Lyrics & Odes

Oh, dear poetry packet, how you are teaching us how to break down a poem in meter, in enjambment, in figurative language, in the multitude of interpretations for a Shelley poem (figures). The start was the lyric with our Burns' "A Red, Red Rose" followed by Arnold's "Dover Beach" and the end was the ode with Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind." We had a great deal of participation today - forced and volunteered - so as with any day of work, you would need to show the completion of your poetry packet and any close reading notes to attain the credit. Elegy and dramatic monologue (woohoo) next time!

The Ballads

Navigating further into the poetry packet, you have the nomenclature for lines, stanzas, rhymes, and ballads - such as our Bonny Barbara Allan, our Lord Randall, and our loving married couple who will not get up to bar that door! For homework, you have further sections of the poetry packet to read and answer the questions afterward: the lyric, the ode, the elegy, the dramatic monologue. All of those poems will come into play during tomorrow's class, so make sure you are prepped and ready to answer all the poetry-related questions.

Feet

Sixth hour began with their vocab quiz while second hour jumped into poetry. You have THE POETRY PACKET. I cannot laud and revere that packet more! For those of you struggling with poetry, this packet gives you so many angles that you can use for analysis. Whether it be feet and meter (not my favorite method, but many of you have a strong sense of beats and rhythm in writing) or structure or line techniques like caesura and enjambment (those would be my favorite) or comparisons or figurative language or persona, there is something for everyone to embrace!

Today was all about the feet - the iamb, the trochee, the dactyl, the anapest, the spondee. For those of us who do not really think about what syllables we stress (or in different shibboleths stress), this is a challenging exercise, but well worth the effort to start recognizing patterns of sound. Whether you become a foot expert in the long run or not, at least you have the foundations of beat that many a poet latches onto to create their expression - and why poems are often in inverted syntax to fit a supposed meter.

We will finish up your feet handout tomorrow and then look at lines, stanzas, and different poetry styles like the ballad - and not, alas, the power ballads of 80s rock bands.

Diagnostic Poetry Prompt

Today was the diagnostic poetry prompt, the only highlight of our class for Friday. If you happened to be absent, out of state, or any other circumstance that kept you from the prompt's completion, you have three options: study hall, after school on the 30th, or during class.

Don't forget to finish those box prompts for Tuesday. We will be continuing with our poetry work on Monday with a focus on meter and all the other intricacies necessary to understand poetry.

Donne - Sort Of

At this point, we have finished the Petrarch/Donne packet, which means you have 2 box prompts to complete for Tuesday's class. In our look at Songs and Sonnets, we clearly indicated the importance of structure, rhyme scheme, sound effects, figurative language, apostrophes, and, duh, conceits. Tomorrow will be the diagnostic poetry prompt, so ready your poetry analysis skills!

P.S. Second hour completed the vocab quiz for unit 4 as well.

Conceits

Safely in the Donne mode of poetry, we have a great deal of conceits appearing: death, kings, math-related objects, all major metaphors clarifying his Songs and their critical, philosophical perspective of love and life. Plus there are the sound elements and structural machinations via stanzas, rhyme scheme, and forced rhyme. Donne and his personas are definitely unpredictable, especially in comparison to our former Petrarch.

In second hour, we reviewed vocab and made it through "The Valediction" analysis of the Songs. We will resume there and follow up with The Sonnets next class.

In sixth hour, we finished our round of vocab experts, considered the "easy going" behavior and suggestions via "The Flea," and started our Song analysis, which will finish next class.

Donne (Insert Your Own Pun Here)

2 & 6: After finishing up vocab experts today, we talked persona with "The Indifferent," shared our facts regarding Donne, read "The Flea" to understand conceits (in second hour at least), and assigned a song and a sonnet to each of you for close reading and preparations tomorrow. If absent, take "The Paradox" for your song and the last sonnet for your sonnet selection.

Petrarch & Papers

2: The continuation of vocab started the class, which then was followed with the look at the 2 translations of the opening Petrarch poem and its differing tone, diction, and presentation by the amendment of certain words. Then, you received your 3 prompts back with reminders of how to score well on the evidence and sophistication portions. Last, we started our look at persona, the speaker's character, and how Petrarch and Donne poems can show a dramatic different in persona!

