Block Day: Such an Essay; Essay and Such

* Open

* In-Class Essay

• Plan in your composition book before you begin writing your essay. 

* Then

• One More Practice 
• Review

• Things to remember
• Length
• Variety 
• Sweet thesis
• Clever thinking; look for the little things that make a big difference

• Underline your thesis

* The Victorian Period (1837-1901) (you don't need to do this over break but must have it completed by the end of the week you return.

•  Take at least two important notes for each blue section (in your composition book)

HW:

• Senior Project Full RD's are due on the block day of your return.  
• Janeites, unite!  It's time to consider a scholarship essay.  
• Play: Quizlet Set: Terminal Velocity 

* Open

• Read the Prompt.  Mark it up.  What does the prompt require you to do? 
• Pray

* Consider Blake Together

•  Prompt
•  Compare and Contrast
• Which elements?
• Comparison?
• Contrast?
•  Blake Review Page

 
Vocabulary List 9: Each sentence must illustrate some new or challenging device and have a semicolon or colon. Please label each sentence with the device incorporated.  You must do this by block day. 

autumnal 
ablution 
charactery  
collusion 
eremite 
garners
moors
nebulous 
paradigm 
unctuous 

HW:

• Vocabulary List 9
• Optional: Writing a Better Essay (with today's Blake poems as the example)

Ferocious Cuteness

Monday, 3/30/15: Shelley to Keats

* Open

• Note from Mrs. Martha Price
• Calendar
• No Victorianism Quiz Yet
• Essay Review Tomorrow
• Poetry Essay on Block Day

* Check Percy Shelley while you work on John Keats.

Vocabulary List 9: Each sentence must illustrate some new or challenging device and have a semicolon or colon.
Please label each sentence with the device incorporated.  You must do this by block day. 


autumnal 

ablution 

charactery  

collusion 

eremite 

garners

moors

nebulous 

paradigm 

unctuous 




HW: Keats Journal; Vocabulary List 9

 

Wednesday, 3/24/15: Shelley

* Open

• Janeites, Unite!  It's time to consider a scholarship essay.  I will make it worth your while if you want to take this on.  Do it. 
• Read revenge from the grave: fragments of an unpublished memoir finally support Lady Byron and Harriet Beecher Stowe's thoughts on the pair. 

* Discuss George Gordon

* Begin Percy Shelley

HW: 

• Shelley Notes and Journal 
• Senior Project

Tuesday, 3/24/15: What Happened to the Later Romantic Writers?

* Open 

•  Grammar

• Read the Psalm below.  Copy down the verse in italics.  Explain what slight shift in meaning would occur if we substituted a semicolon for the original colon. 

Psalm 23 (King James Version)

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

* Per. 3, 5?, 6: Finish Mariner Discussion

Later Romantic Poet, the First:

• George Gordon

HW: Journal: Gordon Journal Q's

Monday, 3/23/15: Coleridge to Byron

* Open

• Per. 6: Leeza, please export the iBook to a .ibooks file and email to me and thomaswhite@mvcs.org.
• No Class On Block Day This Week
• Aren't you glad you're not a Mariner?  I'd rather be a plane...horse...person. 

• Add to your journal: 
• Does the Bible ever say that wisdom and sadness may go together?  Or not go together?  Find one verse, passage, or story that supports the idea of wisdom and sadness naturally going together or not naturally going together.  

• Why do you think that sad or tragic things often seem more wise and mature than comic things?  Have you ever found tragic and comic effect reversed (where the comedy seems deeper than some tragedy)?  Explain. 

• Take Some Basic Notes on Byron here (and below)
• Years
• Troubles
• Death 
• Read at least three of the following poems
• Journal: Bryon: What makes Byron Romantic, and how does his style and sense seem to differ from Coleridge's? 

George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824, or 36)

Background Notes:







From Poet's Graves:

     In 1816 Byron was forced to leave England for good due to his scandalous lifestyle. He had several affairs, including one with his half-sister Augusta Leigh who gave birth to his daughter and one with Lady Caroline Lamb who famously referred to him as: 'Bad, mad and dangerous to know.'

     Byron died at Missolonghi in Greece in 1824 while helping the Greeks in their struggle for independence from Turkey. However, he did not die in battle but  as a result of a fever he contracted after going for a ride in a rainstorm.

