Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are-- (April 29, 2015)

Focus: Do R & G find meaning in their lives? In their deaths?

Guildenstern: No...no...not for us, not like that. Dying is not romantic, and death is not a game which will soon be over...Death is not anything...death is not...It's the absence of presence, nothing more...the endless time of never coming back...a gap you can't see, and when the wind blows through it, it makes no sound... (124)

1. Warming up with the most important lines from Act 3 (of your choosing, of course)

2. Using past A.P. prompts to discuss the play in small groups

3. Creating your final big blog post and selecting the one you'd like me to assign a 9 point grade in the Literary Essay category (it can be from either semester)


HW:
The test is in about a week.  The part of the test that you can really prepare for at this point is Question 3, so work hard on your bedside stacks.  Repetition is key. Repetition is key.

A.P. Lit Is Finding Meaning: April 28, 2015

Focus: To what extent do R & G find meaning in their lives and in their deaths?

ACT: Very Shortened Class

1. Finishing R & G Are Dead (1:36 ish)

2. Identifying the most significant line in Act 3 and sharing ideas about Stoppard's usage of the boat and the stage

HW:
The test is in about a week.  The part of the test that you can really prepare for at this point is Question 3, so work hard on your bedside stacks.  Repetition is key. Repetition is key.

A.P. Lit Is Sailing Towards the End: April 27, 2015

Focus: To what extent are we free on a boat?

Please turn in your culminating essays and do a little happy dance!

1. Warming up with Happy Monday thoughts

2. Talking about bedside stacks!

3. Finishing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and sharing ideas about Stoppard's usage of the boat and the stage

4. Discussing Stoppard's play in small groups, using past A.P. prompts as a guide

HW:
The test is in about a week.  The part of the test that you can really prepare for at this point is Question 3, so work hard on your bedside stacks.  Repetition is key. Repetition is key.

R & G Are Not Dead...Yet: April 24, 2015

Focus: Does the world of R & G have order and/or purpose?

Spring Assembly: Shortened Class

1. Warming up by offering you a few quick culminating essay reminders

Staple your question/booklist to the front of your essay.

Include an MLA heading.

Include a header (Your last name   Page #) in the upper right corner of each page.

Cite each quotation properly.

Attach a properly formatted Works Cited page that includes all works referenced in your essay.

2. Reading the rest of Act II together

• What imprisons the characters and how so? Do they have freedom?

• Is there logic/reason governing the world of R & G? Where are they seeking it? Do they find it?

• What are R & G's thoughts on death?

• Why the play within a play within a play?

3. Thinking through the play artistically:

• Try illustrating the characters from each "world" in this play (R & G, the Hamlet characters, the tragedians/actors performing the dumbshow) in a way that demonstrates how much control the characters have over their worlds.

• For example, does one world exist inside another? Are they each subject to the same laws?

• If the illustration is throwing you off, try simply forming a scale, or a spectrum, of control, and consider where each character falls.

HW:
Culminating essay due Monday.

The Play Is the Thing: April 23, 2015

Focus: What control do the characters have or lack over their universe?

1. Warming up: Skim the question game on pages 42 through 44 and select one question you think is central to this play so far

• Why does Stoppard have them play the question game?

2. Reading Act II together

• What imprisons the characters and how so? Do they have freedom?

• Is there logic/reason governing the world of R & G? Where are they seeking it? Do they find it?

• What are R & G's thoughts on death?

• Why the play within a play within a play?

3. Thinking through the play artistically: Try illustrating the characters from each "world" in this play (R & G, the Hamlet characters, the tragedians/actors performing the dumbshow) in a way that demonstrates how much control the characters have over their worlds.

For example, does one world exist inside another? Are they each subject to the same laws?

If the illustration is throwing you off, try simply forming a scale, or a spectrum, of control, and consider where each character falls.


HW:
Culminating essay due Monday.

A.P. Literature Is Offstage: April 22, 2015

Focus: What does it mean to be offstage?

1. Warming up: Close reading a passage from yesterday

PLAYER: We keep to our usual stuff, more or less, only inside out.  We do on stage the things that are supposed to happen off.  Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit being an entrance somewhere else.  (28)

• In your lives, how would you define living "offstage" to living "onstage"?  In other words, when are you are offstage, and when are you onstage? For example, is your school life offstage or onstage, and why? Is there such a thing as "offstage"?

