- Finish "Speaking of Courage" - Read "Notes," "Good Form," and "Lives of the Dead" - Answer final few questions from "Speaking...." and all "Lives of the Dead" ?s.
Tuesday, 5/22:
The Things They Carried: For Wednesday: Read "How to Tell a True War Story" and half of "Speaking of Courage" (read to 137-144 in softcover and 131-138 in hardcover).
4th Quarter Essay
please note: due date changes:
- Peer Evaluation 3: Friday, 5/25
- Final draft: Tuesday, 5/29.
Extra-help:
All days before school - beginning at 7:30 Tu, Th, F/ 7:15 on Wed.
After-school on Wednesday or by appt.
Monday, 5/21:
The Things They Carried: For Tuesday: Read "Friends," "Enemies," "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong," "Stockings" and "Church."
4th Quarter Essay please note: due date changes: - Peer Evaluation 3: Friday, 5/25 - Final draft: Tuesday, 5/29.
Extra-help: All days before school - beginning at 7:30 Tu, Th, F/ 7:15 on Wed. After-school on Wednesday or by appt.
Thursday, 5/17:
- Read "On the Rainy River" - Know O'Brien's - political objections - the irony of his decision/situation - America's role in the story.
Monday, 5/14: - Please clean up rough draft and prepare for rough draft peer-evaluation day 2. - A third rough draft will be collected on Wednesday. - Word document below has the quotes for Wednesday's Hamlet test - it has been updated with all 15 quotes from all 5 Acts.
Thursday, 5/10: - Check back here on Friday for word document w/ Hamlet quotes - test on Wednesday, 5/16. - Rough draft of 4th quarter essay due Monday, 5/14.
Tuesday, 5/8 (no class Wed.):
- Finish Hamlet. - 4th Q Essay - Rough Draft due Monday, May 14. - Bring thesis statement to class on Thursday.
Friday, 5/4: - Read 199-235 by Monday. NO QUESTIONS but know the quotes from this sheet:
- Know all due dates for 4th Quarter Essay. Begin working now.
- Bring all books to class - outside reading & Hamlet.
Thursday, 4/26:
-Annotated Bibliography due Monday, 4/30.
- Know all due dates for 4th Quarter Essay. Begin working now. - Bring all books to class - outside reading & Hamlet.
Wednesday, 4/25:
- Units 13 & 14 Vocab. Quiz on Thursday, April 26.
-Annotated Bibliography due Monday, 4/30. - Know all due dates for 4th Quarter Essay. Begin working now.
Monday, 4/23:
-Annotated Bibliography due on Monday, 4/30.
Read outside reading book(s). Please finish book(s) and M.W.D.S. by Wednesday, April 25. Quality and Quantity expected.
As you read, consider outside sources for 4th quarter essay.
Units 13 & 14 Vocab. Quiz on Thursday, April 26.
Read over Hamlet Act I notes. Read pages 1-97 if you were out. Please await Act II notes. We will have a quiz on the first three Acts after we finish reading Acts II & III.
THURSDAY, APRIL 12 and Vacation:
Read outside reading book(s). Please finish book(s) and M.W.D.S. by Wednesday, April 25. Quality and Quantity expected.
As you read, consider outside sources for 4th quarter essay.
Units 13 & 14 Vocab. Quiz on Thursday, April 26.
Read over Hamlet Act I notes. Read pages 1-97 if you were out. Please await Act II notes. We will have a quiz on the first three Acts after we finish reading Acts II & III.
YOU MUST BRING YOUR OUTSIDE READING BOOK TO CLASS ON MONDAY AND FOREVER
Thursday, April 5:
Read outside reading book. Please finish book and MWDS by Monday, 4/23.
Dorm room assignment due Monday, 4/9.
Wed., April 4:
Read outside reading book. Please finish book and MWDS by Monday, 4/23.
Finish Absalom, Absalom! - pages 299-303. Be prepared to discuss.
Dorm room assignment due Monday, 4/9.
Tues., April 3: Tonight: Read the Summary and Analysis of Chapter 8 below. Be prepared to discuss tomorrow along with Chapter 9 reading below. Read chapter 9, pages 288-298 and take strong notes - 1/2 page minimum w/ quotes.
Shreve and Quentin are completely wrapped up in the Sutpen legend now. Although Shreve has just suggested bedtime, he puts on a robe and a coat to ward off the chill and sits back down to finish the story. Shreve picks up the narration of the story with Charles Bon's childhood. Although Shreve is talking the story runs through both of them-- "the two who breathed not individuals now yet something both more andless than twins"--and they seem to embody the people they are describing. Almost everything in this chapter is speculation, since no one could have known about Bon's childhood or his perspective on the events.
They imagine Bon's mother to have been a woman consumed by rage, determined to mold Bon to be the unknowing instrument of Sutpen's undoing. They believe that she would either not tell Bon about what happened at all, or that she would seize Bon during his playtime as a child to remind him about her suffering. Either way, she would have molded Bon to use him as a weapon against Sutpen. They invent another character to assist her: a lawyer responsible for handing out Sutpen's money to her and Bon. This lawyer would have carefully parcelled out money to Bon as the young man became increasingly indolent and dependent on the voluptuous pleasures of New Orleans; all the while he would be negotiating the whereabouts and actions of Thomas Sutpen in Mississippi. He would report these actions to Bon's mother when she asked for them, sometimes twice a year and sometimes five times in two days, and in general try to smooth relations between the passionate mother and son. This lawyer is a slightly unscrupulous character; there are hints of him wishing to take their money and "light out for Texas." Only the fact that Bon has already spent a great deal of the money restrains him.
They envision tension between Bon and his mother, on her part because Bon spends lots of money and she worries that he might not have the necessary fire to avenge her, and on his part because he realizes that what she feels for him is not the type of love a mother should feel for a child. So he decides--not by himself, but thanks to a suggestion planted by either his mother or the lawyer--to go to school, at the age of twenty-eight years old. The lawyer, who has been keeping careful track of Sutpen, knows that Henry Sutpen will be attending the University of Mississippi at Oxford the same year that Bon is to go away to school. It is the lawyer who directs Bon towards the University of Mississippi and makes all the arrangements. Bon, on the boat to Mississppi from New Orleans, ponders why the lawyer would insist on the University of Mississippi and contemplates the way he is being manipulated yet again. And he is being manipulated again, for in Henry and Shreve's version, the lawyer writes Thomas Sutpen a letter warning him that Charles Bon will be at the University of Mississippi.
They envision's Bon's impressions of Henry--a "young clodhopper bastard" who apes his every move, sometimes to his amusement, sometimes to his annoyance, but always with a degree of strange, loving detachment. Bon knows that Henry is his brother and is confused about how he feels about the young man and his invitation to go to Sutpen's Hundred, but he agrees in the hope that he will see Thomas Sutpen's "instant of indisputable recognition" when he appears. Even if Sutpen never acknowledges him as his son, Bon thinks, that will be enough. But that acknowledgement never happens. He deals with Judith--who as a country girl without much worldly experience could not have challenged or interested him for a moment--wth the same strange, loving detachment he must have felt for Henry. But he loved Judith, Shreve and Quentin affirm, the same way he loved Henry--so much that "he never actually proposed to her and gave her a ring for Mrs. Sutpen to show around." All while he would be admitting these incestuous feelings to himself, he would be agonizing over Sutpen's refusal to acknowledge him in even the smallest way.
And then after Henry's break with Sutpen, they go to New Orleans--Henry's first experience with a cosmopolitan city. Shreve and Quentin imagine that the young man was overwhelmed, though not nearly as puritan about the octoroon mistress as Mr. Compson thought he would be. Bon goes to see his lawyer, who suggests blackmailing Sutpen. Bon, in a rage, strikes the attorney and challenges him to a duel, which the lawyer declines. Henry and Bon discuss the matter of incest incessantly, and Henry claims that he needs time to "get used to it." Both men believe that Judith will marry Bon without any compunction, "because they both knew that women will show pride and honor about almost anything except love." Henry tries to justify it to himself with all sorts of examples--famous kings, dukes, popes, etc.--while the war begins and they march off to battle.
The story gets away from them now, taking on a life of its own. They imagine Bon saving Henry from wounds in battle, even though General Compson says that it was Bon who received a wound in battle. In Shreve and Quentin's version, Bon saves Henry and Henry begs Bon to let him die. All the while Bon keeps hoping that Sutpen will give him some type of acknowledgement. But instead of speaking to Bon, Sutpen calls for Henry on the battlefield and plays his final trump card--that Bon's mother was part black. Henry confronts Bon, now certain that Bon cannot marry Judith, and Bon remarks, "So it's the miscegenation, not the incest, which you cant bear." Bon agonizes that Sutpen has still not sent him any word at all and dares Henry to stop him from marrying Judith. When Henry stands up to him, Bon hands Henry his pistol and tells him to kill him, then and there. But Henry does not, and Bon tells him coldly that Henry will have to stop him from marrying Judith.
