Timed writing Q1 Poetry - UPDATE!!!

Q1 Poetry Timed Writing

Because you will have written on Q3, and because I want you to deconstruct essays, We will push your Q1 by one week. Thus, on your calendar you will have TW's through Dec 8.

I will, however, run through a Q1 exercise as a mini-lesson.

Ma Rainey's Character Assignment #2 Due 10/30

Please submit your project to the following drive folder. 

1. Title Your Project with your name

2. Find the folder for your period

3. Drop or copy and Paste your file into the CORRECT Class Period Folder

4. Yes, You can upload now!

5. The Add-on I mentioned for chrome today is Screencastify. Then record the tab that your prezi or other presentation type is on. Scroll through it, open all the media, and keep it UNDER 3.5 minutes. It'll save as an HTML link to your recorded video. Name this link and share it with me. 

Link: Ma Rainey's Character #2

As I Lay Dying - By William Faulkner. Have novel by 11/07

AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner

1. Purchase from Amazon to have in class by 11/07 (this was listed on the syllabus).

2. I do not have extra copies and a kindle version will not work.

3. Please Purchase THIS copy: 

Ma Rainey's Character Maps #1 Due 11/1 at the very latest.

The Ma Rainey's Black Bottom Character Maps that you've been completing will be due 11/01 at the very latest.  

They will be of enormous help for your 2nd Character Presentation that is due 10/30 (hence the later due date). The link is posted in an earlier blog and in Classroom.

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom Character Project #2 due 10/30 -

This Project is Due BEFORE your TW, so 10/30 is a FIRM DEADLINE.

Here is the link to the project assignment. Again you may work with one other person if you so choose.

Link: Ma Rainey's Character Presentation

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom Socratic Seminar - 10/25 and 10/26 for all except 3rd Period

Socratic Seminar - Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Come to class with questions, ideas, and observations about the characters' lives in this play. 

Have answers to these questions (yes, compose responses) - -  and your own questions 

1.   How do you feel about Toledo’s criticisms of the black community and the band’s discussion of his comment, ”Ain’t nobody thinking about what kind of world they gonna leave their youngens.  ‘Just give me a good time, that’s all I want.’ It just makes me sick”?  Is Toledo too serious, too strident in these beliefs and his others, or is his voice an important one in the play, for us today?

2. On Toledo discusses the metaphor of African Americans being “a leftover from history.”  Discuss this metaphor more fully.   How does this metaphor impact the way a people might view themselves (identity), their past, and their futures?   How do we see these ideas play themselves out in the tensions of the play? How does Levee relate to this notion of "Leftovers?"

3. What foreshadowings do we have throughout the play of Levee’s downfall?  Ultimately, what does Wilson want us to consider about Levee’s fall?  As readers, in what ways are you sympathetic/empathetic with Levee and in what ways do you feel he has brought his troubles on himself?

4.  Are Levee’s final actions justified in the rising action of the play?  What does Wilson want us to consider in terms of themes?****

5. Compare the ways Levee, Cutler, Toledo, and Ma go about living their lives and what they think about themselves in relation to the world. Why do they think as they do? What evidence from the play can you use to support your answer?

6. What is Wilson saying through Levee’s demise at the end? What has brought this about? Is he a victim of circumstance or does he bring about his own downfall? Is he tragic in that some flaw leads to downfall or is he the hapless pawn of society?

7.  At the beginning of the play, Wilson alludes to the moon falling through a window and breaking into thirty pieces of silver (xvi). What does he mean by the allusion and how does this idea influence the various characters in the play?

8. Wilson seems to be saying two contradictory things in this  play: 1) you have to know where you’ve come from in order to make any kind of progress; you have to own your own history, and 2) If you want to participate in life, you have to deny your identity; you have to forget. Which characters represent each argument. Are there any "bridge" characters that reconcile the two?

HINT!!!!! - Questions 4 - 8 will be submitted in a formal context (typed) on 10/31

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom 10/23 and 10/24

1. Please complete your reading of Act 2.

2. Come to class with at least 3 level two questions concerning character and two level three questions about the text. This will be you admission ticket to our socratic-ish conversation.