     Byron's body was brought back to England but he was refused burial in Westminster Abbey. Instead his body was laid in the family vault in Nottinghamshire. Many thousands of people turned out to pay their respects during the funeral procession which itself, extended for a quarter of a mile. 

For more on Byron: George Gordon: Lord Byron 

Poems for tomorrow:

• "The Destruction of Sennacherib"
• "She Walks in Beauty"
• "So We'll Go No More a Roving"
•  Choose one:
• "Darkness"
• "Prometheus"

HW: Take Notes on Byron's Life

 

Good News!

In November, Rachel Surgalski (senior) won first place for fiction writing in the countywide contest hosted by the Bookshop Santa Cruz (click here for "Lilac Boy").  Unfortunately, they did not inform her until last week.  Garrett Moore (sophomore, click here for "Accidental President") won honorable mention (he was notified appropriately and is pictured if you follow this link). Bookshop Santa Cruz published a book with the winning entries.  Rachel kindly gave me one of her copies; you may borrow it for a day or two if you wish.

Last Week: First Published Digital Book Written By an Entire Class

• Here is the book: Sailing the Seas of Disease

• Leeza Wayne, Isabel Ponce, and Gabriella Gerlach edited our first iBook for class (per. 6).  This is a compilation where each student in class wrote a section of a modern retelling of The Canterbury Tales.  Here's the set up:

• A cruise ship is quarantined due to sickness (like Chaucer, you need a setup for people telling tales to each other).
• Each unique character is introduced (first 13 pages), just as in Chaucer.
• Each character tells a tale related to the kind of character he or she is.
• The work is written in couplets.
• Please download the book and rate it cheerfully!

• 

This week Ivan Vatikani ("Theatre") and McKenna Pahl ("Ocean Breeze Memories") each received honorable mention in California Coastal Commission's Poetry Contest (this is a statewide contest with over 2,500 entries).

Congratulate your friends and classmates!  I expect we'll have more good news with the AG Poetry and Poetry Santa Cruz contest results coming during this quarter. 

Block of Rime

* Open

• Vocabulary
• kirk: a church

• Deadline: Poetry Santa Cruz  
• Leeza, Gabby, and Isabel Cross the Chaucerian Finish Line First!  Congratulations!
• Sailing the Seas of Disease (how apropos for Rime of the Ancient Mariner)
• Download the Book
• Check it out
• Rate it (highly, of course!)

* Quiz

• I will be checking your project progress while you quiz.

* Rime of the Ancient Mariner Parts 5-7 (due Monday)

• After Part the Sixth
• 3.  Again the ancient Mariner cannot pray.  Why not?  Why can he pray again?  What might this reflect about our own repentance? 

• After Part the Seventh
• 4. Every vision of life on earth is, in some way, a vision of the good life.  According to the Mariner, what is the good, sweet life?  How does his understanding of the good life contrast to his experience on the ship? 

• 5. According to the Mariner, what is essential to effective prayer?  How might we restate his idea to be a general principle of approach to life that helps us remain in a ready state for prayer? 

•  6. Who is a "sadder and a wiser man" at the end of the poem?  Why would the person be sadder?  

• 7. Application: 

• Did you feel any sadder or wiser during or after reading this poem?  Why or why not?

 Notes: Taken From http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/coleridge.htm

  

Epitaph Stop, Christian passer-by!—Stop, child of God, And read with gentle breast. Beneath this sod A poet lies, or that which once seemed he. O, lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C.; That he who many a year with toil of breath Found death in life, may here find life in death! Mercy for praise—to be forgiven for fame He asked, and hoped, through Christ. Do thou the same!
S.T. Coleridge is buried in the aisle of St. Michael's Church, Highgate, London, England. He was originally buried at Old Highgate Chapel but was re-interred in St. Michael's Church in 1961.   Coleridge was educated at Christ's Hospital, London and at Jesus College Cambridge. In 1794 he met Robert Southey in Oxford and the pair became close friends - planning a Pantisocracy society together. They also courted and married the sisters Sara and Edith Fricker. In 1796 Coleridge moved to Nether Stowey in Somerset. While here he met William Wordsworth who was living at Alfoxden House. This was the beginning  of a fourteen year relationship which proved to be one of the most creative partnerships in English poetry. It was Wordsworth who suggested that Coleridge write The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It was also at this time that Coleridge completed his opium inspired masterpiece Kubla Khan. In 1798 the pair published their ground breaking joint collection of work: Lyrical Ballads which was a forerunner of romanticism.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge	In 1800 Coleridge moved to the Lake District to be close to Wordsworth. By this stage his marriage to Sara Fricker was deteriorating and he fell in love with Wordsworth's sister-in-law Sara Hutchinson. By 1811 Coleridge had become increasingly reliant on opium. This, combined with pressure of work, led to arguments with Wordsworth and the irretrievable breakdown of their friendship.  In 1816 Coleridge sought treatment for his opium addiction with Highgate surgeon James Gillman. He moved into Gillman's house and remained there until his death on 25 July 1834. This was a happier period in Coleridge's life and he became known as the 'sage of Highgate'. An autopsy, carried out on Coleridge's body at his own request, revealed that he had been suffering from an enlarged heart. He wrote his own epitaph in the last year of his life.