Shreve and Quentin then relive the scene of Henry and Bon riding up to the gate of Sutpen's Hundred. They think about the picture Bon left in a metal case in his pocket when he died, for Judith's eyes only: a picture of the octoroon mistress and the child, Charles Etienne de St. Valery Bon. The picture was in a metal case that Judith had given him with her own picture in it. They wonder why Bon would have left this picture for Judith and conclude that Bon knew Henry was going to kill him, and that he put the picture of the octoroon mistress in his pocket for her to find to let her know that he did not deserve her grief. Satisfied with this explanation, Shreve suggests that they go to bed.
Analysis
Chapter Eight is based almost solely on imagination. Granted, it is two very bright and psychologically sophisticated young men who are doing the imagining--Shreve and Quentin's version of Charles Bon's inner life is extremely persuasive--but it is imagination nonetheless. They could not know what Charles Bon really felt or thought; no one knew that. They create the figure of Charles Bon to fit the story, imagining what type of circumstances and feelings would lead a worldly young man like Bon to seemingly self-destruct. And since the story they know is already colored and shaded by so many different tellers and so many different perspectives, their invention of Charles Bon in reaction to the story necessarily incorporates all of these voices and perspectives. The result is a rich tapestry of reinventions and reinterpretations that say more about the people who have told the story of Sutpen and Charles Bon--Miss Rosa, Mr. Compson, General Compson, Quentin, and Shreve--than about Sutpen or Charles Bon themselves. Bon, for example, remains a mystery even after the enlightenments of this chapter. In fact, he is even more mysterious at the end of this chapter than he was at the beginning.
Consider, for example, the incredible ironies that this chapter reveals: Bon, with his mixed-race background, is a colonel in the Confederate army, fighting for a system that wishes to continue slavery and make it impossible for people of mixed-race background to find a place in society. Then there is the role of Charles Bon's mother, who willfully destroys her son, who indeed raises her son for the sole purpose of inflicting revenge on the man who scorned and abandoned her. Finally, there is Sutpen himself, who might have avoided the destruction of his "design" by simply acknowledging Charles Bon as his son and asking him to leave for good. Bon indicated that he would have been perfectly willing to leave the Sutpens alone and not pursue marriage to Judith if Sutpen had simply given him recognition of some kind--any kind.
Despite the frustrations of trying to understand a character with a very limited voice, Shreve and Quentin create a compelling portrait of Charles Bon. Their rendition of the bond between Henry and Bon is particularly good and fleshes out an important part of the story that had not, until now, been fully described. It is interesting to note the similarities between the Henry/Bon relationship and the Quentin/Shreve relationship. Both relationships are predicated on the fascination of a provincial young man with an older, exotic creature (Quentin is a few months older than Shreve and the South is, to Shreve and to many other students at Harvard, nothing if not exotic). In both relationships, tacit understandings are vital to the cooperation of the two men. And finally, as critics have noted, there are glimmers of homoeroticism in the descriptions of both relationships. In The Sound and the Fury, Quentin wrestles with the same feelings of incest that Henry does--what might have happened if Shreve had tried to marry Caddy, Quentin's sister?
In this chapter, though, there is no theme more important and more recepient of critical attention than race. With Sutpen's "trump card," it becomes clear that race, not incest or mistresses, is the central hinge of the Sutpen story and the central theme of the book. As Arthur Kinney says, "But what for Faulkner is most haunting is...the agonizing recognition of the exacting expenses of racism, for him the most difficult and most grievous awareness of all. Racism spreads contagiously through his works, unavoidably. Its force is often debilitating; its consequences often beyond reckoning openly. The plain recognition of racism is hardest to bear and yet most necessary to confront." The "trump card" opens up an entire new story. With Charles Bon's statement about how Henry can overcome incest but not miscegenation, Faulkner implies that there exists, in America, a taboo even greater than the genetically programmed, physiological taboo of incest. This is a serious implication and a serious commentary on the way in which racism has worked its way into the American--especially the South, but do not forget that this story is being related in the North--cultural fabric.
What makes this implication all the more intriguing is that some critics are not altogether convinced that the problem with Bon's mother was mixed blood. Cleanth Brooks, for example, has pointed out that Charles Bon's negro blood is not proven in the story, but is mere supposition. And Noel Polk argues that "the reason Thomas Sutpen puts away his Haitian family has nothing to do with Negro blood, but with his belated discovery, after the birth of the baby, of his wife's previous marriage and/or sexual experience." Remember that the only evidence we have that Bon's mother was of mixed blood comes from Sutpen via Shreve and Quentin's imagined story. Earlier on, when Sutpen was relating his own story, he did not specify what his first wife's defect was. This further implicates everyone--including the reader, who will have naturally gone along with Sutpen's "trump card"--in the problem of racism.
March 26:
- Read Analysis of Chapter 6 below.
- Follow handout for Active Reading Assignment and read 141*-156
Analysis Overall, Rosa's second chapter is a fascinating example of one of the storytelling techniques that Faulkner develops the book around: how stories are understood not by what is said, but by what is left unsaid. She spends a great deal of time negating possible motivations for the decisions she made after Charles Bon's death, but she spends very little time explaining the motivation that she actually had. The reader is left to infer from the bits of psychological information she unknowingly reveals. For example, the love for Charles Bon that she hints at shows that despite how she feels about Judith, "I did not understand [her] and, if what my observation warranted me to believe was true, I did not wish to understand [her]," Rosa is jealous of the fact that Judith had at least the opportunity to fall in love with a dashing, mysterious man. Indeed, much of the bitterness Rosa feels towards everyone in this chapter--especially Sutpen--is due to a fact that none of them can control: the fact that because of class, birth order, and historical situation, Rosa would not have the opportunity to marry and to enjoy her youth. The startling revelation at the end of the chapter-- "something" has been living in the Sutpen house for four years--is a great "goosebumps" moment. Faulkner works within the Gothic tradition of haunted houses to keep the story going. Now, we see, this novel is not just about a story in the past--but there's an equally compelling story in the present. It is worth noting that Faulkner doesn't pull out this trump card until the middle of the book. At the beginning of the book, this revelation would not have the rich connection to Sutpen's life, legend, and character--it would merely seem hokey. This chapter is also important because it shows the beginning of the end for Sutpen. Against a beautifully drawn picture of the Reconstruction South, Faulkner shows his hero as fallible for the first time. There is something "missing" from him--although the iron will remains, and Sutpen begins rebuilding the moment he returns from the war, some crucial element of his character is gone. Rosa's rendition of her confrontation on the stairs with Clytie has received a lot of critical attention. In these pages, Faulkner begins to develop the theme that will come to dominate this book: race and racism in America. Faulkner himself has received a great deal of criticism for his own racism, which, although it pervades his texts, is mostly unintended. But even Faulkner's own racism serves to enlighten readers about the types of racism and the Southern peculiarities about race that he wrestles with in his texts. For example, during their confrontation on the stairs, Rosa describes Clytie as "not owner: instrument; I still say that" of Sutpen, his house, and his legacy. This description, and the descriptions that follow it, betrays ignorance because it dehumanizes Clytie, it robs her of her right to speak as an independent human being--but it is telling about the ways in which race is circumscribed in this novel. Clytie will be presented throughout as a keeper of Sutpen, Sutpen's home and Sutpen's legacy, none of which have offered her any real reward or even gratitude. She is never given the right to tell her own version of the Sutpen legend, although she would no doubt have a fascinating and perhaps one of the most accurate versions of all the characters in the book. Unfortunately, very few of Faulkner's black characters in any of his books are given the chance to speak with their own voices, and the specific plight of Clytie is shared by other black characters in Faulkner's work. As Pamela Knights says, "Dilsey [from The Sound and the Fury] and Clytie, indeed, guard the houses of the Fathers, which hold the secrets of the white families. As Arthur Kinney says, this is a "profoundly subtle and profoundly deep" form of racism (266), and even if "wholly unintended" these tragic revisions perpetuate the hierarchies and the exclusions [of racism]."
Weekend Homework:
Please read pages 103-123.
