Connecting Words and ENVY poem

Students began by handing in their homework: paragraphs on Hannah's character.  Several students still need to hand them in including Daniel, Jack, Taylor, Matthias, Peter, River, Richard, Jake, Takara, Jordan, Mallory, Gabriel, and Timo.

Today we learned how to begin a sentence with
        -an infinitive phrase
        -the words "For example,"
        -the word 'Because"

We then read the poem Envy and understood that the FORM of the poem matched the CONTENT of the poem.  That is, the central contrast of the poem -- that the speaker wishes he was the "guileless boy" -- is emphasized because the poem has left and right sections.

Finally we completed an in-class assignment on Connecting words.

Six students have had their homework done each of the four times I've checked.  You guys ROCK.  Homework Kings and Queens are Claire, Marie, Dave, Cailin, Darren, and Myah.

Character - Notes and assignment

Notes on character.
Character trait word bank handout.

The pith of the lesson was the importance of WHAT to write about when a teacher asks the question, "Discuss character."

Assignment:  Discuss the character of Hannah in the short story, "The Bicycle."

The Bicycle -- homonyms and idioms

Quiz on The Bicycle
We finished the yellow sheet (from three classes ago).  Specifically, the backside of that sheet was on homonyms and students must finish this for tomorrow.

I also handed out a blue sheet and students are to finish the front side -- the side on idioms.  This is also due for tomorrow.

Warren Pryor Paragraphs: Some students still have not handed them in! Jordan, Doree, River, Matthias, and Timo still have to get their work into me

Non-Conformists and Paradox

We discussed the term conformist and non-conformist and we established that the word "conformist" is a pejorative (a word meant to injure or insult). Then we read a poem called "Non Conformist". The central aspect of that poem we discussed, was the paradox  (the girl thought she was a non-conformist, but she reveals she isn't).

We added paradox to our List of Terms.

We then began reading "The Bicycle" on p. 32. After some background discussion on the Jewish religion, students began reading the story.

There will be a quiz next day on this story -- so finish reading it and review it Sunday night or Monday morning before class on this story.

Here's a quiz tip for those of you who are astute enough to check this blog : what did Tante Rose include with the letter she sent at the end of the story? Also, be prepared to write a short paragraph on Hannah's decision at the end.

Being in the throes of adolescence and cucumber noses

I handed out, and we reviewed, our initial rubric -- or the scale on which I will mark many of your assignments.

We looked at Buffy St.Marie's "Self Portrait" from our textbook and we discussed the importance of small details.  We even managed to come up with a theme for the piece of work:  that Buffy was shielding herself from the degradation that was happening to the earth.

We had a brief discussion about my Tante Miriam and how she told me I had a cucumber nose while I was in the throes of adolescence.

Finally, we worked hard on our Warren Pryor paragraph:  discuss the use of imagery in the poem Warren Pryor.  This assignment is due tomorrow.

Warren Pryor

After reviewing what we did last day, (The Face in the Pool, narcissism, and how to write a literary paragraph), we discussed how parents can influence your education and future.

Then we read and discussed the poem Warren Pryor (p.70).

The following paragraph assignment was given:  Discuss the use of imagery in the poem 'Warren Pryor'.

Students began working on this assignment.

We'll continue working on it, on Thursday's long block, and then it will likely be due on Friday.

Jake was as sharp as a tack, and Cailin showed that it's not only Taylor who has a heart.

Dennis Pfeiffer Lesson

Dear Uncle Andy,

Nice talkin’ to ya again on the phone (dude you gotta to learn to Skype so we can save money on phone calls.)  Anyway, I thought for a bit about what you said you were doing with your English 10 class.  I did okay with poetry in high school, so I thought i’d write a letter  -- you know, a letter to your class about how to write one of these literary paragraphs.  Maybe it’ll help coming from me and not some stupid textbook (not that you wouldn’t do an EXCELLENT job, Uncle Andy, just that . . . oh, I dunno.  Here’s the letter.  Use it if you want.  You just read “I am a Rock” right?)

