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TOK - Language Cont'd

My regular blog is down. So here we are... slumming it on one of my old blogs. :)

1) Language is sorta everything. 

When we talk about what makes humans "better" than animals we always slide into describing our various and complicated ability to communicate. Why?

How interested are you in languages? Are you as interested as this guy? For those of you who are multi-lingual, how do different languages change your knowing?

2) Language and genetics - a theory. We come loaded with a set language system that varies due to genetics.

Meet Noam Chomsky, Linguist and Philosopher (and political activist):

QUESTION: Language, then, is a key to human nature?

CHOMSKY: In Western scientific thought of the last several centuries there has been a tendency to assume that human nature is limited to the immediately observable physical structure of the organism. And that for other aspects of human nature, specifically for behavior, there are no genetically determined structures of comparable complexity to the directly observable physical organization of the body. So human physical structures and intellectual structures are generally studied in different ways. The assumption is that physical structures are genetically inherited and intellectual structures are learned.

I think that this assumption is wrong. None of these structures is learned. They all grow; they grow in comparable ways; their ultimate forms are heavily dependent on genetic predispositions. If we understood, as we do not, the physical bases for these structures, I have little doubt that we would find structures in the brain for social interactions, or language, or analysis of personality -- a whole variety of systems developed on the basis of a specific biological endowment.

QUESTION: Do you mean that all our behavior is innate, genetically determined?

CHOMSKY: No, but the basic structures for our behavior are innate. The specific details of how they grow would depend on interaction with the environment.

3) Language evolves (devolves?). 

How do these changes shift our knowing?
How do these language shifts change our culture?

Read: Top Words of 2013

Scan: Are Emojis Dumbing Us Down?

Read: Latest OED additions

Check out the real OED.

Homework - study rest of language package. Quiz on Friday.

Have a great summer!

Hi Everyone (in all my classes), 

It's been way too long since I saw all of you, so I just wanted to take a minute to wish everyone a successful end of year, and a happy and safe summer.

Here is the thing - life spins on a dime. 

One minute you are safe and happy, the next minute you are terrified, and in shock, and pleading with the universe to let the love of your life survive, pleading for him to have more time.
So, if you are willing to hear me, and can learn anything from me, learn this:

Life is now. 

Look around you, look at the people, look at the light, look at the dark, see it all and savour it, eat it up, this is what you get, right now, and it is beautiful.
Even when it hurts, even when you think you are going to throw up you are so unhappy,
life is now, and life is beautiful. 

Life is now, and life is beautiful. 

(And, for those of you who have been wondering, we're doing okay. We live one minute at a time, but we really hope that one year from now my husband will be all better.)

Best.
Tara Colborne

Sample Thesis for Compare and Contrast

Rough Draft Due - WEDNESDAY
Final Draft Due - FRIDAY

Both the song, "Body in Box," by Dallas Green, and the poem, "Do Not Go Gently," by Dylan Thomas, explore the great sadness of the end of a person's life; where Green's lyrics plead with listeners to focus on living a good life, and pay no mind to his death whatsoever, Thomas' lyrical poem pleads with his father to put all his attention to fighting death.

The Romantics and the importance of place...

1) Poetry Response #2 due.

2) Comma/Semi-colon Worksheet - also due. Mark your own...

3) A Meditation on a Place

4) The Romantics

Most importantly, Romanticism saw a shift from faith in reason to faith in the senses, feelings, and imagination

• a shift from interest in urban society to an interest in the rural and natural; 

• a shift from public, impersonal poetry to subjective poetry; and from concern with the scientific and mundane to interest in the mysterious and infinite. 

• mainly they cared about the individual, intuition, and imagination.

1. Imagination and emotion are more important than reason and formal rules;
imagination is a gateway to transcendent experience and truth.
2. Along the same lines, intuition and a reliance on “natural” feelings as a guide to 
conduct are valued over controlled, rationality.
3. Romantic literature tends to emphasize a love of nature, and a valuing of the common, "natural" man; Romantics idealize country life and believe that many of the ills of society are a result of urbanization.
       

