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.