’t do anything? Why do you think you don’t do anything?

Your essay will need to follow the standard five-paragraph essay model by including an introduction, body paragraphs (Academic Paragraphs are helpful here) and a conclusion. You need at least three body paragraphs, but don’t feel restricted if you’d like to write more. Just keep the introduction and conclusion. Remember, introduce your novel and author and provide a brief 2-3 sentence summary of the book before you dive into your argument. 

Literary Terms Week 2

Story Arcs

This week, we will be learning about story arcs. This focus also includes the literary terms and defintions you need to know for the week. Here's a basic rundown: 

Remember, all stories need a beginning, a middle, and an end. Sometimes, these are out of order, like in the film Memento. Sometimes, or stories include flashbacks, when events that occurred before the story's opening are presented (86). Other times, we have foreshadowing, when "an author merely gives subtle clues or hints about what will happen later in the story." 

I'd like you to focus a bit on the story arc again. You'll need to be very familiar with these terms.

Exposition: This is often the early part of the story where we are introduced to the setting, the characters, and the protagonist's ordinary, everyday life. This is Harry sitting in his room, in the cupboard under the stairs. This is Bilbo Baggins eating 2nd breakfast in the Shire before Gandalf and the Dwarves show up. This is Peter Parker before the radioactive spider bite. 

Conflict: Something changes in our character's lives. A letter from Hogwart's arrives. A wizard arrives. A spider bites Peter. A young boy living on Tatooine meets two strange robots. Liam Neeson gets a phone call.

Somehow, this conflict will set our character on a course (or a journey) that will alter their lives. This could be a good thing or a bad thing, but it is definitely something outside of the ordinary daily life.

Rising Action: All of the steps or adventures that our protagonist faces on their journey to the climax. Harry deals with Malfoy, Professor Snape, a girlfriend, the OWLS, and several small battles with Dementors. Luke Skywalker must leave home, train with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, narrowly escaping a trash compactor and a giant womanizing slug. Bilbo must leave the Shire, escape the trolls, Gollum, and the Mountain. Each battle leads to another, teaching the protagonist something they need to know before they reach the ultimate trial.

Climax: This is the moment you've been waiting for. The conflict must be faced, and our protagonist will triumph (hopefully). Harry battles Voldemort. Skywalker battles Vader. Spiderman battles the Green Goblin. Liam Neeson kicks some serious butt, unless it's wolves. 

Falling Action: This is when all the other loose ends in a story are tied up. Hermione and Ron decide to stop fighting and start dating. All those little details are sorted out. Ahhh...that's why Harry's wand is so powerful! That's why Luke and Leia can't date. That's why Professor Snape hovered around Harry all that time. (Try not to weep at that one.) 

Resolution: Life for the protagonist finds a new normal and continues on an altered path. Harry may be back at the Durselys', but he knows he's a wizard now, and he knows he'll be back at Hogwarts, where he belongs, in the fall. He is no longer alone. Frodo is changed. He can never return to the Shire but must join Bilbo and the Elves. Peter Parker is Spiderman. He has a responsibility to protect and serve. Liam Neeson will carry on as wolf manure. 

"Civil Disobedience" and Henry David Thoreau

You've probably heard of this guy, and maybe a few of you have actually read some of his work. You will be reading "Civil Disobedience" this week. There are several copies available for free online, and even a fairly decent version read on Youtube. This is the man to inspire Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr, and even Don Henley of The Eagles. He was part of a movement known as Transcendentalism, which we will discuss a little bit more next week, but simply, it reflected an era where women's rights, abolitionists, and nature lovers seeking a simple and meaningful life shunning luxuries for simple walks and minimalism. Sound familiar? If not, watch an episode of HGTV's Tiny Houses to see this in action. Or if you aren't an avid fan of HGTV, try Duck Dynasty. :)

Now, this text is going to be challenging. Even if you listen to the entire essay, it is 49 minutes, you may have to do so two or three times. Take down some notes. What is his main idea? (His argument?) How does he support his position? What examples does he give? And here's the challenge: Do you agree with him?

Our first semester taught you the foundations of rhetoric, or the art of persuasion. Now, you will get a chance to use it in debates. You will also learn how arguments already established in society can help us to read a text. Our first novel this semester is Night. But before we start that next week, I want us to spend a little bit of time with an essay written a hundred years before WWII.

