The Test, The Test

Fifth hour has made it through the MC test today, which means 2 prompts await them tomorrow. Make sure to eat first lunch and then head immediately here. As for WH reading, you will want to be through Chapter 20 for Wednesday.

Review Sessions to Commence Tomorrow!

As with previous years, AP Lit will have study sessions available during specific lunch periods, during early release time, and after school. These study sessions give you the opportunity to read more passages, practice close reading skills, review literary terminology, and check out more prompts. In all honesty, the more that you see, practice, and ratiocinate will pay dividends in your confidence on the exam. Plus, you will have the opportunity to earn tally points, which will translate into the top 37 students receiving extra credit. I have a handout with all the details for you, but here are the highlights for your calendar:

Lunch sessions will center around the AP Lit flashcards and will occur during third lunch periods from now on (first lunch on May 1 due to a one-day switch).

Early release time study session will occur on May 3. While I will be at a meeting, this will be student-led with prompt practices and lit cards.

After school sessions will have a MC passage, poetry prompt, prose prompt, free response prompt, lit term cards, and AP Lit cards.

AP Lit Cram will be May 8 from 2:30-5:30. You obviously don't have to stay for all 3 hours, but it will be an opportunity to have several rounds of MC, prompts, and lit card review. Technically, I can stay later if need be. This is a chance for a group study session before you go home.

******Every session will feature different passages and prompts, so you will not see the same passage twice. All passages (unless we run out) will be actual AP prompts.******

Oh, Cathy

The ever dramatic Cathy and her methods of emotionally wounding the men in her life continue via her determination to not eat, phase in and out of consciousness, and neglect the fact that she will be having a wee child in the near future.

Throughout all of this pathetic mayhem, second hour is currently immersed in group sharing of analysis from chapters 6-11, which feature varying forms of the motifs, classisms, and characterizations inherent from the opening of Lockwood's tale. For homework, you have a 2 page passage to highlight and write 3 (for most of you) paragraphs analyzing the close read. This is due Wednesday. IB & JK, I sent you an e-mail for shirt colors, and I need your sizes and shirt colors immediately so that I can order the shirts.

Fifth hour is wrapping up through chapter 16 today as Heathcliff utters the curse that will damn Cathy's soul to haunt his for the remainder of his embittered, revengeful existence. For Monday, read through chapter 18 - we will chat about those 2 chapters after the MC portion of the second practice exam.

Oh, Heathcliff

With our variable schedule this week, AP Lit is moving into Wuthering Heights, visiting the Grange, hanging out with our taciturn Byronic hero Heathcliff, whether he be gypsy, stable boy, or master of the house, disparaging Cathy - as Nellie would expect to do with that saucy little minx -  and analyzing the Bronte twos, the motifs, the characterization, the class divide that determines Heathcliff's vow of vengeance, a vow that determines the future for two generations of great houses.

At this point in time, second hour has read through chapter 7, over-analyzing chapters 1 & 2 to better gain insight into Bronte's vision of these haunted, by ghost, fortune, or statue, characters. As we move into the next chapters, each of you have been assigned a close read of 2 pages from the text, which we began hearing during class today. We will finish those up tomorrow, so absentees can still participate. Jess, you have pages 44-45; Dom, 46-47. Friday's class, shortened to a D day time frame will feature some group analysis of the remaining assigned chapters, 8-14, which are to be ready for thought tomorrow.

As for fifth hour, you have moved into the middle ranges of the novel, finding out what happened to Cathy (wait, when did she become pregnant?), how Heathcliff handles his obsessive worship of her after death (wait, did he just bang his head against a tree?), and how Nellie must deal with those around her (wait, why is she selling the story of Cathy and Heathcliff to Lockwood?).  At this point, ending Wednesday's class, we are in the midst of group analysis for chapters 8-11. We will be wrapping those up on Friday. For homework, you were given a 2 page passage from the novel. For this passage, you have lovely little stars indicating the topics of focus. For the characters, you are to highlight details representing each character (that means multiple highlights for multiple characters). Then, you are to write one paragraph analyzing each "star" utilizing evidence. (If you have 4 stars, you can choose 2 of the characters to write about and then do the final star connecting everyone together.) By Friday, you will have completed Chapter 16, which means its about that time for a sea-change as one generation has now produced the beginnings of the next.