3. Please download the character map template from the Drive link on classroom and here.

4. I will post some of my own questions in classroom before the weekend is over. Please DO come with opinions and answers that can be supported in the text as you will be rewarded with project grades for active participation in the discussion and for the backchannel discussion we will use to support those in the outer circle.

UPDATE ON ASSIGNMENTS in Common Lit

1. If you have not completed the common lit assignment for "America" it is now late.  I entered 0 for those who did not complete the assignment, which will be updated minus the late deduction.

2. Common Lit assignment Washington and Du Bois is now due. Please make sure it is submitted by 10/23.

3. Common Lit assignment "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" is Due 10/23 for periods 2,5,6, and 7.

4. REMEMBER, the short answer questions require a complete response and are scored as a separate writing assignment (0=0, 1=60, 2=73, 3=87, 4=100). If the prompt asks you to examine imagery, then write about ALL the imagery. ONE LOVELY, WELL CONSTRUCTED AND ARGUED PERSUASIVE PARAGRAPH WILL DO (see the exemplar from the returned America Assignment). Format should be:
THESIS ASSERTION as your topic sentence, then work the text chronologically.
THESIS
SUPPORT+ COMMENTARY (as much as is necessary to provide a complete answer), concluding sentence.
CONCLUDING SENTENCE.

Some questions are more direct and will require only a direct ASSERTION, 1 Support, and appropriate commentary.

6. Common Lit MC will only score your support selection if you answer the preceding question correctly, so please read each question carefully, check your answers, and change them  as needed BEFORE you submit. If you score below 60 I will return the assignment for revision.

7. NoRedInk is a 100 or 0 assignment, please complete this before 10/23.

MRBB Substitute assignmnet

Students are to read Act 2 of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” in small groups and answer the following before the end of class:

On pages 57-58 Toledo discusses the metaphor of African Americans being “a leftover from history.”  Discuss his metaphor more fully.   How does this metaphor impact the way a people might view themselves (identity), their past, and their futures?   How do we see these ideas play themselves out in the tensions of the play?

Questions for  10/18/2017: These will be part of a Socratic quiz.

1. How are the blues used as both metaphor and “way of life”/”way of expression” in this play? Consider what Ma says about the blues, why the music is so important to Levee and Ma, what their individual views about their playing of the music is, etc. How is music reflective of life and thinking?

 

2. Compare the ways Levee, Cutler, Toledo, and Ma go about living their lives and what they think about themselves in relation to the world. Why do they think as they do? What evidence from the play can you use to support your answer?

 

3. Power plays a big role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Who really has the power at each point in the play, and how do they get it? What ‘power plays’ are made throughout the story, and are they successful?

 

4 Ma believes that “only black people understand the blues.” Do you agree with this statement? Why or why not?

NO RED INK CODES

Class Join Codes:

2nd - same gate 94

3rd:  short pear 81

5th:  greasy soup 14

6th:  steep iron 51

7th:  furry knot 7

take each of the diagnostic quizzes listed

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom - READING - Act 1 10/4 (A) 10/05 (B)

Read Act 1 of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom - 

Tracking Characters: 

As this play is about identity, community, relationships, and whether one should sacrifice culture for the promise of "participation" in society, you will need to maintain a character log. 

The format for the final TYPED log is here: Character Map Template

It is also on Classroom

Whitman/Hughes Poetry Due 10/9 (B) 10/10 (A)

Whitman Prompt

 

1. Given “I Hear America Singing,” what is Whitman’s essential understanding/vision about America?

Assertion.
Provide two bullet points of support
So what? How does your support reinforce the idea in your assertion AND HOW is it essential to Whitman’s vision of “America”?

Hughes Prompt

  1. Task: Identify the tone shifts in “I, Too”, then determine how these changes communicate the speaker’s complex relationship with America (and perhaps Whitman).

 2.  Writing:

Compose an analytical paragraph that examines how tone, diction, and selection of detail reveal the speaker’s complex relationship with America in Langston Hughes' “I,too".

 

Let America . . .  

Compose 6 - 8 lines of poetry in the style of Langston Hughes' "Let America be America Again" for voices that are not necessarily heard in his poem. Title your poem with the stanza number your lines will follow.

As you write Consider:  Rhythm, figurative language (metaphor, simile, personification), repetition, AND diction.