TODAY IN CLASS

First draft personal essays were due--typed, properly formatted, and printed--and exchanged for the peer response session.  Most people had papers. 

• Those who were absent (for whatever reason) as well as those who did not have papers today (for whatever reason) must still pick up a peer response form in class tomorrow and both provide and receive suggestions from a classmate.  No additional class time will be provided for this. If possible, work within your own class period; if not, someone in another section of mine will be okay.  
• MANY people did not follow all of the formatting requirements,  and a surprising number neglected multiple elements.  Significant points will be deducted on the final copy for the errors we went over today.  But that is still a small price to pay compared to having college applications. job applications, or on-the-job projects rejected for non-compliance.  Instructions matter.
• I might have been inconsistent with st period, since I was talking with individuals as they brought papers up; it worked betterin 5th when I asked students to double-check specific items and note errors on their own papers. 
• People who were absent simply need to follow the original instructions; nothing new was added that wasn't already provided to you.

TOMORROW

For several reasons, the Tess final timed write will be on Wednesday rather than on Tuesday.

Heads-up:

Starting Thursday, expect to have your Perrine textbook with you every day for the next 2-plus weeks.

If you want to work ahead tonight, start the next chapter (p. 59 or 60?).  Read the pages very carefully that lead up to the two stories.  Much as I wish we could spend time on them, we can't.  If you're a fast reader, it will be to your benefit. But for sure, pick up again at the very end of that chapter (after the two stories) with the basic questions to ask about literature.  We'll add Setting to the mix, but after a couple weeks with Tess, you probably knew that.

TODAY IN CLASS
Inequites to be resolved tomorrow:  goal is to land in exactly the same place.
!st--did NOT stamp the homework for today (see yesterday's post), but we DID finish the dawn passage.  Two thoughts for first-thing tomorrow: 

• What's the exact passage-of-time sequence for the entire Talbothay's dairy experience?
• Think about the black puddings and the drink that Angel brought home as treats for his parents.  What's the "deal" with including them in the text?

Then, we'll proceed, in part based on the quotes you have selected.

6th--Yes, I DID stamp your work for completion.  We'll take it up as soon as possible after picking up with herons, cows, and bejeweled landscape and visage from the passage.  And we'll tuck in the two bulleted points above (look at the text/reflect--no writing necessary).

FOR TOMORROW
Well, that's been partly covered above.

Your outside work has been deliberately light so that you can really focus on the personal essay.  Some of you may really need to try one thing, then another, before even deciding for sure on the topic you'll stick with. 

So you should assume that "homework" is mostly your ongoing essay-writing, and revising even your so-called "first draft" to make it as good as it can be before someone provides Round 1 suggestions.

FINAL ASSESSMENT on Tess
Tuesday, Oct. 1.  In-class closed-book essay: 40 minutes.

TODAY IN CLASS
Building on the religious and mythological allusions in the dawn scene at Talbothays, students worked in pairs to write a thesis statement for a passage analysis that would assign essential function to the passage as well as to indicate the primary devices.  We looked at those on the overhead and discussed differences.  In 1st we began looking at additional features of the passage; in 5th we didn't quite get there.

FOR TOMORROW
Review Phase the Fourth and Phase the Fifth by isolating what seem to YOU to be extremely significant quotes.  Remember that in a novel, a "quote" does not have to be what a character says--it can certainly include the author's narrative voice as well.

Find THREE significant quotations for each of these phases (4th and 5th).  Write them down or type them out; include the page numbers in your edition simply for easier reference later.  Be prepared to provide reasons for the centrality of the quotation, but you do NOT need to defend them in writing.

Passage Allusion Research

The passage to study:  when Tess and Angel go out to the pasture in the pre-dawn hours to bring in the cows for milking (Phase the Fourth; Chapter 20).

• Begin with the 7th paragraph of the chapter: "The grey half-tones of daybreak . .  "
• Continue almost to the end of the chapter--go through the 4th paragraph from the end.  That paragraph begins with "Or perhaps the summer fog . . . " and ends with ". . .the other women of the world."  Don't include the 3 paragraphs after that.

Please do NOT look up the passage itself and read anyone else's analysis.

•  Look up only what you need to know as individual elements of mythological or religious allusion--write down what you find, don't just tuck it away in your head. 
• When you finish checking allusions, consider the descriptive language of the passage in terms of both selection of detail and imagery. You could annotate lightly or take further notes.

The Personal Essay/College Application Essay

Here are a couple of sites that discuss the new Common Application essay topics.  In different ways, both of these hone in on the key words in these new prompts and give one slant (the writer's) on what the questions are seeking to reveal.  Your take, of course, will be your own--but since these are brand new topics and I don't have a "track record" with them either, I figure you should read up a bit as a backdrop to making your own choice.

http://collegeapps.about.com/od/essays/a/common-application-essay-prompts.htm

http://in.princetonreview.com/in/2013/07/dissecting-the-new-common-app-essay-prompts.html

This one has a questionable video attached, but do look at it for some overall information, including the reason for waiving your right to see letters of recommendation.  I'm not sure I heard the counselors mention that this year, and it's still important advice:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patrick-oconnor/common-application-coming_b_3671475.html

Here is the link to the school assignment for the personal essay; be sure to follow all of the formatting instructions given for class purposes.  Obviously such features as the heading and the typed prompt will not be on what you submit to a college eventually; you may or may not actually include a title on the application essay.  Particular college/university instructions vary.

