Lord of the Flies Illustrations

Almost 10 students...

...have viewed this blog today, and it is not even 11 in the morning. I guess we still have some reading to do. LOL.

PS BTW

I am not sure how this "dialectical journal" assignment I have been hearing about from some of you became associated with AP English.
We don't really like those dialectical journals.
The ONLY assignment is the one in the post below, which we do like.

We also like

Thoughts on and Questions for Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five

Hi. I hope you are doing some good work and having some good fun this summer. I also trust, that despite the intensity of this book at times and some of its somber ideas, you will find some genuine pleasure in the freshness (still, after all these years) of the the narrative voice, the bizzare plot, and the depth of insight into our world Vonnegut is able to deliver.

It is important to understand that the firebombing of Dresden during WWII, around which the plot of the novel revolves, was real, and Vonnegut was there as a POW. 

The story centers on protagonist Billy Pilgrim. Your first task is to briefly summarize the literal plot of the novel in a quick paragraph. This is the basic starting point of any analysis of any work of art. This should be done in broad strokes, not minute detail. We simply want to know what happens, literally.

The back cover jacket of your copy of the novel claims Slaughterhouse-Five is "one of the world's great antiwar books". Focusing on Billy Pilgrim (not on the the obvious destruction and death of the literal firebombing), what happens to him and what does he do that supports this idea? Compose another brief paragraph. (Notice: In the first paragraph, we merely need to describe what happens. In this paragraph, we need describe what happens and then explain how those details demonstrate the "antiwar" claim.

The three most common words in the book are "So it goes". In what type of situations does Vonnegut employ the phrase? What does it suggest about his attitude? How does it fit, or not fit, with events in the book such as war and the belief system of the Tralfamadorians? This is another paragraph.

Lastly, if possible, tell me what insights you gained into human nature and society from this book.

Make yourself think patiently and write clearly while you do answer these few questions.

Bring this work with you on the first day of class.

Later,

McCurnin

David Foster Wallace Graduation Speech

This is Water (audio) (text)

AP Form Bubbling Party!

We will be filling out our AP test forms and student booklets in class on April 16th & 17th. If you are absent on this day, you will need to come in on your own time and get yours filled out.

If you are in Ms. Ali's AP Psychology class, you will be doing this beginning April 10th. If you are in that class, you will need to bring the little AP number stickers you get there to my class on these days. The rest of you will get your stickers with me in AP Lit.

This can be a real pain in the rear if a bunch of people are absent or if you forget your stickers. Please do your best to take care of business.

As a result of this, the reading schedule for Invisible Man has been altered. The final discussion will be on April 20 & 21.

Invisible Man Reading Schedule

for                         chapters             pages
4/2 and 4/3             14-15              296-332
4/6 and 4/7             16-17              333-382
4/8 and 4/9             18-19              383-422
4/10 and 4/13         20-22              423-478
4/14 and 4/15         23-24              479-534
4/16 and 4/17         25-Epilogue    535-581

Peetie Wheatstraw

Pick Poor Robin Clean (1927)

Bledsoe's "favorite spiritual"

Recorded in 1914 by the Tuskegee Institute Singers

Swing Low Sweet Chariot

Reverend Homer A. Barbee

Idea: Homer Barbee transforms the Founder into a mythological figure. Recount and analyze his speech to demonstrate the validity of this idea.

Idea: This transformation is designed to have an effect on the students at the college. Explain.

Idea: Barbee's blindness, noticed by the narrator only at the end of the speech, furthers Ellison's use of the motif of blindness and invisibility. What is Ellison suggesting about the the ideology preached by the college and Barbee, especially regarding its effect on the young men and women who attend the college.

AP Exam

If you need to pay for the test and have not done so, you MUST do so by tomorrow (Tuesday, 3/10) or you will not have a test ordered for you.

If this is a problem, I strongly recommend you communicate with Linda Vancil either by email or in person.

Her office is in the North main office

linda_vancil@ddouglas.k12.or.us

The Vet

1369: "My hole is warm and full of light"

With the exception of the narrator's grandfather who, despite his profound influence, only briefly appears, the vet is the first character who openly states his opposition to the established white power structure and the injustices of society. What is his history? What is suggested by how he now lives? What does he say to both the narrator and Norton? How do his statements inform our understanding of the issues and contradictions the narrator faces? Does the narrator take his words to heart?