6: We finished up the 6 sonnet selections of Petrarch and the look at the 2 translations before starting the process of handing back the prompts. Homework will be reading pages 11-13 on Donne's bio so that you are ready for all those predictable puns next week!

The Next Round of Petrarchan Sonnets

In both classes, we continued with vocab experts and shared the analysis of literary elements, sound devices, and Petrarchan structure with the remaining sonnets. Alas, sixth hour did not finish those sonnets, so those will be continued tomorrow, but they were outside studying vocab during the fire drill, so kudos to Amber for saving the vocab words from the flames!

2: Read the 5th Petrarchan sonnet and return back to the original sonnet on the first page - note the changes in diction. Read the 3 pages on Donne in the packet, annotate, and be prepared to share info about him.

6: Read the 5th Petrarchan sonnet and return back to the original sonnet on the first page - note the changes in diction.

Promotional Ad

As you may know, I am the coach of the Scholar Quiz team, our competitive trivia team that travels to schools across St. Charles County. We have been fortunate to win the Holt Invitational twice, GAC's, Orchard Farm Invitational, Districts three times, Sectionals, and finish 4th place at State (also included would be Caleb Fick finishing first overall as an individual at State). Since the Scholar Quiz team is an extracurricular, I do not want to hijack the class or try to “sell” it to any of you or make it seem that being part of the team will influence your AP class standing whatsoever. However, some of you may not know about our team and would like a little background information.

So, if you are looking to add something to your college resume, improve your knowledge for a multitude of AP classes (my former SQ and Lang/Lit students have mentioned how much SQ knowledge has helped them with argumentative essays, literary knowledge, and retaining information), work with a supportive team, compete with other schools, meet many other students from our area, and earn a letter, stick around for a bit more details regarding the team.

And, you can join your senior year whether it be for team fun or serious competitive matches or some hybrid in between. 

On the other hand, if you have a packed schedule and do not have interest in joining our extracurricular, thank you for taking the time to read the introductory paragraphs and considering any involvement.

The Scholar Quiz team is currently looking for team members to join Varsity, JV, and Novice levels. Those who join the team can have strengths in academia (literature, science, math, history), current events, pop culture, sports, or fun facts. Even if you are not an “expert,” you can become one by working with the Scholar Quiz team. 

The time commitment is quite manageable for whatever your commitment would be to the team. So if you want to be a full time member or part time member, there are opportunities to be part of our competitive team. During a regular week, we have Trivia Lunches on B (1/2 hour) and practice on Fridays (approx. 1 hour). We also have additional chances to prep and practice for competition in what I call “Random Acts of Trivia” that occur after school in ½ hour increments from time to time. For those thoroughly committed to the team, we do have bonus practices prior to big competitions.

Competitions run from late November until April. There are 5 competitions on Tuesdays (approx. 2 hours for 2-3 matches for players of all ability) and a minimum of 5 Saturday matches (full day and for the strongest players). If you sign up, you will communicate with the team your full availability – as in all – or if you will have a partial schedule.

If you are interested, stop by any of our trivia lunches or practices to check out the Scholar Quiz team. And if you would like to be an official teammate, pick up an availability sheet (it is a grandiose RSVP form) to clarify your availability for our upcoming competitions.

If you have any questions, please do ask me, our Captain Mathew Bessette, our Captain of Representative Leadership Elsa Linson, or any team members. And, thank you for reading about our Scholar Quiz team. This is my eleventh year coaching, and it has been the most rewarding experience for me to be part of such a close team (we still have our alumni showing up during the year) and to learn so much random facts like the Defenestration of Prague, the Great Emu War, or the Great Molasses Flood - yep, all real historical events. 

The Petrarchan Purpose Continues

After a round of vocab experts and a recap of all things Petrarchan Sonnet (see, once you know the rhyme scheme and line differentiation, you will always be on the look out for sounds and shifts), we looked at poem sample #2 (a little inspiration of all things "love" and heavenly procured) poem sample #3 (a little intertwining of time, that little scamp Cupid, and poetic immortality), and the common motifs featured in many a poem. To further emphasize Petrarch's poetic structure, motifs, and literary elements, you have a poem to close read and prepare for over-analysis presentation during tomorrow's class. For those absent, you have the "Ne per sereno ciel ir vaghe stelle" as your passage. Remember, the purpose of each part of the poem including that lovely volta!