HW: Please write this down – YOU MUST BRING IN A TALKING POINT FROM THE WEEKEND’S READING. BRING IN SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT. YOU HAVE TO TALK ABOUT IT IN CLASS SO DON’T FEEL BAD IF YOU GET CALLED ON TO TALK ABOUT IT BUT YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY SAY WORDS, IN CLASS, ABOUT THE WEEKEND’S READING. IF WE GET 24 COMMENTS WE WILL FEEL THE ENERGY LIFT US OFF THE FLOOR.
THANKS/ LOOKING FORWARD TO IT.
AND THANKS FOR TAKING THE IN-CLASS ESSAY TODAY. GOOD JOB. I HOPE YOU PREPARED YOURSELF.
Monday, 3/19:
- Read 70-80. No class Thursday. Quiz/Test (15 points) on Friday.
- Be sure to be in attendance all week. Very exciting times.
Thursday, March 15 (due Monday):
Absalom, Absalom: Read pages 33-69.
Today we made the observation that Chapter 2 reveals a more humanizing view of Sutpen than we received from Rosa Coldfield in Chapter 1.
For homework, please take notes on the weekend's reading. Your notes should recognize how this humanization of Sutpen continues and/or if Chapter 2 returns to a similar tone/approach to this man presented in Chapter 1....or, is there a new perspective (there probably is, since there is a lot of reading to be done). Our goal is to recognize what was promised to us in the big literature book:
The story of Thomas Sutpen, the ruthless would-be founder of a southern dynasty after the Civil War, is related by four different speakers, each trying to find "the meaning" of the story. The reader, observing how the story changes in each telling, comes to see that making stories is the human way of making meaning (2217).
Please note: I would rather see confident, tiny observations made over the course of the reading than a full page of notes over pages 33-40.
Thanks and email with any questions.
ALSO
Here is the link I was going to view with you in class. Hopefully we can look over it together on Monday or Tuesday.
Thursday, March 8: Essay final draft due on Monday, 3/12 - email or bring in please. Read "The Life You Save..." by Monday. I will trade books with you on Friday morning (Big book for Red book). It's Choose Book Week - if you haven't chosen a book, you must do so immediately.
February 29-March 12 The Catcher in the Rye and Into the Wild:
Rough Draft: 3/6 2nd Draft (to me): 3/7 Final draft: 3/12 - day 7 - email or bring in by 2:35pm.
BIG LIT BOOK - pages 2216-2224 - due Thursday, 3/8. Read William Faulkner biography and take notes (as we did for Emerson, Fuller, Thoreau). Read "A Rose for Emily" - give yourself time.
Thursday and Vacation and Feb. 27 Homework: Friday, 2/17: Units 13 & 14 vocab. quiz
Vacation: Consider American novel(s) for 4th quarter essay. Shop around, visit library, email me with ?s.
Due Tuesday, 2/28: Finish Into the Wild (pages 157-207) and complete nonfiction notebook (1/2 page minimum per chapter). for chapters 16, 17, 18 and the Epilogue.
Wednesday, 2/15 (due Thur.): - Read Chapter 14 & 15 - do so very carefully and bring to class some fire and freshness. Have an opinion. - Complete two entries into nonfiction notebook. Be extensive. - Vocabulary Quiz Friday (no reading HW on Thur. night)
Monday, 2/13 (due Wed. - no class on Tues.):
- Please read Chapters 10, 11, and 12. Student ownership on notes and knowledge. Nothing will be collected or checked - you should know by now what to look for while reading - please read actively and bring many observations and opinions to class. - Vocab. Quiz on Friday, 2/17.
Friday, 2/10: - Read Chapters 7 & 8 and complete nonfiction notebook - 3/4 page for both and I'll give you a break on it at times next week. Please give strong consideration to how we have been discussing this book over the past 48 hours. - Vocab. Quiz: Friday, 2/17.
Wednesday, 2/8 (due Thur.): - Into the Wild: Read chapters 1-5 and complete all 5 nonfiction notebook entries. - Finish vocab. sentences - NOW!
Monday, 2/6/12: Read and annotateMenand article. Vocabulary Quiz Wednesday.
Wednesday, Feb. 1:
Wed. night: Read 141-171 - be prepared to work on assignment in class tomorrow.
Weekend Homework: Finish novel (171-214). Complete reaction to final scene(s) of novel, focusing especially on pages 200-214. Same as assignment that was due today: 3/4 page, typed, double space, etc.
Vocab Quiz: Wed. February 8
Friday, Jan 27:
- Read pages 35-68. Complete Handout (no handout, just complete in your notebook): - do the opposite of what you did for homework on Thur. night - Please post vocabulary to wiki by Tuesday.
Thursday, Jan 26th: - Read pages 1-35 of The Catcher in the Rye. Complete Handout: - Write short paragraph - your initial psychological criticism of Holden Caulfield - Write short paragraph - predict why the novel has a strong reader response.
Tuesday and Wednesday Homework - due Thursday, 1/26:
- VISIT J.D. SALINGER BIO LINK
READ AND KNOW
- VISIT FORMS OF CRITICISM LINK
READ AND KNOW PSYCHOLOGICAL and READER-RESPONSE CRITICISM (I bolded them for you).
Thur., 1/12:
Please work on American Essay. Please email with any questions/struggles. Please look over mid-year review handout - prepare questions for class.
Wed., 1/11:
Rough draft for peer-evaluation due Tuesday, 1/17. Final draft due Wednesday, 1/18. Examine Mid-term review sheet - prepare questions/concerns
Tues: Quiz tomorrow.
Thur., 1/5 (due 1/9 - no class Friday):
Please complete assignment from wiki page American Rev Identity Speeches. Please make sure you have a minimum of 2 pages of active reading. Don't skip spaces.
Tuesday, 1/3 (due 1/4):
- Read Kennedy (196), Adams (205), Crevecoeur (208). - Answer questions 1-3, 6 and 7 on page 205. Answer questions 2-6 on page 210 (no JFK ?s).
Wednesday, 12/21: Read Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine (pages 154-162) from red book. Complete all questions - due tomorrow.
Monday 12/19 - (no class tomorrow): The Crucible Quiz on Wednesday - 5 quotes to analyze and one short essay.
Friday, 12/16: Finish play - pay special attention to conversations between: - Parris & Danforth - Proctor & Elizabeth - Proctor & Theocracy - Elizabeth & Hale
Thur: Finish Act III
Wednesday, 12/14: ACT III: - Please read pages 86-99. Tonight's activity: - Please Bring in 5+ MVPs that speak to today's activity. To those who were out of class, please know that the court scene is a fight between the theocracy (the judges, Parris, Hale) and the rebels (Proctor, Giles, Frances Nurse, Hale (say what!?!). Your MVPs should be quotes that would either benefit the argument of the Theocracy or the Rebels.
Please write quote, page number, who wins with the point being made, and why.
Tuesday, 12/13: - Finish Act II. - Answer questions and complete handout.
Monday: Read 34-66 - bring in 3 MVPs (2 from each act)
Thursday, 12/7: - Vocab. quiz tomorrow. - Please read pages 3-8 in The Crucible tonight. - Read pages 8-33 by Monday.
Monday, 12/5: - Transcendental Test on Wed. - Vocab quiz on Thur.
Thur.,12/1: - Draft of Song/Poem essay due tomorrow for quick peer-evaluation. - Read Margaret Fuller in big book for Monday. - Vocab. quiz Thursday, 12/8. - Transcendental Test - Wed., 12/7.
Monday HW: - Please print and edit the group email. Group Essay (Emerson) tab is on the left. - Read 858-865 by Tuesday/ Read 914-920 by Thursday. - Read rubric for Transcendental song/poem rubric. Song/Poem analysis due Friday/ Picture due Monday, 12/5. - Vocabulary Quiz, Thur., 12/8. Please put up words tonight.Do your part.
Tuesday/Vacation HW: Read Thoreau - Walden - pages 844-middle of 846. HEY- I ONLY RECEIVED THREE OF THE FIVE EMAILS!!! My original idea: Please look for Group Essay Tab to the left. I will post our published essay later today.
Weekend and Monday night (due Tuesday): Thoreau: pages 825-833. Take notes on Thoreau (as you did for Emerson) and bring 3 quotes from "Civil Disobedience." Add vocabulary by Monday, 11/28.
Wednesday, 11/16: Read "Self-Reliance" - pages 532-538 (stop at is to be misunderstood (top of page). Complete Prompt: In “Self-Reliance” Emerson urges his audience to rely on themselves. In a concise paragraph, please justify this statement using at least three pieces of textual evidence from the reading.
Monday, 11/14 (due Wednesday): Read American Scholar - 522-middle of 525 (stopping at ...forward at all hours.) Read "Nature" section from pagses 494-495 (Nature is a setting that fits... > end of Chapter I). Bring in 4 quotes to discuss - split between both pieces.
