A.P. Lit Is Book Clubbing: February 27, 2015

Focus: What do early chapters of our book club books reveal?

During class today, please sign up for a writing conference. This will translate into a grade, so please make sure you copy your conference date carefully into your calendar.

1. Warming up with ratifying the Big Question Blog Amendment

2. Meeting with book clubs to work through your opening activities, questions, and closing activities

3. Enjoying an enlightening clip on "Word Bending" with the King of Assonance (5:00)

HW:
1. Assigned book club reading/syllabus for Monday.

2. Next poetry response due Monday.

3. Work on your poetry papers and projects, due March 9. Project people: your proposals are due Wednesday.

A.P Lit Is Forming Poetry Projects and Papers: February 26, 2015

Focus: How do we turn our metacognitives into papers and projects?

1. Warming up by putting your poem to the test: SOAPSTONE

a. Trying out SOAPSTONE with prisoner's poem of the week: "Southern Cop"

b. Using SOAPSTONE to explicate your paper/project poem


2. Offering a few words of advice to the poetry essay people (see website for overview and samples)

3. Explaining the project proposal and rubric

4. Working and conferencing on papers and projects


HW:
1. Papers and projects are due Monday, March ?

Project people: Proposals and rubrics due Wednesday, March 4

2. Assigned book club reading/syllabus for Friday.

3. Poetry responses due Monday.

A.P. Lit Is Book Clubbing: February 25, 2015

Focus: How are we approaching the early chapters of our book club books?

PLC: Shortened Class

If you are reading Atonement and have not yet turned in your signature, please do so now.

1. Warming up with your book club opening activities

2. Enjoying discussions of the early chapters of your book club books

3. Wrapping up with a quick debriefing of what went well and what your goals are for next time

HW:
1. Tomorrow will be a poetry paper/project work day.

2. Assigned book club reading/syllabus for Friday.

3. Next poetry response due Monday; if you have been absent, please make sure your response for this week has been turned in.

A.P. Lit Discovers Anaphora, A.P. Lit Discovers the Meaning of Life: February 24, 2015

Focus: What is anaphora, and how does it help us understand poetry?

1. Warming up with a little Mumford & Sons: Why might they repeat "I will wait" so many times?

2. Understanding what anaphora is...and how being repetitive can be powerful when its poetically intentional

3. Applying anaphora to some old friends (Billy Collins and Robert Frost), and then to some new friends (Laura Kasischke, Joanna Klink, Uncle Walt, and William Blake)

4. Trying out your own poetic hand at anaphora by composing an imitation poem

HW:
1. Assigned book club reading/syllabus 

2. Next poetry response due Monday.

3. This Thursday will be a day to start composing your poetry essays and working on poetry projects.

A.P. Lit Is Book Clubbing: February 23, 2015

Focus: What do we need to do to embark upon a new unit?

Please turn in your poetry responses and help yourself to a new packet.

1. Warming up with happy Monday thoughts and tone words that span an entire spectrum of emotions

2. Reflecting on the year thus far with a little blogging

3. Entering the world of your book club; making sure the chapters match up with the reading assignments you decided on

4. Wrapping up

HW:
1. Assigned book club reading/syllabus making for Wednesday.

2. New poetry response due next Monday.

A.P. Lit Is Forming Book Clubs: February 20, 2015

Focus: How do AP Lit book clubs work?

1. Warming up: Listening to a page from each of the book club possibilities:

James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Albert Camus' The Stranger
Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five
Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre
Ian McEwan's Atonement --MUST HAVE PARENT SIGNATURE
Dostoyevski's Crime and Punishment

2. Taking time to peruse and form book clubs

3. Setting up the reading and syllabus calendar with your book club and establishing the means by which you will share information with me...Google folder? Google site? Blog? Good old-fashioned notebook?

You need a syllabus for each day your book club meets.

Click here for a very straightforward sample syllabus.
Click here for a well-focused opening syllabus.
Click here for an "outside the box" sample syllabus.

Book clubs will meet on the following eight days:
February 23, 25, and 27
March 2, 4, 16, 18, and 20
Note: March 20 will be your final discussion day for book clubs.


HW:
1. Your first book club meeting is this Monday; complete your assigned book club reading/syllabus. Purchase your book if need be.

