ESSAY QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER FOR THE EXAM

• What results when you allow someone else to define who you are?
• Is having a sense of belonging worth what it costs?
• How does power affect relationships?
• Is conformity always bad?
• How do corrupt systems of power corrupt relationships within those systems?
• What does it take to build a genuine, healthy sense of community and connection?
• Who deserves to have power?
• 
  

 Limited by culture (discrimination, customs and traditions within a community prevent personal growth)

- Pai, Zoo Island, New African, Efrafa

 The importance of belonging to a community

- Zoo Island, New African, Whale Rider, Watership Down

- Example thesis: Having a sense of belonging within a community is essential because the growth of a community is essential to the development of the individual, it’s easier to accomplish goals with help of others, and because giving up resources to benefit the community benefits the individual too

o Teamwork

- “While belonging to a community involves sacrifice for the individual, ultimately the benefits to the individual as well as the community make it worthwhile. In Tomas Rivera’s ‘Zoo Island’ and Richard Adams’s Watership Down”

o Zoo Island: all the workers had to do a good job in order to be recommended elsewhere (evidence)

Don simon sacrifices being with everyone  safety for everyone

o Miriam: Proves the point  in this story, isolation leads to distress and despair (idea)

o Watership Down:

Hazel is willing to sacrifice himself for his people  protection for his people

o SACRIFICE  Safety/Protection

 Who deserves power?

DAY 02 - CYCLE 12 - SEMESTER 01: 12-09-09

HANDOUTS FROM TODAY:

Bagels. I can't post any here, but wish I could.

IN CLASS TODAY:

You indicated that you would like a number of practice sentences to diagram.  Voila:

1. Miriam is nuts.
2. Fiver is also nuts, but he is also smart.
3. Do you remember his visions?
4. You should remember them.
5. Don't worry.
6. You will remember.
7. Studying is very important.
8. Do not forget that.
9. Thinking, memorizing, and reviewing are absolutely essential.
10. Listen, boys and girls!
11. This is a very important and essential truth!
12. Are you listening?
13. Excellent studying is reviewing and imagining.
14. Do not just review.
15. You must really think creatively.
16. This will help you enormously.
17. I am not kidding.
18. Don't you believe me?
19. Why are you laughing and rolling your eyes?
20. Stop mocking me!

We need to go over themes in preparation for the essay.  In talking about "Miriam" today, we decided that repressing fundamental aspects of yourself leads to instability and isolation. You could certainly say the same is true of Woundwort's warren.  From just this connection, we might ask, "What leads to instability in people and communities?" That's a useful question to ask of Antigone as well.  This is the sort of questioning we need to do to arrive at a list of potential essay topics for the exam.

To effectively do this, you need to refamiliarize yourself with key elements of the plot and character, and start asking why characters start taking the actions they do.  Tomorrow needs to be a really productive day in class, so come prepared to focus, think and elaborate.

CLASS NOTES:

Notes for today may be found here.

HOMEWORK & EXAM PREP
Prepare for review tomorrow and add to the study guides on the wikispace.

We've gone as far as we are going to go with sentence diagramming today - we're up through adverbs. READ ALL THE TYPED STUFF in the diagramming book. It really does help. Then, we started recitations--not as easy as they look, are they? Practice it in the mirror, or better in front of someone else. We'll continue these tomorrow.

A number of you have yet to post anything on the studyguides on the wikispace. What gives?

See syllabus for what you were to have done by now. I won't chase you down to remind you (you're old enough not to need that), but I am checking your work.

DAY 04 - CYCLE 11 - SEMESTER 01: 12-04-09

We went over Unit 5 words, and then discussed and viewed a performance of the poem "Facing It." For Monday, you must be ready to give a recitation of your poem to the class. Like the performance we saw, your recitation must go beyond technical accuracy to present the poem in a way that pays homage to its meaning and allows the listener to understand it better than he/she would if just reading it on the page.

DAY 03 - CYCLE 11 - SEMESTER 01: 12-02-09

Today, we reviewed a few sentence diagramming principles. Clearly, a few practice sheets would help you before the exam. I'll throw some together. Meanwhile, READ the typed portions of the book; they'll help! Afterward, I had you translate your poems into your own words so that you would have a better idea of what they were REALLY about. Homework is on the syllabus distributed in class. Don't forget your vocabulary books!

