Happy Birthday, Keats

As you know, my beloved Keatsy would be 222 today, and there are many a poem that represent him and Halloween.

First off, a little ballad (which we did study its form on Friday and today) by Keats: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44475/la-belle-dame-sans-merci-a-ballad.
Here is an article on his appearance and his background: https://wordsworth.org.uk/blog/2016/08/18/picturing-john-keats/.
And, here is a poem by Keats that puts us Halloween folk in the mood: https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/tis-witching-time-night.
And, here is a website dedicated to Keats' letters and his relationship with Fanny: http://hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/houghton/exhibits/keats/.
And, last but not least, a poem about Keats by Christina Rossetti (remember her from "A Birthday): https://hellopoetry.com/poem/16119/on-keats/.

And with our poetry, we finished up the ballad by reading "Lord Randall" and "Get up and Bar the Door" and identified all those structural and content details that make this song-like poem exist. https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/lord-randall & http://www.bartleby.com/40/20.html.

Then, we began our look at lyric poetry via "A Red, Red Rose" in your packet and "Dover Beach" https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43588/dover-beach. In second hour, you approached the poem cold - like a MC passage - and broke it down structurally and lyrically to understand the meaning. In fifth hour, you had the background - like a very giving poetry prompt - and delved into the honeymooning experience of melancholy, understanding, and nature that Arnold created in the poem.

Tomorrow will be ode and elegy, so make sure your poetry packet is up to date.

Poor Barbara Allan!

Other than picking up a fairly horrible accent today, we looked at syllables, stressing, and feet (out of AP Lit context, that would be a questionable combination). Using your handout, we dissected the phrases and types of feet. And if syllables are not in your ethos house yet, just keep trying to identify what is stressed and what is not in lines. Moving onto our poetry packet, we looked at the terms for lines such as tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter, and all the other meters; the stanza types such as couplet, quatrains, sestets, octaves, and everything in between; the rhyming styles such as masculine, feminine, and internal; and how math functions in determining the totals of syllables in class.

More fun in the poetry packet with the ballad, our first type of poetry. The ballad, as indicated in the packet, is a song-like poem with refrains, rhyme schemes, characters, and simplicity. With the statements at the end of the poem, we were able to break down the literary elements and structure.

For homework, have the ballad, lyric, and ode sections completed. For each poetry type, we will be looking at more poems than in the packet - just to make sure you can transfer all the characteristics from our sample to other poems.

Blind Man, Popular Rhyme, Antiquity

For both AP Lit classes, we are in the exact same spot. How rare! We started off class by sharing the latest edition of book cards, which are currently displayed on the back wall. (I highly recommend checking out Natalie's book card for Inferno and the stages of hell -- you'll find allusions to Dante in so much literature.) Afterwards, we turned our minds to "Thou Blind Man's Mark," which is not about a literal blind man, not about popular rhyming methods in sixteenth century sonnets, not about a representation of antiquity (all of those ideas courtesy of the rangefinders). In our close read, we noted the sonnet structure - the octave, volta, sestet, the apostrophe, the alliteration, the repetitive elements, the shifts in diction, and, most importantly, the paradox in that final couplet. As noted in our rangefinder discussion, having a clear understanding of poetic structure and namedropping sonnet, apostrophe, volta, and paradox will help you with a higher score.

For Friday, make sure you have completed the Petrarch/Donne box prompt and then identify the type of feet on the handout. I highly recommend splitting up each word or phrase into syllables and then vocalizing the words to see what is stressed or not.

Donne Boxing

After finishing up the sonnet analysis (which if you did not participate in, you will need to show your close read for participation points), you spent the majority of the hour completing a partner box prompt on Donne. Absentees will need to pick up the handout and complete solo.

At the end of the hour, you received a tone of paperwork - the diagnostic prompt, scoring explanation, rangefinders, and the Petrarch/Donne box prompt. For next class, in addition to your newest book card, you will need to reread the diagnostic prompt, check out the scoring explanation, and score the rangefinders. For Friday, you will need to finish the Petrarch/Donne prompt on your own. All of these materials are available in Room 404.

