Tuesday, 9/30/14

Pieter Bruegel the Elder - "Hunters in the Snow (Winter)"; 1565

* Open

• You may review until the bell rings

* Beowulf Card Quiz

* Please read this definition and then copy the first sentence of it into your terms.

• ANTIHERO: A protagonist who is a non-hero or the antithesis of a traditional hero. While the traditional hero may be dashing, strong, brave, resourceful, or handsome, the antihero may be incompetent, unlucky, clumsy, dumb, ugly, or clownish. Examples here might include the senile protagonist of Cervantes' Don Quixote or the girlish knight Sir Thopas from Chaucer's "Sir Thopas." In the case of the Byronic and Miltonic antihero, the antihero is a romanticized but wicked character who defies authority, and becomes paradoxically ennobled by his peculiar rejection of virtue. In this sense, Milton presents Satan in Paradise Lost as an antihero in a sympathetic manner--at least in the first half of the poem. The same is true of Heathcliffe in Emily Bronté's Wuthering Heights. Compare with the picaro.

* Read at least one short story

• Graham Greene
  • "The Destructors" (Perrine's pp. 115--130)
• Tobias Wolff
• "Hunters in the Snow" (Perrine's pp. 187--201)
• * Note: this story has explicit language.  I think it is a very good story, but I will not force you to read it.  

 * Journal 9 Response (one page or longer...which is the assumed length for all journals unless otherwise stated):

• Contrast characters in one or both stories to the character of Beowulf (if you read both, at least one character from each story).  How do their actions contrast?  How does their speech contrast? How does their thought contrast? 

• Which characters (two ore more) are antiheroes? What makes them antiheroes?  Are they Miltonic or Byronic antiheroes?  How do you know? 

• Would you say that these tales are moral, immoral, or amoral?  Explain. Do you think it wrong or unwise to read these kinds of stories at a Christian school? 

HW: Work on Journal 9

Tue.--Thurs. Schedule

Dress-Up Themes

Homecoming Dress-up days:

Monday: Theme Dress up Day

Tuesday: Country vs. Rock

Wednesday: PJ Day

Thursday: Would you be my friend if I wore this?

Friday: Blue and White Day

Monday, 9/29/14

* Open

• Please Read
• J. R. R. Tolkien's "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" (1936); read (at least) pp. 248-250 beginning, "Nearly all the censure, and most of the praise...." 
• Homecoming Week  
• Calendar
• Card Quiz Tomorrow
• Contest Entry Due Thursday Night
• Modern Reflections of Ancient Thoughts

* Journal 8

* Cards

* HW: Finish your Beowulf Card; Memorize your Card

Homecoming: Monday's Schedule

Feasting on a Block of Anglo-Saxon Awesomeness

* Open

* Terms Quiz

* Feast

* Names

* Please work on your Beowulf Study Card. 

HW: Finish your Beowulf Card

AP Lit. 406 Feast!

Please leave a comment to this post with the item(s) you will be bringing.

AP Lit. 405 Feast!

Please leave a comment to this post with the item(s) you will be bringing.

AP Lit. 404 Feast!

Please leave a comment to this post with the item(s) you will be bringing.

AP Lit. 403 Anglo-Saxon Feast

Please leave a comment to this post with the item(s) you will be bringing.

Wednesday, 9/24/14: Written Quiz on Beowulf

* Open

* Written Quiz on Beowulf.

* Please read about extra credit you may receive for the feast!

• Class Parties

* Please sign up for what you will bring by the end of the period. 

• Let's sign up this way (I realized a google form only lets you see who's bringing what after you sign up...which doesn't work very well.)
• So, please comment to the blog post above (look for your appropriate period) with
• Your name
• The thing(s) you'll be bringing to the feast!

* Please work on your Beowulf Study Card. 

* Block day quiz: The total list is on the left under Terms and Vocabulary.  You will be quizzed on block day (roughly 30 words to know; ten-fifteen random definitions to fill in).


HW: Rewrites for periods 4-5; terms quiz on block day; Journal 8 (your name's history; your story)

Tuesday, 9/23/14

* Open

• Please copy and define the following terms:

• Pendragon: a title given to an ancient British or Welsh prince holding or claiming supreme power.
• Ubi Sunt: Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt? "Where are those who were before us?"