Presentation of Gatsby Quote - Wednesday, November 15
Wednesday, 11/9: Vocabulary Quiz Monday. Gatsby Rewrite due on Thursday. Please remember previous drafts/rubric. Presentation of Gatsby Quote - Wednesday, November 15
Tuesday, 11/8: No Vocabulary Quiz Tomorrow - changed to Monday. Read and annotate Emerson bio for Wednesday (pages 488-492). Gatsby Rewrite due on Thursday. Presentation of Gatsby Quote - Wednesday, November 15
Friday, 11/4: - Vocabulary Quiz, Units 6 & 7, Wednesday, November 9.
Wednesday, 11/2 (no class on Thursday): - Final draft of Gatsby Tone Essay due Friday, 11/4. Please note: late essays will not be allowed opportunity to complete a rewrite.
- Memorize and know between 12-15 lines from The Great Gatsby. You will share this with the class on Tuesday, November 8. This will be first grade of 2nd quarter. Start to memorize/know – more information to come.
- Vocabulary Units 6 & 7 – Quiz on Wednesday, November 9.
Tuesday, 11/1: - Final draft of Tone essay due Friday. - Hemingway/Fitzgerald Quiz/Test Essay; in-class tomorrow! - Please be sure your new vocab words are done -we will discuss ASAP and have quiz in a week or so.
Friday, 10/28 (due 10/31): - Hemingway/Fitzgerald Tone and Style In-class Essay on Monday. - Fitzgerald/Nick/Tone Rough draft for Peer-Evaluation - due Tuesday, 11/1. - Please update vocabulary on Wiki.
Thursday, 10/27 - Tone essay rough draft due November 1/ Final draft due November 2/ Rewrite due November 7. - Fitzgerald/ Hemingway style/tone test on Monday.
Monday, 10/24 (due Thursday - dropped F period and field trip): - Finish The Great Gatsby. As you read, please indicate 10 quotes that reveal Nick's tone - his attitude toward the events of the chapter, his reaction to other characters, and his final opinions of Gatsby and the summer of 1922.
- Please add your vocab. to the wiki - please complete by Friday.
Friday, 10/21 (due 10/24):
-Read Gatsby - Chapter VIII - Hey all - check out the Nick's experience page - Tara, Haley Morgan, and Delaney did a great job observing Nick's experience/opinion on matters. Thanks to these three and to all of you for a strong week of looking closely at Fitzgerald's language.
Thu., 10/20:
Volunteers - post by Friday.
Gatsby - Finish Chapter VII and prompt (due tomorrow).
Wed., 10/19: Volunteers - post by Friday. Gatsby - Read 113-125 Complete T.W.I. for pages 108-111.
Monday, 10/17 HW: - Attention: We need volunteers for the Nick's Experience wiki post. You can post anytime between now and Thursday, using any quotes from pages 1-111. - Rewrite due tomorrow or Wednesday* - Gatsby: Read pages 97-101. - Complete TWIST for Chapter V and/or 97-101.
Thursday, 10/13 HW (due Monday, 10/17): - Attention: We need volunteers for the Nick's Experience wiki post. You can post anytime between now and Thursday, using any quotes from pages 1-111. - Come get your essay on Friday - we do not have class. - Rewrites due on Tuesday. If you see me on Tuesday before, after, or during school then you can hand them in on Wed. Please follow highlighting and striking rules of rewrite. Please take the extra second to do this correctly. - Gatsby: Read 73-91 for Monday. Take brief but specific notes on Nick's reaction to:
Chapter IV: the speakeasy and his conversation with Jordan Chapter V: the reunion.
Wednesday, 10/12 HW (due Wed., 10/13): -Go as deep into the rewrite as possible. Bring questions to computer lab. Please put the time in tonight so you can get the most out of the computer lab rewrite tomorrow. - The Great Gatsby: Read pages 61-middle of 73.
- Finish chapter 3. Please bring in 3 quotes from the end of this chapter. Write them down.
- Find three other quotes from previous in the chapter as Nick witnesses the party. Bring in 6 total.
- Rewrites on Wednesday night and Thursday morning (computer lab).
- Units 3&4 Vocabulary Quiz - Friday, 10/14. Tuesday, 10/11 HW (due Wed., 10/12): - Finish chapter 3. Please bring in 3 quotes from the end of this chapter. Write them down. - Find three other quotes from previous in the chapter as Nick witnesses the party. Bring in 6 total. - Rewrites on Wednesday night and Thursday morning (computer lab). - Units 3&4 Vocabulary Quiz - Friday, 10/14.
Thursday, 10/6 HW (due Tuesday, 10/11). - Read 34-48 in The Great Gatsby. Stop at "I'm Gatsby." - Complete today's handout (questions and short essay). - Vocab. Quiz - Units 3 & 4 - Friday, 10/14.
Wednesday, 10/5 HW:
- Gatsby: Please read 14-33 for Thursday. Bring in 3 formalist observations.
3 Volunteers - please post to Gatsby...chapters 1 & 2 by Friday 8am. - Vocab Quiz - Friday, 10/14.
Tuesday, 10/4 HW: - Twain essay: Final Draft with Works Cited Page due tomorrow. Please bring all previous drafts and rubric. - Gatsby: please read pages 7-13 by Wednesday. Please read 14-33 for Thursday. 3 Volunteers - please post to Gatsby...chapters 1 & 2 by Friday 8am.
Friday, 9/30 HW:
- Twain essay: Final draft due Wed., 10/5. - Read "The Battler" by Tuesday. - Read pages 1-6 in Gatsby by Tuesday.
Wednesday, 9/28 HW:
- Twain essay: Rough draft due Fri. 9/30. Typed with both sources represented. Final draft due Wed., 10/5.
- Read "The Battler" by Monday.
Tuesday, 9/27 HW:
- Twain essay: Rough draft due Fri. 9/30 / Final draft due Wed., 10/5.
- Read "The Battler" by Monday. I will give this to you tomorrow.
Monday, 9/26 HW:
- Twain essay: Rough draft due Fri. 9/30 / Final draft due Wed., 10/5.
- Read "Indian Camp" and Hemingway bio by Tuesday.
3 Volunteers (JB, YD, KM): Please post to Hemingway/"Indian Camp" page by Tuesday 8am. Friday, 9/23 HW:
- By Sunday night, please post topic to HUCK ESSAY TOPIC page. - Begin Twain Essay - Rough draft due Wed., 9/28 / Final draft due Tues., 10/4. - Read "Indian Camp" and Hemingway bio by Tuesday. 3 Volunteers (JB, YD, KM): Please post to Hemingway/"Indian Camp" page by Tuesday 8am.
Thursday, 9/22 HW: By Sunday night, please Post Topic to HUCK ESSAY TOPIC page.
Tuesday, 9/20 HW:
Finish Huck by Thursday. Choose topic for Essay 2 Pre-write.
Read Twain handouts (please read after finishing novel).
Unit 1 & 2 Vocabulary Quiz on Friday. Monday, 9/19 HW: Finish Huck by Thursday. Read Twain handouts (please read after finishing novel). Unit 1 & 2 Vocabulary Quiz on Friday.
Friday, 9/16 HW: ICB final draft due Monday. Read 218-250 for Monday. Three NEW volunteers: Please post to Huck Finn wiki page by Monday. ### Thursday, 9/15 HW: ICB final draft due Monday. Read 218-250 for Monday. Three NEW volunteers: Please post to Huck Finn wiki page by Monday.
### Wednesday, 9/14 HW (due 9/15): ICB final draft due Monday. Read 209-218 for Thursday. Three Volunteers: Please post to Huck Finn wiki page.
### Tuesday, 9/13 HW (due 9/14): Read 118-209 in Huck. Be VERY prepared for discussion. Get The Sun Also Rises M.W.D.S. to me for safe-keeping. Update vocabulary on wiki ASAP - any troubles please see me.
### Homework-- Monday is Day 7 - no class:
ICB Rough draft due Tuesday. Read 118-209 by Wednesday. Update vocabulary on wiki ASAP - any troubles please see me.
The Things They Carried quiz/test (15 points) on Friday - 41 minutes during class day .
Tuesday, 5/29:
- Finish "Speaking of Courage"
- Read "Notes," "Good Form," and "Lives of the Dead"
- Answer final few questions from "Speaking...." and all "Lives of the Dead" ?s.
Tuesday, 5/22:
The Things They Carried:
For Wednesday: Read "How to Tell a True War Story" and half of "Speaking of Courage" (read to 137-144 in softcover and 131-138 in hardcover).