 HW: 

• Finish Journal: Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
• Take notes on the biographical information above.   
• Download Sailing the Seas of Disease

  

Ivan Vatikani: "Theatre" (Honorable Mention, Coastal Commission Contest, 2015)

The warm water engulfs us as we frolic in the ocean of our ancestors.

The sand comforts my father as he watches us shatter the rippling clear veil under the heat of

the Pacific sun.

The wind dances elegantly, and the ocean dances with her.

The wind is graceful, smooth in motion, courtly in presence, joyful in her mother’s song.

She caresses us with air, and comforts us with warm companionship.

But her brother moves as a fierce warrior,

Clapping his hands, thumping his feet on the shore, yet

He is smooth, in his demeanor, in his movement, in his dance.

He is the warrior that our people rode, and she is the dancer that guided them.

We watch and hear the dance performed.

As we exit the theatre of ocean and wind, we can still hear their mother’s song.

Ocean Breeze Memories by McKenna Pahl (Honorable Mention, Coastal Commission, 2015)

Puddles glisten on the floor,

Left where feet stepped just before.

Trails of sand lead the way

To the children still at play.

A zephyr plays with the curtain's hem,

Blowing softly on my skin,

Washing away Summer's warmth,

Stirring up the seashore surf.

The gleaming sun's scattered glow

Shifts back and forth, to and fro,

Leaking through the clouds above,

Gathering Earth in a lingering hug.

But Summer only stays so long;

The birds will leave to sing their song,

In other lands, for other ears,

In the sun-soaked hemispheres.

And when the cries of laughter cease,

When there is no ocean breeze,

When the rays of sunlight flee,

Our house will still smell of the sea.

Focus Note

Class Discussion and iPad Use: This quarter, we all begin with a "B," and you will individually work up or down from there.  I will update these categories weekly.

Wednesday 3/18: Rime Parts 5-6

* Open

• Please add to your vocabulary:
• Swound: (archaic) noun; a swoon
• Shrieve: (archaic form of the modern "shrive") verb; to hear confession (of a person) OR to grant absolution (to a penitent) OR to impose penance (to a sinner)

• Respond in your Journal: Rime of the Ancient Mariner
• 2. In the Bible, is there ever a time when we learn that our prayers will be hindered by our actions?  Or that God does not listen to or says that he will not listen to a prayer?  Where?  How does that relate to the the prayers of the ancient Mariner?  Do you think God would ever refuse to hear someone's prayers today?

* Review question 1 and 2

HW: Study for the Quiz; halfway in senior project

• Poetry Forms: Sonnet, Villanelle, and Triolet
• Reading: Austen and Coleridge:  I am going to have you compare the narrative style and tone in a brief paragraph.
• Vocabulary Lists 7-8

Tuesday, 3/17: "Beyond the shadow of the ship, I watched the water-snakes."

* Open

• New seat; new companions
• Copy into terms (definition, at least)
• lorica: Latin: body armor or breastplate; in the Christian monastic tradition, a prayer recited for protection.  Knights would often recite a lorica as they sped into battle.  The tradition stems from the Apostle Paul, who encourages us thus, "Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness" (Ephesians 6:14)
• State ergo succincti lumbos vestros in veritate, et induti loricam justitiæ,
• Please Read: Saint Patrick
• Feastday: March 17
  Patron of Ireland
  Birth: 387
  Death: 461
• His hymn: St. Patrick's Breastplate (or St. Patrick's Lorica, Latin for body armor or breastplate)
   

* Rime of the Ancient Mariner Parts 3-4

"Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes."