2. Poetry response due this Monday.

A.P. Lit Is Workshopping: February 19, 2015

Focus: How can we improve our timed writings and our understanding of Beloved?

Please turn in your purple grade sheets (and any missing assignments).

1. Warming up by watching a short interview with Toni Morrison herself!

2. Critiquing a sample essay together

3. Workshopping your essays in small groups: Past events, morally ambiguous characters, happy endings, or scenes of violence

a. Talk through the prompt...what was the heart of the prompt? What did you think the prompt meant?

b. Read through the rubric and identify the primary difference between a 4 and a 5, a 5 and a 6, a 7 and an       8/9, etc.

c. Peruse the sample essays and discuss what you think they might have received based on the rubric.

d. Pass your essay clockwise, and comment on the following:

• Thesis, topic sentences, and overall organization

e. Pass the essays clockwise once again, and comment on the following:

• Examples and close readings/analysis

f. Pass the essays clockwise once again, and comment on the following:

• Style (word choice, sentence fluidity, maturity, etc.)

g. Retrieve your own essay, and based on your editors' feedback and on the rubric, estimate what grade range you think your essay falls in.  Give a brief explanation of the grade using language from the rubric.


HW:
1. Last chance: Finish your big blog question on Beloved if you have not yet done so.

2. Last chance: If you didn't finish your poetry metacognitive last Thursday, please finish.

3. New poetry responses due Monday.

A.P. Lit Is Writing About Beloved: February 18, 2015

Focus: How can a writing prompt help us explore Beloved's complex themes?

1. Warming up: Take three minutes to brainstorm/outline each prompt; be sure to turn in your brainstorming with your essay.

2. Choosing which prompt speaks to you the most clearly; spending 40 minutes composing an essay

Ms. Leclaire's reminder for Open Prompt #3:

Be as specific as possible in your examples. Use symbols and moments as your examples (if you can sculpt it with playdough, then it's probably specific enough). This way, you can analyze them closely instead of lapsing into too much summary.

HW:
1. Finish your big blog question on Beloved if you did not finish last night.

2. If you didn't finish your poetry metacognitive last Thursday, please finish by this Friday.

3. By Thursday morning, fill out your purple grade sheet, except for the final grade. If you did not turn in a critical review, enter a zero/F for your literary essay grade. If you have any missing assignments, feel free to turn them in with your grade sheet.

A.P Lit Is Saying Farewell to Beloved: February 17, 2015

Focus: How do the final pages of Beloved start to heal its wounds?

Please turn in your poetry responses and help yourself to a new packet!

1. Warming up with happy Tuesday thoughts

2. Rereading the last few pages of Beloved together

• Find one phrase, line, or short passage that brings closure or resolution to a "wound" in Beloved that has affected one or more of the characters.

• What closure or resolution does it bring?

• How?

• What is still left open?

3. Socratic seminar: The ending of Beloved

4. Starting on your big question blogs if time allows

HW:
1. Finish your big blog question to prepare for tomorrow's writing.

2. If you didn't finish your poetry metacognitive last Thursday, please finish by this Friday.

3. By Thursday morning, fill out your purple grade sheet, except for the final grade. If you did not turn in a critical review, enter a zero/F for your literary essay grade. If you have any missing assignments, feel free to turn them in with your grade sheet.

A.P. Lit Is Sculpting: February 13, 2015

Focus: How can we sculpt our understanding of Beloved's themes by synthesizing symbols with larger patterns?

1. Sculpting clay into symbols for each character and seeing what happens when they play together

2. Sculpting your thinking via Socratic seminar: Part 3, Chapter 1

3. Debriefing by finishing the following statements:

Paul D is the central character in Beloved because he...

Denver is the central character in Beloved because she...

The character Beloved represents _____________________ on a personal level but ________________ on a larger, social level.

As Americans, we all live in 124 because...

The most important symbol in Beloved is the _________________ because ________________.

Morrison suggests that memory can be _________________ but also ________________.

Morrison implies that in order to move forward, we must first _________________ because __________________.


HW:
1. Please finish Beloved for our final Socratic on TUESDAY. For your final reading ticket, please take one of the statements above, find three passages from Part 3 that relate to it, and briefly explain how each quotation supports and complicates the statement.

