Let's Get Dangerous: Out of Classroom Experience Opportunity

Community Poetry Circle on Saturday, October 10, from  1 to 3 pm at the Aptos Branch Library, 7695 Soquel Drive, Aptos.

Monday, 10/5/15: Acquiesce to the Overwhelming Examples

* Open

• Do this grammar review of spliced (two independent clauses joined with a comma but no coordinator) and fused sentences (a.k.a. run-on; two complete ideas with no comma at all)
• Exercise 3 
• Splice Error: I like to eat all kinds of food, I often use food in my grammar examples.
• Fuse Error: I like to eat all kinds of food I often use food in my grammar examples.   
• Correct: I like to eat all kinds of food; I often use food in my grammar examples.
• Correct: I like to eat all kinds of food, so I often use food in my grammar examples. 
• Incorrect: I like to eat all kinds of food, yet I often use food in my grammar examples. 

Vocabulary: 

• Acquiesce (verb)
• to assent (not ascent), submit, comply silently or without protest
• Latin acquiescere "to become quiet, remain at rest," thus "be satisfied with,"
• from ad- "to" + quiescere "to become quiet"

Examples:

In Film:  Example in Dialogue from The Curse of the Black Pearl (please copy the key line):

Elizabeth: Captain Barbossa, I am here to negotiate the cessation of hostilities against Port Royal.
Barbossa: There are a lot of long words in there, Miss; we’re naught but humble pirates. What is it that you want?
Elizabeth: I want you to leave and never come back.
Barbossa: I’m disinclined to acquiesce to your request.
Pirates: Ooooooh…
Barbossa: Means “no."
 
________________________

In Poetry: Sea Girls by A. E. Stallings

              for Jason

“Not gulls, girls.” You frown, and you insist—
Between two languages, you work at words
(R’s and L’s, it’s hard to get them right.)
We watch the heavens’ flotsam:  garbage-white
Above the island dump (just out of sight),
Dirty, common, greedy—only birds.
OK, I acquiesce, too tired to banter.

Somehow they’re not the same, though. See, they rise
As though we glimpsed them through a torn disguise—
Spellbound maidens, wild in flight, forsaken—
Some metamorphosis that Ovid missed,
With their pale breasts, their almost human cries.
So maybe it is I who am mistaken;
But you have changed them. You are the enchanter.

________________________ 

Now please compose your own sentence with an opening prepositional phrase. 

* Review the week

* Journal Review 

* RD College Essay

HW: 1/2 RD College Essay; Outside Reading 

Friday, 10/2/15: A Propitious Homecoming

* Open

• propitious (adj.)
• presenting favorable conditions; auspicious; favorably inclined
• Latin: propitius "favorable, kind, gracious, well-disposed"
• Examples (copy one)
• "The horizon [was] bounded by a propitious sky, azure, marbled with pearly white." -- Charlotte Bronte
• "And the tax-gatherer, having stood afar off, would not even the eyes lift up to the heaven, but was smiting on his breast, saying, 'God be propitious to me -- the sinner!' " -- Luke 18:1 (Young's Literal Translation)

• No voice divine the storm allay'd,
           No light propitious shone;
  When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,
           We perish'd, each alone:
  But I beneath a rougher sea,
  And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he. (William Cowper in "The Castaway")
  
  
  Now please compose your own sentence with an introductory clause or phrase.
   

Journal: Sir Gawain and the Jolly Knight (G. K. Chesterton)

• First:  Some people think that we should not read tales like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight because such fiction fills our minds with false fears, superstitions, or lies.  Let's read a bit by G.K. Chesterton on fairy tales. 
• Questions from fairy tales
• 1.  Chesterton is saying that fairy tales (such as SGGK) are ________ for children to read (choose one)
• a. bad
• b. fine, ok
• c. good 
• d. very good

• 2.  Defend your answer above with three examples.  