Senior Personal Essay 2013

The first draft of this assignment is due on Monday, Sept. 30.  There will be a peer-response that day, which will be a valuable step in the process of developing a compelling, effective, and well-written essay.

Tuesday and Wednesday

TUESDAY
Counselors in all senior classes to discuss the details of the college application process.  See the Counseling Office website for the video and various other information and necessary forms.

TODAY
Students received a Class Hand-out on the timing and basic details of the English class connection to the Senior Culminating Project. I thought the links it contained would remain live, but they did not.  
Although all of this information can be accessed from the College and Career Center website, I'm including two important links here:

You can access the Resume Handbook here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B57_IJB75bs3anVFZ0xoNHdxMGs/edit?pli=1

You can access the full details on the Senior Culminating Project here:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B57_IJB75bs3NWRGeUdmdDlvaEE/edit?pli=1

Note that last year's due date has not been updated on that site:  this year's date is Monday, Oct. 14!
But as noted on the class hand-out, the date for clearing your work with me is a few days earlier--Oct. 10.

Personal Esay
I also hit the highlights:  everyone does one, there will be a peer response as part of the process, and you are strongly discouraged from dealing with the 4 D's:  Divorce, Disease, Depression, and Death.

One option will be to select the University of Washington "personal statement" choices A or B.
You many also choose a topic from the Common Application. You'll be able to utilize Common App choices 1-5 without prior approval, and Common App #6 IF you get permission before you begin to write.  The best uses for #6 are to substitute a true essay topic from a non-Common App school where you actually intend to apply.  You can't use #6 for short blurbs on various topics (WSU 's app, for example) or for an essay that essentially describes what you would bring to a particular college or university and how an education from that school would benefit you. .

All of these topics will be printed out on the full assignment sheet, along with dates and a few more tips, in the next day or two.  But you can start thinking now.

TESS
We'll briefly discuss particular insights from the choices students made concerning the sentence that best conveys Hardy's attitude toward Tess, and then mostly deal with Phase the Second on Thursday.
We will stop wherever we get, and work with Phase the Third on Friday.
There will be a different strategy for 4-7,with  because in this first pass through Tess, we're going to finish up by Tuesday (in class), with an in-class final essay either Thursday or Friday next week

For Friday and Monday

I apologize for Friday's missing post.

IN CLASS ON FRIDAY
First there was a short homework check slip.We utilized the prep questions on Thursday's blog as the discussion guide for Friday's class, with a bit of time here and there to compare notes/lists in informal groups.  We did not complete Phase the First (or the listed questions) by any means, and progress varied between the two sections.

Week-end Homework--the previously announced reading in Perrine's Lit, specifically outlined earlier in the week.

IN CLASS ON MONDAY
We never discuss all that could be brought out of a section, but we evened up the varied coverage between 1st and 5th periods and in both classes got near the end.  We will focus on Wednesday on the scene in the Chase, because that is probably the most pivotal single scene in the novel. But it could well be that we will manage to get Phase the Second underway.

Thursday--Phase the Second      (know that I am skipping certain kinds of things even apart from
Friday--Phase the Third                     passage analysis because we be coming back to Tess in April)

IN CLASS ON TUESDAY
The counselors will be here to discuss the college application process and other topics that concern first-semester seniors.  It will probably take enough of the class period that you aren't obligated to have any books with you.  If there are a few minutes at the end, I know exactly a non-Tess, non-Perrine activity that I'll tuck in to make good use of our time.

On Friday, be sure to bring Tess; you do NOT need to have Perrine's Lit with you in class.

TODAY IN CLASS
Students did the initial assessment on Tess of the D'Urbervilles prior to any in-class discussion of the text.  Now we can finally proceed!

Tess of the D'Urbervilles, for TOMORROW

You can keep track of the following via some combination of sticky notes in your Tess book and by jotting notes down in your English notebook. There will be a quick space at the start of class tomorrow in which you will either act on these or transfer the information to another format. Other things will become the springboard of discussion.

All of the following refer ONLY to "Phase the First"--do not work with anything past that first section.

1.  Simply list out the chain of events and choices that lead to the death of Prince.  Consider (think about/have ideas ready) the larger implications of this series.  (I could frame a more specific question, but I prefer to leave it open-ended.)

2.  List as many instances of foreshadowing as you find in those same chapters (the first 5 of Phase the First).

3. How does the initial physical description of Alec "matter"?

4.  List out the set of coincidences and choices in Chapter 10 that lead to Tess riding home with Alec.
(We are, of course, heading to a series and a collective "so what?" here.  But for now, just list/note.)

5. In your edition, why, exactly, does Alec leave Tess by herself in the woods?

6.  Re-read, carefully, the last four paragraphs of Phase the First.


ASSIGNED READING from Perrine's Structure, Sound & Sense--due by Monday, Sept. 16. 

