Wednesday, 10/7/15

* Open

• First, I apologize for all the Google emails. I didn't realize that you were inundated by such messages from me.   
• Note, though, that I have upcoming assignments in your Google Classroom as some of them can be done digitally. 
• This week:
• College Essay #2
• Next week:
• Out of Class Experience
• Outside Reading Annotation (we will do the writing portion in quarter 2)
• Example College Essay for Darker Themes (In general, I would say it is wiser not to include very dark themes in your personal narrative.  It's challenging to show the positive truly eclipse the negative, but it is possible.)

* Inundate (v.): to flood; overflow

• Latin: inundare "to overflow, run over"
• Examples:
• We are inundated by distractions, loosely packaged as information, on social media today.
• "As a young surgeon in training at the  University of California San Francisco General Hospital in the early '80s, my colleagues and I were inundated with an epidemic of young men with fevers, rashes, swollen lymph nodes, and eventually death." -- Richard Carmona
• Before you move on, please compose a sentence with your vocabulary word that features an opening prepositional phrase.

* Show me Your RD; get a peer edit today. 

* Study Guide for a Middle Age Crisis

HW:

• FD of Your Essay Printed in MLA format and including your prompt
• Also please submit your FD to the Google Classroom Assignment
• Study for the Quest
• Grammar:  Sentence Types (Bedford Grammar Basics at the Back of the Book)
• Practice Here 

Tuesday, 10/6/15: Arduous Adventures

* Open

• Please attack this grammar exercise on fragments (link to exercise 3).

arduous (adjective)

• hard to accomplish, difficult to do
• Latin  arduus "high, steep," 
• also figuratively, "difficult" 

Examples

• “In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.”  -- Ghandi
• “I attempt an arduous task, but there is no worth in that which is not a difficult achievement.” -- Ovid
• “True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare.”  -- Chesterton

After those excellent notes, create your own sentence that features an opening prepositional phrase.


* Work on Your Rough Draft

HW: Finish Your Rough Draft



Post Script:



"Consolation"

By Robert Louis Stevenson

Though he, that ever kind and true,

Kept stoutly step by step with you,

Your whole long, gusty lifetime through,

      Be gone a while before,

Be now a moment gone before,

Yet, doubt not, soon the seasons shall restore

      Your friend to you.

He has but turned the corner — still

He pushes on with right good will,

Through mire and marsh, by heugh and hill,

      That self-same arduous way —

That self-same upland, hopeful way,

That you and he through many a doubtful day

      Attempted still.

He is not dead, this friend — not dead,

But in the path we mortals tread

Got some few, trifling steps ahead

      And nearer to the end;

So that you too, once past the bend,

Shall meet again, as face to face, this friend

      You fancy dead.

Push gaily on, strong heart! The while

You travel forward mile by mile,

He loiters with a backward smile

      Till you can overtake,

And strains his eyes to search his wake,

Or whistling, as he sees you through the brake,

      Waits on a stile.

* brake: ferns and bushes and such
* stile: stone or wooden ladder or opening in a fence
* What double or triple meaning does "wake" bring to the concluding stanza? 

 

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