Songs & Sonnets

1. Don't forget that your second book card - over Grendel or another 101 text - is due on the block day.

2. We spent the entire hour with Donne in his songs and in (some of) his sonnets. In each experience, students shared literary elements, poetic structure, and personas to clarify the variable nature of Donne's poetic endeavors. If absent, you will need to show your close read/notes to garner participation for both of these activities.

Persona & Donne

2: We transitioned from Petrarch to Donne by looking at the poems on pg. 10 and identifying the persona (the character of the speaker) for each one. Then, we reviewed the biography and style notes regarding Donne to set up the reading of "The Flea." For homework, you have each been assigned 1 song and 1 sonnet to analyze and identify the persona.

Sky = Lecture Upon a Shadow; Sonnet III

Maddie  = The Paradox, Sonnet IV

Izzy = Good Morrow; Sonnet V

Jake = Woman's Constancy; Sonnet VI

Maggie= Anniversary; Sonnet X

5: We finished up our Petrarch presentations of his sonnets. Then, we looked at persona (the character of the speaker) on the pg. 10 poems in the packet. Next, we summarized the life and poetic style of Donne in order to make "The Flea" an entertaining spectacle - with hands. For homework, you will need to analyze and identify the persona of 1 song and 1 sonnet.

Bailee = Anniversary; Sonnet X

Katherine = Valediction Forbidding Mourning; Sonnet XVII

Nick = The Relic; Sonnet III

Petrarch

This will be a hybrid blog covering Tuesday & Wednesday's classes.

Flashing back to Tuesday - memories of grading just came flooding back to haunt me - we started our poetry unit by looking at Petrarchan sonnets, those of 14 lines with an abbaabba octave, cdecde (or near variant) sestet, and a volta changing things up at line 9. After working with 2 of Petrarch's poems, your homework was to read the third poem, annotate, and jot down notes regarding the overlap and differences between all of the poems thus far.

For today, we returned back to Petrarch poem #3, using this as a participation grade, to allow all of you to share your ideas on the poem and his works as a whole. Then, you and a partner/partners were assigned a Petrarchan sonnet to analyze for structure, literary elements, and commonalities with other poems. For homework, read the 3 pages in your packet regarding John Donne - he's next in line for puns in class.

Oh, I have it on the board, but I did not verbalize it - your second book card will be due on the next block day. You may choose Grendel or a novel of your choice.

Second hour Thursday - same stuff from the aforementioned fifth hour, including participation points for the third Petrarch poem, with the addition of looking at 2 translations of the same Petrarch poem and how a switch of phrasing can make an entirely different tone, mod, and poetic presentation. Make sure to read all the Donne biographical pages in the packet - we will be done with Petrarch tomorrow.

Hello, Poetry

After all of our Anglo Saxon ideology has extinguished - as it should with your essay due today - we turn our analytical minds to poetry and how an author conveys a theme in meter, stanza, and structure. To mark this shift, you had your poetry diagnostic prompts, which means absentees you have something big to do in the next 48 hours.

Tomorrow we will start our Petrarch & Donne packet, an opportunity to immerse yourselves in poetry and identifying literary elements in poetic formation. After that packet, we will then go into the nitty gritty, the minutia of poetry: syllables, feet, meter, stanzas, and all the little items that further separate poetry from the prose world. For all of you "scared" of poetry, you won't be - at least not as much - after working so much on this genre.

Back to grading...

Peer Eval Day

The entire hour was you and your group evaluating your NH essays. These are due by 3 p.m. in hard copy form on Monday. If you were absent, you can always have your essay evaluated by another classmate, friend, or family member.

A Little Bit of Everything

1: Vocab Quiz 4 - absentees, as always, have 48 hours to make up the quiz or schedule a time to take the quiz.
2: Review of MLA formatting, Works Cited Page, and citations
3: Introductory paragraph conferences and the opportunity to work on your essay.
4: Toolbox Quiz #2, which will also need to be made up if you want the points.

