Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Wednesday, 2/11/2009

AP ENGLISH

Homework Due
  • We put our "Good Readers/Good Writers" worksheet in the drawer.

Critical Approaches
We listened to the following presentations, and took brief notes over each one:
  • Reader Response
  • Biographical 
  • Psychological

We spent a fair amount of time talking about these as they related to Frankenstein and Mary Shelley.

AP Exam Prep
  • We spent fifteen minutes working on the AP practice exam, although, by all accounts, it felt like fifteen years.  We'll check the first multiple-choice section tomorrow, and see where to go from there.

Writing Workshop on the Big Screen
  • We looked at Cassie's essay.  She used a lots of good textual support for her points.  

Vocabulary Review
  • We ran through a pronunciation of all the words, and then we played The Monkey Game.  The game actually ended in a tie.

Homework
  • College-Prep Research worksheet
CREATIVE WRITING

Writing Lesson #1--Breaking Lines in Poetry
Endline--endstopped versus endjambed lines
  • We looked at the difference between these two things, and we looked at several different reasons for endline.  (p. 34).
  • We got with a partner, and we worked on page 35, breaking the poems (blobs) into lines with slash marks.
  • When we got back together as a class, we talked about what made us decide to break lines where we did (emphasis; punctuation; rhyme; rhythm; line length).
  • With every poem we write this term, we always want to be considering WHERE and WHY we break our lines as we do.
Writing Lesson #2--Paragraphing
  • We put Koby's WWYLN? up on the Big Screen, and we read over it to make sure it was paragraphed effectively.  He told us which three questions from his group he's going to incorporate into his revision of this piece as well.
  • I handed out the purple checklist for the WWYLN, and I explained it, and then people went to work making their final copies.

Writing Workshop  (We had about thirty-five minutes to work.)
  • WWYLN? Revision to Final Draft (due, end of block)
  • Autobiographical Poem--Complete Rough Draft (due, end of block)
New Assignment to Ponder
Prompt Word Poem, page 27
  • We wrote down the words to use for the assignment.  I'll explain the poem more tomorrow.
TURBO-ADVANCED CREATIVE WRITING

Diction Warm-Ups
  • Apparent Contradictions (p. 16)--we took five minutes to explain to a partner our interpretations of some of the contradictions from yesterday; then we got back together as a class, and each person shared one explanation.
  • Connotation Revisions--Brittany E. and Andrew read their pieces aloud, and we compared it to the boring original.  We talked about style, and about how things like diction, sentence structure, detail and focus all influence what our writing style looks and feels like.
Writing Assignment--Stretching the Truth
  • We listened to/read a chapter ("Nuit of the Living Dead) from David Sedaris.  We highlighted where we thought he was exaggerating for comic or dramatic effect, or for emphasis.  This chapter is the model for our own Stretching the Truth memoir--90% true, 10% exaggerated.  Directions for the assignment are on page M6, and the piece is due on Tuesday.
Sharing
We read and workshopped Ryan's Dream Poem.
We read and workshopped several of the Persona Poems, and we'll finish the rest tomorrow.

Homework
  • Revised Childhood Memoir--due Friday
  • Saying "It" Without Actually Saying It--due Friday





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