• What is the player revealing about his acting troop's intentions?  Why is there integrity in this?

• What does he mean when he says that every exit is entrance somewhere else?

• How is this an example of metatheatre?  In other words, how is this a play about plays/theatre?

2. Enjoying the rest of Act 1 in R & G, the film version (start at 18ish minutes) with the same focus as yesterday:

• Where do you see elements of Absurdism/Existentialism?
• Which objects seem to serve as metaphors? What larger ideas do they stand for and how?
• What connections to Waiting for Godot are you noticing?

3. Wrapping up by breaking down today's focus question in small groups:

• How are Rosencrantz's and Guildenstern's onstage lives (when they're in Hamlet) different from their offstage lives?

• Is being onstage more or less authentic than being offstage? Where do they have a greater sense of purpose? Where do they have more power?

HW:
Culminating essay due this Monday.

A.P. Literature Is Flipping a Coin: April 21, 2015

Focus: Why is Tom Stoppard interested in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?

1. Warming up with the flip of a coin:

a. Take a coin and flip it in the air 20 times. Record how many times it comes up heads, and how many times it comes up tails. Interpret/explain the results.

b. Now, imagine that you take a quarter (a normal quarter) and flip it in the air twenty times. If it were to come up heads each time, would you be surprised? Why or why not? In your opinion, is the world generally an orderly or a disorderly place?

c. How would Samuel Beckett explain the imaginary phenomenon above?

2. Speeding up: Here's what you need to know about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from Hamlet...

• In Hamlet, they are minor characters and spend the vast majority of the play offstage.

• They're supposed to be Hamlet's friends, but they're really being used to spy on him.

• Near the end of the play, they ride on a boat from Denmark to England with Hamlet; they have sealed orders from King Claudius to the King of England, requesting that the King of England kill Hamlet.

• Hamlet, however, changes the note so that the orders are to kill Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, which the King of England carries out when they arrive in England.

• The action in the two bullet points above all takes place offstage in Hamlet and is merely reported by Fortinbras at the end of the play.

3. Acting out the beginning of Act One in R&G Are Dead

• Pre-reading: What's the significance of the title?

As we read, keep a log in your composition book of this play's use of extended metaphors:

• Where do you see elements of Absurdism/Existentialism?
• Which objects seem to serve as metaphors? What larger ideas do they stand for and how?
• What connections to Waiting for Godot are you noticing?

4. Wrapping up: Find one brief passage from our reading today, copy it into your composition notebook, and perform a close reading on it. Feel free to include questions as well.

HW:
If you'd like feedback on your brainstorming, outlining, and drafting, please send me an e-mail with your specific inquiries. If you just Google share a document with me, I'm not sure what you'd like help with.

New final due date: April 27 (however, if you turn yours in early, it will be the first one graded and returned).

A.P. Lit Has Been Drafted: April 20, 2015

Focus: How do little prompts grow into big essays?

1. Warming up with happy Monday thoughts

2. Unraveling the mind-boggling process of how a prompt becomes an outline; developing sub-questions for your prompt if you have not yet done so

Click here to see how Chase turned his prompt into an outline.  Note: I highly recommend using questions to guide your outline.

3. Offering you some examples of how outlines turn into body paragraphs

Click here to see Brooke's outline and draft (hers is literary / philosophical).

Below are a few scraps from my culminating essay, which was more personal:

I discovered that the entire world can fall away from you while you’re just lying there on the couch with a white homemade baby blanket in your hands.  It just floats away like a tiny a globe with everyone and everything in it, except you.  And my husband had to squeeze me hard in his arms before I could climb back into that globe.  It hurt, coming in and out of life, like when your foot pricks itself out of numbness after falling asleep.  Aibileen from The Help describes it the best as she remembers the death of her son: “That was the day my whole world went black.  Air look black, sun look black.  I laid up in bed and stared at the black walls a my house.  Minny came ever day to make sure I was still breathing, feed me food to keep me living.  Took three months fore I even look out the window, see if the world still there.  I was surprise to see the world didn’t stop just cause my boy did” (Stockett 2-3).  My walls had turned black, too.  And I didn’t care to see if the world was still out there.

