Sheehy English 9

One of my favorite passages in all of literature is Puck’s speech at the end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. After he has caused all the mischief and conflict that drove the play, he apologizes to the audience–sort of. Actually, he suggests how the audience should think of all the things that have just occurred if they happen to be offensive or disturbing — think of them as a dream. And since Puck is a fairy, he could then fix all the offenses, eventually.

At the end of a year, after you have been subjected to the antics, the odd projects, the technology, and the exercises that I call my teaching, I often feel I need to deliver just this speech. I am convinced many of you enjoyed your experiences in this classroom; if you didn’t enjoy me, I can see you enjoyed each other. But even if you have not enjoyed your experience with me, I offer my hands to you and at least suggest this: you’ll get another teacher, and eventually, this will all seem like a dream. In that vein I adopt Puck’s words as my own:

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend
…
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

That said, I’d like you to take 30 minutes and to write me a letter of reflection on your year. I will set no word length if you will discipline yourself to write earnestly for the entire half hour (Please do not count the time it takes to log in to your blog). You are writing to me, but this does not need to be about me. While I am interested in what your thoughts are concerning English, I am also interested in your broader reaction to your year. That means for many of the thoughts, you might share your experience in English but then broaden the thought to include your whole life.

I list these questions to help you get going. You need not work down them like a checklist, but you are welcome to do so if you don’t want to think about it.

• What have you learned?
• How have you changed?
• What has influenced you?
• What will you remember when you think back on this year?
• What did you enjoy about class?
• What did you find most challenging?
• What did you learn about yourself as a student this year?
• What lesson was most important to remember for the future?
• What is the story of your year? (You might consider telling me the story of your year and include the landmark events that summarize the whole.)

You may write this at home or during your final exam block, but please make sure it is posted to your blog.

Starting our Romeo and Juliet, I’d like you to respond by attaching a bit of Shakespeare to your own life. You know it’s possible, after all, since you were able to connect Homer’s Odyssey to your life, and that’s a whole lot older than Shakespeare.

Here’s the quick explanation, then. Tell me a 250-word (minimum) story about your own life that is somehow similar to what you’ve read in the first act of Romeo and Juliet. You might consider writing about an incident (or multiple incidents) where people started a stupid fight, or maybe a memory you have of someone who is in the kind of lovey-dovey sick to your stomach love that Romeo expresses.

As you tell the story, include in it three quotes from what we’ve read in Romeo and Juliet. You don’t need to weave the quotes into your text. Just stick them in there where they seem most appropriate, and set them apart with the “Indent” key on your editor’s toolbar.

Need a copy of the text at home? Head here.

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The beginning of an example

My senior year I took a spring break at Daytona Beach. It was fun, but not so much because of the beach as because it was Bike Week (the only valid Sturgis competitor on the planet). I didn’t like the beach, that was tiring. You can drive your cars on the beach at Daytona, and when you find an open spot to hang out, you back in and set up shop on the beach there. Then you sit by your car and watch the other cars drive by. Sort of. If you’re a guy you sit there while people drive by and look at you with their death stares.

Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

The stare was accompanied by an overly exaggerated recline in the seat and a wrist-only steering. I felt like I was some sort of fighter, but I wasn’t the place to find a fight.

But thou art not quickly moved to strike.

What a bunch of goons. I didn’t miss the place at all, and I felt proud to be wearing a pair of the ugliest swim trunks and the whitest pasty non-tan on the beach, to assert my disconnect with the atmosphere.

I do but keep the peace.

Finished with your research paper, the reflection on the research paper, and any make-up work? That means you’re ready to talk about beauty. Head to this page on the wiki and watch the video posted there (I can’t post it here on the blog).

Then, consider these questions.

• What is the significance of this video? In our culture? In your life?
• Why is the process displayed in the video necessary? (That is, why does this take place?)
• How do each of us perpetuate the myth this video expresses?
• In what ways is this video true, even if it is a theatrical recreation?

In your blog, please respond to the questions above in a 300 word article about beauty. You may use the video as a jumping point – as a conversation starter that gets you talking about many aspects of beauty and our culture. If you get stuck, however, return to the questions above and attempt to answer them.

It’s Blogging Day – a national holiday in some obscure Asian countries (at least, that’s what I read in the newspaper – or was that on some guy’s MySpace? I can’t remember), and we’re going to celebrate by spending the class writing on our blogs.

You can write whatever you want and respond to whatever you want, but to help you in case you’re stuck, I thought I’d share three writing prompts here. You may use one if you want, and if you don’t like any of them, feel free to tell whatever story, write whatever poem, or go off on whatever rant that suits you this morning.

To make your blog article good, I would recommend at least 250 words.

