Thursday, 1/22/2009

AP English

Reading Journal--Nabokov

• We discussed questions and comments we had about Nabokov's "Good Readers...", and we discussed several of the Reading Journal questions.
  

Reading Journal Note

• Make sure you're only writing on the RIGHT side of your notebook when you do the RJ for homework.  The LEFT side of your notebook is for commentary, questions, and clarifications that occur to you during or after class discussion, or after rereading, or after more thinking.
  

Frankenstein

• Megan talked about MOOD, and Heath talked about DICTION.
  
• We discussed a few questions about geographic location, and sequence of events.
  

Popular Mechanics

• We had twenty minutes left to read the short story, and start the Reading Journal questions.  HOMEWORK:  Finish the RJ, find out what kind of magazine "Popular Mechanics" is, and read the Kings Bible passage.

Creative Writing

Writing Experiment #1

• Around the Block--write a poem showing what it's like to take a walk around your neighborhood.  Don't rhyme.  Do write your poems in lines, and do bring in the fives senses when you include details.  (twenty-five minutes, typed)
  

Writing Lesson

• Clichés--we talked about what they are, and we talked about why we want to avoid them in our writing.  (They're tired, trite and overused, and we want our writing to be fresh, creative and inventive)
• We spent time creating new phrases, and then we shared these with a partner.  We started going around the room to hear one phrase from everyone.  We'll finish with that tomorrow.

HOMEWORK

• Read pages 4 and 5.
  
• Complete the worksheet I gave you at the end of class.
  

ADVANCED CREATIVE WRITING

Workshop

• We talked briefly about the comments we'd like on our poems when we workshop them on the big screen.
  
• We workshopped about half the class's "I Had the Weirdest Dream" poems.
  

Diction Discussion

• Each group presented it's ten Banished Words, and we nominated one from each list to send to Lake Ontario State University for it Banished Words Contest.
  

Class Planning

• We discussed class ideas for the term.