4. Romantics were attracted to rebellion and revolution, especially concerned with 
human rights, individualism, freedom from oppression;
5. There was emphasis on introspection, psychology, melancholy, and sadness. Their
art often dealt with death, transience and mankind’s feelings about these things. 
The artist was an extremely individualistic creator whose creative spirit was 
more important than strict adherence to formal rules and traditional procedures.

5) Tintern Abbey (Iron Maiden even filmed a video there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSZbbTjM0Es)

- Or, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798...
- slides
- Questions

Tomorrow: Poem Types, and a sample test...

Sonnet Challenge!

(Did your group submit some evidence of your rebellion poem work yesterday?)

1) Introduction to the two most popular sonnet forms

	Italian/Petrarchan	English/Shakespearean
Syllables per line	10	10
Rhyme Scheme	abbaabba  cdecde (or c d d c d d, c d d e c e, or c d d c c d or...)	Abab cdcd efef gg
General Shape	First 8 lines present a problem. (Main Idea) Last six lines solve it. Often ironic. (Conclusion)	First three sets consider a topic with a similar image. (Main idea) The final couplet holds a paradox. (Conclusion)

2) Examples - and some work...Handout.
Anthem for Doomed Youth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlDoon91vZk
How Do I Love Thee? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vog4hMSprls

If you want to read more sonnets, some of the most famous traditional ones are here:
http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson830/sonnet-links.html

3) Now, WE are going to write a sonnet together!

Topic: Love
What type? Vote?

Rule #1: The sonnet must be completed in one class period.

Rule #2: Everyone must try to make a contribution to the sonnet we will write.

Rule #3: The sonnet must be 14 lines long.

Rule #4: The sonnet must have no more and no less than 10 syllables per line.

Rule #5: The sonnet must be of either the English or Italian forms.

Rule #6: The sonnet must deal with the subject of love.

Rule #7: If the sonnet is going to be in the English form, the logical progression of thought should be as follows: the first 12 lines develop the main idea, and the last 2 lines (a rhymed couplet) give the conclusion.

If we select the Italian form, the pattern should be thus: The first 8 lines develop the main idea, and the last 6 lines give the conclusion.

Rule #8: Once something has been written on the sonnet, it cannot be changed (except for spelling).

4) Homework: Reading your novel... and the comma and semi-colon review sheet.

Ready to Rebel?

1) Silent Reading

• Next week you should be about 60-70% of the way through...

2) Poetry Unit Updates

• What a Young Man/Woman Wants Poem is overdue.
• Response to Sad Daughter/Waiting Room is due Friday. See example below.
• I will give you Kite Runner test back tomorrow...

3) Are you a rebel? A badass? Poets are... (remember our positive rebel")

• What are the traits of rebels?
• Or, finish this sentence.You know you are a rebel if you...

4) Group Study - 5 rebellion poems

Waiting Room Example Response

[Catchy Opening] Sometimes when children speak, they cut straight to truths that most adults cannot or will not tackle. [Thesis Statement] In the confessional poem, "In the Waiting Room," by Elizabeth Bishop, her precocious seven year-old self suddenly becomes aware of her existence, and she is puzzled and overwhelmed with questions.  Why should I be my aunt, or me, or anyone? What similarities made us all just one? Why should you be one? In that moment in the waiting room, we witness a child coming to terms with the "black wave" of confounding awareness, modelling for all readers the necessity of facing the big question of life - what is the point? [Body of ideas/quotes/argument] In the beginning of the poem, the speaker simply describes the ordinary and mundane details of the waiting room. And those "overcoats, lamps and magazines" are familiar to readers; we immerse in a comfortable and familiar environment. But, like our speaker, we are in for a traumatic surprise - the young speaker is about to fall into an existential void, one that adults understand, but avoid dealing with. The source of the crisis is comical, a National Geographic magazine filled with "Long pig[s]," "babies with pointed heads," and "awful hanging breasts." Between the reading of that magazine "right straight through" and the "bright and too hot" dentist's waiting room, the girl bursts "an oh! of pain." That "oh!" is an existential epiphany; it is not the "foolish and timid" aunt that the speaker seems so eager to mock. "It was me." Her awareness is excruciating. She "falls" into what most readers will realize is the "nothing stranger" moment when you see that you are human, "shadowy" and "in it."  She tries, like we all do, to define "it," to peg life down. After all, isn't all that "blue-black" space definable and compartmentalizable? No. At the end of the poem, she slides "beneath a big black wave, another, and another..." [Conclusion] Like all of us, our innocent seven year old speaker has just realized that she is alive and that being alive is miraculous and weird.