4th Quarter Essay
please note: due date changes:
- Peer Evaluation 3: Friday, 5/25
- Final draft: Tuesday, 5/29.
Extra-help:
All days before school - beginning at 7:30 Tu, Th, F/ 7:15 on Wed.
After-school on Wednesday or by appt.
Monday, 5/21:
The Things They Carried:
For Tuesday: Read "Friends," "Enemies," "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong," "Stockings" and "Church."
4th Quarter Essay
please note: due date changes:
- Peer Evaluation 3: Friday, 5/25
- Final draft: Tuesday, 5/29.
Extra-help:
All days before school - beginning at 7:30 Tu, Th, F/ 7:15 on Wed.
After-school on Wednesday or by appt.
Thursday, 5/17:
- Read "On the Rainy River"
- Know O'Brien's
- political objections
- the irony of his decision/situation
- America's role in the story.
Monday, 5/14:
- Please clean up rough draft and prepare for rough draft peer-evaluation day 2.
- A third rough draft will be collected on Wednesday.
- Word document below has the quotes for Wednesday's Hamlet test - it has been updated with all 15 quotes from all 5 Acts.
Hamlet Complete Text
Thursday, 5/10:
- Check back here on Friday for word document w/ Hamlet quotes - test on Wednesday, 5/16.
- Rough draft of 4th quarter essay due Monday, 5/14.
Tuesday, 5/8 (no class Wed.):
- Finish Hamlet.
- 4th Q Essay - Rough Draft due Monday, May 14.
- Bring thesis statement to class on Thursday.
Friday, 5/4:
- Read 199-235 by Monday. NO QUESTIONS but know the quotes from this sheet:
- Know all due dates for 4th Quarter Essay. Begin working now.
- Bring all books to class - outside reading & Hamlet.
Thursday, 5/3:
- Hamlet: Read Act III, scene iv and two pages of Act IV, scene i (pages 169-middle of 191) and answer questions.
- Know all due dates for 4th Quarter Essay. Begin working now.
- Bring all books to class - outside reading & Hamlet.
Tuesday, 5/1:
- Hamlet: Read Act III, scene ii (pages 135-161) and answer questions.
- Know all due dates for 4th Quarter Essay. Begin working now.
- Bring all books to class - outside reading & Hamlet.
Thursday, 4/26:
-Annotated Bibliography due Monday, 4/30.
- Know all due dates for 4th Quarter Essay. Begin working now.
- Bring all books to class - outside reading & Hamlet.
Wednesday, 4/25:
- Units 13 & 14 Vocab. Quiz on Thursday, April 26.
-Annotated Bibliography due Monday, 4/30.
- Know all due dates for 4th Quarter Essay. Begin working now.
Monday, 4/23:
-Annotated Bibliography due on Monday, 4/30.
Read outside reading book(s). Please finish book(s) and M.W.D.S. by Wednesday, April 25. Quality and Quantity expected.
As you read, consider outside sources for 4th quarter essay.
Units 13 & 14 Vocab. Quiz on Thursday, April 26.
Read over Hamlet Act I notes. Read pages 1-97 if you were out. Please await Act II notes. We will have a quiz on the first three Acts after we finish reading Acts II & III.
THURSDAY, APRIL 12 and Vacation:
Read outside reading book(s). Please finish book(s) and M.W.D.S. by Wednesday, April 25. Quality and Quantity expected.
As you read, consider outside sources for 4th quarter essay.
Units 13 & 14 Vocab. Quiz on Thursday, April 26.
Read over Hamlet Act I notes. Read pages 1-97 if you were out. Please await Act II notes. We will have a quiz on the first three Acts after we finish reading Acts II & III.
YOU MUST BRING YOUR OUTSIDE READING BOOK TO CLASS ON MONDAY AND FOREVER
Thursday, April 5:
Read outside reading book. Please finish book and MWDS by Monday, 4/23.
Dorm room assignment due Monday, 4/9.
Wed., April 4:
Read outside reading book. Please finish book and MWDS by Monday, 4/23.
Finish Absalom, Absalom! - pages 299-303. Be prepared to discuss.
Dorm room assignment due Monday, 4/9.
Tues., April 3:
Tonight: Read the Summary and Analysis of Chapter 8 below. Be prepared to discuss tomorrow along with Chapter 9 reading below.
Read chapter 9, pages 288-298 and take strong notes - 1/2 page minimum w/ quotes.
Shreve and Quentin are completely wrapped up in the Sutpen legend now. Although Shreve has just suggested bedtime, he puts on a robe and a coat to ward off the chill and sits back down to finish the story. Shreve picks up the narration of the story with Charles Bon's childhood. Although Shreve is talking the story runs through both of them-- "the two who breathed not individuals now yet something both more andless than twins"--and they seem to embody the people they are describing. Almost everything in this chapter is speculation, since no one could have known about Bon's childhood or his perspective on the events.
They imagine Bon's mother to have been a woman consumed by rage, determined to mold Bon to be the unknowing instrument of Sutpen's undoing. They believe that she would either not tell Bon about what happened at all, or that she would seize Bon during his playtime as a child to remind him about her suffering. Either way, she would have molded Bon to use him as a weapon against Sutpen. They invent another character to assist her: a lawyer responsible for handing out Sutpen's money to her and Bon. This lawyer would have carefully parcelled out money to Bon as the young man became increasingly indolent and dependent on the voluptuous pleasures of New Orleans; all the while he would be negotiating the whereabouts and actions of Thomas Sutpen in Mississippi. He would report these actions to Bon's mother when she asked for them, sometimes twice a year and sometimes five times in two days, and in general try to smooth relations between the passionate mother and son. This lawyer is a slightly unscrupulous character; there are hints of him wishing to take their money and "light out for Texas." Only the fact that Bon has already spent a great deal of the money restrains him.
They envision tension between Bon and his mother, on her part because Bon spends lots of money and she worries that he might not have the necessary fire to avenge her, and on his part because he realizes that what she feels for him is not the type of love a mother should feel for a child. So he decides--not by himself, but thanks to a suggestion planted by either his mother or the lawyer--to go to school, at the age of twenty-eight years old. The lawyer, who has been keeping careful track of Sutpen, knows that Henry Sutpen will be attending the University of Mississippi at Oxford the same year that Bon is to go away to school. It is the lawyer who directs Bon towards the University of Mississippi and makes all the arrangements. Bon, on the boat to Mississppi from New Orleans, ponders why the lawyer would insist on the University of Mississippi and contemplates the way he is being manipulated yet again. And he is being manipulated again, for in Henry and Shreve's version, the lawyer writes Thomas Sutpen a letter warning him that Charles Bon will be at the University of Mississippi.
They envision's Bon's impressions of Henry--a "young clodhopper bastard" who apes his every move, sometimes to his amusement, sometimes to his annoyance, but always with a degree of strange, loving detachment. Bon knows that Henry is his brother and is confused about how he feels about the young man and his invitation to go to Sutpen's Hundred, but he agrees in the hope that he will see Thomas Sutpen's "instant of indisputable recognition" when he appears. Even if Sutpen never acknowledges him as his son, Bon thinks, that will be enough. But that acknowledgement never happens. He deals with Judith--who as a country girl without much worldly experience could not have challenged or interested him for a moment--wth the same strange, loving detachment he must have felt for Henry. But he loved Judith, Shreve and Quentin affirm, the same way he loved Henry--so much that "he never actually proposed to her and gave her a ring for Mrs. Sutpen to show around." All while he would be admitting these incestuous feelings to himself, he would be agonizing over Sutpen's refusal to acknowledge him in even the smallest way.
And then after Henry's break with Sutpen, they go to New Orleans--Henry's first experience with a cosmopolitan city. Shreve and Quentin imagine that the young man was overwhelmed, though not nearly as puritan about the octoroon mistress as Mr. Compson thought he would be. Bon goes to see his lawyer, who suggests blackmailing Sutpen. Bon, in a rage, strikes the attorney and challenges him to a duel, which the lawyer declines. Henry and Bon discuss the matter of incest incessantly, and Henry claims that he needs time to "get used to it." Both men believe that Judith will marry Bon without any compunction, "because they both knew that women will show pride and honor about almost anything except love." Henry tries to justify it to himself with all sorts of examples--famous kings, dukes, popes, etc.--while the war begins and they march off to battle.