But a week later, after trying unsuccessfully to squeeze back into designer jeans, I told my husband that I wanted to hire Mark to be my personal trainer.  Mark ran an independent boot camp twice a week that my husband had been attending for a year.  Unlike the trainers who ran boot camps at my regular gym, Mark was an actual army guy, and he didn’t take crap from anyone.  He seemed like the right pick to be my personal trainer.  I needed him to be my Nick Carraway, inclined to reserve all judgments, or my Rahim Kahn, convincing me that “there is a way to be good again” (Hosseini 1).

My ending:

As I write this, I wonder if this is a story to pass on.  I think it is.  But I’m still not sure if I answered my own question, so I’d like to end with this:

In Beckett’s perplexing world of waiting where characters constantly fall to the ground, Vladimir quietly asks Pozzo, “What do you do when you fall far from help?”

Pozzo replies, “We wait till we can get up.  Then we go on.  On!” (Beckett 102).


4. Inspiring you to think outside the box with some images from a less traditional essay from a few years ago:

HW:
If you'd like feedback on your brainstorming, outlining, and drafting, please send me an e-mail with your specific inquiries. If you just Google share a document with me, I'm not sure what you'd like help with.

New final due date: April 27 (however, if you turn yours in early, it will be the first one graded and returned).

A.P. Hamlet Scholars: April 17, 2015

Focus: What background information do we need to understand R & G are dead?

1. Warming up: So what do you already know about Hamlet? A crossword challenge for you!

• Where does the play primarily take place?

• What is the play's/Hamlet's central conflict?

• What minor "battles" take place in the play?

• How are the play's conflicts ultimately resolved?

2. Reviewing Hamlet with a little help from Wikipedia

3. Watching the official 60-second Hamlet: Reduced Shakespeare Company

4. If time allows, (re)introducing yourselves to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern via two Hamlet clips

Act 2, scene 2 (58:10)
Act 3, scene 2 (2:00:30)

5. Cooling down: What do we know about these two characters, and why might Tom Stoppard have chosen them for his play?

HW:
If you'd like feedback on your brainstorming, outlining, and drafting, please send me an e-mail with your specific inquiries. If you just Google share a document with me, I'm not sure what you'd like help with.

New final due date: April 27 (however, if you turn yours in early, it will be the first one graded and returned)

A.P. Lit Is Workshopping: April 16, 2015

Focus: How do we read and write about prose passages?

1. Warming up: Considering yourself an existential hero (or not)

• What does your mountain consist of? What about your boulder?  Your endless sky?

• What makes you pause at the top, and what do you think of?

• What makes you pause at the bottom, and what do you think of?

• What compels you to push the boulder up the hill once again?

2. Spying the irony (or the lack of irony) in prose passages

3. Revisiting Mary Barton (2004 Form B)

• What point of view is used? Why might the author have chosen that point of view?

• What details strike you as significant? What larger patterns/themes do they create?

• What is revealed through the dialogue? What social commentary does the dialogue evoke?

• Find lines that contribute to the characterization of...

• Wilson
• Mr. Carson's servants
• The upper class ladies (wife and daughters, I'm assuming) of Mr. Carson's house

• What larger social commentary do these characterizations create?

4. Perusing the rubric and sample essays, then workshopping your own Tuesday writings

HW:
If you'd like feedback on your brainstorming, outlining, and drafting, please send me an e-mail with your specific inquiries. If you just Google share a document with me, I'm not sure what you'd like help with.

New final due date: April 27 (however, if you turn yours in early, it will be the first one graded and returned)

A.P. Lit Is Rolling the Stone: April 15, 2015

Focus:  What is the existential hero?

1. Warming up with a little freewriting (and two fantastic film clips)

"It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man at Shawshank felt free."

"Get busy living or get busy dying."

"Hope is a dangerous thing." 

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."


2. Offering you a little background on existentialism

3. Reading Albert Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus"

• What is the absurd hero?
• What is the nature of his struggle?
• What makes him tragic?
• What makes him happy?
• What is the nature of his freedom?
• How are Vladimir and Estragon like Sisyphus? How are they different?