For all of you, next week will be the second practice exam, which will also double as your final exam. Due to scheduling, fifth hour will take the exam on Monday, Tuesday (eating first lunch), and Wednesday. Second hour will take the exam on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. When we have extra time each hour, we will still be working with Wuthering Heights, finishing the novel after the exam.

Since, alas, the Scholar Quiz team's season is over now, I will be starting up after school study sessions for the practice exam & the overall exam. Each study session will feature practice prompts for each of the 3 styles, a MC passage, and literary term cards (the pastel ones and my AP flashcards.) Our first study session will be Monday :)

The Narrator & His Neighbor

How classes were alike: we shared our tone letters from the Romantic poets, allowing all of us to hear variants of rhymes, references to poems, and incorporation of alliteration and other literary elements 

How classes were unique:

2: We began Wuthering Heights, over-analyzing the first three pages and how Lockwood reflects the judgmental upper classes and Heathcliff, though of black eyes, gypsy background, and surly, animalistic behavior, is slowly dismantling the class system as his abode crumbles around him (thanks, Sky, for that profound observation). For Thursday's class, you will need chapters 1-7 complete; for Friday's class, you will need chapters 8-14 ready.

5: In groups, we over-analyzed the rest of chapter one and the beginning of chapter two for class implications, animal motifs, Lockwood's annoying habit of showing up without warning, and how Cathy 2.0 fits into this house of misfits. For homework, each of you were given a 2 page passage from the novel to super close-read, which means a lot of circling, underlining, and notes for you to present those pages to the class. 

Oh, absentees of any reason, you still are part of this show! While you may not be able to write in your books, you can complete this task on notebook paper or find an online edition and print out those pages. 

pgs. 40-41: Tori

pgs. 42-43: Hughes

pgs. 44-45: Katherine

pgs. 46-47: Jack

pgs. 48-49: Bella

pgs. 50-51: Haley

When Keats & Bronte Collide

We covered a lot of ground today with looking at the biography of my beloved Keats in order to better understand "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" and "When I Have Fears" and indicate the tones that connect to his works. We then looked at Marxist criticism and the key terms connecting to this critical lens (hint - borrow someone's notes so you can start utilizing this jargon when we have class discussions). Last, we looked at the biography of Emily Bronte and commenced Wuthering Heights with the advent of busybody chatterbox Lockwood bothering the introverted, black-eyed Heathcliff.

For next time, you should have the reading through chapter 5 completed, and it would behoove you take notes on characterization, conflicts, motifs, I don't know - Marxist lens-related concerns. Each person in class will be responsible for a section of the text, and I won't tell you which pages in advance. I am expecting the highest level of analysis that you have been required to do all year long. Even if you are suffering from senioritis or have decided not to take the official exam, the standards in which you will be evaluated remain the same!

In addition, you have selected/been assigned a Romantic poet and will write a letter as this Romantic poet to modern day America. While writing this letter, you will use the tones that you selected for the poem chart.

The Byronic Persona

Today was centered on the multiple personas of Lord Byron's speakers. For homework, you need to complete a 3 word tone chart for Byron's works. The block day will be very very busy with Shelley, Keats, what you will be doing with all those tone words, Marxist criticism, Emily Bronte's life, and the start of Wuthering Heights.

F.Y.I. Next week's schedule is absolutely bonkers, so I will see some of you multiple times next week and then not see the rest of you for almost a full week. Hence, the reading schedule for Wuthering Heights will vary. In any circumstance, we will focus on the Marxist lens of the story, the characterization, the conflicts, and the motifs that enter from the beginning to the very last word.

Innocence & Experience

"When I passed forty I dropped pretense, 'cause mean like women who got some sense,'" or so the Maya Angelou quote goes. Well, I hope I do have some "sense" at this point in the game since the idea of 40 and the actuality of it are quite different than it would have been for Angelou or previous generations. I'm not going to lie: numbers have quite a meaning and each tick of the clock, each page of the calendar, each passing of a year starts to add up and lead to reflection of what is left to do. I feel my list if fairly unchecked and incomplete, so I have a lot to do to become the person I want to be in this next decade.

In class today, we continued forward with Blake's poetry - especially those showcasing the conflicting personas of innocence and experience. We will wrap up Blake's works on Monday, and you will need to have your 3 word tone chart ready to go as well.

Blake

After finalizing our Wordsworth studies with identification of tone words covering 5 of his poems, we moved onto the biography, art, and poetry of William Blake.