•  The total list is on the left under Terms and Vocabulary.  You will be quizzed on block day (roughly 30 words to know; probably ten-fifteen random definitions to fill in). 

* Notes and Journal 7 Together:  

•  Beowulf
•  Heaney
• Here's a link to the section we havn't yet read together to make it easier to find. 

HW: Finish Heaney; review Beowulf.  We will have a short-essay quiz tomorrow on the poem.  You do not have to read Tolkien or Leithart on Beowulf for the quiz. 

Monday, 9/20/14

Open

• Vocabulary and terms list:
• Please copy and define and create an example sentence for our word of the day from dictionary.com (use the app or go online):

  hebdomadal (heb-DOM-uh-dl).

• Prefixes: in the back of your composition book, please take down your first prefixes.  You should have three parts: the prefix, the definition, and at least three words that illustrate each prefix.  Please use the links on the left side to find definitions and examples. 
• a, an                          not                            amoral, anachronism (not Anabaptist)
• ab, abs, a
• ad
• Prayer
• Essay Rewrites
• Per. 3, tomorrow
• Per. 4, Wed. and block
• Per. 5, Block
• Per. 6, Monday
• Review the blog and week 
• What's in a name? 
• Uncle Merle
•  

• J8: My Story (Due Block Day)
1. Research and record your name origins (first, middle, and last). Also, ask your parents why they named you thus (i.e. did they name you after anyone else)?
    
2. Tell one (riveting, fascinating, shareable) story that you have heard about your extended family (you may use your parents if their story is that good) that has either
1. partially made you who you are today 
2. OR at the very least seems worth sharing, even though you don't see the connection to yourself

* Manilla Folder

• Name and Period (Marcus Schwager, AP English 203)
• THS and Quizzes Placed in the Folder
• Plan: College Essays Returned Next Week, beginning with per. 6 on Monday

* Notes

* Beowulf Card

• AP Study Cards

HW: Find quotes for your Beowulf card (quiz next Tuesday)

Essay Rewrites: The Five Joyful Wounds

The Five Joyful Wounds of Analysis Essay Rewriting:

1. Include more short quotes/specific scene(s) when defending each topic's idea.  
2. Pepper in more terms of literary analysis when writing any AP Literature essay (exposition, irony, internal conflict, dialogue, climax, femme fatale, motif).  They don't have to be the terms that are in your thesis...they should be a natural part of any background, context, or treatment. 
3. Write a longer essay to get into the highest scoring bracket.  Aim to write well into page three at least on every in-class essay (handwritten single-spaced or typed, double-spaced). 
4. I should see good evidence of sentence variety (without any fragments ).  Employ a richer vocabulary; practice your mature diction. 
5. Study good examples; do not copy them.  Also, look over the AP essay rubric.
   

Rewriting Format and Such:

• Typed
• MLA format, printed on paper
• Please highlight any changes unless you received less than 70% (in which case most of your essay will be different).
• Do not attach your original.
• Up to 75% for those below 70%
• Up to 10% more for those above 70%
• Due date: One week from return to student

Block the Dragons!

A Frog Having Just Swallowed a Bat

* Open

• Turn in your CWP to the silver tray, please. 
• Memorization quiz (also turn in to the silver tray).  Once you finish please copy the terms below:

Please copy the following terms into your journals:

• Thane: (in Anglo-Saxon England) a man who held land granted by the king or by a military nobleman, ranking between an ordinary freeman and a hereditary noble.
• Scop: an Old English poet, the Anglo-Saxon counterpart of the Old Norse skald.
• Caesura (plural: caesurae): A pause separating phrases within lines of poetry. The term caesura comes from the Latin "a cutting" or "a slicing." Some editors will indicate a caesura by inserting a slash (/) in the middle of a poetic line. Others insert extra space in this location. Others do not indicate the caesura typographically at all (Dr. Wheeler).

* More Heaney together:

•  Beowulf's Background; read (at least) part 1, "The Poem."

* Listen and read

• Listen to Beowulf from line 2164ish (25:00 min. in here)
• Note that it skips, so you'll have to pause when it does, read a bit, then play again. 
• If that's too irritating, then don't bother with the audio.  

HW: Finish reading Beowulf; next week we will be writing our journal, creating a notecard, and reading other (Tolkien and Leithart) notes.  So move into any of those assignments if you have finished reading the poem. 

