And Off to Canterbury We Go

In both hours, we continued with our vocabulary, shared our allusion posters, and read your found Metamorphosis poems prior to starting the prologue to The Canterbury Tales. At this point, we read the speaker's opening and the knight's prologue in the textbook. Now, it your turn to read parts of the prologue and meet a character (or characters) to share with the class. For each of your assigned characters, read that part of the prologue and prepare to tell the class about the character's a. characterization/behavior b. occupation/class c. physical description (if given) and d. what themes could exist in their story.

O.k. absent people, here are your characters. And, remember, it is just the prologue that you are reading and prepping.

Anna M. : The Guildsmen & Cook
Megan M.: The Skipper & The Doctor
Brittany: Wife of Bath
Nhu: Parson
Logan: Plowman & Miller
Riley: Manciple & Reeve

An Elephant, a Rhino, and an Egg

If you happen to be in sixth hour, you will most likely appreciate the subject line of this post. If not, I'm sure one of your classmates from that hour would be happy to share the randomness of what happens during a multiple choice passage analysis during the last hour of the day.

Today was all about starting vocab unit 6, going over the MC test (and specifying the need of close reading), and starting allusion posters round 3.

Don't forget about your Metamorphosis poem for Friday!

That Bug's Life

We have finished The Metamorphosis, which means your assessment for the text is due Friday. Select 10 quotes (full sentences, dependent clauses, or independent clauses) that represent the novella, a character, a theme, a motif, whatever made the text for you. Using those 10 quotes - in any order - make into a poem that will be longer than 10 lines (since you have to break up those quotes into poetic form). Up to you how you organize the poem and if you include rhyme, meter, or repetition. As you have to use Kafka's words, you are limited in the poetic techniques; however, the theme of the poem can speak volumes.

Meanwhile, we also talked about Chaucer, Thomas a Becket, and frame stories in anticipation of The Canterbury Tales, which we should start tomorrow. If you weren't here, you have every opportunity to search online for the background since The Canterbury Tales (and everything related to it) are a seminal part of British Literature. Off to practice my Middle English!

The Window & The Milk

While the characterization of Gregor, Grete, Mom, and Dad are significant parts of The Metamorphosis analysis, I always find the symbols to be quite telling in how the characters are functioning. That window - and what is outside of it, out of reach to Gregor's defenseless being, far from palliating his obvious emotional discomfort - and the milk - connecting to mother, an entity Gregor's chooses to remove himself from as his buggy world crumbles around him - are the two symbols that kidnap my attention from other analytical avenues. In both hours, at this point, we have begun our look at the first two parts of the novella . This occurred after vocab quiz 5 and any remaining notes on Kafka, the man, the biography, the psychoanalysis of the relationship to his father and random eating habits. Part 3 for tomorrow to see what the final part of this metamorphosis will be. Oh, and since I'll ask it at some point, whose Metamorphosis does the book's title really cover?

Kafkaesque

2: We reviewed vocab, shared our allusions posters, and discussed the life of Kafka in order to further our discussion on Monday of parts 1 & 2 of The Metamorphosis.

6: Same as above, but we did not make it to Kafka. He and the first two parts of The Metamorphosis will be at the forefront of Monday's class.

And for all of you -

As our allusion posters will continue for the next couple of weeks, there are still many allusions that have not been assigned. Since more knowledge is better than less, each of you may request up to 3 additional allusion posters for extra credit. These extra allusion posters are due on the same day as allusion poster #4 and will be presented after your assigned fourth one - as in you have to do your original ones prior to anything extra. Interested? All you have to do is e-mail me with your requested posters numbers and how many you would like to do. I highly recommend sending a list in case what you want might already be taken. I will respond back to you with which ones you have then claimed. Do not make posters without confirmation as this is first come, first served type of deal.

Remaining allusion posters: 146, 148, 149, 151, 152, 154, 155, 158, 160, 161, 163, 166, 167, 168, 169, 171, 172, 173, 174, 186, 220, 262, 264, 269, 270, 272, 273, 276, 278, 279, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 295, 301, 303, 358, 374, 382, 384, 389, 392, 397, 398, 403, 406, 410, 412, 416, 418, 421, 422, 425, 427, 430, 431, 434, 436, 439, 440, 442, 443, 444, 446, 447, 449, 450, 452, 453, 455, 456, 458, 459, 461, 462, 465, 466, 467, 468, 469, 471, 472, 474, 475, 477, 478, 479, 481, 482, 483, 484, 485, 486, 487, 488, 489, 490, 491, 492, 493, 494, 495, 496, 497, 498, 499, 500, 501, 502, 503, 504, 505, 506, 507, 508, 509, 510, 511, 512, 513, 514, 515, 516, 517, 518, 519, 520, 521, 522, 523, 524, 525, 526, 527, 528, 529, 530, 531, 532, 533, 534, 535, 536, 537, 538, 539, 540, 541, 542, 543, 544, 545, 546, 547, 548, 549, 550, 551, 552, 553, 554, 555, 556, 557, 558, 559, 560, 561, 562, 563.

It Means a Lot!

After vocab today, second hour had the chance to share their allusion posters, and both hours were assigned the assessment for The Cherry Orchard: a character sketch for one of six characters in the play that forces you to identify 5 adjectives for them and find 2 textual examples (paraphrased or direct quotes) to support those adjectives. As with any prose text, you are on the hunt for round and dynamic characters to analyze!

And on fun memory tricks, what a great job with our plethora "it means a lot" punchline - not that I can deliver a punchline as sixth hour found out when I tried to mimic Jake's joke!

