The Last Vocab Quiz Ever

Well, it is the last vocab quiz for AP Lit this year. Following our Edgar-inspired vocab quiz, we shared our Macbeth book cards & traded our 1994 free response prompt for samples. Next book card is Monday.

Buzzer Time!

In order to prepare for our LAST, LAST, LAST, AND LAST vocabulary quiz, the AP Lit students reviewed Scholar Quiz-style on the buzzers. The quiz will not contain all unit words, but it will revolve around Frankenstein.

When we stopped the battle of buzzer supremacy between Laura and Justin, we shared our Frankenstein book cards, turned in our Marys compare and contrast, and filled out a free response chart for the 1994 prompt. If you were absent, you will need to walk into class on Friday with that chart completed.

See you on Friday for the next book card, the vocab quiz, a share of the 1994 prompt, and another prompt chosen by a new student.

Toning Up with AP Lit

Today was the last day of new vocabulary words, which means review tomorrow and the final quiz on Friday.

Meanwhile, in order to practice writing and recognizing tone words, we will commence tone paragraph exercises inspired by the great writers and characters of literature. First up, you wrote a paragraph in the voice of Mary Wollstonecraft addressing modern day society. Overall, we are definitely not living up to her expectations.

To finish up the hour, you received a packet of all the free response prompts from 1970-2013. Take a look over the prompts and star/highlight/some form of notation the prompts of interest to you. We will use your favorite prompts to practice free response writing.

LOTS TO DO FOR TOMORROW - THE FRANKENSTEIN BOOK CARD & THE MARYS COMPARE & CONTRAST ESSAY.

Tomorrow is also the last day for t-shirt designs. So far, we have 2 designed by LS.

So Excited!

Spoiler - this blog may contain an abundant use of exclamatory sentences!

Due to my constant need to teach each AP class differently, I have determined to have a different approach to free response essays this year! What does that mean?!? It means much more creativity and opportunities to practice free response writing! It means your book cards will help you complete free response pre-work and essays! It means I have a lot to copy and type up for you this evening!

As for class today, we continued to add to our vocabulary. In sad news, we have 3 vocab words left to go for the entire course! Don't cry, we will be working with tone words next month! Afterwards, you were given the book card assignment - 10 book cards due over the next 6 week period. The first book card, Frankenstein, is due on Wednesday. And, speaking of Wednesday, that is also the due date of your take home essay comparing and contrasting our Wollstonecraft and Shelley.

Lots, lots, lots to do...looking forward to reading your work in these last two and a half months prior to the test.

And, since it was requested, here is the link to one of the AP Lang essays...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/21/opinion/sunday/why-do-we-teach-girls-that-its-cute-to-be-scared.html?_r=0

Goodbye Victor & Edgar

After vocabulary work, we analyzed significant quotes from Frankenstein Ch. 24. I quite liked our idea of Victor attempting to confess his soul to Walton. For Wednesday, you will need to finish the Mary compare and contrast essay, which may be typed or handwritten depending on your timing and preference.

Shirt designs must be submitted by Wednesday, February 24, or we will not have shirts this year.

Frankenstein Prose Prompt

The entire class was dedicated to the Frankenstein Prose Prompt. All prompts will be made up by the end of the day tomorrow either during study hall, after school, or class time.

The Many Interpretations of Edgar

The vocabulary quiz was a success for all, and we copied down the next 10 words for our (possibly) last unit of vocabulary. After mourning the loss of our dear Elizabeth Lavenza, we watched movie trailers for the variants of filmed Frankensteins over the years: the 1931 bolts and lightning Karloff, the Bride and her hiss of disdain towards her new friend, the 1974 humor of Mel Brooks' spoof (I hope you know that Aerosmith borrowed the line "Walk This Way"), the oddity that is Frankenstein Unbound, and the 1994 high Romantic drama that is Kenneth Branagh's version.

For tomorrow, you should have the text completed, and you should be ready for your timed prose prompt.

Naming Our Baby

Dougal, you will have to step aside. The new Frankenstein has been christened Edgar Ithmah.

Readers, prepare chapters 22-23 for tomorrow's class. We will be engaged in a few close reading activities before the end of Frankenstein-- the book and Victor, the most unpopular kid in class. Speaking of Victor's demise, whatever happened to Walton? Why does Shelley regulate him to the beginning and end?