Wednesday, 9/17

* Open

• Prayer and poetry

* Beowulf (read in class)

• Begin Journal 7: Beowulf

* CWP

• Paper copy due on block day in MLA format
• Turnitin.com copy due by Thursday, midnight

HW: Memorize your poem; print and submit your CWP (college essay)

Extended Lunch Schedule

Tuesday, 9/16: Peer Edit College Essays

* Open

• Log onto Turnitin.com using these instructions
• Upload your essay to the Q1 CWP Assignment
• You have 10 minutes to do these two things
• Now peer edit your essays.  
• Each answer needs to be ten words or longer
• You have 30 minutes. 

• Per.3
• Upload Essay by 10:10
• Refresh screen: Sore between 10:11 and 10:39
• Check scores at 10:41 or after

• Per. 4
• Upload Essay by 11:00
• Refresh screen: Sore between 11:01 and 11:30
• Check scores at 11:31 or after

• Per. 5

• Upload Essay by 1:05
• Refresh screen: Sore between 1:06 and 1:35
• Check scores at 1:36 or after

• Per. 6

• Upload Essay by 1:55
• Refresh Screen: Sore between 1:56 and 2:25
• Check scores at 2:26 or after

* Read Beowulf

Announcements come later today:

• Retake opportunity 

• Block day Update

• CWP
• Caedmon's hymn quiz
• No Beowulf reading on Wednesday night or quiz on it on block (we will finish from 2500 together so that Wednesday night is not so nasty) 
• See the calendar link at the top 

HW: Read through line 2,500; Final draft of you college essay due Block Day

• Two or more pages (including your header and copy of the prompt)
• MLA
• Printed and turned in to turnitin.com

Quiz Retake Opportunity on Wednesday

If you'd like to retake the quiz to regain up to half of the points you missed on the Anglo-Saxon section, you may do so on Wednesday of this week during advisory.

Monday, 9/15

* Open

• Spelling and usage (copy into your notes)
• Beginning
• Each other 
• Reoccur, reoccurred, reoccurring (second time or more, no necessary pattern) vs. recur (regular repeating)

• Prayer and Caedmon's Hymn
• Last day of week: Beowulf quiz; Caemon's hymn quiz
• THS Essays (rewrites due 1 week from return date for up to 10% improvement):
• Tue, per. 3
• Wed., per. 4
• Fri., per. 5-6

* Beowulf, background notes from the translator

* College Essay.  This essay

1. is a memorable piece.
2. features a strong central image.
3. reveals the writer's personality.
4. shows the student will be a blessing or asset to the school.
5. contains a turn or reversal (is not cliche, boring, tedious, or obvious).
6. is solidly composed (structure and grammar help rather than hinder communication of key ideas).

HW: Beowulf--2000; finish typing your College Essay; you will submit this in class tomorrow for peer editing

Mr. and Mrs. Bultitude's Grandchild?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29174094

Block Day: Quizzes, Forecasting, and Beowulf

* Open

* Quiz

* STAR Test

• Full Instructions
• The URL once you are in
• https://hosted90.renlearn.com/283483/

• First Letter of First Name, then First Four of Last Name (Marcus Schwager = MSCHW)
• Password: PASSWORD

* Creative Writing

• College Essay Creative Writing
• Due Sept. 18

* Outside Writing



* Beowulf


HW: Read though line 1500

Wednesday, 9/10/14: Usage, Plot, and Professor Kilby

* Professor Clyde S. Kilby (1902--1986), one of the most distinguished C. S. Lewis scholars in the world. Study at the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton (in Illinois). 


* Open

• In your composition book, in your grammar section, please 
• 1. Summarize the note below from grammarist.com.
• 2. Compose two example sentences for someday and some day (four total). 

• Someday vs. some day

  The one-word adverb someday works when describing an indefinite future time (e.g., “I’d like to see him again someday”). Some day is two words when it refers to a single day, even if that day is unknown or not specified (e.g., “I have an appointment some day next month”).
  The distinction is useful, but despite its usefulness and in spite of what usage authorities say, many writers use someday and some day more or less interchangeably.