Petrarch & The Poetry

Since I'm off to finish grading all of the Cindy syntax prompts for AP Lang, I will restrain myself from babbling about Petrarch or his muse, the ever-effervescent and scintillating Laura. At this point, we looked at a poem (the first one in the packet) for its motifs, figurative language, tones, diction, imagery, allusions (hi, Cupid), and all the other literary elements existent in a poem (it's like prose but condensed, which means you have all the stuff to find in less surface area). To further our understanding, we then looked at Petrarchan/Italian sonnet structure - that octave, that volta, that sestet, that rhyme scheme! With the knowledge of structure, you have another avenue of analysis, and it seems to connect with a lot of shifts in the poem!

For reading this evening, close read the next 2 poems for literary elements and structure!

The Grendel Skits & A Workday

On the block day, we finished up our Grendel skits with quite a hybrid of Orks, guitar-laden psalms for the recently deceased shaper, and Grendel's musical Queen repertoire. I always thought "Bohemian Rhapsody" was more a song describing Edmund the Bastard in King Lear, but it fits Grendel too!

Friday is an essay work day with the New Historicist essays due by 3:30 p.m.

Poetry, and its many forms, begins next week! 

Poor Craig

In both classes, I had the chance to see your outlines for the New Historicist essay and make sure you were on the right track with your work. Second hour began their Grendel analysis/performances with a thorough look at characterization, the zodiac, heroes, the dragon influence, and all the minutia regarding Grendel's ascent into his murderous methodology. Plus, the had the guard, poor Craig, lose his head and his surprised expression in the retelling of Grendel's entree into the mead hall and how the mead drinkers reacted to his presence.

Tomorrow will be the analysis and performances of all remaining chapters. We will also talk about the Works Cited Page as this is part of your assignment.

Prepping for Grendel: The Performances

2: After we recapped the dragon and his role in Grendel, you broke into 7 groups, claimed a chapter, and prepared 10 observations and plan for the dramatic interpretation of a scene. During tomorrow's class, you will have a little group time to continue prep as I will be rolling around to check your outlines for the New Historicist essay due on Friday.

6: Same as above - except we started off with the Wife's Lament first.

New Historicism

What a rush these 40 minutes of class were today! We have a class vocab quiz, followed by the New Historicist essay assignment, and a presentation on why you should take the AP Lit exam. After teaching this course for, jeez, the past seven seasons, the work we do in each class - close reading, analysis, literary terms, writing gargantuan thesis statements with ridiculously high levels of vocabulary - all combine to aiding you score a 3 or more on the AP exam.

Finish Grendel for Monday! I think we know how it ends :(

The Dragon

Grendel has a friend. Maybe? Without a Mommy figure, humanity's social acceptance, and a repugnance of animal friendship, poor Grendel has but one figure in his life to offer advisement: the dragon. We shall see if the dragon was the best choice for his BFF.

2 & 6: After finishing our look at chapters 1-4 and how Grendel is quite the different figure in his own novel, you had a box prompt to complete during class. This will need to be made up a.s.a.p. and during a study hall/class time to keep it even with the other classmates.

The Grendel

Second hour started off strong with their Grendel analysis and how the syntax, yellow symbolism, and (ahem) word choice reflected our baby Grendel struggling with his understanding of self, animals, and humans. As this is a short novel (with big print too), we will be moving forward through Grendel's mentality and interactions with the outside world at a rapid pace, which is probably how the book should be read with its stream of consciousness flow. For both classes, you will be reading chapters 5-7 for the block day, and I would pay special attention to chapter 5.

2: Vocab review, followed by our analysis of The Wife's Lament, followed by 3/7 of our Grendel Chs. 1-4 discussion.

6: Vocab review, followed by our finish of Gilgamesh, our look at The Iliad, and the start of Grendel. You also have The Wife's Lament for reading this evening.