A.P. Literature and Awesomeness: September 10, 2014

PLC: Shortened Class

Focus: What makes Cathy a monster, and what's her purpose in East of Eden so far?

1. Warming up by getting in a circle and taking out your last two reading tickets (it's not much of a warm-up, but we barely have enough time for Socratic as is)

2. Socratic seminar: Discussing Chapters 8 and 9 from East of Eden

3. Wrapping up

HW:
1. College essays due September 19. 

2. Read chapters 10 through 13 for Friday. This is a huge reading assignment (and it's Homecoming Week), so I'm happy to forgo Socratic on Friday, give you some class time to read, and hopefully have an awe-inspiring Socratic seminar on Monday.

A.P. Literature and Awesomeness: September 9, 2014

Focus: How can we unlock the extended metaphors in poetry?

1. Warming up with "Riptide"

What's an extended metaphor?

• What object serves as the central symbol? (The title often gives it away.)

• What might it symbolize? (What connotations do you have with this object?)

• What action/verb goes along with this object?  (What connotations do you have with this action?)

• Which images contribute to the extended metaphor and how?

• Does the metaphor's meaning shift throughout the poem? How so?

• Try out a thesis that goes something like this: Vance Joy uses the extended metaphor of the riptide in order to....

2. Trying to take off Emily Dickinson's clothes with Billy Collins

3. If time allows, uncovering the slightly less yielding extended metaphor in "They Shut Me up in Prose"

HW:
1. College essay due September 19. Hey--isn't that 10 days from now?  Yes, yes it is.

2. Follow the reading schedule, which has you reading the awesome 8th and 9th chapters of East of Eden; please refer to the same reading ticket possibilities that you used for today's reading ticket.

A.P. Literature and Awesomeness: September 8, 2014

Focus: According to Steinbeck, how do our families shape us? To what extent do outside circumstance shape us?

1. Warming up with a little creative writing: An imitation of Steinbeck's geneology

Take a look at the amazing geneology (family history) Steinbeck delineates in Chapter 5.

• Pick any 4-5 paragraphs (they don't need to be consecutive) and perform an imitation of these paragraphs with your own family history.  

• One suggestion: Some family members, whether or not you actually knew them, form sharper, more intriguing images in your mind than others.  Which grandmothers, stepfathers, crazy uncles adopted parents, cousins, older brothers/sisters, etc. can you can describe in some detail?  Which ones have a story or two you could tell?

• One more suggestion: Try to use the opening line of each paragraph, or at least the opening word or two, adjusting it to fit your family member.

• For example, Steinbeck writes, "Tom, the third son, was most like his father. He was born in fury and he lived in lightning" (39).

• I might write, "Diana, the third daughter, was least like her sisters.  She was born in small town simplicity but lived in worldly cleverness."

2. Small group tacklings of the tough questions that Steinbeck has frustratingly raised without clear answers

Turning to Foster for help...

Marked for greatness (scars and wooden legs)?

Baptism (Adam's swim through the river, rainy weather)?

Illness (consumption?  Galloping pneumonia)?

Geography?

The Bible?

• Quickly review what Foster has to say about the topics above.

• Form at least three good, Socratic-style questions regarding your topic.  Please bring in specific passages (and page numbers) as often as possible.

• Switch!  Discuss the questions sitting in front of you and be prepared to share some of your ponderings with the class.

3. Large group sharing of some of your most informative questions and responses

HW:
1. College essay due September 19.

2. Follow the reading schedule, which has you reading the awesome 8th and 9th chapters of East of Eden; please refer to the same reading ticket possibilities that you used for today's reading ticket.

A.P. Literature and Awesomeness: September 5, 2014

Focus: What dualities (tensions between opposing forces) does Steinbeck set up in the first chapters of East of Eden?

1. Warming up: Sharing aloud your favorite descriptions of...

1. Setting
2. Samuel Hamilton
3. Liza Hamilton
4. Adam Trask
5. Cyrus Trask
6. Alice Trask
7. Charles Trask

As you listen, what dualities are you starting to notice?

2. Socratic seminar: East of Eden, Introduction and Chapters 1-3

Click HERE for the story of Cain and Abel.

3. Wrapping up

HW:
1. Follow the reading schedule for East of Eden (Chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7).