  Examples

  Someday

  She also sees the sunflower as someday becoming the official symbol of hope for those suffering from the disease. [Cincinnati.com]
  It is possible that, someday, the schools, libraries, fire stations and park pavilions built in 2010 will be seen as the best and most carefully designed of the decade. [Wall Street Journal]

  Some day

  It might be some day in the not too distant future. [ESPN]
  One day in the future, near or far I don’t know, but some day down the road, Eagles’ fans will look back and long for the days of Andy Reid. [NJ.com]

• Prayer and Poetry

* Term: Plot: The structure and relationship of actions and events in a literary work (Wheeler).  Some break a plot into three parts, some five (complication is part of the exposition), some six. 

• Beginning
• 1. Exposition

• 2. Complication or inciting incident (the antagonist presents an obstacle to the protagonist)

• Middle
• 3. Rising action which features 
• Crisis points
• 4. Climax or ultimate crisis 
• there may be a black moment (darkest point of the climax)
• the protagonist may experience an epiphany, sudden realization, clarification, or anagnorisis

•  End
• 5. Falling action, denouement
• resolution

• 6. Conclusion 
• open ending or

• closed ending

* Professor Kilby

HW: Study Your THS Card and Anglo-Saxon Notes

Tuesday, 9/9: Beowulf and Such

* Open

• Prayer and Poetry
• Thank you, Rozene!

* Beowulf

* Notecards (due block day), per. 5-6

* Professor Kilby

* Schwager checks your journal

HW: Finish your card and study it

Monday

Beowulf an epic poem. England . . Fine Art. Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest. Web. 8 Sep 2014.
http://quest.eb.com/#/search/163_2971949/1/163_2971949/cite

* Open

• Prayer and Poetry
• Review the Week in the Course Calendar

* Notecards (due block day)

* Beowulf

HW: J6 College Essay #2; if you could not find the quo vadis reading, then please read it tonight:

• Quo Vadis Reading from Dr. Kilby the the Quo Vadis folder of our Google Drive

Block Day: Anglo-Saxon Goodness

* Open

• Prayer
• Caedmon
• Combined Quiz on THS and Anglo-Saxons at the end of Next Week (Sorry, I hit the wrong date on Focus earlier)
• Dual Credit Forms in our AP Lit Google Doc Folder in MVCS Forms

* College Essays

• Journal 6: College Essay #2 (or rewrite of #1) 
• Due, Tuesday, Sept. 9

* Just a bit of Beowulf

• What were some purposes we may be able to discern from the opening lines of Beowulf? 

• Anglo-Saxon Mnemonics

* That Hideous Strength Note Card

• Group work: AP Study Cards (quiz next block day...you will show your card then)
• Your Quo Vadis reading will help you make a better card. 
• Your card is due when you quiz at the end of next week. 

* Requiescat in pace, Seamus Heaney.  
 
1939–2013

Below, you will find excerpts from the Poetry Foundation's overview of Heaney's career.

[Begin excerpt]

Seamus Heaney is widely recognized as one of the major poets of the 20th century. A native of Northern Ireland, Heaney was raised in County Derry, and later lived for many years in Dublin. He was the author of over 20 volumes of poetry and criticism, and edited several widely used anthologies. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995 "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past." Heaney taught at Harvard University (1985-2006) and served as the Oxford Professor of Poetry (1989-1994). He died in 2013.

As a translator, Heaney’s most famous work is the translation of the epic Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf (2000). Considered groundbreaking because of the freedom he took in using modern language, the book is largely credited with revitalizing what had become something of a tired chestnut in the literary world. Malcolm Jones in Newsweek stated: "Heaney's own poetic vernacular—muscular language so rich with the tones and smell of earth that you almost expect to find a few crumbs of dirt clinging to his lines—is the perfect match for the Beowulf poet's Anglo-Saxon…As retooled by Heaney, Beowulf should easily be good for another millennium."

In 2009, Seamus Heaney turned 70. A true event in the poetry world, Ireland marked the occasion with a 12-hour broadcast of archived Heaney recordings. It was also announced that two-thirds of the poetry collections sold in the UK the previous year had been Heaney titles. Such popularity was almost unheard of in the world of contemporary poetry, and yet Heaney’s voice is unabashedly grounded in tradition. Heaney’s belief in the power of art and poetry, regardless of technological change or economic collapse, offers hope in the face of an increasingly uncertain future. Asked about the value of poetry in times of crisis, Heaney answered it is precisely at such moments that people realize they need more to live than economics: “If poetry and the arts do anything,” he said, “they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness."