DAY 02 - CYCLE 11 - SEMESTER 01: 12-01-09

HANDOUTS FROM TODAY:
You received two handouts:
Tone list
Color map

IN CLASS TODAY:

We completed the vocabulary words for unit 4 in the vocabulary book.

I distributed the tone list and color map, and had you assign tones to colors (just to get your creative juices going), and then assign tones to the voice in your poem.

It may have seemed like a bit of self-indulgent silliness to proceed this way, but the thing to understand about poems is that they tend to be intense emotional snapshots more than they are simply ploy driven.  Because they have that different agenda, you have to pay careful attention to emotional subtleties going on in the poem, and small shifts in the speaker's attitude.  We'll be doing closer analysis of your poems tomorrow to make sure you really know what the poems are saying, and can present them with the seriousness of purpose and depth of understanding they deserve.


CLASS NOTES:

No class notes for today.
HOMEWORK & EXAM PREP
* Memorize 5-10 lines of your poem
* On the wikispace, add your entries to ONE of the study guides linked to under “EXAM PREP PAGES,” following the instructions at the top of the page. You may not add material that duplicates others’ submissions.
==RECOMMENDED EXAM PREP==
*Review Junior Great Books stories using the Exam Review Guide, Part II
*Review Unit 1 vocab

DAY 01 - CYCLE 11 - SEMESTER 01: 11-30-09

HANDOUTS FROM TODAY:
You received two exam review guides:

• PART I: Contains information about what is covered on the exam, the skills on which you will be tested, and the format of the exam.
• PART II: Tips for how to study the stories and prepare for vocabulary.
• You also received a syllabus to take us through the end of the semester.
  

IN CLASS TODAY:

We continued with sentence diagramming, looking at articles, direct objects and attributive adjectives.



We covered introductory material for Poetry Out Loud.

WHAT:

Poetry Out Loud is a nationwide competition in which high school students recite (from memory) anthologized poems and are judged on their performances. The competition is run in a pyramid formation; after winning classroom competitions, students compete against other classroom winners of the sophomore class until three remain. These three sophomores will compete against the top three juniors. Two winners from this group of six may go one to represent USM in the regional competition. Each region will select three winners to go on to the state competition.

Winners at all levels are eligible for prizes.

SCHOOL PRIZES: To be determined.
STATE PRIZES: Each winner at the state level will receive $200 and an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington (with an adult chaperone) to compete for the national championship. The state winner's school will receive a $500 stipend for the purchase of poetry books. One runner-up in each state will receive $100; his or her school will receive $200 for the purchase of poetry books.
NATIONAL PRIZES: A total of $50,000 in scholarship awards and school stipends will be awarded at the Poetry Out Loud National Finals, with a $20,000 college scholarship award for the National Champion.

HOW MANY POEMS MUST YOU MEMORIZE?
To recite in the classroom and to the sophomore class 1 (this is the one that counts toward your English grade)
If you are one of the winners of the soph. class competition 2
If you are the winner of the school competition 3
State and national contestants will recite their poems in rounds, not consecutively, with each student reciting one poem in each round.

WHEN WILL POETRY RECITATIONS TAKE PLACE?
You must be prepared to recite before your class by December 7.

Sophomore class recitations will be done on January 6
The recitation assembly will take place in the middle of January.
Regional contests will take place in mid to late February
The State contest will take place on Saturday, March 13th in Madison.
The National contest will take place on April 26th and 27th in Washington D.C.

WHERE MUST I FIND A POEM?
All poems MUST come from the online anthology at the Poetry Out Loud website: http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poems/

HOW WILL I BE JUDGED?
In the classroom, you will be judged by your peers and your teacher. You will be evaluated on the following elements:

• Physical Presence
• Voice and Articulation
• Appropriateness of Dramatization
• Level of Difficulty
• Evidence of Understanding
• Overall Performance
• Accuracy

Please visit the following web address for full details about each of these criteria: http://www.poetryoutloud.org/students/checklist.html

********************END OVERVIEW*******************
After we discussed the overview of the Poetry Out Loud project, we looked at a video so you could see the contest in action.

CLASS NOTES:

No class notes for today.

HOMEWORK FOR NEXT CLASS:

1. Find a poem to memorize on the Poetry Out Loud website
2. Print it out
3. Join the class wikispace.  There is a link at the top of this page.