2. Our big timed writing will be on Wednesday next week. Next week will be a little weird; I will be gone on Wednesday because Sam is having a procedure.

3. Complete your poetry response (two weeks in the making) for Tuesday, please.

A.P. Lit Is Metacongating: February 12, 2015

Focus: How does your mind process a poem?

1. Recapping the idea behind metacognitive writing and looking at an example

2. Creating a new Google doc and sharing it with me: Please call it the following:

 "__________ 's Second Metacognitive"

3. Performing a metacognitive writing (this counts as a Tuesday writing, but it's not graded at all like  a Tuesday writing)

Here's what we're going for:

Constant references to specific pieces of text

Observations of the poetic devices at work and play

Questions and ponderings

Inferences and patterns

Possibly tone and themes? Could be a great place to exercise your incipient tone vocabulary.

HW:
1. Please finish your metacognitive if you did not finish in class.Keep in mind that this activity is a good test for your poem. If you only needed twenty minutes to do this, your poem might be too easy. Or, if you spend two hours on this and get nowhere, your poem might be too hard.

2. For Friday, please read the first chapter of Beloved, Part 3; for your reading ticket, please type half a page to a page (double-spaced) in response to one or more of the following questions:

a. What is devolving/disintegrating in Part 3?
b. What is revisited/revised/revolving/returned to in Part 3?
c. What is unaccounted for/unexplained/untouched in Part 3?
d. What is evolving/progressing/changing for the better in Part 3?

Please bring at least two specific passages or page numbers into your response.

I Am A.P. Lit, and A.P. Lit Is Mine: February 11, 2015

Focus: What and how do the characters in Beloved escape? What do they fail to escape?

1. Warming up with Ms. Kershaw and some helpful information about the A.P. Literature test

2. Getting into a Socratic mindset with a little musical chairs

3. Enjoying a Socratic seminar on Beloved, Part 2

HW:
1. Please come in tomorrow with an electronic copy of the poem you'd like to focus on for your project or paper; if you have it narrowed to two or three, I can help you at the very beginning of class. If you prefer working from a hard copy, please print it before class.

2. For Friday, please read the first chapter of Beloved, Part 3; for your reading ticket, please type half a page to a page (double-spaced) in response to one or more of the following questions:

a. What is devolving/disintegrating in Part 3?
b. What is revisited/revised/revolving/returned to in Part 3?
c. What is unaccounted for/unexplained/untouched in Part 3?
d. What is evolving/progressing/changing for the better in Part 3?

Please bring at least two specific passages or page numbers into your response.

A.P. Lit Is Naming that Tone: February 10, 2015

Focus: What do we need to know in order to identify tone more accurately?

1. Warming up with a little game called "Name that tone!"

a. Using your ears to identify tone
b. Using your eyes to identify tone

How does the tone shift?
How would you characterize the overall tone?
How do you know?

2. Offering you some serious help with your tone vocabulary

3. Trying out your brand new tone vocabulary with a few poems

4. Taking some time to lock your new tone word in memory with some help from www.quizlet.com

HW:

1. Please finish all of Part 2 for Wednesday's Socratic. For your reading ticket, please click HERE for Socratic stems. Using these stems, please compose 10-15 good Socratic questions that span Part 2. 

2. By this Thursday, select a poem for your poetry project or paper. If you're still deciding between a couple as you walk in, I can help you.

3. Remember that you have until next Tuesday to complete your poetry response (packets handed out last Monday).

A.P. Lit is Remembering, Disremembering, and Unaccounting: February 9, 2015

Focus: How is Morrison experimenting with diction and structure, and why?

Turn in those critical reviews and pat yourself on the back!

1. Warming up with happy Monday thoughts

2. Considering these words...

Memory

Rememory

Disremember

Unaccounted

re-

a prefix...used with the meaning “again” or “again and again” to indicate 
repetition, or with the meaning “back” or “backward” to indicate withdrawal or  backward motion

dis-

1

a Latin prefix meaning “apart,” “asunder,” “away,” “utterly,” or having a     negative, or  reversing force 

un-

1

a prefix meaning “not,” freely used as an English formative, giving negative or opposite force 

(thank you, dictionary.com, for the above definitions)

What do these words have in common?

