Mary = Creature

Although we were quite lethargic and unmotivated at the beginning of the class, that did not stop us from delving into the parallelism of characters and the alignment of Mary Shelley's life and philosophy with that of Victor Frankenstein's creation.

For Tuesday, read chapters 17-21 and select a first and middle name for the creature.

February 10

First off, an article regarding gender roles in St. Louis history:  http://www.stlmag.com/arts/history/from-madame-chouteau-to-the-social-evil-hospital-the-roots-o/

Class-wise, we added three more vocabulary words to our lengthy vernacular, completed a quiz/scavenger hunt on allusions, and discussed chapters 6-9.

For next class, Justin & Ashley will present their observations for chapter 10, and we will discuss the creature's two year adventure in chapters 11-16.

*For those of you absent for the allusion quiz/scavenger hunt, I will announce 2 make-up times next week. One time will be before school and the other will be after school. This will take approximately 15-20 minutes, and you will work with AP students from other classes to complete the assignment.

Paragraph by paragraph

After our first four vocab words, we spent some quality time with chapter 5, analyzing paragraphs to ascertain the importance of diction, tone, symbolism, and characterization filtering through Victor's abandonment of his progeny. For homework, make sure to read chapters 6-10. Rumor has it that our hour has many singing telegrams -- should we compose one for Victor and Elizabeth?

Did We Really Just Run Out of Time?

When you are talking about Frankenstein, the time does seem to slip by. I suppose we are more like Victor and his compulsiveness in his "studies." Anywho, we completed the verbal vocabulary quiz for the remaining Unit 7 words. Happy dance for 100 percent scores on this one! Next, we covered the multiple choice passages and why the answers were correct -- or at least correct to the test writers. Lastly, we began to cover the supporting cast found at the House of Frankenstein: Mr. Frankenstein, Caroline Beaufort Frankenstein, Elizabeth Lavenza, and Henry Clerval. Unfortunately, we did finish the last two cast members, so that shall resume tomorrow. Make sure to read chapter 5. We are going in-depth with diction to uncover Victor's true feelings of fatherhood.

Here's a picture of Wesley, the baby Nyala born at the STL Zoo on January 30. While we did not have the chance to meet our little red-flanked duiker, Vincent, who passed away in December, we still enjoyed meeting Wesley, his Star Trek family, and the other animals at Red Rocks.

Walton & Victor

After reviewing vocab -- your mini verbal quiz will be Monday -- we discussed Walton& Victor's characters and their parallel stories. Ah, foreshadowing! For Monday, you are to read chapters 1-4 and complete a character chart for one of the supporting characters. Laura, you have Caroline.

Lastly, we graded the MC packet and will go over answer explanations on Monday.

On a melancholic note, Mohican, the last fish of my once fecund fish tank, passed away this morning. Although I have bemoaned taking care of hundreds of fish over the past few years, her passing has left me quite lugubrious today. I will miss that little girl.

Mary

First off, I am shocked that not a one of you reminded me to pass out the multiple choice homework assignment. On initial realization, I was going to hunt each of you down and give you the packet. However, you can have it tomorrow for homework instead.

We have transitioned from mother to daughter, from Wollstonecraft to Godwin-Shelley, from Vindication to Frankenstein. After setting up the text, we will begin reading tomorrow and analyzing character details and what we can deduce from specific details and description.

Link to information regarding Romantic Outlaws, the text detailing the lives of mother and daughter: http://charlottegordonbooks.com/romantic_outlaws/

Wollstonecraft's Allusions

After hearing your classmates' presentations, you are well aware that Wollstonecraft has a fondness for philosophical, literary, biblical, and mythological allusions. You have to wonder how poor Rousseau felt after becoming the scapegoat of patriarchal education and expectations for women.

During tomorrow's class, we have 3 presentations left. These presentations will be exactly 4 minutes so that we may return to vocabulary, discuss Mary Godwin Shelley (she passed away on this day in 1851), and commence Frankenstein. Make sure you have ethos on Shelley -- Wikipedia is a start but not the end.

http://shelleysghost.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/domains/shelleysghost.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/local/cache/icon_24_Fig-55-Mary-Shelley-large.jpg200x200.jpg