The Perpetual Awakening of Edna Pontellier

 At this point, I hope you've noted all of the sleep, awakening, and other variations of these words filtering through the novella and how our submissive Edna has become a different woman over the course of her experiences at the beach. No matter if you are in second hour and in the midst of our individual close reads or in sixth hour and just wrapping up the group discussions, you should be read up through chapter 22 for Tuesday.

Seriously

Robert sure has an obsession with the word "seriously" and how people view him "seriously," which makes sense since his mother ignores him, Adele brushes him off, and Edna is in a discombobulated struggle to figure out herself, or i.e. all his "mother figures" see him as a dreaming teenager. Poor Robert. As readers, we abandon him too at a certain point - the novella's not titled "Robert's Serious Adventure" or anything. Back to Edna - and her affection for the sea - she is struggling with her role as mother, wife to a reputation-minded spouse, friend to the epitome of womanhood, sandwiched between those repeating figures of the woman in black and the two lovers. Our class, as will the ones revolving around her "awakening" will chart not just the fact that she is known as Edna by the narrator, but how she adjusts to her decisions to challenge the status quo of feminine identity. (Would that make Mademoiselle Reisz a warning or an inducement to go for the independent route?)

With all that mind, we finished up our individual points regarding chapters 2-5 before launching into the Kate Chopin assessment, the presentation of short story, Chopin, and the literary world. You have your story in some form or another, so make sure not to wait to start reading, observing, and preparing for your eventual presentation.

To end the hour, we began our group analysis of chapters 6-11, which we will, probably, hopefully, dependent on your hour and what the school has planned for us, finish next class.

Reading-wise, move forward through Chapter 17. Seriously.

The Pontelliers

After our vocab quiz, we spent quality time with The Pontelliers' introduction, the characterization apparent from each one's entrance - whether it be with a newspaper or an umbrella, a myopic man or a piece of sunburned property, respectively. As you may have realized, the minutia, the over-analysis of every paragraph adds to the interpretation of the text. Your observations and note should delve into every aspect and seek out the shifts throughout the novella, all in preparation for your classroom participation, something mandatory for full understanding and improvement in literary analysis.

We started our Chs. 2-5 discussion today, without much time, alas, so that shall finish tomorrow. For further class preparation, read through Chapter 11 and be ready to see what happens with our Edna.

Our Kate

After a scintillating review of vocab for the quiz tomorrow - don't worry, it is a short one since we have only 15 words total in the class - so far, we shared our thesis statements for that pair of Lucetta and Elizabeth, gave our fun facts on Kate Chopin, and received The Awakening with instructions to read chapters 1-5 and jot down all the "stuff" (i.e.characterization, motifs, lit elements, uh, anything really) and don't forget textual evidence and citations to prove your knowledge! Don't skimp out on your observations - you are part of this book club!

Our Young Elizabeth

After vocab experts concluded for Unit 1, which means review is next time, and the quiz is the next next time, we spent the hour with Lucetta and Elizabeth Jane, our two characters highlighted in our passage from The Mayor of Casterbridge. As noted in class, our sweet, naive Elizabeth actually has the wherewithal and intelligence to see through the third person hypothetical scenarios presented by her friend. For homework, you are constructing a thesis statement to the attached prompt, which will be evaluated on Monday by your peers.

The Characterization Begins

Characterization is a key element in the analysis of fiction, so key, in fact, that the majority of prose passages on the AP exam deal with characterization and its tells - dialogue, body language, exposition, setting, and all the intricate details that help us understand whether our protagonist/antagonist/foil happens to be dynamic/static/round/flat and how to identify the specific adjectives that detail his/her existence. For Tom, in our Gatsby passage, we spent a great deal of time on his characterization and how to respond to the corresponding prompt. You worked in groups to clarify character adjectives and select the 2 that best clarify his personality (remember, you are going for 2 adjectives that are no synonyms and show a shift or development in character), clarify the relationship with other characters, and determine the literary strategies that would give us this multi-faceted Tom. All of the aforementioned steps create that thesis statement, ones of glory from second and sixth hour, detailing the adjectives and playing with verb choice to create a mature, amazing theses!

Well, that was enough of a tangent. Here's the recap of what we did: Vocab Experts to continue our especially incredible vernaculars, played cards, worked with Tom's characterization, signed up for AP classroom.