In the Waiting Room/Sad Daughter Response

1) Draft of What a Young Woman/Man Wants Poem - how is your first draft coming? Final draft due on Tuesday.

2) Another brief response to a poem.

• In a long paragraph response, analyze the theme of either "To a Sad Daughter" or "In the Waiting Room." 
• Show that you are in control of a close reading of the poem. 
• Explain the significance of the beginning, middle and end of the poem. 
• At least SIX small INTEGRATED quotes of only 1,2, or 3 words in length.
• See the example paragraph (above).
• You may use the following resources. However, if you read them you must put a Works Cited at the end. 

example:

Works Cited

Web. 17 May 2013. http://www.shmoop.com/in-the-waiting-room-bishop/

Resources:
In the Waiting Room Online - http://www.shmoop.com/in-the-waiting-room-bishop/
To a Sad Daughter - http://www.enotes.com/sad-daughter

Louder than a Bomb and More...

1) Finish Louder than a Bomb - there are only 20 minutes left.

In a group of two or three, discuss the following questions - co-write a paragraph response to each:

• Given that Comox is a capital S Small town, and given that many of you are putting your heads into your cell phones more than you are into anything else and given that the internet is changing our brains (watch the video).... What do you think Ms. Colborne thought you would get out of this documentary? Why did she think it might be "good" for you?
• Speaking your mind and expressing your emotions can be difficult. The Louder Than a Bomb competition has a saying, “The point is not the points. The point is the poetry.” Why do you think they stress this saying? What can you personally take away from this perspective? Why should expressing one'e emotions be first and foremost?
  
  Due today - put your names on it.

2) Creative Writing Assignment - most of the Louder than a Bomb poems were about the ordinary but heavy concerns of teens living in a family, surviving in a school, enduring a society.

Check out this poem I found in the most recent copy of The Claremont Review - an International magazine of student writing that is published in Victoria, BC. http://www.theclaremontreview.ca/

Read aloud - twice: What a Young Woman Wants

What do you want? Not as in what do you want to buy (shallow stuff), but as in what do you want to be allowed to experience? How do you want to be percieved?

Now, write your own version - see handout. Due Thursday. (Keep in mind a new written response will be assigned tomorrow)

Poetic Terms Review, Poems of Childhood Begin

1) Poetic Terms

Alliteration - the repetition of sounds/letters at the beginning of words in a line of poetry.

EXAMPLE: seven stars go squawking

Allusion - a reference to something that most people are familiar with (can be literary, biblical, historical, popular, etc...).

EXAMPLE: "the Giant is enchanting to Jack" (as in Jack and Jill)

Assonance - the repetition of vowel sounds near to each other in a line of poetry (beginning, middle and ends of words).

EXAMPLE: "O look, look in the Mirror"

Consonance - a poetic device characterized by the repetition of the same consonant two or more times in short succession, as in "pitter patter" or in "all mammals named Sam are clammy".

Hyperbole - deliberate exaggeration for emphasis.

Metaphor - a direct comparison. A=B

Onomatopoeia - when the pronounciation of the word imitates the sound of the word.

Personification - to give a non-animate thing human characteristics.

Simile - an indirect comparison that uses the words "like" or "as."

Symbol - an object that represents or stands in for something else.

2) My Papa's Waltz

• Read three times
• Questions to Ask of a Poem
• Discussion

One man's take on it: 

3) Your work - Those Winter Sundays

Into the Wild...

1) Altered Journals (and Chapter Q's) DUE 

2) Self Assess and Submit. (Copies of Rubric)

3) Wild - connotations? Poetry - connotations?