4. Considering yourself an existential hero (or not)

• What does your mountain consist of? What about your boulder?  Your endless sky?

• What makes you pause at the top, and what do you think of?

• What makes you pause at the bottom, and what do you think of?

• What compels you to push the boulder up the hill once again?

HW:
If you'd like feedback on your brainstorming, outlining, and drafting, please send me an e-mail with your specific inquiries. If you just Google share a document with me, I'm not sure what you'd like help with.

New final due date: April 27 (however, if you turn yours in early, it will be the first one graded and returned)

A.P. Lit Is Writing: April 14, 2015

Focus: How can we improve our timed writing organizational skills?

1. Warming up with some umbrella brainstorming on Waiting for Godot AP essay topics

2. Improving your prose timed writing skills

From Mrs. Talen, to students taking an AP test:

Today and Wednesday AP Pre-Registration meetings will take place every hour (except 4th) in the forum.  Please remind your AP students that they must attend one of these meetings during an off hour.  They must also bring a #2 pencil.

HW:
If you'd like feedback on your brainstorming, outlining, and drafting, please send me an e-mail with your specific inquiries. If you just Google share a document with me, I'm not sure what you'd like help with.

A.P. Lit Is Waiting for Themes To Emerge: April 13, 2015

Focus: What are we here for? That is the question.

1. Warming up: Happy Monday with Waiting for...Elmo

2. Relating to the play: Think of the most recent conversation you had with someone (in the hallway, before class, after class, via text, etc). What was it about? What about the conversation before that? What was it about? When was the last time you had a meaningful conversation?

3. Watching a clip of the ending and drawing some larger conclusions: Do Foster's ideas work with this play?

"Every Trip Is a Quest"
A quester?
A place to go?
A stated reason to go there?
Challenges and trials en route?
A real reason to go there?

"Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion"
"...breaking bread together is an act of sharing and peace, since if you're breaking bread you're not breaking heads." (8)

"...writing a meal scene is so difficult, and so inherently uninteresting, that there really needs to be some compelling reason to include one in the story. And that reason has to do with how characters are getting along. Or not getting along." (8)

"Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before?"

"Here it is: there's only one story. There, I said it and I can't very well take it back. There is only one story. Ever. One. It's always been going on and it's everywhere around us and every story you've ever read or heard or watched is part of it."

"More Than It's Gonna Hurt You: Concerning Violence"

"Violence is one of the most personal and even intimate acts between human beings, but it can also be cultural and societal in its implications...that punch in the nose may be a metaphor." (88)

"Geography Matters..."

"First, think about what there is down low or up high. Low: swamps, crowds, fog, darkness, fields, heat, unpleasantness, people, life, death. High: snow, ice, purity, thin air, clear views, isolation, life, death." (173)

"He's Blind for a Reason, You Know?"

Remember your old friend, Oedipus? And his frenemy, Tieresias?

"Every move, every statement by or about that character has to accommodate the lack of sight; every other character has to notice, or behave differently, if only in subtle ways...Clearly the author wants to emphasize other levels of sight and blindness beyond the physical." (202)

"Is He Serious? And Other Ironies"

"Now hear this: irony trumps everything." (235)

What ingrained expectations do we have of the characters and symbols in this play, and how does Beckett deny us the satisfaction of applying our expectations to these symbols (thus making them ironic)?

4. Enjoying a Socratic seminar (30 minutes)

5. Wrapping up with Waiting for...Elmo if time allows

HW:
Culminating essay outlines should be complete at this point; e-mail me when you'd like me to look over yours. Draft at least two paragraphs (perhaps an introduction and a thesis paragraph) over the weekend.


Interested in taking A.P. Language next year?  Click on the link below for the online application:

 (AP Lang/Lit) https://docs.google.com/a/lps.k12.co.us/forms/d/1_4qJewGpkCGBr5tmhAldXb_jJW1F7Fbx6LTP0jj1HsM/viewform

A.P. Lit Is Still Waiting: April 10, 2015

Focus: What are we here for? That is the question.