Make sure you have your first draft ready to go for tomorrow's peer evaluations!

All That Formatting

After your class vocab quiz - everyone scored a 100 percent - we spent the rest time talking about your intros, looking at how to format your essay and the Works Cited page, and learning various synonyms for savant (or, at least that is what Michaela and I ended up doing). Our next class will be peer evaluation day, so make sure you have your first draft and anything else you will need help with during class.

Poetry all next week!

Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

One of my girl crushes is on the first female computer programmer, Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Byron (yes, that Byron). With that in mind, I am kicking myself for almost forgetting that today is her day and, by connection, a celebration of women in STEM fields. If you are not aware of Ada Lovelace, check out this snappy article about her parentage, her colleagues, her mathematical mind, and a few other cultural fun facts that make Ada truly reflect what her name means: noble. https://www.biography.com/news/ada-lovelace-facts-book-sydney-padua

Meetings Anglo-Saxon Style

After reviewing vocab, we spent the majority of the time going over your prewriting charts for the New Historicist essay and discussing any questions you had regarding your free response essay. At the end of second hour, we played with cards - with a bit of a struggle with sound patterns. Maybe it's a good thing that we are starting poetry soon! Fifth hour, you have the poetry packet. No need to read it - just bring it back tomorrow for when we start the poetry unit.

And, don't forget to have a Google document for your first draft of the essay!

Prepping for the Essay

2: After vocab experts, we went over the theories of New Historicism (sorry the power point was this side of boring), looked at samples, and discussed what you will be working on this week. This essay (chart Tuesday, intro Thursday, first draft Friday, final draft Monday) is an out of class experience, but we will utilizing each item during class time for q & a, evaluation, and ideas. For instance, tomorrow's class will deal with one-on-one meetings clarifying your prewriting and discussing your free response essay. Afterwards, we will turn our attention to poetry, which will be our next big unit.

5: After vocab experts, we took the highlight route of New Historicism by considering examples of the Puritans with The Scarlet Letter, the American Dream with the Gatsby, & the governess with Jane Eyre. For tomorrow's class, you will need to have your chart completed so that we can have q & a sessions and you can confidently complete the intro for Wednesday and the first draft for Friday. To prep for our upcoming poetry unit, we played with cards first and then had your literary toolbox quiz #2. If absent, you have 48 hours to make up the quiz or schedule a time to take this quiz.

Lamenting

In both classes, we finished Grendel, analyzed "The Wife's Lament," and passed out the New Historicist essay assignment, which will be due in the following order: chart Tuesday, introductory paragraph block day, first draft Friday, final draft Monday. I will go over this critical lens more on Monday, but, in brief, New Historicism looks at the ideology permeating a culture and how (a) the literature reflects the stereotypical ideology and how (b) the literature offers further interpretation, contrast, or qualities not considered to be connected with this ideology. At this point, start considering what ideology you fill would be best to analyze.

In regards to the lamenting and catharsis, October 6 is one of the most difficult days of the year for me. On October 6, 1992, 25 years ago today, my grandmother, Frances Hedwig Schroer, passed away at age 68. This entire week has been one of memory and one of loss. Grandma Frances was the epitome of kindness, grace, fashion, and love. When I was a child, she would tell me stories about her childhood, the hard life that she had to live, the factories that she would work in her entire adult life, and always end the stories with it was worth every experience to eventually "have a granddaughter like you." Losing someone like that is always difficult, and it has become even more so with the realization that I have spent more years without her than with her. I have been wearing her jewelry this week, looking down at my fingers and wrist to try to pull another memory of her - some of which are lost to time.

I can't force you to do this as an assignment, but if you are still fortunate to have grandparents in your life, I would recommend giving them a call, writing them a note, or seeing them this weekend. I know we all come from different family situations, but if you do have a relationship with your grandparents, it is something that you should cherish, build upon, and revere for the times when you will not have the opportunity to give them a hug.