Homework is to study up on Kate Chopin's biography so you have ethos and observations to share!

The First Prompt!

It's starting to feel like an AP Lit class! We're analyzing mythological figures in contrasting poems, we're close reading to characterize a figure in prose, we're writing a literary analysis prompt. Wait - a prompt! It's strange that I have not had the pleasure of evaluating a prompt in over 3 months since my school life is centered around your ideas, words, syntax, and essays. Anywho, today was the diagnostic prompt for AP Lit, which I'm sure will have some fascinating commentary regarding "The Birthmark." How could it not? Hawthorne is a blast, a treat, a lover of the symbol!

The plan for our block day is to finish our characterization of Tom (make sure you close read/highlight the remaining text), try our hand at dual characterization in a passage (ooh), and, maybe, maybe, maybe, prep for our first novella, the ever-fascinating tale of Edna Pontellier, better known as The Awakening. I guess that means I need to wear my AP Lit 2018 shoes soon - you should be able to figure out why.

Thanks for being a part of our AP Lit book club!

Poetry to Prose

Before I am sidetracked by today's agenda, don't forget about our diagnostic prompt on "The Birthmark" tomorrow! Bring your close read, paper, and pen/pencil. Prompt will be waiting for you with a bell to bell time limit.

Meanwhile in reminding you how to write an essay (look, a pretty thesis; look, a smattering of literary elements; look, evidence from the text), we finished up our "Helens," or as Amber puts it, the love triangle among Poe, Dolittle, and Helen of Troy, with sharing thesis statements (ah, the verb and adjective use was on point) and evidence regarding speaker, diction, imagery, form, and tone.

With poetry in the rear view, prose takes center stage, especially the characterization element of fiction. Everything is fair game for garnering characterization - exposition, relationships with other characters, dialogue, body language, diction, and so forth. From the first moments of our Gatsby passage, you already see Tom's character forming. When analyzing a prose passage, you want your pen ready to mark all of those hints and conjoin them into a final, adjective-laced description.

Finish up close reading Tom's characterization passage for the block day.

Oh, Helen

Trying to blog during Scholar Quiz practice is a challenge! I wonder what Poe and Ms. Hilda would make of this scavenger hunt!

Today's class began with our first 4 vocab words of the season, the diagnostic prompt passage of "The Birthmark" for Tuesday, and our first class analysis of poetry, with a focus on Helen of Troy and her beauty, passion, and lauded spirit or her lifeless, annoying, destructive role in the Trojan War. On Monday, we will finish up this practice prompt - second hour reading their work and sixth hour commencing theirs.

The Colorful Cards

I probably need to start writing our agenda before AP Lang so as not to be so rushed with the phrasing! Today's class was the true start of AP Lit with our commencement of vocab experts with Unit 1, which will begin sharing tomorrow. A vocab expert teaches the class the definition, a minimum of 2 synonyms, and a memory trick. Make sure to have your expertise ready to share!

You also have a plethora of supplemental handouts in your possession to help you with tone shifts, color symbolism, archetypes, and other literary meanings to assist your future readings and analysis. While we will not be studying or testing over this material, I highly suggest you utilize these resources in your literary analysis - especially at the beginning of the year as you work your way into our book club. 

And, even if it was a frustrating exercise, you had a class card game. For the most part, your prose terms and rhetorical terms are at high proficiency. Poetry - not so much - but that is completely understandable since we will be studying poetry (and the miracle packet - yes, I love that packet, and I recognize that you will probably not have as much affection for it) in October-ish. 

Tomorrow we start our first analysis as a class with a couple poems regarding that mythical beauty Helen of Troy. If you are not familiar with her mythology, you may want to do brief research to have ethos on the topic. 

P.S. The internet went down at school while I was typing this at the end of the school day. Sorry for the delay in post! You know how the wifi works around here :)

AP Lit Version 7.0

Welcome to AP Lit - not that we had the chance to start our book club selections - yet. Don't worry - we will be reading tomorrow, in theory, accordingly if we don't have many distractions peppering our plate.

A non-traditional first day in AP Lit with the assignment of chargers and laptops to all of you. I think we made it work so that we could have our opening day participation and look at the syllabus. Tomorrow will be centered more on our actual class goings-on, including vocabulary, card games, and close reading poetry - yes, poetry.