RAFT #3: Vocabulary List

Role: Pretend you are an eleventh Grade English Teacher
Audience: Eleventh Grade English Students
Format: A five-word vocabulary list with word, part of speech, and definition
Topic: Choose five words from your independent reading that you think an eleventh grader likely would not know (or not know well) and that you think would be useful for an eleventh grader to know.

RAFT #2 (T2): Book Advertisement

Term Two RAFTs

#2 (Due Wednesday, November 23, 2011)

Role: advertising executive

Audience: other high school students

Format: 8.5” x 11” magazine advertisement

Topic: You will create a magazine advertisement for the book you are currently reading or one of the books you have read earlier this year. Include the following in the ad: title of the book; author of the book; art depicting a main topic, theme, or conflict; statement of a main topic, theme, or conflict; a quotation from the book. (If you use an image that you did not create you must cite the source on the back or you will receive a zero for the assignment.)

Example (note: the example includes all the necessary elements except the author’s name)

"Lord of the Flies (1990 film)." Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 20 Nov 2011. Web. 23 Nov 2011.

 

RAFT #1 (Term 2)

Role: Yourself as a book critic
Audience: Your classmates in 2207
Format: An informal talk with notes (the notes will contain your position with supporting reasons and evidence)
Topic: Would you recommend the book (or a book) you have read in independent reading? (Who would you or would you not recommend it to?)

Be prepared (with notes) to talk in class on Thursday, November 10.

Grendel Grendel Grendel

Grendel Grendel Grendel (1981) is an animated film written and directed by Alexander Stitt based loosely on the novel Grendel by John Gardner.

Grendel Grendel Grendel - Part 1 (an introduction to the role of monsters in Western civilization)

Grendel Grendel Grendel - Part 7 (based loosely and in part on chapter six)

Grendel: Reading Check Chapters three & four

Chapter three and four

These two chapters focus on Hrothgar and the Shaper.

What does Grendel observe about Hrothgar and his empire?

What does he think and feel about what he observes?

What does Grendel observe about the Shaper and his songs?

What does he think and feel about what he hears?

Independent Reading RAFT #4

Role: Yourself (as a student) or The author of a book you have read during term one

Audience: Mr. James Cook

Format: Formal business letter (click here for directions and model)

Topic: Convince me that the time I have given to you to read independently this term has been valuable. In other words, convince me that the experience of reading and the particular books you have read have been valuable to you. Or, taking the role of author, convince me that your book should be taught in eleventh grade English at Gloucester High School. Convince me that reading your particular book will be a valuable experience for all eleventh graders.

Independent Reading RAFT #2

#2 (Due in class September 27, 2011)

Role: yourself (or another character in the book)

Audience: the protagonist (main character) of your book

Format: informal letter (including salutation and closing; 10+ sentences)

Topic: Writing as yourself or a character in the book, offer the protagonist some advice concerning specific problems the protagonist faces. Your advice should be accompanied by a full explanation of what specific problem in the book the advice addresses and your reasons for offering the advice. Try to convince the protagonist that your advice is right!

Writing an argumentative essay about a passage in The Compass

Argument draft.

Due Thursday, September 22

Typed. 12-point font. Double-spaced. MLA heading.

At the top of the page quote the passage from The Compass that you have chosen to support, revise, or oppose.

Introductory Paragraph

The introductory paragraph should include your position and a preview of your supporting arguments.

What is your position on the passage? (Will you support it, revise it, or oppose it?)

Why? (Why are you taking that position? How will you support your position?)

You might also need to provide some context for your position.

Strong introduction will often begin with a “hook”: an anecdote, a leading question, a famous quotation. Most writers create this “hook” after establishing a position.

In the next paragraph anticipate the counterargument

Write a paragraph in which you show that you understand the opposing position and the reasons that others might support that position.

End this paragraph by previewing how you will refute the counterarguments.

Body paragraphs

Return to your introduction look at what you wrote in response to the questions “Why have you taken your position?” and “How will you support your position?”

Your answers to those questions become your body paragraphs. In the body paragraphs you flesh out why you have taken the position and how you will support it. In other words in the body paragraphs you fully develop the supporting details to convince the audience to agree with you (by appealing to reason and emotions).

Here are some sources for supporting details: personal experiences and observations, and/or relevant information that you have, and/or hypothetical situations that you invent.

Personal experience and observation is very powerful because those experiences and observations can often be expressed in a manner that appeals to logos (reason), pathos (emotion), and ethos (trustworthiness of the speaker).

Relevant factual information is powerful too because it appears objective and is difficult to dispute.

Hypothetical situations are often less persuasive but if written in they are written in a way that brings the situation to life they can persuade an audience.

Conclusion

Drive home your position by referring back to your supporting ideas and evidence (logos) and by appealing to emotions (pathos).