Dennis

Dude!

Hey guys.  My uncle Andy and I were chattin’ the other night .  Anyway, he called and mentioned, among other things, that he’d like to start his grade 10 class by teaching how to write a literary paragraph.  BTW I hope he hasn’t been too mean to you.  My dad and him are brothers but they’re nothing alike:  my dad Mike is a badass construction superintendent and, I imagine, my uncle is a suit and tie kinda guy.  Anyway, let’s get on with it.

Now I know there’s a lot of important lessons to be learned in life:  how to make your room look clean enough that your parents let you go out this weekend; how to get out of mowing the lawn on a Friday night; and how to pass my uncle’s English class.  Here’s a lesson on how to write a good literary paragraph (a paragraph about literature you are studying).  Knowing how to do this, helped me a bunch when I was in school a couple years ago.  Check it.

Let’s Get Ready to Rumble!

Let’s begin by lookin’ at a question Andy might ask: 

Discuss the use of imagery in the poem “I Am a Rock.”

Don’t Start at the Beginning; Start Before That

Well, there’s the topic there -- right above . . .  so you can just start writing, right?  Wrong.  Writing a literary paragraph is a little more detailed than that.  So what do you do first?  Easy.

Here is Your Brain - Here is Your Brain on English

The first thing you do (when my favourite uncle gives you a literary paragraph to write) is this:  think and write down your ideas.  You will always get a better mark if you  organize and plan out your ideas before you write  them (at least that’s what I found in high school in Calgary). 

Storm the Brain

Start by underlining the main word or point in the topic. 

Imagery

So let’s see . . . imagery in the poem “I am a Rock”

Let’s start by listing the images and what feeling they mean to the reader. Don’t worry about full sentences or anything like that just yet.

Image 1

“winter’s day/In a deep and dark December” -- a sense of quiet and cold detachment is established -- no spring lovers in this poem!  Darkness reinforces that image. Lots of dark Decembers in Revy, I bet!

Image 2

“freshly-fallen, silent shroud of snow” -- this CAN be a beautiful image but not here.  In this poem the snow covers and isolates things.  The snow mutes the things or people it covers.  The word shroud is kinda cool -- that’s the name for the cloth they used to wrap dead people in.

Image 3

“Fortress Steep and mighty” -- this image of a castle is there to show, not his power, but the dude in the poem’s isolation.  He’s cut himself off from others -- purposefully, put himself in his own emotional fortress.  Remember, this image is a metaphor.  Buddy here in this poem, isn’t actually in a castle -- well maybe an emotional castle you could say.

Image 4

“I am a rock” -- the title of the poem and a central image.  A rock can suggest someone who is steadfast (that means someone who doesn’t change their mind much).  Maybe the speaker thinks that himself, but you and I know the REAL idea this image conveys.  It shows that the speaker is an emotionless person, without many feelings at all.  He’s not vulnerable -- nobody’s gonna be able to smack this fella around, true, but sadly that means he doesn’t have the you know what’s to fall in love.  Ouch.

Nuff ideas, don’tcha think?  Anyway, there’s a bunch of images and what they mean.  Now how the heck do you write a literary paragraph for Uncle Andy and not sound like a boring old list? 

Slap on the Adhesive Thesis

Here’s my first big tip:  pick a unifying idea (a theme or something) that can weave its way through your paragraph and sorta be the glue that holds your ideas together.  Uncle Andy. . . would call this the thesis statement (just a fancy word for topic sentence).

Don’t Start this Way

Here’s a topic sentence that sucks:  images are important in the poem (too general -- ask yourself why are they important).  Saying something is ‘important’, btw, is mostly a bad idea in a literary essay.  Mr. Pfeiffer’ll recognize the BS right away.