Topic 1: Politicians’ Web Sites

Visit the websites for the three remaining candidates for President (here are some links: Hillary, Obama, and McCain). Examine these sites. What do you notice that is interesting? Whose is best? Why? Tell us the story of your exploration – it’ll make it especially interesting.

Topic 2: Early Release

Explain your state of mind this week and your thoughts on getting out of school early due to the girls’ basketball games. Should we be getting out? What will you be doing? Who’s going to win?

Topic 3: Reacting to a quote

I’m going to list a set of interesting quotations. Choose one and react. Explain why you react the way you do.

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble.

- Helen Keller

The only reason for being alive is being fully alive.

- D.H. Lawrence

Man’s greatness lies in his power of thought.

- Blaise Pascal

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

The greatness of art is not to find what is common but what is unique.”

- Isaac Bashevis, Singer

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Original image: ‘Veerle’s Blog at Starbucks‘ by: David Joyce

I am obsessed with Mt. Everest. Well, maybe not Everest itself, but with the outdoors, and with climbing and hiking.

Not that I ever do any of it, however. I can’t afford the equipment needed to climb and I am not interested in doing something so dangerous that I’d risk my chance at being with my girls as they grow up. But I love hiking and I love camping and I love winter – and I love reading about it. Thus, the book on display in the back of the room, Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air. Krakauer’s book chronicles his disastrous trip to the world’s rooftop, where 8 people died on a single day (May 10, 1996) and a great number of others escaped narrowly.

As an interim assignment, I have had you watch a documentary made about an ascent of Mt. Everest. Coincidentally, the team making the documentary climbed Everest in 1996 – the same year that Krakauer attempted the mountain on a fatal expedition. You’ll hear the fatal attempts mentioned in the film.

I’d like to give you the chance to respond to the film in writing, on your blogs, but I do not want to push your writing into a particular box by listing a series of questions. Instead, I’d simply like to ask you to respond to what you saw in this film by writing a blog article of at least 200 words. If you are having trouble finding enough, feel free to augment your exploration by reading online about the mountain or about other events concerning it. I’ve listed a few below.

If you’re stuck, however, I will list a series of themes that I think are pertinent when discussing Mt. Everest and attempts to climb it. Considering themes makes it simple for us to connect what is happening as far away as Mt. Everest to our own lives.

• Dreams
• Ambition
• Challenge
• Physical exertion
• Adventure

Looking for more? You can read Jon Krakauer’s original article about his experience on Mt. Everest, which was published in Outside magazine. Or you could read a rebuttal to Krakauer’s article, written by another climber on the expedition, Anatoli Boukreev. There is a response from Krakauer to Boukreev’s claims, though Boukreev’s claims were later turned into a book of their own -The Climb.

If you’re a picture kind of person (like me) you might enjoy a series of shots of a 2001 ascent of Mt. Everest. Or, you surely could find something interesting in National Geographic’s special Mt. Everest website, which includes a virtual climb video where a cameraman almost falls off a ladder and a host of other great photos (and I’m sorry, but this is just plain nuts). Other virtual climbs are on the Discovery Channel website and a panorama view from the top of the world.

Respond! You’ve got at least 200 words.

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Click on the photos for source.

After attempting your poem and trying to make it carry a depth of meaning, I’d like you to write in your blog a description of how things went. Make your blog article a hearty paragraph (at least 10 sentences) and use the following series of questions to guide your thinking.

1. Describe how the writing process went. Did you write a lot? Did you have trouble getting going? If you had trouble, what was the source? Was it fun?
2. Describe what you were trying to accomplish with your poem and whether or not you did accomplish it. What kind of thought or feeling are you trying to convey?
3. Explain whether you used any of the poetic devices we have discussed in class. If so, explain why you used the one(s) you did. If not, explain whether your poem would be stronger if you did use one of them.
   • When discussing these devices, mention them specifically – use the words “metaphor” and “personification,” etc.
   • If you’ve forgotten, these are the devices we’ve discussed: metaphor, simile, personification, imagery, assonance, consonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia, stanza, rhyme, meter, free verse, repetition.
4. Finish your reflection/report by telling your opinion on the day’s work and describing what you would like to do next time you get the chance to write.

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Original image: ‘Afraid of the Dark‘

What is great poetry? That is the question you will answer during our poetry unit, and I think the perfect way to begin the unit is to make you attempt to answer the question now, before we’ve actually discussed poetry at all. What, today, is your opinion? What is great poetry?

Figuring that you might not have too much to say in response, consider also what you think you will need to do to make yourself better able to answer the question. What should we do in the next couple weeks to enable you to answer the question, “What is great poetry?”

Please write at least 100 words in your blog to respond to this question, and then read and reply to at least two classmates’ answers (that means write comments). Also, please remember to put in your article a link back to this article on the class blog.

P.S. – That river in the picture is in my hometown in New Hampshire.  