Reread

Have you appealed effectively to reason (logos) and emotion (pathos)? Have you convinced the reader of your trustworthiness as a writer (speaker’s ethos)?

Have you effectively addressed the occasion and audience?

Have you effectively fulfilled your purpose (relative to the topic)?

Have you used an appropriate tone?

Jobs!

Click here for a copy of President Obama's job speech on September 8, 2011.

Summer Reading Assignment

Click here for the summer reading assignment.

Welcome!

You're in the right place. Post a comment below. Let me know if you have any difficulties.

Term Four and Final

Term Four Mr. James Cook’s College Preparation English GHS

____ Five Hamlet Formative Assessments

          [] How would you feel if…? What would you do if…?

          [] 1.2 Soliloquy Response

          [] 2.2 Soliloquy Response

          [] 3.1 Soliloquy Response

          [] 4.4 Soliloquy Response

____ Quiz on Hamlet acts one and two

____ Test on Hamlet

____ Gloucester Narrative Quotation Response Journal

____ Annotated bibliography with five annotated citations and five double-entry

notes

[] Draft of two annotated citations and two double-entry notes

____ Researched Argument (1000+ words) with in-text citations and works cited

page

          [] thesis

          [] plan (using Toulmin argument method)

____ Personal experience essay (300-500 words) DUE TODAY (Friday, June 10)

____ Two poems: spontaneous poem & metaphor poem DUE MONDAY (June 13)

Wednesday, June 15 is the end of term four and, therefore, the last day to hand in any term four make-up work.

Final Exam Mr. James Cook’s College Preparation English GHS

____ In-class essay on Hamlet (completed in class on Friday, June 3 or made up by Wednesday, June 15)

____ Multigenre Paper on ____________________ (write your Cape Ann art and culture topic in the blank); due Friday, June 17 at noon.

____ Final activity and presentation at Stage Fort Park (or in the GHS library if it rains) from noon to one-thirty on Friday, June 17

Hamlet Review

Hamlet Review 2011

What have we learned about how language works in literature, about Elizabethan theatre, about Shakespeare’s writing, and about Hamlet itself?

I.                     Hamlet’s sound

A.      RHYMING COUPLETS provide memorable closure and summation

B.       IAMBIC PENTAMETER / BLANK VERSE

1.        provides structure, unity

2.        provides potential for emphasis by way of variation: “to be or not to be; THAT is the question.”

II.                   Hamlet’s language

A.      Word play

1.        5.1 “lie”: lie down & tell lies

2.        4.7 “too much of water”: tears & drowning [&, obliquely, Hamlet’s wish to melt (1.2)]

B.       paradoxes: “more than kin less than kind”

C.       figurative language/metaphors: king > worm > fish > beggar is a metaphor for Hamlet’s questioning of the Elizabethan social structure

III.                 Hamlet as theatre

A.      Acting Choices (interpretations)

“To be or not to be” (3.1)

a.        Zefferelli= MEL GIBSON

b.       Almereyda= ETHAN HAWKE

c.        Branagh= KENNETH BRANAGH

The Murder of Gonzago / “The Mouse Trap”

a.        Zefferelli= ____________________

b.       Almereyda= ____________________

c.        Branagh= ____________________

B.       Visual Choices (interpretations)

Ex. “to be or not to be”

1.        Branagh’s mirror= deceit, also outward action v. self-directed action

2.        Zefferelli’s catacombs= death “the undiscovered country”

3.        Almereyda’s Blockbuster= “Action” / “Go Home Happy” (irony)

IV.           Hamlet’s patterns

A.      Characters

1.        Hamlet’s foils (contrasting characters) in terms of action:

FORTINBRAS and LAERTES

2.        Another similarity and contrast: Hamlet (acts mad, wishes to die), Ophelia (is mad, allows herself to do die)

3.        Who “spies”? How?

Polonius, Reynaldo (on Laertes), 2.2 Rosencrantz, Guildenstern (on Hamlet), 3.1 Claudius, Polonius (on Hamlet using Ophelia), 3.2 Horatio, Hamlet (on Claudius during play), 3.4 Polonius (on Hamlet using Gertrude)

4.        Who follows and obeys? Who flatters authority (kisses up to those in power)?

____________________________________________________________

 ____________________________________________________________

B.       Plot

1.        Irony

a.        Hamlet believes CLAUDIUS is confessing for his sins and so does not kill him.

b.       The reader/audience knows that CLAUDIUS has failed to confess.

c.        Mel Gibson claims that Hamlet’s failure to kill CLAUDIUS here triggers all the other deaths in the play (triggers the tragedy as such).

