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 :)