The Booker T. Washington Statue at Tuskegee

Booker T. Washington and the Atlanta Exposition Speech

Here.

Louis Armstrong: (What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue?

Invisible Man Reading Questions

Read Prologue and answer these questions.

1.     The notion of “invisibility” is clearly going to be an important part of the novel. Make an early attempt to define what the narrator means by being “invisible”. What is the effect of the title lacking “the” or “an”? How do the motifs of light and darkness begin to fit into all of this?

2.     Who is Louis Armstrong? How does the narrator feel about him and his music? His song “What Did I Do to be So Black and Blue” leads the narrator into a kind of reefer-induced vision. What is “Weltschmerz” (9)? What about the stories he “hears”?

3.     The “Prologue” ends with an often paradoxical discussion about “action” and “responsibility” (13-14). What seems to be his general message?

White Noise Timed Writes

I believe I have graded everything submitted. If you do not have a score in the gradebook, it is up to you to make-up the timed write or resubmit it. Take care of this immediately.

Here is the translation of your score in the gradebook to an AP score. (This scale will shift upward as we move towards the test and get more practice.)

7-9 = 50
   6 = 48
   5 = 45
   4 = 42
   3 = 38
   2 = 35

Waiting for Godot: Read and Links

Read Act 1 for next class

Though Godot contains all the wit and whimsicality of Murphy (minus a great deal of the old pedantry), it has one new ingredient — humanity. The novel and the play both tell us that human suffering is comic and irrational (" absurd" in the fashionable jargon), but only Godot reads like the work of a man who has actually suffered. …Even if it added nothing to Murphy, Godot would still be remarkable by the mere fact of being a popular play on an unpopular theme... Its author has achieved a theoretical impossibility — a play in which nothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued to their seats. What’s more, since the second act is a subtly different reprise of the first, he has written a play in which nothing happens, twice. . . . About the only thing Godot shows consistent respect for is the music-hall low-comedy tradition.

• Vivian Mercier, on Waiting for Godot, in "The Uneventful Event" in The Irish Times (18 February 1956), p. 6.

.....


Review of First NYC performance, 1956

A Study Guide from A Noise Within Theater

Godot and Comedy and the Cartoon Network

Wondering what a professional analysis of White Noise reads like?

Then read this essay.

Advice from the results of the 2012 AP Free Response Questions

We are going to start looking more closely at the writing part of the Literature AP Exam as the second semester unfolds. The writing techniques we have been attempting to master in the first semester - which are the foundations of all good analytic writing - will be applied more directly to the exam itself.

The link below gives brief, official analysis of the overall results of the test taken by students in 2012, focusing on the line of analysis the question intended students to pursue, where students were successful, and where they missed the mark. We will review this document as we begin practicing the three different types of questions this semester, beginning with the open style question, #3.

Follow this LINK to view the guide.

ATE Paragraph and Claim Assignment

"The Airborne Toxic Event"
Authors often use major plot events to represent larger ideas and issues. What happens exactly, and how the characters react, and the events that result often help to illustrate the theme and point of a work as a whole. With this in mind, discuss the significance of “The Airborne Toxic Event” as an example of a plot event that serves the purpose of communicating Delillo's message in White Noise. (15 minutes)

Claims:

1. The supermarket remains a source of comfort and reassurance for Jack, but Delillo suggests that the security he feels there may be illusory and that Jack, at times, has a sense of that superficiality (159-162).
2. The post-ATE sunsets function as a symbol of the paradoxical nature of Jack and Babette’s life in the postmodern consumerist society they inhabit (162).
3. Knowledge, especially if validated by authority - whether trivial, forecasted, scientific, or hypothetical - is a source of controversy, confidence and anxiety (163, 166-169).
4. Devise and define your own claim about Babette and Dylar.

Reading Schedule and Final

1/19 (A) and 1/22 (B) through page 230
Final: AP Practice Multiple Choice
Finish Reading White Noise for First Day of Semester 2

Reading

Be through
the end of Chapter 26
on page 193
for Wednesday and Thursday.

The Airborne Toxic Event

Finish reading this second seciton by Friday 1/16 (A day) or Monday 1/19 (B day).

Next Class White Noise

Complete reading through the end of the "Waves and Radiation" section on page 104.

Have at least one episode in mind that we have not previously discussed that can be used to illustrate the ideas of white noise as a concept and its application to the thematic concerns the novel.

Your new noise and some of it is white

A World Transfixed by Screens