Gatsby Historical Context.

This one's decent, too, but won't allow me to embed: The Roaring 20s

Q4, week 4 skedj.

Note: Their Eyes Were Watching God essay due before class this Wednesday via Turn It In.

Monday.
In Class: Block 5: English Dept. candidate lesson. Block 6: Comma splices.
Homework: Their Eyes essay.

Day 2.
In Class: Their Eyes wrap up.
Homework: Their Eyes essay polishing. Proof for:

• agreement of thesis, supporting evidence, and title
  
• organization of ideas at both sentence and paragraph levels
• wordiness, redundancies, wordiness, word and sentence variety
  
• quotations integration and citation
• spelling, grammar, and mechanics
  
• MLA formatting
  

Day 3.
In Class: Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Great Gatsby, blues, and jazz
Homework: Gatsby ch. 1.

Friday.
In Class: Close passage analysis.
Homework: Ch. 2.

Summer Opp.

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Reading Tim 'O Brien in Hanoi.

In the Times recently:

Reading Tim O’Brien in Hanoi

By MATT STEINGLASS

Published: April 4, 2010

The Vietnamese seem largely uninterested in foreign accounts of what they call the “American War.”

Q4, week 3 skedj.

Note: Course evals are the first 20 minutes of class this week Wednesday. Report to the computer lab before coming to class.

Monday.
In Class: Vergible Woods, part two; essay introduction.
Homework: Ch. 16-18, pp. 138-167 (30).

Day 2.
In Class: Mrs. Turner, Motor Boat, et al.
Homework: Ch. 19 & 20, pp. 168-193 (26). Also, generate a final discussion question for student-led discussion. Question must be cumulative in nature and must address the resolution of a particular aspect of the novel, for example, with respect to character, theme, symbol, extended metaphor, etc.

Day 3.
In Class: Open topic graded discussion.
Homework: Afterword, pp. 195-205 (11) and essay thesis and supporting evidence.

Friday.
In Class: Writing day.
Homework: Their Eyes Were Watching God essay. Due next Wednesday via Turn It In.

Cartoon channels "Their Eyes," pp. 10-11.

Hurston supplements.

Zora's Roots.
The new documentary, Zora's Roots, pays tribute to the most prolific woman writer of the Harlem Renaissance. The film traces Hurston's life and work from her childhood in the all-black township of Eatonville, Florida, to her days as a Barnard student in New York City, to her anthropologic field work in Honduras and Haiti, and eventually back to Florida, where she died penniless and was buried in an unmarked grave.

During the Roaring Twenties, Hurston was central to Harlem's evolving literary scene alongside Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman. She was Barnard College's first black graduate, and her studies in anthropology contributed to a lifelong exploration of language, culture and the African American experience. More than 40 years after her death in 1960, Hurston's writing remains an integral piece of America's literary fabric. In addition to her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, which has been cited as one of the 100 greatest literary works of all time, she is renowned for her journalistic, cinematic and non-fiction work.

"Zora['s] courage and determination to look at black culture with an analytical eye enabled her to express so beautifully the richness of the culture, its complex history and diasporic nature." said Barnard English Professor Monica Miller, who appears in the film.


Hurston Plays at the Library of Congress.
The Zora Neale Hurston Plays at the Library of Congress present a selection of ten plays written by Hurston (1891-1960), author, anthropologist, and folklorist. Deposited as typescripts in the United States Copyright Office between 1925 and 1944, most of the plays remained unpublished and unproduced until they were rediscovered in the Copyright Deposit Drama Collection in 1997. The plays reflect Hurston's life experience, travels, and research, especially her study of folklore in the African-American South. Totaling 1,068 images, the scripts are housed in the Library's Manuscript, Music, and Rare Book and Special Collections divisions.

Q4, week 2 skedj.

Monday.
In Class: Graded, student-led discussion. Topic: Characterization of Joe Starks. Crucial to this will be essential lines/passages and their implications.
Homework: Ch. 6, pp. 50-75 (26).

Day 2.
In Class: Mule stories.
Homework: Ch. 7-9, pp. 76-93 (18).

Day 3.
In Class: "That strange being with huge square-toes."
Homework: Ch. 10-12, pp. 100-115 (16).

Friday.
In Class: Vergible Woods.
Homework: Ch. 13-15, pp. 116-138 (23).

Maximize net searches.

New York Times: "Ten Simple Google Search Tricks."

A refresher on annotations.

General annotations
Annotations are notes for the future. They’re how you hold up your end of the conversation with the text. You are expected to annotate—annotations checks can occur at any time, without notice)—but the way in which you do so is up to you. Here are some suggestions:

• Highlight key words, images, and patterns and mark significant passages.
• Flag or ear-mark critically important pages.
• Raise discussion-worthy questions in the margins.
• Draw connections through page number references. (For example, “See page xx.”)
• Write a summary at the end of each chapter. Address questions such as: What happened? How and why? What purpose does the chapter serve? In other words, why does it exist? What is it doing to/for the narrative or text as a whole?
• Keep a list, or index, of important themes, symbols, and motifs on the inside cover of your book. Write corresponding page numbers for each.

Close annotations
A close annotation is when one examines a significant passage (of no more than one page) closely, as if under a microscope. To do so, first retype the passage so that it takes up one complete, double-spaced page in landscape format. Then, mark up the passage by following the directions below.

• look up unknown words.
• circle words that carry considerable weight, have “heft.”
• mark images, symbols, metaphoric language.
• consider denotation (what words mean) and connotation (what words imply).
• consider text (what’s on the page) and subtext (what meanings it may carry).
• Make connections to elsewhere in text.
• Draw conclusions. What statement is being made? By who? What about? What are its thematic or symbolic implications?

Homework for Day 2: Authentic Dialogue.

Record three different forms of communication in your life. Transcribe the conversation verbatim—not only word for word but also as the language is heard. In other words, try to capture the actual language of the people involved. (“Going to” might actually be “gonna,” “What’s up” might be “sup,” “What are you doing tonight” might be “whutterya doin’ t’nite,” etc.)

Examples of different forms of communication:

• dialogue between friends or family
• writing at school or a journal
• nightly news cast
• online conversations (email, IM, Facebook, etc.)
  

Bring a hard copy of your three different kinds of conversation with you to class tomorrow. You should have about three-fourths of a page of dialogue per form of communication.

Q4, week 1 skedj.

Note: A reminder to bring Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston to class on Monday.

Monday.
In Class: Their Eyes intro and Hurston background; "How it Feels to Be Colored Me."
Homework: Authentic Dialogue. (See post above.)

Day 2.
In Class: Authentic Dialogue.
Homework: Ch. 1 & 2, pp. 1-20 (20).

Day 3.
In Class: "Ships at a distance . . .", Ms. Washburn, and the pear tree.
Homework: Ch. 3 & 4, pp. 21-33 (13).

Friday.
In Class: Logan Killicks and Joe Starks.
Homework: Ch 5, pp. 34-50 (17). Prep for Monday's student-led, graded discussion on the characterization of Joe Starks (essential lines and their implications).