1. Warming up: Stealing ideas from a few articles about Waiting for Godot in performance

2. Finishing the play and drawing some larger conclusions: Do Foster's ideas work with this play?

"Every Trip Is a Quest"
A quester?
A place to go?
A stated reason to go there?
Challenges and trials en route?
A real reason to go there?

"Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion"
"...breaking bread together is an act of sharing and peace, since if you're breaking bread you're not breaking heads." (8)

"...writing a meal scene is so difficult, and so inherently uninteresting, that there really needs to be some compelling reason to include one in the story. And that reason has to do with how characters are getting along. Or not getting along." (8)

"Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before?"

"Here it is: there's only one story. There, I said it and I can't very well take it back. There is only one story. Ever. One. It's always been going on and it's everywhere around us and every story you've ever read or heard or watched is part of it."

"More Than It's Gonna Hurt You: Concerning Violence"

"Violence is one of the most personal and even intimate acts between human beings, but it can also be cultural and societal in its implications...that punch in the nose may be a metaphor." (88)

"Geography Matters..."

"First, think about what there is down low or up high. Low: swamps, crowds, fog, darkness, fields, heat, unpleasantness, people, life, death. High: snow, ice, purity, thin air, clear views, isolation, life, death." (173)

"He's Blind for a Reason, You Know?"

Remember your old friend, Oedipus? And his frenemy, Tieresias?

"Every move, every statement by or about that character has to accommodate the lack of sight; every other character has to notice, or behave differently, if only in subtle ways...Clearly the author wants to emphasize other levels of sight and blindness beyond the physical." (202)

"Is He Serious? And Other Ironies"

"Now hear this: irony trumps everything." (235)

What ingrained expectations do we have of the characters and symbols in this play, and how does Beckett deny us the satisfaction of applying our expectations to these symbols (thus making them ironic)?

3. Wrapping up

HW:
1. Culminating essay outlines should be complete at this point; e-mail me when you'd like me to look over yours. Draft at least two paragraphs (perhaps an introduction and a thesis paragraph) over the weekend.

2. If you were absent today or yesterday, please complete the play on your own; we will have a Socratic seminar on Monday, but you can create your reading tickets in class that day.

Interested in taking A.P. Language next year?  Click on the link below for the online application:

 (AP Lang/Lit) https://docs.google.com/a/lps.k12.co.us/forms/d/1_4qJewGpkCGBr5tmhAldXb_jJW1F7Fbx6LTP0jj1HsM/viewform

A.P. Lit Is Qua Qua Quaing: April 9, 2015

Focus: Why do they wait?

A. Warming up: Viewing a performance of Lucky's speech and exploring what happens to the speech when you eliminate the "blah blah blah's" and "qua qua qua's"

Find three parts of Lucky's speech and try to connect them to other lines/stage directions in Act 1. 

• What patterns does Lucky's speech share with the rest of the play so far? 
• What metaphorical luggage is Lucky carrying for everyone in this play?
• Why have outsiders (Pozzo, Lucky, and the Boy) enter the scene? What purpose do they serve?

2. Acting out the first part of Act 2

III. Wrapping up

HW:
1. Continue working on your culminating essay prompt and booklist; let me know anytime you'd like feedback. Outline due Friday.

2. A heads-up: On Monday, we will have a Socratic seminar on Waiting for Godot.

Advanced Placement Waiting: What Day Is It?

Focus: What are they waiting for?

1. Warming up with a brief film clip echoing Alex and Joe's performance

• What aspects of human existence does this performance accentuate?

2. Sharing of your thoughts from yesterday and entertaining few questions about Lucky

• How is Lucky "lucky"?  In other words, how is his suffering less than that of Didi and Gogo?
• To what extent is his name ironic? Or, how is he suffering more than Didi and Gogo are?
• What might the rope around his neck symbolize?

From shmoop: "At least Lucky can see the rope around his neck. Vladimir and Estragon can’t."

3. Reading the rest of Act 1 in Waiting for Godot 

• Viewing a performance of Lucky's speech

3. Wrapping up

HW:
1. Continue working on your culminating essay prompt and booklist; let me know anytime you'd like feedback. Outline due Friday.