The Rapping Ork

After witnessing the spectacle of boulder acting, I should not be surprise to see ork become a rapper, Beowulf go through a job interview in which he noted that "he does not work well with other," and a stealthy Grendel donning a bib before losing his arm to Beowulf. Congrats to Izzy and Emma for having the best reenactment of Grendel today! During the rest of class, which was forced to a moratorium due to a fire drill, we analyzed a few more chapters of Grendel. Second hour, for homework, you will need to read and annotate "The Wife's Lament" for tomorrow's class. This will be our last Anglo Saxon text prior to the big essay assignment.

If absent today, you will need to select the most significant scene from chapters 6-12. 1. Write a one paragraph summary of the scene. 2. Write a retelling of the scene from another character's perspective. This will make up for any participation points from today's multi-layered analysis.

Grendel, The Live Performance

Lots of participation today! From vocab to the dragon to chapter performances, you were all involved in the world of Grendel. More specifically, we started off with a dragon characterization participation, bringing up points of the dragon's role as a projection of Grendel's conflicted mind, the imagery and color symbolism popping up in their momentous meeting, and the mentor figuration of the dragon to create a justification of Grendel's acts later in the text. All of you did so well with this - especially since we had 20 different points of view in class today!

Then, I witnessed the greatest theatrical production since last year's version of Browning's "Porphyria's Lover" by Noah & Alex: fifth hour's boulder-rolling, door-kicking expression of Grendel's final chapters. We ran out of the time at the bell to finish the analysis of those chapters, so we will be back with that on Friday. We also have to vote on strongest performance, so make sure you keep in mind your favorite skit. Then, we will chat about New Historicist Criticism, which in quick terms regards historical ideologies and how literature redefines or portrays these ideologies in a different light (sort of like the epic hero really being a narcissistic, selfish braggart). We will be cramming a lot into Friday because I would like you to have your quarter essay assignment for the weekend. And since fifth hour has the longest class time on Friday, we are going to go for it!

Your First Box Prompt

After vocab today, you had your first box prompt, and it was all about Grendel. A box prompt is a shortened essay in boxes that include a thesis statement, three body sections, and a conclusion. With 40 minutes (eventually you will have 25 minutes to do these), you had your class time to finish the box prompt and turn it in. For those at PPI, have discussed timing with you when you returned to class. For those absent, either send an e-mail for a digital copy of the box prompt or pick one up prior to class.

And it's on the board, so I can't believe I almost forgot to remind you to finish Grendel for the block class. Since you had a writing day today, you should look forward to a more creative exercise tomorrow during class.

And, a new addition arrived last night. Ingram and Tango are happy to announce they have a new baby sister named Elinor Octavia. She is named after Elinor Dashwood and for her place as the eighth rabbit that I have been fortunate to love. At close to three months, she is an absolute cuddle bunny, very curious while playing with her toys and her big sister, and a strong eater. As many of you are aware, the loss of our little Monty last year was devastating, and it has taken all of us time to mourn him and his adventurous spirit. I feel Monty was there yesterday when we met this little girl and that he was part of finding her in the first place. The picture below is from her baby cage (you should see her big girl cage that is about twice the size), the location where we have already begun litterbox training.

Bildungsroman Grendel?

Today's class, after vocab, revolved around 7 leading questions detailing the first four chapters of our favorite baby-child-teenager Grendel and his dealings with man, nature, and his own convoluted version of sanity. During second hour, the thought of Grendel as a bildungsroman was brought up, and I think that could be a topic for an argument. We do witness a conflicted young character navigate the fine line between morality and immorality (obviously, with higher consequences than your typical teenage tale) and how he grows into that "villian" filtering into the epic tales passed from generation to generation. In addition, we have an analogy forming of a "stuck" Grendel: stuck in a tree, stuck in his own mind, stuck between man and nature. Looking forward to fifth hour's impressions on the opening of this text and how little Grendel grows into big Grendel.

If absent, you will need to show me notes for chapters 1-4.

For Tuesday, keep reading chapters 5-7. We'll be doing something different tomorrow with this part of the novel.