From online or packet or poetry book, these are all the poems needing close reading for Friday's class. Do remember that some of these poems come from the "Innocence" side and other from the "Experience" side, so your analysis may look at the differing personas and tones.

And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time
The French Revolution (approximately lines 80-121)
London
The Lamb
The Tyger
The Chimney Sweeper (innocence)
The Chimney Sweeper (experience)
The Little Boy Lost
The Little Boy Found
The Little Girl Lost
The Little Girl Found
Why Was Cupid a Boy

More Wordsworthian Study

Our whole hour was dedicated to Wordsworth in which we finished "Tintern Abbey" and began the analysis of "Expostulation" and "Lucy." Alas, we ran out of time before finishing the remaining sections of "Lucy" and "To a Skylark," so that will be on the docket for the block day. In the meanwhile, you have a tone handout to work on (don't worry if you were absent, notebook paper works just as well). For Wordsworth, you will select 3 tone words to describe his poems as a whole. For each tone word, you will then take quotes from multiple poems that show the given tone. (No analysis on this one.) Bring your tones with you as we finish up with Wordsworth and move onto Blake.

Words on Tintern Abbey

In order to reimmerse ourselves in the world of poetry, we will be looking at a few Romantic poets (sigh) and their themes, poetic elements, and tone (hello, tone handout). First up, the wonderful walker Wordsworth (Tim, that alliteration is for you) and his version of "London 1802" https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45528/london-1802 and "Tintern Abbey" https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45527/lines-composed-a-few-miles-above-tintern-abbey-on-revisiting-the-banks-of-the-wye-during-a-tour-july-13-1798. In both cases, we divided the poems up to look at poetic devices (caesura, enjambment, rhyme or blank verse), structure (sonnet), sound (alliteration), juxtaposition of nature and industrialization, and figurative language (simile, personification, imagery, and a few others creating the themes of the poems). For those absent, you will be up first to talk about Tintern Abbey and then we will resume our current participation schedule. For homework, overanalyze the Wordsworth poetry packet - you will be taking over and noting everything possible for these poems and then -- tone!

And, don't forget to do your shoe voting every day leading up to the AP exam. While this one is not on the list or in my size for that matter, I thought you would enjoy this whimsical pair: https://www.irregularchoice.com/us/hop-to-it-a.html.

The Storytelling Path

To start the hour, we continued our sharing of free response thesis statements, examples, characters, lit elements, lens terms, and other related ideas. Once that was completed, we returned to our poetry prompt, Walcott's meandering journey to the storyteller and her influential role in continuing the storytelling tradition. In pairs, you attacked this poem to find the meaning, the lit elements, the high-end poetry techniques that make your essay scintillate like a new pair of Charlotte Olympia shoes (speaking of, did you vote for your favorite shoes today?). Then, you had your poetry prompt back and the overall score you achieved on this practice exam. We had a wide range of testing results from 1 - 5. Lots of highs and lots of lows, which means each of you needs to revise small errors, further attach the multiple choice passages, and take our review of poetry (the Romantics) and prose (Wuthering Heights) very seriously in order to bolster your overall score for the next practice exam and the actual exam on May 9.

The Deceitful

Today's review centered on the free response portion of the AP exam, which means you have your deceitful character free response in possession and you had one or two or three (depending on the hour) thesis statement and brainstorm practices for various free response prompts. We will start class with your free response practice assigned for homework and then talk poetry prompts!

The Lydgates

Today's class focused on how to break down a prose prompt and move beyond surface analysis. From a quick glance at the time, setting, and circumstance, one would be tempted to analyze the typical gender roles of husband and wife. However, through Rosamond's jejune nature and Lydgate's cerebral mentality, the two often portray atypical roles as they delineate how their money woes will be solved. As with all prose prompts, you will want to bring in character types, utilize specific adjectives to label the characters, include literary devices (hello, dialogue, similes, tone shifts, diction shifts, juxtaposition, and even a few syntactical favs like anaphora, telegraphic sentences, interrogative queries, and exclamatory phrasing).

Before class tomorrow, take a look at the free response prompts from 1970-2013 and star your favorites for practice exercises tomorrow.

Shoe voting is ready to go. Remember, you have 2 votes per day and you must vote for 2 different pairs each day. Spread the wealth - you never know which shoes will be in stock in 5 weeks.