If we have time, we will also watch movie trailers of the Frankenstein incarnations!

Mary = Creature

Although we were quite lethargic and unmotivated at the beginning of the class, that did not stop us from delving into the parallelism of characters and the alignment of Mary Shelley's life and philosophy with that of Victor Frankenstein's creation.

For Tuesday, read chapters 17-21 and select a first and middle name for the creature.

February 10

First off, an article regarding gender roles in St. Louis history:  http://www.stlmag.com/arts/history/from-madame-chouteau-to-the-social-evil-hospital-the-roots-o/

Class-wise, we added three more vocabulary words to our lengthy vernacular, completed a quiz/scavenger hunt on allusions, and discussed chapters 6-9.

For next class, Justin & Ashley will present their observations for chapter 10, and we will discuss the creature's two year adventure in chapters 11-16.

*For those of you absent for the allusion quiz/scavenger hunt, I will announce 2 make-up times next week. One time will be before school and the other will be after school. This will take approximately 15-20 minutes, and you will work with AP students from other classes to complete the assignment.

Paragraph by paragraph

After our first four vocab words, we spent some quality time with chapter 5, analyzing paragraphs to ascertain the importance of diction, tone, symbolism, and characterization filtering through Victor's abandonment of his progeny. For homework, make sure to read chapters 6-10. Rumor has it that our hour has many singing telegrams -- should we compose one for Victor and Elizabeth?

Did We Really Just Run Out of Time?

When you are talking about Frankenstein, the time does seem to slip by. I suppose we are more like Victor and his compulsiveness in his "studies." Anywho, we completed the verbal vocabulary quiz for the remaining Unit 7 words. Happy dance for 100 percent scores on this one! Next, we covered the multiple choice passages and why the answers were correct -- or at least correct to the test writers. Lastly, we began to cover the supporting cast found at the House of Frankenstein: Mr. Frankenstein, Caroline Beaufort Frankenstein, Elizabeth Lavenza, and Henry Clerval. Unfortunately, we did finish the last two cast members, so that shall resume tomorrow. Make sure to read chapter 5. We are going in-depth with diction to uncover Victor's true feelings of fatherhood.

Here's a picture of Wesley, the baby Nyala born at the STL Zoo on January 30. While we did not have the chance to meet our little red-flanked duiker, Vincent, who passed away in December, we still enjoyed meeting Wesley, his Star Trek family, and the other animals at Red Rocks.

Walton & Victor

After reviewing vocab -- your mini verbal quiz will be Monday -- we discussed Walton& Victor's characters and their parallel stories. Ah, foreshadowing! For Monday, you are to read chapters 1-4 and complete a character chart for one of the supporting characters. Laura, you have Caroline.

Lastly, we graded the MC packet and will go over answer explanations on Monday.

On a melancholic note, Mohican, the last fish of my once fecund fish tank, passed away this morning. Although I have bemoaned taking care of hundreds of fish over the past few years, her passing has left me quite lugubrious today. I will miss that little girl.

Mary

First off, I am shocked that not a one of you reminded me to pass out the multiple choice homework assignment. On initial realization, I was going to hunt each of you down and give you the packet. However, you can have it tomorrow for homework instead.

We have transitioned from mother to daughter, from Wollstonecraft to Godwin-Shelley, from Vindication to Frankenstein. After setting up the text, we will begin reading tomorrow and analyzing character details and what we can deduce from specific details and description.

Link to information regarding Romantic Outlaws, the text detailing the lives of mother and daughter: http://charlottegordonbooks.com/romantic_outlaws/

Wollstonecraft's Allusions

After hearing your classmates' presentations, you are well aware that Wollstonecraft has a fondness for philosophical, literary, biblical, and mythological allusions. You have to wonder how poor Rousseau felt after becoming the scapegoat of patriarchal education and expectations for women.

During tomorrow's class, we have 3 presentations left. These presentations will be exactly 4 minutes so that we may return to vocabulary, discuss Mary Godwin Shelley (she passed away on this day in 1851), and commence Frankenstein. Make sure you have ethos on Shelley -- Wikipedia is a start but not the end.

http://shelleysghost.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/domains/shelleysghost.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/local/cache/icon_24_Fig-55-Mary-Shelley-large.jpg200x200.jpg