1) Though not mentioned earlier,include the "Foreward to Students" (XXXII-XXXIV) as part of the assigned reading.

2) Then use the following breakdown to guide you through pp. 3-58 in the Writing about Literature secion.  The following notes refer to the table of contents on p. 2.

• Sections I-VII: Read carefully now, even though you will probably need to refer back to some of this later.
• Section VIII: Read over/skim, knowing that you may need to study these examples VERY thoroughly later on, depending on your particular skill set.
• Section IX: Skim for now; know what's here. Between this section and the Purdue OWL, you should be pretty self-sufficient with MLA formatting this year.
• Section X: Very important. Read carefully, even though this seems like a hodge-podge of "rules."
• Section XI: Skim for now; know for sure what this book tends to put in Grammar vs. Usage. Look at Punctuation carefully enough to know if any of these take you by surprise.
• Section XII: For NOW, you can skim/look these over with one important goal:  what is the difference between "explication" and "analysis"?  We will come back to these for a more detailed look periodically as you undertake particular kinds of assignments.AS

Self-Definitions Accomplished . . .

TODAY IN CLASS
Students turned in the self-definitions as hard copies and submitted online prior to 3 p.m.

Also, there was the first practice timed write, a passage analysis ("Question 2" of Section II, the Free Response portion of a prior AP test).

TOMORROW
The initial summer reading asssessment for Tess of the D'Urberbvilles. Although the test itself will be closed book, please bring the book with you to class.  I don't know how long the test will take, and I want you to be able to move forward with an assigned task if you finish early.

Self-Definitions Due on Wednesday!!

Remember, bring a hard copy in class.

Submit to turnitin.com as well. 

Class ID for 1st period:  6967651 
Class ID for 5th period:  6967672 

For both classes, the enrollment password is the same:  purple

The class name is listed as AP English Period 1 (or Period 5)

Armageddon Day

Yes, we survived all the drills . . .

And we got a bit of classwork done aroud the edges.

For Seamus Heaney's poem "Digging," I could see that most of you seemed to do a thorough job of annotating for this starter poetry work.  We are not, by the way, starting into our first poetry round just yet--it was the poet's recent death that brought it to mind, and there is an application I want you to consider that goes beyond the essential analogy in the poem.  But first there are a few brief things I want to pick up on tomorrow that I prefer not to list here, since the progress in each class was somewhat different and I don't want to steal your discussion thunder.  Please keep the sheet handy.

FOR TOMORROW

Nothing specific due on Tuesday, but . . .

1)  Get at least a good start on the Self-Definition due Wednesday, Sept. 11.  I may update the blog with the turnitin.com codes later tonight.

2)  Be prepared for the Tess assessment on Thursday (in class, closed book, short essay response plus some IDs/direct questioning that will require 2-3 sentences each).  NOT MC or fill-in-the-blank.

3)  Hate to do this the first full week of school, but I am delaying the "Writing about Literature" reading assignment  (pp. 1-58 in Perrine's Lit) until Monday. (But working ahead is always okay.)

Welcome!!

Here's a recap of where we've been during our first "week" of school:

Day 1 --10 minutes for calling roll and handing out the QuickStart Guide.  If you missed getting one, be sure to pick one up on Monday.

Day 2 -- Picture Day--more time-consuming in some classes than in others.  However, I think that all AP students managed to do the "(fictional) world I'd like to live in" quickwrite.  However, some of you did not have time to complete a careful reading and annotation of the Seaums Heaney poem on the back of that sheet.  Please do this for Monday.

Day 3 --

• Assigned:  Self-Definition --due Wednesday, Sept. 11.  I talked all classes through this assignment first, and then distributed the actual written assignment.  But because of my absence yesterday and the copy room mayhem, I didn't have hand-outs for 1st period, but you can access it here.  No need to print it out; I'll give them to you on Monday. Here's the link: Self-Definition
• Students checked out the main textbook from the bookroom.  You do NOT need to bring this book to class for awhile, but there will be reading assigned to you.  The first chunk is "Writing about Literature" (1-58), due next Friday, Sept. 13, in case you have any compelling wish to get started on this right away.

Also on your plate--Tess of the D'Urbervilles. If you haven't finished, buckle down.  If you read it much earlier in the summer, you might want to review a bit--at least go through each "Phase" and think abaout major plot events in each section as well as how earlier sections fit into a cohesive whole (now that you know how it ends, which I hope you didn't as you went along!).

And finally, other school supplies--
Both the QuickStart Guide and the message on the board got you started:

• Black or dark blue pens
• Loose-leaf notebook paper

But here are several other things which most of you probably have already:

• A pen of some other color than blue or black--green, red, purple, or even something more exotic.  Your choice
• Highlighter (any color)
• Notebook--This is the place for taking on-going class notes and for doing requested on-the-spot prep work that will not be handed in.  You need to have it with you and out on your desk every day.  Choices here--conventional spiral notebook, binder with loose-leaf paper, marble-cover composition book, etc.
• A folder to keep hand-outs in, many of which you need to retain for the whole year (or at least until after the AP test!)