AP Lit 3G: Byron & Shelley & Frankenstein

I haven't been here this week, so Ms. Haskell and the rest of the folks in the room caught me up to the speeds.

We looked at Lord Byron's "She Walks in Beauty" as a class because so many  folks have been absent recently.

We highlighted the contrasts of light and dark, the structure of the rhyme scheme, the presence of only two nouns per line, all working toward Byron's idea of maintaining balance.

We then took a look at an excerpt from Frankenstein.  I selected the opening paragraph from Chapter 20.

We explored the essential questions Shelley raises: responsibility for creation, playing Creator, progress vs safety and more.

More importantly, we examined HOW she builds these ideas through structure, parallelisms, diction and imagery.  

We discussed how Shelley functions as a designer of her work, thinking about the effect the construction of her piece will have upon her chief user: the reader.  

Hence, the lack of breaks in the paragraph, the building intensity, the exponential degrees of growth over the space of the passage, all there to get the reader feeling an overwhelming intensity.

If Shelley didn't employ empathy to achieve these ends, I'm not sure what she used.

Design. Build. Create.

Accept. Communicate. Trust.

HOMEWORK

Blog: 3+ Posts
Req'd Post: Use Colourlovers.com  to create a custom palette of at least three colors relating to meaning in Frankenstein.  You will need to name the palette and each color within it.  Be certain to choose purposeful names and push your self to go beyond the concrete.  (Concrete:  "blue sky" because the sky was blue.)
Due: March 7

Complete: Synthesis #3
Due: Mar 7

AP Lit 2B/3B: Embedding Text Evidence & Building Power Guides

We focused our energy today on uncovering understandings about embedding effective text evidence.

We took a rather non-traditional approach to this work, reading through a number of sources for highlights and insights and then creating our own . . .

POWER GUIDES.

A power guide includes the key takeaways from the sources as well as examples of those takeaways in practice.  What's important about those examples?  They must be your own!

Here are some pics of the various approaches folks took to solving this challenge so far.

HOMEWORK

Blog: 3+ Posts
Req'd Post: Use Colourlovers.com  to create a custom palette of at least three colors relating to meaning in Frankenstein.  You will need to name the palette and each color within it.  Be certain to choose purposeful names and push your self to go beyond the concrete.  (Concrete:  "blue sky" because the sky was blue.)
Due: March 7

Complete: Synthesis #3
Due: Mar 7

Humanities: Merryweather High Orientation ReDesign Presentations

Today was fantastic.

Five great presentations.

We will be using time on Wednesday to dig deeper into what made them great and how we can use that information to help us better solve our design challenge.

HOMEWORK

Blog: 3+ Posts
Req'd Post:  Think back to those first weeks of high school school.  Make a list of five or more things you wish someone had told you about life at Mt. Blue.  Explain your thinking behind each of them.

Roots: 10 (Over 6 - 10)
Roots Quiz 10: Thurs., March 6
Roots Product Due: Thurs., March 6

Present: Merryweather High Orientation Proposal
Due: Today!

Speak: Finish 3rd Marking Period (page 148)
Due: Thursday, Feb 27

Humanities: Working on the Merryweather RAFT Project

Today we started with some time on Roots 10.  You'll find a link over in the right sidebar.

Then there was a big chunk of time to work on the Speak/Merryweather High RAFT.

You have presentations due on Friday.  There WILL be an audience you must impress.

At the end of class will be a few minutes to read Speak.  Please have finished the Second Ranking Period for Wednesday.

HOMEWORK

Blog: 3+ Posts
Req'd Post: 
Empathy.  After break we will be interviewing students, faculty, and others about orientation so we can create the best experience possible.
Create a list of 5 to 7 questions for each of the following users/demographics.  You might use some of the questions for multiple users.

1. 8th Grade Students
2. 9th Grade Students
3. Upperclassmen Students
4. Middle School Teachers
5. High School Teachers
6. Middle School Administrators
7. High School Administrators
8. High School Guidance Counselors
9. Parents of 8th Grade Students
10. Parents of 9th Grade Students
11. Upperclassmen Parents

Due: Friday, Feb 14

Need ideas for more blog posts?  Check out the tag "Blogger Fodder" and the videos/links that have been posted.

Read: Complete the "Second Ranking Period" (pg 102)

Due: Wednesday, Feb 12

Joycean Qualities and Frankliner's Workshop

Happy Birthday, Thomas Alva Edison!

  FREE BOOK ABOUT AWESOME THINGS.

Today is kicking off with some (much needed) test prep-- multiple choice style.

Ryder will undoubtedly rant. This is simply a fact. It will probably be pretty entertaining.

Next we will delve into Joyce for exactly fifteen minutes. The goal is to look for evidence of three of his styles: epiphanies, manipulation of language & aesthetics and free indirect discourse. To do this, we will bust out your design kits and mark up hard copies of the stories. There doesn't need to be any rhyme or reason to how you do your marking-- doodles, brackets, lines, etc-- as long as you know what it is you are highlighting from the text and why... so feel free to get creative!

Following the Joycean Exploration we will sort all the feedback stickies from the board and place them all together on the dragon board, again in a spectrum from least to most helpful.

To wrap up class we will have a writing workshop using the Frankliner's drafts you brought in today.

HOMEWORK

Blog: 3+ Posts (next week, you get to take off for vacation! woot!)

Req'd Post: Analytical work.  By this week you will have read three chapters from "How to Read Lit" -- "Blind," "Geography," and "Season." Foster delivers a great deal of thinking across these three chapters and I believe strongly they apply to Joyce's stories.

Find three powerful ideas from Foster -- one from each chapter -- and then apply those thoughts as lenses for looking at Dubliners.  Explain how each applies and can illuminate understanding from Joyce's work.  (You might focus on multiple stories or only one or two -- that is up to you.  Having a strong sense of Foster's thinking is more important than having a strong sense of each of these stories.) 

You may write, record, film or otherwise capture your thinking, so long as it is clear and can stand on its own without tremendous interpretation on the part of your audience.  Lots of digital tools you can use for this AND it could just be a series of paragraphs as well.  Work to your strengths/interests.

Due: Fri, Feb 14

Read: How to Read Lit Like a Professor "And so Does Season"

Due: Fri, Feb 14 

Write: Working Draft of "Frankliners" story/poem

Due: Wednesday Workshop, Feb 13

Upcoming: Read Frankenstein

Due: Thursday/Friday following Feb break.