What is the difference between these words?

How do they fit Sethe's journey? Paul D's? Denver's? Beloved's?

3. Nailing down Beloved's elusive events into a nicely concrete timeline

Step 1: Take ten notecards, rip them neatly in half so they're smaller, and write a specific event from Parts 1 and 2 on each. If you're good at math, you'll notice that you need twenty events total.

Step 2: Manipulate them into you think you have them roughly in chronological order (in other words, the order in which they actually happened).

Step 3: Create a timeline with as many specific dates as possible. Leave a little space at the end for the events of Part 3.

Step 4: It would have been significantly easier for Morrison to write the book in chronological order or to simply include a few flashbacks. How would you describe the order/structure of this book?  What might Morrison be up to here? How does the structure of the book relate to the prefix lesson we enjoyed at the beginning of class?


HW:
1. Please finish all of Part 2 for Wednesday's Socratic. For your reading ticket, please click HERE for Socratic stems. Using these stems, please compose 10-15 good Socratic questions that span Part 2. 

2. Critical review homework? Nope!

3. Remember that you have until next Tuesday to complete your poetry response (packets handed out last Monday).

A.P. Lit Is Evaluating: February 6, 2015

Focus: What kind of work do our critical review essays need?

1. Playing a little warm-up game:

Paraphrasing, analysis, or evaluation? You be the judge!

Passage 1:
Edgar’s grandfather commits to breeding dogs, attempting to create his own breed, a clan known as “Sawtelle Dogs,” and easily discernible by the eyes.

Passage 2:
The dog was more than a pet; he was a brother. When Gar finds himself drunkenly shooting his “brother” it tears him apart and scars him for life.  When the reality of his actions sink in, Gar is unable to face the world and his family, as he finally grows to understand the meaning of life.

Passage 3:
When learning how to train his own litter of dogs, Edgar realizes that “the intelligence factor of an animal can only be discovered through their eyes, as their English is as silent as Edgar” (Wroblewski 120).  And so, the definition of understanding continues as the correlation and connection between Edgar and the Sawtelle dogs is made apparent.  The dogs appreciate Edgar’s silence, as he communicates like them, through his movements and eyes.

Passage 4:
Wroblewski invites his to readers to connect deeply to his characters. As the novel logically unfolds, the events appear to be further climactic, the themes increasingly relevant, the realizations realistically believable, all due to power of the characters. Through Wroblewski's plausible dialogue and frequent personification, dogs turn into our companions, and along with Edgar, we feel a close tie with the Sawtelle Dogs.

2. Peer or self editing the critical review: Click HERE for the slides of enlightenment!

3. Trying out SAS Writing Reviser (also linked to our class website)

4. Drafting, drafting, drafting

HW:
1. Because of the critical review, we will not be discussing Beloved for a week. By next Wednesday, you will need to finish all of Part 2. I will warn you that the next few chapters are structurally experimental (aka, tough to understand).

2. Friday will be draft day: If you have a draft going, you'll get more out of the editing. However, if you're stuck, use Friday simply to start.

3. I'm extending the due date of your next poetry response since you already have a big essay due Monday.  You may have all the way until next Tuesday, Feb 17 to complete this poetry response.

A.P. Literature Is Quilting: February 5, 2015

Focus: Why are quilts such popular and effective metaphors in poetry and prose?

1. Warming up by considering the nature of a quilt

• What distinguishes a quilt from other kinds of blankets?
• Why do quilts lend themselves to story telling?
• How is a quilt both fragmented and whole?
• 
  

2. Discussing in small groups "The Century Quilt" and sewing together poetic devices and larger meanings

• Create at least four squares by choosing from the poetic devices on the handout.

• "Sew" together your squares by establishing what thematic threads connect them. Each piece connects on two sides (if you're in a group of four); explain what thematic connections the piece has to the two other pieces it's touching.  Yes, I'll show you an example on the board.

3. Exploring a few sample essays

4. Peer editing our own timed writings

HW:
1. Because of the critical review, we will not be discussing Beloved for a week. By next Wednesday, you will need to finish all of Part 2. I will warn you that the next few chapters are structurally experimental (aka, tough to understand).

