Week of April 25th

Monday - the Romantics and The World is too Much With Us

Tuesday - guest speaker: Matt Rader Don't forget about the Poetry Cafe @ 7pm.

Wednesday - Free Verse Project Bring your cameras! Poem pararaph due.

Thursday - Rennaisance and Review of Terms - more TBA

Friday - Post Modernity and Parody - More TBA

NEXT WEEK: Poetry Test, Finishing Lit. Circles... and a really big essay

Friday, April 23rd

Word of the Day - Kaizen - a Japanese word for continuous improvement in business, manufacturing and all manner of industry and management. The term can be used in other contexts, as well.

1) Silent Reading

2) Hand-in Poetry Journal

3) Where is your poem paragraph at?

What makes for a powerful paragraph anyway?
Pairs: Write down three things

What are some common errors that you can look for?

Pairs: Write down three things.

4) Six Point Scale - Grading Examples

5) Delve In Model

6) Time to re-draft your paragraph with a partner.

HOMEWORK: Rough draft and paragraph due Monday.

Earth Day! Thursday, April 27th.

Quote of the Day:

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
there is a rapture on the lonely shore,
there is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, byt nature more."
~~Lord Byron, from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

In honour of Earth Day, 2010, I have pledged to go paperless. So, today everything you need to do is posted here and inside our elevens network.

Today is our Literature Circle Day in the library. Many of the groups have lit up with discussions. PARTICIPATE. SHARE YOUR THINKING.

Take a look at the Rubric and the Discussion Starters for ideas. Remember that we will only check into our Lit. Circles one more time online. Then, the groups will close and you will have a final assignment to complete. By next week, you need to have finished reading the entire novel.

Today's Tasks:

1. All
   Online discussion forums are more and more the way of the future of education. Colleges and universities, in particular, are heading towards more and more online work. Given this, take a look at your group participation so far. Think about how you could do more. Then, do it. Discuss more, say more, read more. If your group members are not participating, talk to them, email them...
2. Peruse your shared resources - find the best two quotes about the book or something related to the book. Put them in the Resources Discussion.
   
3. Roles

Discussion Director - Look at all of the discussions so far and post a discussion that will really shake your group up. You can be controversial, inflammatory... whatever works to spark some new ideas about the book you are reading.

Connection Maker - What are the connections we are missing? You should have thought about text-to-text connections, text-to-self connections and text-to-world connections. Add in a new layer of connections. One possible new connection, is to look at the author's life and make connections.

Passage Picker - for the 1/2 - 3/4 check in on the novel, decide what quotes/scenes are most important to note. Explain why they are important.

Summarizer - summarize the novel from the halfway point to 3/4 of the way through.

TOMORROW: Hand-in your journals and your paragraph about the poem you have selected to read.

Wednesday, April 21st

Word of the Day:

1) Silent Reading

2) Let's get the poetry journal organized. Here's the rubric.
Let's figure out all the work you should have in it so far... I'll take it in on Friday, for a first round of marking. Then, again, at the end of the month.

3) Understanding the poem you will read aloud. Mark up one copy to answer the questions to ask of the poem. The other copy as a "script" for how you will read.

4) Poem Paragraph - writing about poetry is not easy. Your task is to write a 8-12 sentence paragraph about the poem you have selected - you must organize your thesis around your understanding of the theme. /12 Let's do tell the truth but tell it slant on the over head together....

Example #1 Example #2

Library time to work today - bring it in on Friday...

Tomorrow: Lit Circle tasks.

Tuesday, April 20th

Silent Reading

The power of sounds...

Finding a poem to read aloud...

Wednesday, April 13th

Library Day - Literature Circle Tasks

Tuesday, April 13th

Quote of the Day: "Take away love and the Earth is a tomb." ~ Robert Browning

1) Silent Reading

2) Test Marks and Homework from Friday...

3) Victorian Generation

• This includes all literature produced during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837 - 1901).
  
• The link between the high antics of Romanticism and the more bleak poetry of the modernists.


• It was really the novel that was getting all the attention at the time - Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, the Bronte Sisters were producing some of the first mass printed and mass consumed novels ever.
  
• The Victorians liked the finer things - ornate decorations, ornate clothing, a life of imagination... party games like charades and group story-telling were invented in this time period.

One of the most famous love stories between two poets comes out of this era. The Brownings - Elizabeth Barret Browning and Robert Browning.

Elizabeth's most remembered poems are her love sonnets. Anyone ever written a love poem? (She wrote 44 for her husband and kept them in secret for years).
Let's take a look at one:
Before we do - Speed Dating Lines Activity.