4) Poetry Unit Outline
5) Tara, this is stupid stuff! And Questions to Ask of a Poem.

Next Week: Library to get independent novel study. Another two poems. First written response.

Wrapping Up The Kite Runner

1) Chapters 22 - 24 Discussion

What happens when Amir meets with the man who has Sohrab? How did you react?
p. 302 - why is this scene so important?

Ch. 23/24 - the hospital... Farid is still there... Sohrab is okay... looking for orphanage... letter from Rahim...visiting the mosque... asks Sohrab if he would like to come back to America with him.

"I think he was ashamed of himself."

The embassy. Trying to get Sohrab papers to go to the US. The promise. The disappointment. The heart-break.

25 - He is alive. But, he is silent. The silence that lasts a year.

The ending - p.387 -

• Given this ending, why is the book called The Kite Runner?
• Is the ending apt?
• Would you recommend this book to others?

2) Group Activity - Develop a theme statement. See handout. Write it on the board.

We all make mistakes, sometimes even terrible mistakes that deeply hurt the people we love; to move forward from dark times, we must face our wicked actions, and make peace with what we have done.

OR

Suffering is a universal experience; once we know this we must do what we can to help the people that we can.

3) Unit Review Notes - use these notes to prep for tomorrow's test.

20 marks of Multiple Choice

30 marks - Choice of Written Response topics - multi-paragraph. You can use the book for this part of the test, if you want.

4) Journals - take them home! There is no more time to work on them in class. Make it beautiful and engaging.

Chapter 7 - 10

Discussion Questions:

1. How is Hassan's dream of the lake and the monster important?
2. p.71 - What has he really won? Why is this winning the greatest moment of his life? "I was a hero."
3. The worst moment of his life - p 78 - 83 What is dissociation? Where is it that Amir retreats to? What thoughts keep him from remaining present at the scene of the crime?
4. We can all agree that rape is wrong. What about rape as a symbol - Rape in the news http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/a-letter-to-my-son-about-consent/ - Rape of boys in Afghanistan http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/brinkley/article/Afghanistan-s-dirty-little-secret-3176762.php - reacting to any of this, would make for excellent journal topics.
5. What happens at home afterwards? Silence, the trip, he says it, insomnia...
6. "Have you ever thought about getting new servants?" What is Amir up to?
7. The Pomegranate Exchange - p98
8. The Birthday Party - what happens?99- 106
9. Chapter Nine - the money and the watch p.110 WHY?
10. Chapter Ten - escaping the country - what are the most memorable scenes? 

Quiz - Read this poem and write a short response to the following question. How is Hassan like the lamb? How does this make him noble and good? How does this quality also make him weak? Use at least three specific examples from the book. A paragraph response.

The Lamb

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

Little Lamb who made thee 

         Dost thou know who made thee 

Gave thee life & bid thee feed. 

By the stream & o'er the mead;

Gave thee clothing of delight,

Softest clothing wooly bright;

Gave thee such a tender voice,

Making all the vales rejoice! 

         Little Lamb who made thee 

         Dost thou know who made thee 

         Little Lamb I'll tell thee,

         Little Lamb I'll tell thee!

He is called by thy name,

For he calls himself a Lamb: 

He is meek & he is mild, 

He became a little child: 

I a child & thou a lamb, 

We are called by his name.

         Little Lamb God bless thee. 

         Little Lamb God bless thee.

Time to work on Journal Entries - bookable lab. Check out your journals...

Kite Fighting Short Film

Happy Spring Reading!

Please read 

up to and including...

Chapter 13.

A Slippery Spectrum, Ch.6 and work time!

Are some actions absolutely right? Are some actions absolutely wrong? A stand up and stand your ground exercise.

Before we judge Amir and other characters, let's face who we are.

Altruism <------------> Hedonism

Possible Journal Topics: How do you know who is mostly good?
Why is empathy/caring/doing good for others a key way to happiness?

Read: Chapter 6

Work: Journal, Questions, Reading (Ch.7)

Chapters 1-5

1) Discuss - chapter 4 and 5 questions... let's talk them through out loud! Together we are better.

