The World According to Victor

Fifth hour, today you reviewed for your last vocab quiz of the class by playing last person standing, analyzed the Victor of chapters 1-4, a man searching to become the "creator" of his own version of mankind, a man still living in the denial of his mother's death, a man leaving behind his family for an obsessive directive to make an 8-foot human with yellow eyes (think Victor might like "The Yellow Wallpaper"?), a man who thinks, acts, and runs like a child in fright whenever life - or reanimation - does not go his way. We might pick on Victor a tad, but we sure have affection for our dear Elizabeth and our friend crush Clerval. We made it through over half of the individual close reads for chapters 5-8 and will continue forward on Friday. For readings, continue into chapters 9-14 as we move to our next narrator, our Creature - we shall pick a name for him next week.

Second hour, we finished our vocab today and then did all of the above too! Make sure to read 9-14 for tomorrow's class as you get to know our friendly neighborhood creature.

Father, Mother, Sister, Friend

I believe I mentioned this in both classes, so forgive the redundancy: make sure to attend all classes these last 2 weeks before break unless you have a justifiable emergency. We are moving quickly through Frankenstein, and you will want to be here for all the in-depth observations, Romantic connections, and minutia that pops up regarding our characters.

We continue to move forward with the world of Victor Frankenstein as he tells us all about the influences of his life: his caring father, his flower-like mother, his angelic sister, and his poetic buddy. With each character, we see some qualities permeate Victor's soul as other qualities slip away with his jaunt to Ingolstadt. Today, we divided up into for teams, each one bearing the title of Father, Caroline, Elizabeth, and Clerval. You chatted with your teams and then mixed and match with the other character teams to finalize the impressions of these four characters. If absent, you will need to show your character chart for your individual character to attain participation points.

For homework, have observations a ready for Victor's character, thoughts, behaviors, random acts of reanimation from chapters 1-4. Then, continue forth by reading chapters 5-8. Each student will then have 2 pages of that text in which to perform a thorough close read, over-analysis that will be shared tomorrow. Elliott, you have pages 90-91; Kaylynn, you have pages 92-93.

Team Walton & Team Victor

As a result of our little moratorium during fifth hour today, this will be the expedited version of today's agenda. For both classes, we looked at the reasons why it would be beneficial to sign up for the AP Literature exam and analyzed Frankenstein quotes creating Walton and Victor's characterization. If you were absent, you will need to show me your character charts from these two dashing, determined fellas for participation points. For homework, you are to read Chapters 1-4 and create a character chart for one of the following characters: Caroline, Victor's Father, Elizabeth, or Clerval. If you were not here, you will need to select one of the aforementioned characters and create a character chart. You will be expected to contribute to the discussion tomorrow.

In addition to all of the above, fifth hour continued with vocab and added the Estrella prompt to your portfolio.

Purplue

February 23, the day our beloved Keats left us, adrift in Rome, far from Fanny and home. Hence, the purplue shirt today to signify our elegiac thoughts to the man, the myth, the poet. Today has been a bit of a bummer otherwise. My favorite shoe company, Charlotte Olympia, has filed for bankruptcy and will be closing all of its U.S. stores. Well, at least I have Robert Walton's hubris to liven up our class today. In both classes, after vocab, we focused on pulling quotes from Letter 1 and then analyzing each one's characterization, significance to society, and how this may foreshadow a like character who shall be introduced in about two letters from now.

For homework, you are to read letters 2-4. You will then create a 2 column chart for Walton and a 2 column chart for Victor. In each box/line of the left columns, you will have quotes with citations. In each box/line of the right columns, you will have your analysis of the passage.

See you all on Monday for more talk about the AP Lit exam!

From Mother to Daughter

We are now into the world of Mary Godwin Shelley, the offspring of those radical philosophers Wollstonecraft & Godwin, the eventual wife of the ever-selfish Percy, the mother of scientific literary achievement in the form of Frankenstein. At this point, we have read background info on Mary, that fateful Geneva trip of inspiration, and the possible avenues that joined to create a student of the "unhallowed arts" usurping God and forging his own human specimen. We have also read her introduction to Frankenstein, which was purposed to share the genesis of her novel and validate her authorship. For this evening to prepare for our over-analysis (charts included!) tomorrow, read the Preface and Letter 1. You may want to pay close attention to why Frankenstein is not in this opening epistle and why Shelley would start off with our newly acquired friend Walton instead.

Vindicating

We finished up the Vindication presentations and turned in your paragraphs and close reads for me to evaluate. We do have a couple of absentees yet to present, so that will occur prior to our Frankenstein work.

Wollstonecraft The Beginning Chapters

With great intentions, we made it through the first third of Wollstonecraft presentations today, so that means we will continue forward tomorrow!