You will need to write a short 1-page response to this essay. Reflect on the three C's: Most compelling, most confusing, and most controversial. This can be handwritten in your notebook. I will not grade this, but I do want you to use it to help you with our class discussion.

Here's a link to the Youtube Audiobook

If you prefer a print version, try this one.

Week 18 Vocabulary Lesson

1. atrophy (v): to gradually decline or waste away

2. quaff (v): to drink heartily

3. collusion (n) : secret or illegal cooperation, especially to cheat others

4. drivel (n): nonsense

5. stoic: (adj): able to endure hardship without showing pain or complaining

Vocabulary Week 17

1. reticent (adj) : not revealing one's thoughts or feelings easily

2. farcical (adj): in a ridiculous manner, absurd

3. egalitarian (adj): relating to the idea of all people deserving equal rights

4. palpable (adj): able to be touched or felt

5. charlatan (n): a person falsely claiming to have special talents or skills

Analyzing a Text

              Analyzing an Argument

All texts make some kind of argument, claiming something and then offering reasons and evidence as support for any claim. As a critical reader, you need to look closely at the argument a text makes—to recognize all the claims it makes, consider the support it offers for those claims, and decide how you want to respond. What do you think, and why? Here are some questions to consider when analyzing an argument:

What claim is the text making? What is the writer’s main point? Is it stated as a thesis, or only implied? Is it limited or qualified somehow? If not, should it have been?

How is the claim supported? What reasons does the writer provide for the claim, and what evidence is given for the reasons? What kind of evidence is it? Facts? Statistics? Examples? Expert opinions? Images? How convincing do you find the reasons and evidence? Is there enough evidence?

What appeals besides logical ones are used? Does the writer appeal to readers’ emotions? try to establish common ground? demonstrate his or her credibility as trustworthy and knowledgeable? How successful are these appeals?

Are any counterarguments acknowledged? If so, are they presented accurately and respectfully? Does the writer concede any value to them or try to refute them? How successfully does he or she deal with them?

What outside sources of information does the writer cite? What kinds of sources are they, and how credible do they seem? Are they current and authoritative? How well do they support the argument?

Do you detect any fallacies? Fallacies are arguments that involve faulty reasoning. Because they often seem plausible, they can be persuasive. It is important, therefore, that you question the legitimacy of such reasoning when you run across it.

Literary Terms: Week 1

Our first semester included weekly grammar lessons, but this semester, we will begin shifting more towards literary analysis. In order to better understand how to deconstruct literature based on the literary elements within a text, we need to familiarize ourselves with the language and vocabulary used in this kind of work. I will post 5 new terms over the next 7 weeks. You will be tested on these the 8th week, so spend time each week reviewing these terms and mastering them. Here's your first set of terms:

                                     Literary Terms: Week 1

1.    Conflict-- Struggle between opposing forces in a work of literature

2.    Metaphor--Concise form of comparison equating two things that may at first seem completely dissimilar.

3.    Theme-- The central or dominant idea of a literary work.

4.    Melodrama--Sensational play that appeals shamelessly to the emotions, contains elements of tragedy, but ends happily.

5.    Symbol--Person, object, action or idea that transcends its literal or denotative sense in a complex way.

Spring Semester

Class,

Last semester, we focused quite a bit on rhetoric and grammar; this spring semester will focus on literary analysis. Now, rhetoric is a part of everything we read, including novels. The author has something to tell us, and they use a particular way to appeal to us. So keep this in mind as we progress this next semester. We will learn how literature uses its own kind of appeals by playing with language. Each week, we will cover a new literary term, but don't let the term be a one-time introduction. You will need to learn them inside and out. You will need to learn to recognize them and use them. This is the foundation for further literary studies. That said, it is one of my favorite subjects in English, so I think you are going to like it. :)

Class starts back up on January 15th. I have some classes on professional development I'll be doing the week of the 7th, so our class will start a bit later. Your first book is Night by Elie Weisel. It is one of my favorites. It is also heartbreaking. We watched his speech at the White House called "The Perils of Indifference," but this is the story of his own experience in a Concentration Camp during the Holocaust. Keep Kleenex nearby. His story is harrowing and brutal, and I only wish it were fiction. But he has something to teach us. As you begin reading his story, start taking notes. We will learn to annotate this semester, but I'd like you to start in your own organic way. I'll share some of my tips with you when we return. For now, just focus on the things that stand out to you the most. What parts do you think are the most important? What is most confusing? What is most controversial? Do you think we should read books like these? Why or why not?