The story gets away from them now, taking on a life of its own. They imagine Bon saving Henry from wounds in battle, even though General Compson says that it was Bon who received a wound in battle. In Shreve and Quentin's version, Bon saves Henry and Henry begs Bon to let him die. All the while Bon keeps hoping that Sutpen will give him some type of acknowledgement. But instead of speaking to Bon, Sutpen calls for Henry on the battlefield and plays his final trump card--that Bon's mother was part black. Henry confronts Bon, now certain that Bon cannot marry Judith, and Bon remarks, "So it's the miscegenation, not the incest, which you cant bear." Bon agonizes that Sutpen has still not sent him any word at all and dares Henry to stop him from marrying Judith. When Henry stands up to him, Bon hands Henry his pistol and tells him to kill him, then and there. But Henry does not, and Bon tells him coldly that Henry will have to stop him from marrying Judith.
Shreve and Quentin then relive the scene of Henry and Bon riding up to the gate of Sutpen's Hundred. They think about the picture Bon left in a metal case in his pocket when he died, for Judith's eyes only: a picture of the octoroon mistress and the child, Charles Etienne de St. Valery Bon. The picture was in a metal case that Judith had given him with her own picture in it. They wonder why Bon would have left this picture for Judith and conclude that Bon knew Henry was going to kill him, and that he put the picture of the octoroon mistress in his pocket for her to find to let her know that he did not deserve her grief. Satisfied with this explanation, Shreve suggests that they go to bed.
Analysis
Chapter Eight is based almost solely on imagination. Granted, it is two very bright and psychologically sophisticated young men who are doing the imagining--Shreve and Quentin's version of Charles Bon's inner life is extremely persuasive--but it is imagination nonetheless. They could not know what Charles Bon really felt or thought; no one knew that. They create the figure of Charles Bon to fit the story, imagining what type of circumstances and feelings would lead a worldly young man like Bon to seemingly self-destruct. And since the story they know is already colored and shaded by so many different tellers and so many different perspectives, their invention of Charles Bon in reaction to the story necessarily incorporates all of these voices and perspectives. The result is a rich tapestry of reinventions and reinterpretations that say more about the people who have told the story of Sutpen and Charles Bon--Miss Rosa, Mr. Compson, General Compson, Quentin, and Shreve--than about Sutpen or Charles Bon themselves. Bon, for example, remains a mystery even after the enlightenments of this chapter. In fact, he is even more mysterious at the end of this chapter than he was at the beginning.
Consider, for example, the incredible ironies that this chapter reveals: Bon, with his mixed-race background, is a colonel in the Confederate army, fighting for a system that wishes to continue slavery and make it impossible for people of mixed-race background to find a place in society. Then there is the role of Charles Bon's mother, who willfully destroys her son, who indeed raises her son for the sole purpose of inflicting revenge on the man who scorned and abandoned her. Finally, there is Sutpen himself, who might have avoided the destruction of his "design" by simply acknowledging Charles Bon as his son and asking him to leave for good. Bon indicated that he would have been perfectly willing to leave the Sutpens alone and not pursue marriage to Judith if Sutpen had simply given him recognition of some kind--any kind.
Despite the frustrations of trying to understand a character with a very limited voice, Shreve and Quentin create a compelling portrait of Charles Bon. Their rendition of the bond between Henry and Bon is particularly good and fleshes out an important part of the story that had not, until now, been fully described. It is interesting to note the similarities between the Henry/Bon relationship and the Quentin/Shreve relationship. Both relationships are predicated on the fascination of a provincial young man with an older, exotic creature (Quentin is a few months older than Shreve and the South is, to Shreve and to many other students at Harvard, nothing if not exotic). In both relationships, tacit understandings are vital to the cooperation of the two men. And finally, as critics have noted, there are glimmers of homoeroticism in the descriptions of both relationships. In The Sound and the Fury, Quentin wrestles with the same feelings of incest that Henry does--what might have happened if Shreve had tried to marry Caddy, Quentin's sister?
In this chapter, though, there is no theme more important and more recepient of critical attention than race. With Sutpen's "trump card," it becomes clear that race, not incest or mistresses, is the central hinge of the Sutpen story and the central theme of the book. As Arthur Kinney says, "But what for Faulkner is most haunting is...the agonizing recognition of the exacting expenses of racism, for him the most difficult and most grievous awareness of all. Racism spreads contagiously through his works, unavoidably. Its force is often debilitating; its consequences often beyond reckoning openly. The plain recognition of racism is hardest to bear and yet most necessary to confront." The "trump card" opens up an entire new story. With Charles Bon's statement about how Henry can overcome incest but not miscegenation, Faulkner implies that there exists, in America, a taboo even greater than the genetically programmed, physiological taboo of incest. This is a serious implication and a serious commentary on the way in which racism has worked its way into the American--especially the South, but do not forget that this story is being related in the North--cultural fabric.
What makes this implication all the more intriguing is that some critics are not altogether convinced that the problem with Bon's mother was mixed blood. Cleanth Brooks, for example, has pointed out that Charles Bon's negro blood is not proven in the story, but is mere supposition. And Noel Polk argues that "the reason Thomas Sutpen puts away his Haitian family has nothing to do with Negro blood, but with his belated discovery, after the birth of the baby, of his wife's previous marriage and/or sexual experience." Remember that the only evidence we have that Bon's mother was of mixed blood comes from Sutpen via Shreve and Quentin's imagined story. Earlier on, when Sutpen was relating his own story, he did not specify what his first wife's defect was. This further implicates everyone--including the reader, who will have naturally gone along with Sutpen's "trump card"--in the problem of racism.
March 26:
- Read Analysis of Chapter 6 below.
- Follow handout for Active Reading Assignment and read 141*-156
Analysis
Overall, Rosa's second chapter is a fascinating example of one of the storytelling techniques that Faulkner develops the book around: how stories are understood not by what is said, but by what is left unsaid. She spends a great deal of time negating possible motivations for the decisions she made after Charles Bon's death, but she spends very little time explaining the motivation that she actually had. The reader is left to infer from the bits of psychological information she unknowingly reveals. For example, the love for Charles Bon that she hints at shows that despite how she feels about Judith, "I did not understand [her] and, if what my observation warranted me to believe was true, I did not wish to understand [her]," Rosa is jealous of the fact that Judith had at least the opportunity to fall in love with a dashing, mysterious man. Indeed, much of the bitterness Rosa feels towards everyone in this chapter--especially Sutpen--is due to a fact that none of them can control: the fact that because of class, birth order, and historical situation, Rosa would not have the opportunity to marry and to enjoy her youth.
The startling revelation at the end of the chapter-- "something" has been living in the Sutpen house for four years--is a great "goosebumps" moment. Faulkner works within the Gothic tradition of haunted houses to keep the story going. Now, we see, this novel is not just about a story in the past--but there's an equally compelling story in the present. It is worth noting that Faulkner doesn't pull out this trump card until the middle of the book. At the beginning of the book, this revelation would not have the rich connection to Sutpen's life, legend, and character--it would merely seem hokey.
This chapter is also important because it shows the beginning of the end for Sutpen. Against a beautifully drawn picture of the Reconstruction South, Faulkner shows his hero as fallible for the first time. There is something "missing" from him--although the iron will remains, and Sutpen begins rebuilding the moment he returns from the war, some crucial element of his character is gone.
Rosa's rendition of her confrontation on the stairs with Clytie has received a lot of critical attention. In these pages, Faulkner begins to develop the theme that will come to dominate this book: race and racism in America. Faulkner himself has received a great deal of criticism for his own racism, which, although it pervades his texts, is mostly unintended. But even Faulkner's own racism serves to enlighten readers about the types of racism and the Southern peculiarities about race that he wrestles with in his texts.
For example, during their confrontation on the stairs, Rosa describes Clytie as "not owner: instrument; I still say that" of Sutpen, his house, and his legacy. This description, and the descriptions that follow it, betrays ignorance because it dehumanizes Clytie, it robs her of her right to speak as an independent human being--but it is telling about the ways in which race is circumscribed in this novel. Clytie will be presented throughout as a keeper of Sutpen, Sutpen's home and Sutpen's legacy, none of which have offered her any real reward or even gratitude. She is never given the right to tell her own version of the Sutpen legend, although she would no doubt have a fascinating and perhaps one of the most accurate versions of all the characters in the book. Unfortunately, very few of Faulkner's black characters in any of his books are given the chance to speak with their own voices, and the specific plight of Clytie is shared by other black characters in Faulkner's work. As Pamela Knights says, "Dilsey [from The Sound and the Fury] and Clytie, indeed, guard the houses of the Fathers, which hold the secrets of the white families. As Arthur Kinney says, this is a "profoundly subtle and profoundly deep" form of racism (266), and even if "wholly unintended" these tragic revisions perpetuate the hierarchies and the exclusions [of racism]."
Weekend Homework:
Please read pages 103-123.