2. Friday will be draft day: If you have a draft going, you'll get more out of the editing. However, if you're stuck, use Friday simply to start.

3. I'm extending the due date of your next poetry response since you already have a big essay due Monday.  You may have all the way until next Tuesday, Feb 17 to complete this poetry response.

A.P. Lit Thinks about Vampires: February 4, 2015

Focus: Seriously, who/what is Beloved?

1. Warming up: Trying out a few alternative interpretations of Beloved

MAKE ME GIVE THINGS BACK TO YOU.

a. Beloved is the ghost of Sethe's murdered child.

b. Beloved is an actual girl, not a ghost; until her escape, she was long abused by white men.  Sethe welcomes her as own her child to ease her own guilt and to fill the hole left behind by the true Beloved.

c. Beloved is a symbol of any and every escaped slave.

d. Beloved is a vampire.

(If you recall, Foster states that vampires are about "selfishness, exploitation, a refusal to respect the autonomy of other people...the figure of the cannibal, the vampire, the succubus, the spook announces itself again and again where someone grows in strength by weakening someone else" [16, 21]).

2. Enjoying a Socratic on Beloved, Part 2, Chapter 1

3. Wrapping up

HW:
1. If you have a quilt, please bring it to class tomorrow (we'll take good care of it, and you won't have to leave it here or anything).

2. Because of the critical review, we will not be discussing Beloved for a week. By next Wednesday, you will need to finish all of Part 2. I will warn you that the next few chapters are structurally experimental (aka, tough to understand).

3. Friday will be draft day: If you have a draft going, you'll get more out of the editing. However, if you're stuck, use Friday simply to start.

4. I'm extending the due date of your next poetry response since you already have a big essay due Monday.  You may have all the way until next Tuesday, Feb 17 to complete this poetry response.

A.P. Lit Is Writing: February 3, 2015

Focus: How can we develop richer analysis in our timed writing?

1. Warming up by creating your own extended metaphor about the chokecherry tree

Examining the images below, list 4 or 5 distinctive qualities of the chokecherry tree.  If the images aren't quite cutting it for you, you can also include the word "chokecherry" as one of its qualities.

Try turning each of your four or five qualities into a metaphor or simile that connects it (directly or indirectly) to Sethe's scar.  Here's my example:

The red berries are droplets of blood and memory rising from Sethe's almost dead skin.  Anything dead coming back to life hurts.

2. Tackling a poetry timed writing


HW:
1. Tomorrow will be our big Beloved day (and our only Socratic of the week), so come prepared by doing the following: Finish Chapter 1 in Part 2.  For your reading ticket, you can choose from the following:

a. A found poem using words and phrases from the chapter; please include a short paragraph explaining what larger ideas you were exploring through creating this poem.

b. A character analysis; draw in specific passages from the chapter to support your thoughts.

c. A short metacognitive on an important paragraph or page from the reading.

2. Friday will be draft day: If you have a draft going, you'll get more out of the editing. However, if you're stuck, use Friday simply to start.

3. I'm extended the due date of your next poetry response since you already have a big essay due Monday.  You may have all the way until next Tuesday, Feb 17 to complete this poetry response.

A.P. Lit Is Evaluating: February 2, 2015

Focus: What does it mean to be critically evaluative?

1. Warming up with happy Monday thoughts...Boom cards, anyone?

2. Exploring Bloom's pyramid of cognition and applying it to a published review of Beloved

3. Discovering the Critical Review page on Ms. Leclaire's website

a. Reading Sample #1 for style: What words and phrases show evaluation?

b. Reading Sample #2 for structure: What is the purpose of each paragraph?

4. Trying it out your evaluative cognition and style by creating a positive and negative review of a class

HW:

1. Calling all critical review books!  Time to finish up those bad boys so that you have time to write your essay, which is due February 9 (that's two weeks from now).

2. For Wednesday, finish Chapter 1 in Part 2.  For your reading ticket, you can choose from the following:

a. A found poem using words and phrases from the chapter; please include a short paragraph explaining what larger ideas you were exploring through creating this poem.

b. A character analysis; draw in specific passages from the chapter to support your thoughts.

c. A short metacognitive on an important paragraph or page from the reading.