This is Better

To try and get a unifying idea or thesis statement, think about the whole theme of the poem (or message).  In this poem the dude’s all like, “I’m cool ‘cuz I’m not gonna be hurt again and I’m like okay with the fact that I’m all emotionally cold.”  He’s really messed up, huh?  We know, though, that the message is that when a person shuts themselves up, and withdraws from those around them, that that only crushes them and doesn’t begin to help heal any wounds.  Sure it sucks to get dumped by a hot guy (or girl) or to get hurt by your friends, but you’ll ruin your life if you don’t deal, learn from it, and move on.

The Lightbulb Just Turned On

Hey, there’s an idea (a theme) right there!  The guy thinks he’s okay with everything, but really he’s just avoiding problems. 

Cool!  Listen to this:  all the images I mentioned are like that too -- the images CAN be taken in positive or beautiful ways (that’s how the guy would take them), but you and I know that the images are actually negative images showing how cold this guy is.

Okay, cool.  We’ve got something here.  We’re going to discuss imagery and link it to the idea that the images reflect the attitude of the speaker (and his attitudes are that he’s fine with everything -- but we know that he’s in bad shape).

So I think we can start.

Finally!

Oh, yeah, another thing.  If my uncle is like any of my teachers in Calgary, he gets all excited about writing all formally and stuff.  So don’t use words like ‘kinda’ or ‘sorta.’  And you can’t use ‘dude’ either.  Actually, even words like ‘guy’ and ‘okay’ should be replaced with more correct Englishy words.  Just pretend you’re from England, that’s what I do then, I can write all formal and stuff.

A Good Start

Here let me see if I can crank out an opening sentence:

·  “In the poem “I am a Rock” by Paul Simon, the author has a lot of images that show everybody that he needs help but at the same time they are images that he thinks make him look good.”

Check it!  Not bad, eh?  Actually, now that i look at it, it’s okay and all, but I think I can change a few things.  ‘Authors’ write books -- this dude’s a poet.  The word ‘good’ is waaaay too simple of a word to use in any ‘good’ writing (lol).  I also don’t like the word ‘everybody’.  Also, the word ‘show’ is a bit too visual -- I’ll use the word ‘prove’ or ‘convey’. The words “a lot” sucks pretty bad too.

A Better Start

Let me take another stab at it:

                  “In the poem ‘I am a Rock” by Paul Simon, the poet uses images effectively to convey his troubled state of mind, but at the same time those same images are used by the speaker of the poem to prove to himself that he is a strong, steadfast person.”

NICE!  I’ve got a fairly decent okay first sentence or thesis statement.  Gotta go, Breaking Bad is on. . . .

HOLY COW!  That show’s INSANE (I can’t believe how Walter White has become some psychopathic Meth dealer!)

Okay, I’m back.  Man that show’s messed!  I can’t believe what Jessie Pinkman just did . . .  Anyway, where were we.  Oh, yeah, the paragraph.  Here’s the rest of my paragraph.

·  In the poem ‘I am a Rock” by Paul Simon, the poet uses images effectively to convey the speaker’s troubled state of mind.  At the same time, though, those same images are used by the speaker of the poem to prove to himself that he is a strong, steadfast person.  In the very fist lines of the poem the image of a “winter’s day/In a deep and dark December” is presented which quickly gives the impression of the somber and even sorrowful mood to the poem.  Specific describing words like ‘dark’ and ‘deep’ set the tone of despair and anguish.  Further imagery in the poem helps to convey the reader’s isolation:  “On a freshly-fallen, silent shroud of snow.”  With words such as ‘silent’ and ‘shroud’ used to describe  the snow, once again the speaker of the poem reveals that he is living a quiet, lonely life all because of his choice to be an emotional “fortress steep and mighty” rather than being the type of person who allowed themselves to be vulnerable.  Interestingly enough, the speaker believes that what he is doing is fine and one could argue that all of the above images, the winter, the snow, the fortress, are images that speaker believes represent that he is, in fact, not a person who needs help.  He refers to himself as “a rock” which he believes proves that he is strong and steadfast.  As readers, though, we know he must be a bit delusional to think that what he is doing is fine. It is clear that the imagery in the poem is used to effectively convey the speaker’s self-imposed emotional exile:  he is a rock, just not the kind of rock that anybody should want to be.