HW: Please write this down – YOU MUST BRING IN A TALKING POINT FROM THE WEEKEND’S READING. BRING IN SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT. YOU HAVE TO TALK ABOUT IT IN CLASS SO DON’T FEEL BAD IF YOU GET CALLED ON TO TALK ABOUT IT BUT YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY SAY WORDS, IN CLASS, ABOUT THE WEEKEND’S READING. IF WE GET 24 COMMENTS WE WILL FEEL THE ENERGY LIFT US OFF THE FLOOR.
THANKS/ LOOKING FORWARD TO IT.
AND THANKS FOR TAKING THE IN-CLASS ESSAY TODAY. GOOD JOB. I HOPE YOU PREPARED YOURSELF.
Monday, 3/19:
- Read 70-80. No class Thursday. Quiz/Test (15 points) on Friday.
- Be sure to be in attendance all week. Very exciting times.
Thursday, March 15 (due Monday):
Absalom, Absalom:
Read pages 33-69.
Today we made the observation that Chapter 2 reveals a more humanizing view of Sutpen than we received from Rosa Coldfield in Chapter 1.
For homework, please take notes on the weekend's reading. Your notes should recognize how this humanization of Sutpen continues and/or if Chapter 2 returns to a similar tone/approach to this man presented in Chapter 1....or, is there a new perspective (there probably is, since there is a lot of reading to be done). Our goal is to recognize what was promised to us in the big literature book:
The story of Thomas Sutpen, the ruthless would-be founder of a southern dynasty after the Civil War, is related by four different speakers, each trying to find "the meaning" of the story. The reader, observing how the story changes in each telling, comes to see that making stories is the human way of making meaning (2217).
Please note: I would rather see confident, tiny observations made over the course of the reading than a full page of notes over pages 33-40.
Thanks and email with any questions.
ALSO
Here is the link I was going to view with you in class. Hopefully we can look over it together on Monday or Tuesday.
UVA Absalom
Thursday, March 8:
Essay final draft due on Monday, 3/12 - email or bring in please.
Read "The Life You Save..." by Monday. I will trade books with you on Friday morning (Big book for Red book).
It's Choose Book Week - if you haven't chosen a book, you must do so immediately.
February 29-March 12
The Catcher in the Rye and Into the Wild:
Rough Draft: 3/6
2nd Draft (to me): 3/7
Final draft: 3/12 - day 7 - email or bring in by 2:35pm.
BIG LIT BOOK - pages 2216-2224 - due Thursday, 3/8.
Read William Faulkner biography and take notes (as we did for Emerson, Fuller, Thoreau).
Read "A Rose for Emily" - give yourself time.
Thursday and Vacation and Feb. 27 Homework:
Friday, 2/17: Units 13 & 14 vocab. quiz
Vacation: Consider American novel(s) for 4th quarter essay. Shop around, visit library, email me with ?s.
Due Tuesday, 2/28: Finish Into the Wild (pages 157-207) and complete nonfiction notebook (1/2 page minimum per chapter). for chapters 16, 17, 18 and the Epilogue.
Wednesday, 2/15 (due Thur.):
- Read Chapter 14 & 15 - do so very carefully and bring to class some fire and freshness. Have an opinion.
- Complete two entries into nonfiction notebook. Be extensive.
- Vocabulary Quiz Friday (no reading HW on Thur. night)
Monday, 2/13 (due Wed. - no class on Tues.):
- Please read Chapters 10, 11, and 12. Student ownership on notes and knowledge. Nothing will be collected or checked - you should know by now what to look for while reading - please read actively and bring many observations and opinions to class.
- Vocab. Quiz on Friday, 2/17.
Friday, 2/10:
- Read Chapters 7 & 8 and complete nonfiction notebook - 3/4 page for both and I'll give you a break on it at times next week. Please give strong consideration to how we have been discussing this book over the past 48 hours.
- Vocab. Quiz: Friday, 2/17.
Wednesday, 2/8 (due Thur.):
- Into the Wild: Read chapters 1-5 and complete all 5 nonfiction notebook entries.
- Finish vocab. sentences - NOW!
Monday, 2/6/12:
Read and annotate Menand article.
Vocabulary Quiz Wednesday.
Wednesday, Feb. 1:
Wed. night: Read 141-171 - be prepared to work on assignment in class tomorrow.
Weekend Homework: Finish novel (171-214). Complete reaction to final scene(s) of novel, focusing especially on pages 200-214. Same as assignment that was due today: 3/4 page, typed, double space, etc.
Vocab Quiz: Wed. February 8
Friday, Jan 27:
- Read pages 35-68.
Complete Handout (no handout, just complete in your notebook):
- do the opposite of what you did for homework on Thur. night
- Please post vocabulary to wiki by Tuesday.
Thursday, Jan 26th:
- Read pages 1-35 of The Catcher in the Rye.
Complete Handout:
- Write short paragraph - your initial psychological criticism of Holden Caulfield
- Write short paragraph - predict why the novel has a strong reader response.
Tuesday and Wednesday Homework - due Thursday, 1/26:
- VISIT J.D. SALINGER BIO LINK
- VISIT FORMS OF CRITICISM LINK
Thur., 1/12:
Please work on American Essay. Please email with any questions/struggles.
Please look over mid-year review handout - prepare questions for class.
Wed., 1/11:
Rough draft for peer-evaluation due Tuesday, 1/17.
Final draft due Wednesday, 1/18.
Examine Mid-term review sheet - prepare questions/concerns
Tues:
Quiz tomorrow.
Thur., 1/5 (due 1/9 - no class Friday):
Please complete assignment from wiki page American Rev Identity Speeches.
Please make sure you have a minimum of 2 pages of active reading. Don't skip spaces.
Tuesday, 1/3 (due 1/4):
- Read Kennedy (196), Adams (205), Crevecoeur (208). - Answer questions 1-3, 6 and 7 on page 205. Answer questions 2-6 on page 210 (no JFK ?s).
Wednesday, 12/21:
Read Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine (pages 154-162) from red book. Complete all questions - due tomorrow.
Monday 12/19 - (no class tomorrow):
The Crucible Quiz on Wednesday - 5 quotes to analyze and one short essay.
Friday, 12/16:
Finish play -
pay special attention to conversations between:
- Parris & Danforth
- Proctor & Elizabeth
- Proctor & Theocracy
- Elizabeth & Hale
Thur:
Finish Act III
Wednesday, 12/14:
ACT III:
- Please read pages 86-99.
Tonight's activity:
- Please Bring in 5+ MVPs that speak to today's activity. To those who were out of class, please know that the court scene is a fight between the theocracy (the judges, Parris, Hale) and the rebels (Proctor, Giles, Frances Nurse, Hale (say what!?!). Your MVPs should be quotes that would either benefit the argument of the Theocracy or the Rebels.
Please write quote, page number, who wins with the point being made, and why.
Tuesday, 12/13:
- Finish Act II.
- Answer questions and complete handout.
Monday:
Read 34-66 - bring in 3 MVPs (2 from each act)
Thursday, 12/7:
- Vocab. quiz tomorrow.
- Please read pages 3-8 in The Crucible tonight.
- Read pages 8-33 by Monday.
Monday, 12/5:
- Transcendental Test on Wed.
- Vocab quiz on Thur.
Thur.,12/1:
- Draft of Song/Poem essay due tomorrow for quick peer-evaluation.
- Read Margaret Fuller in big book for Monday.
- Vocab. quiz Thursday, 12/8.
- Transcendental Test - Wed., 12/7.
Monday HW:
- Please print and edit the group email. Group Essay (Emerson) tab is on the left.
- Read 858-865 by Tuesday/ Read 914-920 by Thursday.
- Read rubric for Transcendental song/poem rubric. Song/Poem analysis due Friday/ Picture due Monday, 12/5.
- Vocabulary Quiz, Thur., 12/8. Please put up words tonight. Do your part.
Tuesday/Vacation HW:
Read Thoreau - Walden - pages 844-middle of 846.
HEY- I ONLY RECEIVED THREE OF THE FIVE EMAILS!!!
My original idea: Please look for Group Essay Tab to the left. I will post our published essay later today.
Weekend and Monday night (due Tuesday):
Thoreau: pages 825-833. Take notes on Thoreau (as you did for Emerson) and bring 3 quotes from "Civil Disobedience."
Add vocabulary by Monday, 11/28.
Wednesday, 11/16:
Read "Self-Reliance" - pages 532-538 (stop at is to be misunderstood (top of page).
Complete Prompt:
In “Self-Reliance” Emerson urges his audience to rely on themselves.
In a concise paragraph, please justify this statement using at least three pieces of textual evidence from the reading.