How do I Love Thee? Use the Questions to ask a Poem handout. Class Discussion.

4) Sonnet types (on board). Look at your nonsense poem from yesterday... can you turn your 14 lines into a structured sonnet?

5) Sonnet Worksheet - I hate worksheets. Blah. But, the poem is good...

Tomorrow - Lit. Circles in Library
Thursday - Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" and dramatic monologues, in general.

Monday, April 11th

1) Silent Reading - 15/20 minutes... no napping or mp3 day-dreaming. Remember you have to be half way through your novel by Wednesday.

2) Watch Video - Just for fun, on the Highland Poetry Month Website, watch the teen poetry slam. Remember - soon, you will be looking for a poem to record your reading of...

3) Victorian Poetry - tomorrow we will start looking at some of the classics of Victorian Era Poetry (1837-1901). Victorians loved an elegant, rich life of fine things and imagination and play. One of the most playful poems ever written was, "Jabberwocky," written by Lewis Carroll in 1872 as a part of the novel, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There.
The nouns and verbs are made up of nonsense of words and yet make a sort of funny sense.

Your work: Read it out loud to a partner. Discuss what you like about it.

Reflective Question: What rhymes or stories or poems or songs do you remember from your childhood? Why do you remember them? See if you can jot down one. What does it remind you of?

Creative Writing: Write your own nonsense poem. Give it a title. Make it sound fun to read out loud. Must be 14 lines long.

Friday, April 9th

1) Silent Reading - remember you need to be at least half way through your Lit. Circle novel by next Wednesday.

2) Wrap Up Modernist Poetry

• Influence of Eastern Religion (see Buddhism Basics below)
  
• People and speaker as problematic


• Free verse, free verse
  
• Imagery, Imagery


• Divergent, complex imagery
  
• Wallace Stevens' Poem Title: "The Ultimate Poem is Abstract."
  

Buddhism Basics - Buddhism has a rich and complex history and system of beliefs - this little summary is just the beginning...

The 4 Truths

4) Finish Reading The Waste Land - Groups: What images/words/ideas/problems stand out? Discussion.

5) Homework: The Emperor of Ice Cream - see handout.

Thursday, April 7th

Word of the Day: Concupiscent = lustful...

Library Day - Literature Circles.

Go to: http://elevens.ning.com/

Lit. Circle Rubric (will link soon)

Lit. Circle Tasks Today (will link to Google Doc soon)

Wednesday, April 7th

Word of the Day - Crux

Silent Reading - meetings with students with I reports.

Finish up, "As I Walked Out One Evening." Declare winners!
Discuss poem... how is it modernist?

Questions to Ask of a Poem Handout

The Waste Land - a big poem, a challenging poem...
Group Work - answer the questions to figure out the theme. Use the white board to record and present your findings.

Reflective Question - Why is it important to be pushed out of our comfort zone, sometimes? What is to be gained by being challenged?
Writing Activity - Write an imagist poem... see handout from yesterday.

Tuesday, April 5th

1) Silent Reading
How much reading did you get done over the holiday?

2) Announcements

• Blog assessment will close on Wednesday - 40 marks !!!
• Did not get tests marked - could not get the alarm system to work at school yesterday and could not get in to pick them up.
• I reports delayed going to AG teachers tomorrow.
• This class is not just about reading, it's about thinking and being critical and aware and open... yes, a teacher lecture.
• Poetry Month at Highland

3) Modernist Poetry - the early 20th century
We're going backwards... time travelling!

Modernist poetry is characterized by two main features: extensive use of free verse and a move away from the Romantic's use of an unproblematic speaker speaking to an equally unproblematic audience. Modernists loved to question and doubt the self and to do so in a typically short, narrative poem.

Imagist poets, like William Carlos Williams, were the first ones to abandon the flowery and excessive style of the Romantics. The Red Wheelbarrow. As their name suggests, they heavily used imagery.

Then the Poet's Club entered the scene, TS Eliot (The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock) and Ezra Pound, in particular. Eliot's The Wasteland (a collaboration between the two) is the poem of the modern generation. We'll look at it tomorrow. Get ready for the most brilliant despair and doubt. We'll also talk about the questions to ask of a poem.

4)Today in Class

As I Walked Out One Evening - identifying the figurative language. Six Groups. Couple of stanzas at a time. Contest!! Greatest number found wins treats! Review terms on board: metaphor, simile, personification, repitition, allusion, imagery, etc...

5) Homework

Reflection Question: Why do younger generations react against or throw out notions from the older generations? What do you reject from older generations today?
Creative Writing Assignment: Write an Imagist Poem (handout)