• Second:  Consider Chesterton's thoughts on fragments.
• 3.  What are the chief problems with staring blankly at others?
• 4.  What is the chief problem with modernity or the modern world?
• 5.  (Based on your answer in #4.)  Find a subject, school of thought, or aspect of modern life that seems to have gotten fragmented from the larger picture. How is the fragmented version of what once was more whole and wholesome proving now to be hurtful or inhumane? Explain.
• 6. How does staring blankly at something relate to fragments and wholeness?  Why would he open an essay on fragments that way?  How might "staring blankly at things" be a way of redeeming ourselves or the world for a more humane life?
• 7. Remember, in Part II of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where Gawain's virtues are fold-five held in balance--one cannot dominate the others?  How does Chesterton's idea about fragments relate to Gawain?  What does the conclusion of Sir Gawain (end of Part III and Part IV; the last interaction with Lady Bercilak and the ensuing events) mean for the balance of his virtues?

HW: Finish Journal Questions 1-7

Thursday, 10/1/15: Breaking Out Briefly to Weave in the Wiser

* Open

• Vote for your King and Queen

• Mitigate (verb)
• to lessen in severity or harshness; to moderate
• Latin: mitis "gentle, soft"  + root of agere "do, make, act"
• Examples (copy either one):

"When we protect children from every possible source of danger, we also prevent them from having the kinds of experiences that develop their sense of self-reliance, their ability to assess and mitigate risk, and their sense of accomplishment." -- Gever Tulley

"There is no dealing with great sorrow as if it were under the control of our wills. It is a terrible phenomenon, whose laws we must study, and to whose conditions we must submit, if we would mitigate it." -- Joseph Le Fanu

Now create your own example with an opening clause or phrase.

Today, we need some Chesterton before we go on.




Period 6 and 7 Only

Journal: Sir Gawain and the Jolly Knight (G. K. Chesterton)

• First:  Some people think that we should not read tales like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight because such fiction fills our minds with false fears, superstitions, or lies.  Let's read a bit by G.K. Chesterton on fairy tales. 
• Questions from fairy tales
• 1.  Chesterton is saying that fairy tales (such as SGGK) are ________ for children to read (choose one)
• a. bad
• b. fine, ok
• c. good 
• d. very good

• 2.  Defend your answer above with three examples.  

• Second:  Consider Chesterton's thoughts on fragments.
• 3.  What are the chief problems with staring blankly at others?
• 4.  What is the chief problem with modernity or the modern world?
• 5.  (Based on your answer in #4.)  Find of a subject, school of thought, or aspect of modern life that seems to have gotten fragmented from the larger picture, and that fragmented version of what once was more whole and wholesome is proving now to be hurtful or inhumane? Explain.
• 6. How does staring blankly at something relate to fragments and wholeness?  Why would he open an essay on fragments that way?  How might "staring blankly at things" be a way of redeeming ourselves or the world for a more humane life?
• 7. Remember, in Part II of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where Gawain's virtues are fold-five held in balance--one cannot dominate the others?  How does Chesterton's idea about fragments relate to Gawain?  What does the conclusion of Sir Gawain (end of Part III and Part IV) mean for the balance of his virtues?

HW: Come to 1940 Bonita Ave., in Aptos tonight at 6pm!  You will receive class credit (or you may attend another literary event of your choice over the next few weeks, or enter a contest).   

Wednesday, 9/30/15: Now You Can All Come to Our Chesterton Meeting On Thursday, No?

* Open

• Per. 1; I need to check your note cards. 

ignominious (adj.) 

• disgraceful, shameful, contemptible

Etymology:

• from Latin ignominia "loss of a (good) name" 
• in- "not, opposite of" 
• nomen "name"

Examples (copy #1):
1. Crucifixion was an ancient mode of capital punishment considered especially ignominious to the Romans.  

2. "I was cleaning out the pigsty at a farm in Wales, where my mother had rented a room, when the results of my final school exam were handed to me by the postman, along with the news that I had a state scholarship to Oxford. I had waited for this letter for so many weeks that I had abandoned hope, deciding that I had failed ignominiously."  -- Nina Bawden

Now, create your own sentence (with an introductory phrase or clause).

* Homework Update (due to the SAT; email sent)

SGGK

• Part III Scenes

* Read and Annotate Part IV

HW: Read and Annotate Part IV