2.        Fitting deaths

a.        POLONIUS dies spying

b.       OPHELIA dies passively (& in water)

c.        GERTRUDE dies drinking to Hamlet (Her death triggers Hamlet to action vs. Claudius, no?)

d.       LAERTES (“I am justly killed by my own treachery.”)

e.        CLAUDIUS (by sword and drink)

f.         HAMLET (“the rest is silence”)

g.       ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN die as servants

3.        Is Fortinbras rewarded for

a.        Deception?

b.       Action?

C.       Imagery (Who or what is associated with these images?)

1.        water / liquids: Hamlet, Ophelia

2.        weeds / flowers: Hamlet, Ophelia

3.        snakes and other animals: Claudius (serpent), Polonius (rat), Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern (sponge, adders [snakes])

4.        painting / make-up: Claudius, Ophelia, Gertrude

5.        other: _____________________________________________________________

D.      Historical and Mythological Allusions

1.        Hyperion (Sun God) to Satyr (Goat Man) (1.2 soliloquy)):

King Hamlet and Claudius

2.        Priam and Hecuba (2.2 Player’s speech and Hamlet’s second soliloquy):

King Hamlet and (unlike) Gertrude

3.        Alexander the Great (5.1 graveyard scene) even great men end up dirt

4.        Julius Caesar (3.2 Murder of Gonzago/Mouse Trap scene) Polonius once performed the role of Julius Caesar. Later Hamlet kills Polonius.

5.        other: : ____________________

E.       Themes

1.        Fallen world

a.        Hamlet sees the world as corrupt.

aa.     “How weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world.”

bb.    “tis an unweeded garden”

cc.     “Man delights not me nor woman neither”

b.       This view is triggered – it seems – by his mother’s overhasty marriage (and later by Ophelia’s lying).

aa.     “Frailty thy name is woman”

bb.    “Get thee to a nunnery.”

2.        Responses to corruption & trauma: Thought and Action

a.        Hamlet’s soliloquies are one response to trauma: 1.2, 2.2, 3.1, 4.4

b.       Laertes’s and Ophelia’s responses to trauma are revealed in these scenes: 4.5, 4.7

c.        Fortinbras’s response is revealed in these scenes: 1.2, 4.4, 5.2

3. Deception: Appearance and Reality, Seems and Is

WRITE DOWN FOUR EXAMPLES OF MOMENTS WHEN SOMETHING (A PERSON’S BEHAVIOR, A PERSON’S INTENTIONS, A PERSON’S WORDS, A PERSON’S REACTION) IN THE PLAY SEEMS TO BE ONE THING BUT IS ACTUALLY ANOTHER.

a.        ______________________________________

b.       ______________________________________

c.        ______________________________________

d.       ______________________________________              

How does the play illustrate the complexity and variety of human responses to corrupt acts, traumatic loss, and the realization of human mortality (including one’s own)? What does the play suggest about these responses?

The Midyear Exam and How to Prepare for It

The midyear exam consists of four parts.
1. Vocabulary words taken from Beowulf, Frankenstein, and Lord of the Flies.
2. Questions about characters, events, symbols, and themes in Beowulf, Frankenstein, and Lord of the Flies. (Questions are derived from notes and quizzes on these books. Click here for quizzes.)
3. SAT reading comprehension questions.
4. An SAT-style persuasive essay about human nature, monsters, and heroes. (Click here for the prompt.)

SAT-style Essay for Midyear Exam

Writing on the Midyear Exam

The SAT-Style Essay
During the first semester we have studied several works of literature and one film that explores heroism and monstrousness. (These works include an epic poem (Beowulf), a film (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein), a "monster" book of your choice, a novel (Lord of the Flies), and a short story ("The Demon Lover"). Below are two quotations that we discussed during the second term.

"I believe that man suffers from an appalling ignorance of his own nature."
William Golding

"Simon thought of the beast, there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick."
from Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Plan and write a well-organized essay in which you support, refute, or revise one of the quotations. Develop your position with reasoning and examples taken from two works we have studied in English during the first semester and from personal experience and/or observation.

Notes: Be careful. Take some time to understand the quotation you have chosen and the essay prompt. Plan your essay ahead of time. You must have notes. In your notes you might (1) write down your understanding of the quotation including key terms, (2) brainstorm reasoning and examples to support your opinion on the quotation, (3) organize the brainstorm into an outline. Doing this ahead of time will allow you to spend the exam time developing your ideas fully and writing with clarity and accuracy. Notes are worth five points.

Warning: Make sure you go beyond merely identifying “ignorance” or pointing out “heroes” and “sickness”. Make sure you develop an argument. Convince me you're right.

Reflective Personal Epilogue
Then, in an epilogue – an extra paragraph – use first person (I, me, my) to carefully explain and fully develop an insight into human nature you have had while studying heroes and monsters this semester. The epilogue is worth five points.

Lord of the Flies Vocabulary #2 and #3

Click here for Lord of the Flies Vocabulary #2 and #3.