Monday, 11/14 (due Wednesday):
Read American Scholar - 522-middle of 525 (stopping at ...forward at all hours.)
Read "Nature" section from pagses 494-495 (Nature is a setting that fits... > end of Chapter I).
Bring in 4 quotes to discuss - split between both pieces.
Presentation of Gatsby Quote - Wednesday, November 15
Wednesday, 11/9:
Vocabulary Quiz Monday.
Gatsby Rewrite due on Thursday. Please remember previous drafts/rubric.
Presentation of Gatsby Quote - Wednesday, November 15
Tuesday, 11/8:
No Vocabulary Quiz Tomorrow - changed to Monday.
Read and annotate Emerson bio for Wednesday (pages 488-492).
Gatsby Rewrite due on Thursday.
Presentation of Gatsby Quote - Wednesday, November 15
Friday, 11/4:
- Vocabulary Quiz, Units 6 & 7, Wednesday, November 9.
Wednesday, 11/2 (no class on Thursday):
- Final draft of Gatsby Tone Essay due Friday, 11/4. Please note: late essays will not be allowed opportunity to complete a rewrite.
- Memorize and know between 12-15 lines from The Great Gatsby. You will share this with the class on Tuesday, November 8. This will be first grade of 2nd quarter. Start to memorize/know – more information to come.
- Vocabulary Units 6 & 7 – Quiz on Wednesday, November 9.
Tuesday, 11/1:
- Final draft of Tone essay due Friday.
- Hemingway/Fitzgerald Quiz/Test Essay; in-class tomorrow!
- Please be sure your new vocab words are done -we will discuss ASAP and have quiz in a week or so.
Friday, 10/28 (due 10/31):
- Hemingway/Fitzgerald Tone and Style In-class Essay on Monday.
- Fitzgerald/Nick/Tone Rough draft for Peer-Evaluation - due Tuesday, 11/1.
- Please update vocabulary on Wiki.
Thursday, 10/27
- Tone essay rough draft due November 1/ Final draft due November 2/ Rewrite due November 7.
- Fitzgerald/ Hemingway style/tone test on Monday.
Monday, 10/24 (due Thursday - dropped F period and field trip):
- Finish The Great Gatsby. As you read, please indicate 10 quotes that reveal Nick's tone - his attitude toward the events of the chapter, his reaction to other characters, and his final opinions of Gatsby and the summer of 1922.
- Hemingway/ Fitzgerald Formalist Criticism In-class Essay - Monday, October 31 - BOO!!!
- Please add your vocab. to the wiki - please complete by Friday.
Friday, 10/21 (due 10/24):
-Read Gatsby - Chapter VIII
- Hey all - check out the Nick's experience page - Tara, Haley Morgan, and Delaney did a great job observing Nick's experience/opinion on matters. Thanks to these three and to all of you for a strong week of looking closely at Fitzgerald's language.
Thu., 10/20:
Volunteers - post by Friday.
Gatsby - Finish Chapter VII and prompt (due tomorrow).
Wed., 10/19:
Volunteers - post by Friday.
Gatsby - Read 113-125
Complete T.W.I. for pages 108-111.
Monday, 10/17 HW:
- Attention: We need volunteers for the Nick's Experience wiki post. You can post anytime between now and Thursday, using any quotes from pages 1-111.
- Rewrite due tomorrow or Wednesday*
- Gatsby: Read pages 97-101.
- Complete TWIST for Chapter V and/or 97-101.
Thursday, 10/13 HW (due Monday, 10/17):
- Attention: We need volunteers for the Nick's Experience wiki post. You can post anytime between now and Thursday, using any quotes from pages 1-111.
- Come get your essay on Friday - we do not have class.
- Rewrites due on Tuesday. If you see me on Tuesday before, after, or during school then you can hand them in on Wed. Please follow highlighting and striking rules of rewrite. Please take the extra second to do this correctly.
- Gatsby: Read 73-91 for Monday. Take brief but specific notes on Nick's reaction to:
Chapter IV: the speakeasy and his conversation with Jordan
Chapter V: the reunion.
Wednesday, 10/12 HW (due Wed., 10/13):
-Go as deep into the rewrite as possible. Bring questions to computer lab. Please put the time in tonight so you can get the most out of the computer lab rewrite tomorrow.
- The Great Gatsby: Read pages 61-middle of 73.
- Finish chapter 3. Please bring in 3 quotes from the end of this chapter. Write them down.
- Find three other quotes from previous in the chapter as Nick witnesses the party. Bring in 6 total.
- Rewrites on Wednesday night and Thursday morning (computer lab).
- Units 3&4 Vocabulary Quiz - Friday, 10/14.
Tuesday, 10/11 HW (due Wed., 10/12):
- Finish chapter 3. Please bring in 3 quotes from the end of this chapter. Write them down.
- Find three other quotes from previous in the chapter as Nick witnesses the party. Bring in 6 total.
- Rewrites on Wednesday night and Thursday morning (computer lab).
- Units 3&4 Vocabulary Quiz - Friday, 10/14.
Thursday, 10/6 HW (due Tuesday, 10/11).
- Read 34-48 in The Great Gatsby. Stop at "I'm Gatsby."
- Complete today's handout (questions and short essay).
- Vocab. Quiz - Units 3 & 4 - Friday, 10/14.
Wednesday, 10/5 HW:
- Gatsby: Please read 14-33 for Thursday. Bring in 3 formalist observations.
3 Volunteers - please post to Gatsby...chapters 1 & 2 by Friday 8am.
- Vocab Quiz - Friday, 10/14.
Tuesday, 10/4 HW:
- Twain essay: Final Draft with Works Cited Page due tomorrow. Please bring all previous drafts and rubric.
- Gatsby: please read pages 7-13 by Wednesday. Please read 14-33 for Thursday.
3 Volunteers - please post to Gatsby...chapters 1 & 2 by Friday 8am.
Friday, 9/30 HW:
- Twain essay: Final draft due Wed., 10/5.
- Read "The Battler" by Tuesday.
- Read pages 1-6 in Gatsby by Tuesday.
Wednesday, 9/28 HW:
- Twain essay: Rough draft due Fri. 9/30. Typed with both sources represented.
Final draft due Wed., 10/5.
- Read "The Battler" by Monday.
Tuesday, 9/27 HW:
- Twain essay: Rough draft due Fri. 9/30 / Final draft due Wed., 10/5.
- Read "The Battler" by Monday. I will give this to you tomorrow.
Monday, 9/26 HW:
- Twain essay: Rough draft due Fri. 9/30 / Final draft due Wed., 10/5.
- Read "Indian Camp" and Hemingway bio by Tuesday.
3 Volunteers (JB, YD, KM): Please post to Hemingway/"Indian Camp" page by Tuesday 8am.
Friday, 9/23 HW:
- By Sunday night, please post topic to HUCK ESSAY TOPIC page.
- Begin Twain Essay - Rough draft due Wed., 9/28 / Final draft due Tues., 10/4.
- Read "Indian Camp" and Hemingway bio by Tuesday.
3 Volunteers (JB, YD, KM): Please post to Hemingway/"Indian Camp" page by Tuesday 8am.
Thursday, 9/22 HW:
By Sunday night, please Post Topic to HUCK ESSAY TOPIC page.
Tuesday, 9/20 HW:
Finish Huck by Thursday. Choose topic for Essay 2 Pre-write.
Read Twain handouts (please read after finishing novel).
Unit 1 & 2 Vocabulary Quiz on Friday.
Monday, 9/19 HW:
Finish Huck by Thursday.
Read Twain handouts (please read after finishing novel).
Unit 1 & 2 Vocabulary Quiz on Friday.
Friday, 9/16 HW:
ICB final draft due Monday.
Read 218-250 for Monday.
Three NEW volunteers: Please post to Huck Finn wiki page by Monday.
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Thursday, 9/15 HW:
ICB final draft due Monday.
Read 218-250 for Monday.
Three NEW volunteers: Please post to Huck Finn wiki page by Monday.
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Wednesday, 9/14 HW (due 9/15):
ICB final draft due Monday.
Read 209-218 for Thursday.
Three Volunteers: Please post to Huck Finn wiki page.
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Tuesday, 9/13 HW (due 9/14):
Read 118-209 in Huck. Be VERY prepared for discussion.
Get The Sun Also Rises M.W.D.S. to me for safe-keeping.
Update vocabulary on wiki ASAP - any troubles please see me.
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Homework-- Monday is Day 7 - no class:
ICB Rough draft due Tuesday.
Read 118-209 by Wednesday.
Update vocabulary on wiki ASAP - any troubles please see me.