[End excerpt]


HW: Quo Vadis Reading by Professor Clyde Kirby; use this to enhance your note cards

Anglo-Saxon Mnemonics

• This is the one I will quiz you on:

Inhabitants of British Isles - ICRAVN ("I see raven" . . . or "I craven" a snack). This is the "bird's eye" overview of the Isles' inhabitants from time immemorial to the Norman invasion of 1066.

• Iberians - from Spain-Portugal
• Celts - the "Irish" peoples
• Romans - from Italy
• Anglo-Saxons - from Germany (Angles, Saxons, Jutes)
• Vikings - from Scandinavia (Denmark and Norway)
• Normans - from France (originally from the north; that's why it's Nor(th)man)

  

• This one is helpful, but I will not quiz you on it:

Anglo-Saxon Centuries (thanks to Prof. Michael Drout, an Old English scholar at Wheaton College) - MCGVR (a mnemonic based on the old television show MacGyver ).

Sutton Hoo Burial Site

• Migration (500-600 AD) - the Germanic tribes invade as Rome was packing up and backing out. The Teutonic peoples were swarming all over Europe before and during this era. Several of them--Angles, Saxons, and Jutes--decided to venture across the English Channel and liked it, so they stayed. 
• Conversion (600-700) - In 597 Gregory the Great sends St. Augustine (not of Hippo) as an official emissary of Rome to convert the Angles or what he considered "Angels." Ireland already had been in the process of converting the Anglo-Saxons, so the more "home-grown" Christianity of St. Patrick's Ireland (432) had to work with the "official" Christianity brought from Rome by St. Augustine.
• Golden Age (700-800) - wherever Christ comes, cultures blossom; thus did the Anglo-Saxon culture after the conversion of the tribes. The newly erected monasteries beat the Anglo-Saxon swords into pens, ushering in the sanctification of the imagination and the creation of some first rate poetry, Beowulf included.
• Viking Raids (800-900) and the destruction of Anglo-Saxon culture - Scandinavian vikings (Denmark and Norway) began doing what pirates do: thy plundered and pillaged the peace-loving monasteries, eventually overthrowing all but one English kingdom: Alfred the Great of Wessex (871-899).
• Reform (900-1000) and the rebuilding of Anglo-Saxon culture - After Alfred the warrior-poet sent the vikings packing, England began rebuilding what the pillagers had torn down. Even before his passing, Alfred the Great established the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and translated Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy (a Latin work) and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English Race into Old English (Anglo-Saxon), all of which first marked English as a "world language."

Wednesday, 9/3/14

Caedmon.. Photograph. Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest. Web. 2 Sep 2014.
http://quest.eb.com/#/search/113_921482/1/113_921482/cite

* Open

•  Please read your first memorization poem: Caedmon's Hymn
• Please copy the poem into your journal. 

• From Mr. Woods: Seniors: Don’t forget to use Naviance for all college applications, teacher recommendations and transcript requests. Please follow the step by step instructions that were emailed to you last week. See your advisor if you have any questions (I put the instructions in our shared folder for AP Lit).

• Dual Credit: this is your last week to sign up.

* Class

• Review notes
• The Anglo-Saxon Period (c. AD 500-1066)

• Addition to Notes
• Anglo-Saxon
• Old English
• Alliterative Verse

HW: Begin Reading Beowulf (please only read the editions below if your book is ordered or will soon be ordered)

• Beowulf (one example)

  Beowulf (another example)

   

   

* Open

* Writing Your Essay

• Head your paper, left side (blame the Communists), with the following:
• Your name
• Teacher's Name (Mr. Schwager)
• AP English ______(403, 404, 405...)
• 2 September 2014 (blame the Europeans)

• Write in pen (blue or black)
• Single space
• Write on only the front of each piece of paper
• You have until the end of the period to finish your essay.  
• Once the bell rings, you must put down your pen or pencil if you are still working.

* Upon finishing your essay:

• Title your paper, centered.  This should not be underlined or put in quotation marks.
• Underline your thesis.
• Rejoice (blame the Christians). 

HW: Read The Anglo-Saxon Period (c. AD 500-1066)

• Copy the black notes in bold and italics (in your own words, or verbatim).
• Add at least three bullets of notes for each major sentence note listed in the text that you copied.