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Image Attribution:

Original image: ‘the mighty contoocook‘ by: Ben McLeod

This is the last article you will write about your book, which means it should be written after you have completed the book and should display your best and most complex thoughts. That also means my expectations, grade-wise, will be set a bit higher than they were for the early articles. Attempt to wow me with this article.

You may recall that your main task is to theorize about the best potential symbols and how they connect to the most important themes in the book. Thus, you are writing a reflection-style article about symbols and themes.

Symbols

I know symbols are kind of hard to discuss and find, but once you get the hang of it, I think you’ll find it to be fun. Experts in literature do not have it all figured out – that’s why they love literature so much, there’s more to learn every time one discusses a great work. So the first thing you need to do when looking for symbols is trash the idea that you have to have your book “figured out.”

Instead, I want you to discuss “potential symbols.” You may not know know what the something greater is that the symbol stands for, but if you have read attentively, you will be able to recognize and identify something important, something that may be more significant than it seems at first. You created a list of potential symbols on the wikis, and in your article, I’d like you to extend further – to theorize not only what the most significant symbols are, but what you think they might symbolize. (That is, what is the something greater that your symbol stands for?)

Themes

Your important symbols will bring up ideas and conversations, and the topics of those ideas and conversations are likely themes to the book. Themes, you will recall, are main ideas and concepts explored in a work. What are the main ideas in your book? What questions does the book raise? You may either tie comments about theme into your comments about symbols, or you may tag a paragraph at the bottom of your article, after you comment about symbols.

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Image Attribution:

Original image: ‘walk‘ by: Rick Audet

Original image: ‘Questions‘ by: Tim O’Brien

Writing about setting is understandably difficult for many students (that’s why I require only 250 words for this article), but it’s an essential element to stories and it’s important for you as an intelligent reader to stop and evaluate it thoroughly.

How, though? How do you talk about setting for so long when usually all you have to do is answer the question, “What is the setting?” in four or fewer sentences? One way to talk about setting is to talk about every little tidbit of the setting, and that’s why your groups worked together to list everything you know about the setting in your book. On those pages, I already explained two strategies for extending your thinking:

1. Consider any changes in the setting and what happens in particular places.
2. Also consider how your book would be different if it took place somewhere else.

Those are two of my favorite strategies, and while you do that, don’t forget that setting is more than physical location – it’s also the time, including the time in history. So if I think about The Odyssey, I might consider what happens when the setting changes. For one thing, each time the setting changes, there seems to be a new obstacle for Odysseus to overcome. And if the book had taken place somewhere else – say, for example, the USA during the 1990’s – then Odysseus wouldn’t have been in a culture that cared about the gods and goddesses.

Other strategies for thinking about setting:

• How do the characters feel about the places (and situations the places are responsible for creating) in the story?
• Does the setting play a major role, or is it more of a background element?
• How does the author describe the setting? (In long descriptive passages? In short blips that let you know where and when things are happening?)
• Is the setting clear? If it is unclear, is it unclear for a particular reason?
• What kinds of attitudes do the characters possess as a result of the setting? (For example, if the book is set in Alabama in the 1940’s, chances are the white people would possess significantly racist attitudes towards black people.)

Those questions are not intended as a checklist, but as a help to get you thinking about setting. 250 words is a lot more than the four sentences you’d like to write, but you are very capable of doing it. If you get stuck, please reopen the conversation with your group’s members to see if, together, you can generate more thinking and insight about setting.

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Image Attribution:

Original image: ‘Grand Street: Texting‘ by: Mo Riza

Original image: ‘The Land of Ghosts‘ by: Peter Bowers

Your second article for your book project falls under the cluster called “Character.” One way I find it easy to evaluate a character is to put that character into a new setting and to decide how that character would fit in. The new setting forces me to acknowledge their character traits and to consider how they might play out in different situations.

That is why I like to assign this particular writing challenge, where you pretend one of your characters is a student here at Central and decide how that character would fit in.

I’d like you to consider a main character in your book – a round character, which, you’ll remember, is many sided and has both faults and virtues revealed. While I realize many of your characters are adults, do not let that stop you. Simply pretend that they are your age (but with all the same characteristics they have in the story).

Then, pretend your character has now begun to attend Central High School. Please describe to me what she would be like if she were here at Central. With whom would she be friends? What would she be like in class? What would your reaction towards her be? Consider everything you can and paint a picture for me of what your character would look like as a student in our class.

As you write, remember to reference the story. That is, if you say your character would be a loud-mouthed class clown, defend your claim with an incident or detail in the story that makes you confident you’re right. Also, realize that many of your characters are dynamic – you may want to reference their changes in your character sketch.

Please write your entry to be, minimum, 300 words in length.

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Attribution:

Original image: ‘Student in Class‘ by: foundphotoslj