I will ask you pick up a composition notebook, just a cheap one found in most stores. You will keep a reading log of your responses. I will not grade these for grammar or spelling, but for content. How are you engaging with a text? I'll post some questions up each week to help you think deeper. And I'll give you some readings attached here on the website that will be a bit more complex, but we will make more sense out of them when we discuss them in class. Try your best. Get out of it as much as you can. Write down what you understand and how you feel about it. Soon, we will put these ideas into a conversation with the books we are reading. (This is called theory, but don't let terms like that fool you into thinking it's too hard. We do the same thing when we discuss things like whether DC or Marvel better represents a hero and why.)

We will also continue working on grammar, but we will take a different approach this next semester. Make sure you keep all of the grammar rules I gave you last semester because this time we will use it in editing. Each week, I will give you a few sentences full of grammatical errors. Your job is to rewrite them correcting every grammatical and spelling error. Practice makes perfect. If you can learn to edit their work, you will only reinforce those skills for your own work. :)

I hope you are all enjoying your break! If you'd like some extra work to do over break, check out a Holocaust book or documentary. It will help you establish the historical setting of our next book.

See you in January!

November 27th Vocabulary

Today is my birthday. To celebrate, there will be no vocabulary words for this week. Enjoy your winter break!

Last Class of the Semester

Class, we are about finished for the first semester! We have studied three novels, numerous poems and short stories and essays, three literary theories, grammar, and vocabulary. Tomorrow, we will have a comprehensive review over everything we've studied so far. :) Come prepared! Snacks are welcome our last day of class, as are any ugly sweaters, or other festive attire. See you tomorrow!

Vocabulary Week 16

1. fetid (adj): smelling very unpleasant

2. perfunctory (adj): carried out with minimum effort to satisfy the situation

3. fracas (n): a noisy disturbance

4. foible (n): a small flaw

5. vacuous (adj): showing a lack of thought or intelligence

The Perils of Indifference

Your assignment this week is to watch and analyze Elie Wiesel's The Perils of Indifference speech.

Wiesel speaks out against apathy, or those folks that just don't care. Why? What are the consequences of apathy? What happens if all of us just stop caring about what happens outside of our own lives? How do you feel about his speech? Which rhetorical appeals is he using? Are they effective?


Your final draft is due to me by Friday, 11:59PM. Email in a word document, please.

Grammar test next week. Study those handouts!

Vocabulary Week 15

1. bulwark (n): a defensive wall

2. cajole (v): persuade by flattering or gently teasing

3. harbinger (n): something that marks the approach of something else

4. impetuous (adj): acting quickly without thought

5. extemporaneous (adj): spoken or done without preparation

November 6th

This week's short story is a bit long. According to the reading on Youtube (which you are welcome to listen to instead of reading), it is about 34 minutes. That said, since this is your only "reading" this week, I'm going to assign it. This is one of my favorite short stories for many reasons, but it is dark, thought-provoking, and full of rich allusions and metaphors. The story is called "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and is written by Flannery O'Connor, one of America's greatest Southern writers. You can find a PDF text here.

Your final drafts of your essay are due next week, and we will also have your next vocabulary quiz over lists 11-13. Your grammar test is on the 20th. This semester is almost over, and you've all done very well. Hang in there. Break time is coming up!

If you'd like me to look at your essay before you submit it, go ahead and email it over in a Word document. Remember to use the self-editing tips before you send them to me!

Vocabulary Week 14

1. mitigate (v): to make less severe, serious, or painful

2. anodyne (n): something that kills pain

3. vacillate (v): to alternate indecisively between two choices

4. incendiary (adj): designed to start fires or conflict

5. depravity (n): moral corruption

Reminder

Class,

Please remember that your rough draft is due this next week, November 6th. We will spend part of the class reviewing and revising the draft. I am also posting up a short story for you to read this week, since we are done with our novel, The Giver. Be prepared to discuss it this week in class.


Please read "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan, which is a short story pulled from her novel The Joy Luck Club. 

We will also work on our grammer pretests, which will include comma splices, fragments, subject/verb agreement, and dangling modifiers. You may wish to review the handouts I've given you over the semester and last week's practice. :)

We will have another vocabulay quiz on November 13th, the day your final draft for your midterm essay is due. Please study appropriately.