2) Review Terms -

Irony - see board.

 sym·bol/ˈsimbəl/

Noun:

A thing that represents or stands for something else, esp. a material object representing something abstract. A symbol's meaning can shift to represent more than one thing, especially in a longer piece of literature. Examples from the Kite Runner (so far). What do these represent? Hassan's Hairlip The Pomegranate Tree "Feeding from the same breast" Kites Throwing up

2) mo·tif/mōˈtēf/

Noun:

A recurrent and distinctive feature or dominant idea in an artistic or literary composition.  Examples from The Kite Runner: Tragedy and Loss Father and Son Relationships Wounds/Scars/Disabilities The Connection between the Social and Political Discrimination (Pashtuns vs, Hazaras) What is Masculine?

3) New Possible Journal Entries

• Buzkashi Video... what does this video teach us about Afghani culture? 

• Speaking of hate, what about a reaction to this article as a possible journal entry? Is it easier in an era of shallow media and social media to make people the other? Is it easier to hate? http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/steubenville-confirms-it-twitter-has-become-a-hate-forum/article9958260/ 
  "But that is what Twitter does: Lacking a filter, it allows for all kinds of instant hate and viciousness. These are days when the first thing that pops into your head isn’t just worth saying, it’s worth the whole world reading."

4) Time to read - Chapter 6... silent reading or read-along - your choice.

5) Time to work - journal entries, chapter questions, vocabulary

Starting Journal Topics

What do you think about the state of the world today? Do you keep yourself informed about the world? If not, what not. If so, to what effect?

Interview an adult about 9/11. What do they remember? What do they describe? OR - watch some of the 9/11 footage online... how do you think this act of terrorism changed the world.

How does the movie, "Slumdog Millionaire" relate to The Kite Runner? What themes or ideas about life do they seem to share in common.

Characterize Baba and Amir's relationship. Why does "hate" enter into their father/son relationship? What quotations show us, the readers, the raw truths about their feelings towards one another?

Children are not colouring books.

Much of this novel is about discrimination and cultural divides across political/social/religious lines. Is it human nature to hate the "other"? Do we in Canada have our own stories of ugly discrimination? Or, what about right here in the hallways of Highland, what ugly divides and discrimination happen here? How can we deal with this sort of hatred?

Do you identify with Amir in any way? Most students see at least a glimmer of themselves in the complicated relationship he has with his father. In what ways are you like Amir?
Reflection is a form of personal response to 
experiences, situations, events or new information. 
It is a ‘processing’ phase where thinking and learning 
take place. There is neither a right nor a wrong way 
of reflective thinking, there are just questions to 
explore. 

Reflective writing is:
• your response to experiences, opinions, events or new information
• your response to thoughts and feelings
• a way of thinking to explore your learning
• an opportunity to gain self-knowledge
• a way to achieve clarity and better understanding of what you are learning and thinking about in class
• a chance to develop and reinforce writing skills
• a way of making meaning out of what you read and discuss in class

Reflective writing is not:
• just conveying information, instruction or argument
• pure description, though there may be descriptive elements
• straightforward decision or judgement (e.g. about whether something is right or wrong, good or bad)
• a summary of course notes
• a standard formal essay

The Lottery, Hate, the Journal, and Chapter Four

1) Life is a Lottery. 

 Discuss: How is this metaphor true?

http://www.economist.com/news/21566430-where-be-born-2013-lottery-life 

• What if you were re-born POOR? Draw a country...
• What if you were re-born to Afghanistan? Draw Pashtun or Hazara...

2) Let's talk about HATE.

What, really, is hate? 

Small h hate, and capital H Hate...

Where does hate come from?

Why did hate bubble up in Ch. 3? 

What about hate in Afghanistan?

3) The Journal 

• At least 40 topics will be provided.
• You pick and or create 20 topics that suit the span of the novel.
• 40 marks for journal writing.
• 20 marks for creative elements added to reclaimed book. (Quotes, art, clipped photos, images, stickers, leaves, advertisements, recipes, hand-made crafts, anything goes...)

4) Chapter 4 - reading... who prefers to read silently? Where did we leave off?