2. For Monday's reading ticket, please try out one of the Reading Ticket Possibilities linked HERE (also found on the Socratic Seminar page of my website) to think through Chapters 4-7. 

2. College essays are due September 19.  That's in exactly two weeks, in case you're counting.

A.P. Literature and Awesomeness: September 4, 2014

Focus: How do we move from identifying imagery to establishing patterns?

1. Warm-up: Offering you my timed writing tip of the day:

Look for the SHIFT.  
This is less eloquently known as circling your buts (and your howevers, yets, insteads, and other words that indicate shift).  Most poems and prose pieces have at least one shift; some are obvious, and some are more subtle.  Keep an eye out for changes in character, imagery, and tone and ask yourself what the author is trying to do and how he/she is trying to do it.

2. Trying to find the shift in this quick poem by Billy Collins:
Questions to consider:

• Where is the shift?
• What is the shift (from what to what)?
• Why is the shift important to the poem as a whole?

Child Development

As sure as prehistoric fish grew legs
and sauntered off the beaches into forests
working up some irregular verbs for their
first conversation, so three-year-old children
enter the phase of name-calling.

Every day a new one arrives and is added
to the repertoire. You Dumb Goopyhead,
You Big Sewerface, You Poop-on-the-Floor
(a kind of Navaho ring to that one)
they yell from knee level, their little mugs
flushed with challenge.
Nothing Samuel Johnson would bother tossing out
in a pub, but then the toddlers are not trying
to devastate some fatuous Enlightenment hack.

They are just tormenting their fellow squirts
or going after the attention of the giants
way up there with their cocktails and bad breath
talking baritone nonsense to other giants,
waiting to call them names after thanking
them for the lovely party and hearing the door close.

The mature save their hothead invective
for things: an errant hammer, tire chains,
or receding trains missed by seconds,
though they know in their adult hearts,
even as they threaten to banish Timmy to bed
for his appalling behavior,
that their bosses are Big Fatty Stupids,
their wives are Dopey Dopeheads
and that they themselves are Mr. Sillypants. 

Billy Collins

3. Looking back over Tuesday's poem together in small groups

If you were section this poem into stanzas, how would you do it?  Draw lines to indicate places where you would insert breaks.

• Where is the most important shift?
• What is the shift (from what to what)?
• Why is the shift important to the poem as a whole

In each section you have created, consider the following:

• Which images stood out to you in this section?
• What connotations did these images offer?
• What patterns do you notice among images in each section? Throughout the poem as a whole?

3. Workshopping each other's Tuesday writings

HW:
1. Please bring East of Eden to class tomorrow; complete your first reading assignment by tomorrow (follow the reading schedule). For your reading ticket, consider one or more of the questions you brainstormed on today.  Please type half a page to a full page on how Steinbeck would respond to one of those questions based on the first three chapters of the novel.

2. Continue working on college essay, due Sep 19 (come conference with me!).

A.P. Literature and Awesomeness: September 3, 2014

Focus: What's at the heart of East of Eden?

1. Warming up with a snack!  It's snack day!

2. Exploring the first little note together

3. Freewriting on and discussing a few thought-provoking questions to get you ready for East of Eden

4. Relaxing into the first pages

HW:
1. Please bring East of Eden to class on Friday; complete your first reading assignment by Friday (follow the reading schedule). For your reading ticket, consider one or more of the questions you brainstormed on today.  Please type half a page to a full page on how Steinbeck would respond to one of those questions based on the first three chapters of the novel.

2. Continue working on college essay, due Sep 19 (come conference with me!).

A.P. Literature and Awesomeness: September 2, 2014

Focus: What does a close reading look like in this class?

1. Warming up with a physically close reading of the first page of The Lowland

2. Trying out a focused Tuesday writing (30 minutes)

a. Annotate the poem by marking significant images and jotting down in the margins what they might reveal.
b. Brainstorm.
c. Compose a thesis that responds to the prompt.
d. Write ONE strong body paragraph that uses imagery to respond to the prompt.

HW:
1. Please bring East of Eden to class tomorrow; complete your first reading assignment by Friday (follow the reading schedule).

2. Continue working on college essay, due Sep 19 (come conference with me!).

3. Your big question post on Oedipus should be done by today.