A.P. Lit Feels Anaphoric Today: April 7, 2015

Focus: What are they waiting for?

1. Waiting for your prompts and book lists to turn into an outline

2. Waiting to understand the absurdist elements you're noticing so far in Godot

3. Waiting for Alex and Joe to perform more of the play for us

HW:
Continue working on your culminating essay prompt and book list; outline due this Friday.

A.P. Lit Is Waiting: April 6, 2015

Focus: What does it mean to wait?

1. Warming up with "I Am Waiting"

• MMM approach: What strikes you about this poem?

• What does it mean to wait? Does it make you powerful? Vulnerable? Hopeless? Hopeful?

• What are you waiting for?

2. Building a little background knowledge on the Theatre of the Absurd and Absurdist protagonists

3. Starting to act out Waiting for Godot with focus questions


HW:
Continue to build ideas for your culminating essay; start gathering old books, looking through your childhood stuff, reworking your prompt, etc.  I will start giving you feedback on your prompts and booklists this afternoon.

A.P. Lit Is Thinking About How It all Comes Together: April 3, 2015

Focus: What is the culminating essay, and how do we begin?

1. Warming up: Listing your favorite books from childhood to today

2. Perusing four sample essays from students of years past and discussing the components of the culminating essay

3. Forming rough drafts of your culminating essay prompts and booklists

HW:
1. Please e-mail me/Google share with me a draft of your prompt and booklist by Monday.

2. Poetry response #9 due Monday.

3. If you have your own copy of Waiting for Godot, bring it to class Monday.

A.P. Lit Is Editing: April 2, 2015

Focus: How can we improve our timed writings?

1. Warming up: Evaluating your 12-week grades

2. Gathering with your book clubs one last time to assess your Tuesday writings:

a. Discuss how you answered the prompt.  How did you interpret the prompt?  What examples did you use? What was the larger importance of the book to which you connected those examples?

b. Read through the rubric together, highlighting important words that distinguish one grading category from another.

c. Pass clockwise and read quietly once without making a mark.

d. Comment on its content and organization (thesis, topic sentences, examples, close readings, etc.); then, using the rubric, suggest a grade range and give a brief explanation of your decision.

e. Pass again clockwise and read quietly without making a mark.

f. Comment on its style (diction, sentence variety, lead-ins, transitions, etc.); then, using the rubric, suggest a grade range and give a brief explanation of your decision. 

g. Pass one last time (clockwise) and read quietly without making a mark.

h. Comment on what the writer asked you to comment on; then, using the rubric, suggest a grade range and give a brief explanation of your decision.

3. Conferencing with your fellow group members on the feedback you gave

HW:
1. Tomorrow marks the end of 12 weeks. If you have any make-up work from the past six weeks (including poetry responses) or a revision of your critical review, you must turn it in by this Friday.

2. Make sure your big blog post is ready for me to look at tomorrow.

3. If you own your own copy of Waiting for Godot, start bringing it to class tomorrow/next week.

A.P. Lit Is Writing About Their Book Club Novels: April 1, 2015

Focus: How can we write effectively about our book club novels?

1. Warming up: Trying out Mrs. Ferrill's nifty three-minute outline

• Showing you an example

• Trying it out with a previous timed writing (or other essay if you don't have a timed writing handy)

• Backing it up with concrete examples (the key to avoiding excessive plot summary)

Vague example: Sethe takes the life of her own daughter.

Concrete example: The scene in which Sethe murders Beloved is narrated primarily through the third person omniscient viewpoint of the "four horsemen" who have come to collect her.


Vague example: Sethe constantly remembers the abuses of Schoolteacher's nephew.

Concrete example: Sethe carries a chokecherry tree scar on her back.


Vague example: Billy Pilgrim bounces around irregularly in space and time.  OR

The Tallis home is dysfunctional.

Concrete example:


2. Enjoying your book club timed writing


HW:
1. This Friday marks the end of 12 weeks. If you have any make-up work from the past six weeks (including poetry responses) or a revision of your critical review, you must turn it in by this Friday.

2. Make sure your big blog post is ready for me to look at tomorrow.

3. If you own your own copy of Waiting for Godot, start bringing it to class this week.