Lastly, don't forget our Scholar Quiz Trivia Night is this Friday if you and your friends are interested in a table!

Preview for tomorrow when a sub will be in the room (6th hour already has this info; 2nd hour there will be a handout on the board with this agenda):

Cherry Orchard Character Sketches
• Have students find their “match” character from The Cherry Orchard and partner up to share their character sketches with each other.
• The groups should then decide on the best 5 adjectives from both of their sketches. *If someone is absent, then the one person will share the work to the class.
• Have each character group share their combines 5 adjectives – with one example of evidence and explanation for each.
• Collect character sketches.
• Return Cherry Orchard texts to bookshelf and have students cross off their names on the attached list.

The Metamorphosis Text & Preparations:

• Have students grab a Metamorphosis text from the bookshelf and fill out name/barcode on a blank attached sheet. They should also write their name on the inside front cover. 

• To prep for our reading and analysis, do light research on the author, Kafka, and be prepared to share your findings of his life and writings and what “Kafkaesque” means. This is for Thursday’s class. 

• Read the first part of The Metamorphosis for Friday. Even if we have a snow day on Thursday, you are expected to have this ready to go for Friday. 

Antecedents

What is it about the antecedent questions that always cause me to have anxiety? Maybe, as this week has proven, I should do a tone map to calm my brain and answer one of these correctly! I missed 4 on our first full MC test, which is not bad in the grand scheme of life. We will be going over that test after we finish our Cherry Orchard work and first round of allusion posters (second hour).

Quite the Pickle

When the topic of pickle symbolism comes into question, you have to think it is going to end in a Freudian phallic mess of Russian manhood and emasculation through the eras of a feudalistic aristocracy, businessman capitalism, and burgeoning communism. Or, it could end up be about pickling cherries as representative of the means that the Russian people utilize to store up through those harsh winters. In any circumstance, we had very successful observations regarding The Cherry Orchard today: its characters, it three governmental philosophies reflected in three of the characters, the symbolism of the orchard and the broken string, the randomness of comedic elements from the minor characters, Chekhov's gun theory, the idea of comedy in late nineteenth century Russia and its direct connection to the tragedy of a world in flux, and, of course, all of those characters' behaviors, decisions, dress patterns, and fiscal theories. Well, that was quite an enumeration. Since all of that was addressed, I have some supporting activities for us to do regarding The Cherry Orchard before we move onto The Metamorphosis. I wonder which Cherry Orchard character would best get along with dear Gregor Samsa.

However, before the return to the Orchard, or what was once the Orchard, chop chop, we have a full MC test to do tomorrow. Cue my lucky pencil! Plus allusion posters to share too!

Team MC Part II

While we are practicing with poetry passages for our upcoming MC test, prose passages do occur too (they're just harder to do as a team close read on the board). While prose may be out of fashion in Lit after last quarter's poetic crunch via sonnets and Lear, prose is making a comeback with The Cherry Orchard, which will be read and book carded (that's not a verb, but I trapped myself in the syntax there) for Tuesday. Back to MC, no matter how much you want to take the passage and find every literary element in there, do take a pause and recognize you also need to understand the passage as a whole, as in theme, motifs, symbolic meanings, characterization and conflicts if in the prose world.

Team MC

We started the class with vocab and moved into 2 practice MC passages (Bright Star and Dulce Et). The goal of these passages are to practice close reading skills regarding comprehension of theme, literary elements, and overall passage ideas and perform well with process of elimination in the answer portion. We might be a little rusty, but these passages should send us onto a stronger path for our official MC tests in the near and far future.

All Anew

Today was a transition day to start all of our new agenda items: the return to vocabulary, The Cherry Orchard and its assigned book card (due Tuesday) - remember we are back to plays focusing on characterization, motif, symbolism, conflicts and less on all those poetic elements and structure - and the allusion poster assignment! Four posters in four weeks, detailing all those Biblical, mythological, literary, pop cultural, and historical references that pop up in reading and what you can bring up in your own writing. Next 2 classes will be practices with MC to get back into close reading, process of elimination, and everything else needed to succeed with our future MC.

Dear Diary

Today was diary evaluation day in class. While you may not have had the opportunity to evaluate, read, and be entertained by all the diaries, you did have the chance to see a variety of characters, background stories, and random creative ideas, images, games, and entries to inspire your audience response!

Tomorrow will be back to vocab (gasp, shock), receive The Cherry Orchard to read and create a book card next week, have a new 4 rounds of allusion posters so that you have ethos on Bible, myth, literature, pop culture, and history references in literature and that can be adopted by your for your own comparisons, and MC team practices to prep for more formal MC tests in the very near future. No need to worry that you are not prepared for MC because the big secret is the ability to close read a passage, understand its theme and plot, and not fall for distractors in the answer selections.

F.Y.I. The debacle regarding AP classroom has hit a wall, namely the wall that you can't view your feedback and evaluations from me online. I have started to e-mail you the feedback per poem, so do check your e-mails and look back and your writing to see how you did with this assignment. Thanks for being old sports, as Jay Gatsby would say.

All Those Essays

Today's class was a look back at the past, and the essays and writings that populated December in AP Lit: the close reading for AP Classroom (yep, still can't access the feedback portion, but you will receive a slow and steady stream of comments as the week goes by), the Lear psychoanalysis essay, the final Plath/Wordsworth prompt, and the poetry test. Now that the past has been reviewed, the present takes focus on the King Lear diary, which will be evaluated by your classmates tomorrow. Hopefully, you spent your break piecing together your character and creating something witty, engaging, surprising, humorous, or Learesque to suit your future readers.