Journal: Rime of the Ancient Mariner (one paragraph)

• After Part the Fourth
• 1.  Why can't the mariner pray effectively?  When this changes, what does the mariner attribute the change to?  The reader may partly agree with the mariner but sees another reason (perhaps related) for the change.  What is it?  Why is this fitting?

HW: Senior Project

Monday: Extended Musings (of the Poetry Santa Cruz Type)

* Open 

•  Check Your Focus Q3 Grade for Blanks and/or 0's

* Poetry Santa Cruz Contest Extended Their Post Deadline! (Send in This Week, If You Wish)

* Calendar

* Turnitin.com is working; we need to make sure our old work goes in there by block day:

• Senior Project Proposal
• CWP Q4 FD: Champion or Satire 
• Essay Rewrite

* Begin Rime of the Ancient Mariner

* Be Sure to Check Focus

* Work in Class (Senior Project)

HW: Senior Project

18 Centuries of Rewriting: Turnitin is working again

If your login page isn't loading, start here:

http://go.turnitin.com/e/45292/login-page-asp/3nxjq/307164783


Enjoy!

Mr. S

Block Day

Open

• Please review the info. for in-class essay rewrites before you turn them in.

* Musical Folks: We'll do the work below, then watch an Austen video so that you won't fall as far behind (as you would if we covered Coleridge without you)

* Poetry Santa Cruz Contest Details

• Would anyone like a peer edit?

* Austen:

• Quo Vadis: "Austen's Powers" by Jennifer Farrara 
• Examples from Wuthering Heights
• Respond: Take up one idea from Farrara's article to expand upon.  You may agree, disagree, or consider multiple angles of the idea.  Please begin your response with a quotation, then analyze from there. (Please compose one paragraph.)
• OR Show how two fictional characters (besides Darcy and Heathcliff) show two very different visions of ideal love. 

 * Video

HW: None

Tuesday, 3/10/15: Triolet

* Open

• In-Class Essay Rewrites 
• If turnitin.com doesn't work (it doesn't right now), your printed copy will suffice for now.  If you are leaving on the trip and need to submit electronically and turnitin doesn't work, you may email it to me: marcusschwager@gmail.com (please do not email me with your rewrite if you are not in the trip situation). 

• Poetry Submissions: Let's look at your poems on block day.  You may submit them after we've worked on them a bit. 
• * Poetry Santa Cruz Contest Details

* Begin reading the triolets

• Copy the definition into your terms
• Read all the poems
• Journal: Triolet: Choose any three for your journal response (you do not need to write a triolet yet)

* For Block Day: Journal: Austen Applied (class only; not homework)

• Mr. Collins's Proposal and The Book of Common Prayer
• Respond: What other reference or allusion to the Book of Common Prayer have we noted in this course?

• Quo Vadis: "Austen's Powers" by Jennifer Farrara 
• Examples from Wuthering Heights
• Respond: Cite and explain two men or two women in modern fiction (written or otherwise) who may represent two separate visions of an ideal partner.  Have you experienced a maturation of expectation in an ideal partner?  How?

HW: Poetry Santa Cruz; Rewrites

Monday, 3/9/15: All Kinds of Glory!

* Open

• “Pride relates to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”
• Please read your first foray into Austen literary criticism. 
• Answer in your journal: Given your reading, How do you see that "prejudice" and "vanity" have more specific meaning in their original context?

• Calendar
• This Week
• Poetry Santa Cruz
• Chaucer
• Rewrites
• Next Week:
• 1/2 Mark
• Midterm on Block Day, Next Week
• Forms
• Austen
• Romantic Writers and Notes Thus Far

* Essay Analysis Review

• Joseph Addison's Character's Diary
• Locating the tone is key. 
• Internal life is key.  See it best in juxtaposition.
• Pettiness: treatment of subordinates.
• The Spectator (March 4, 1712):  What kind of work might this be extracted from?
• Notice 
• verbs
• pronoun?
• what is he doing?
• winds

• Glory: Grand Vizier and Dreams and Internal Life

• Boswell on Johnson and Addison
• Main issue: "nerveless and feeble" is "very [unjust]." 
• Both are praised. 
• Johnson is not deprecated (consider the larger context, The Life of Samuel Johnson).
• Devices: parallelism, similes, extended simile or analogy
• What connotations are implied by the similes?

• Glory: that last sentence; qualified and erudite and periodic...just like Johnson.

* Austen

* Poetry Santa Cruz

HW: Poetry Santa Cruz Work; Rewrites