Did You Notice. . .

·  I referred to the dude IN the poem as “the speaker.”  Make sure you remember that “the speaker” is different from “the poet.”  Paul Simon, the poet, isn’t the guy he describes in the poem.

·  I introduced my quotations two different ways:  once with a colon, and the other times I made the quotation flow right into the sentence.  Proper punctuation, here, and making the quotation FLOW into your sentence will get Uncle Andy all excited. 

·  I tried to sound like a dude from England, avoiding words like ‘a lot’ and ‘sorta’.

·  I tried not to use deadly, simple words that you should NEVER use in your writing (well almost never). . . words like big, small, sad, little, happy, glad, nice, large, huge, mean, mad, good, ‘like’.  I know that’s only thirteen; the other ones are the two simple words you, yourself, use too much so you’ll have to decide which ones they are.

Well, anyway, there you go.  I hope that helped.  I don’t even know if my uncle will show this to you but if he does, I hope this helped.  Someone once explained it to me in this same sorta way and it helped.  Good luck, Go Flames Go (My girlfriend and I just had a son.  Named him Roy JAROME Pfeiffer – YEAH!)

Dennis Pfeiffer (Mr. Pfeiffer’s nephew)

This is a Test

We worked on synonyms and antonyms.
We discussed the answers to I am a Rock.
We added synonymous and imagery to our List of Terms
We read and did an in-class activity on the song One by U2.
Finally we read This is a Test from our Sightlines 10 text.

Doree is not an Island

We welcomed Dori into class and helped her become 'part of the main.'
We reviewed prefixes and suffixes.
We began our List of Terms that we will add to as the year progresses:  you will be responsible for these words for your final exam.

Next day we'll listen to "One" by U2.  In addition, we'll view a lesson prepared by my nephew, Dennis, on how to write a literary paragraph. 

 

List of Terms

metaphor -  a direct comparison (I am a Rock)

simile – a comparison using ‘like’, ‘as’ or ‘than’.

                  “She was as thin as a rail”

euphemism – using a pleasant phrase or word in place of a                            harsh phrase or word.

poetry – words written lines and stanzas; words written in                            verse

prose – words written in sentences and paragraphs.

genre – a category (of music, of writing, of art, of movies)

lyric poem – a poem that has a musical quality (it has rhythm)

free verse poem – a poem that has no rhythm and no rhyme

idiom – “It’s raining cats and dogs.”

I am a Rock by Paul Simon

Yesterday we read and listened to the song I am a Rock

We worked on these questions -- they are due on Sept. 10th

1 Identify two examples of alliteration.

2. Identify one metaphor used in the poem and explain what the comparison is meant to show.

3. Without looking in a dictionary, what is the best definition of disdain (in line 12)?

4. What is the setting of the poem?

5. What is the best explanation of lines 17 and 18?

6. Describe the narrator and his feelings.

7. What emotion is most prevalent in this poem?

8. What form of poetry is this?

9. There are several images the poet uses in this poem. Identify at least three images and explain what these images are meant to convey.

10. What is the basic message or theme of this poem?

No Man is an Island

Today we meditated and learned the definition of the following words:
meditation
poetry
prose
point of view, and
genre

We read John Donne's famous sermon and understood the lines "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee" and "No man is an island."

Donne uses islands and continents and clod of earth as a metaphor to describe how humanity is all interconnected.

Assignment: Turn Mediation XVII into poetry by arranging the prose into poetic verses. Requirements: rough copy in pen, lined paper
Good copy, colourful, unlined paper.

This assignment is due Monday.
Secret Blog Tip:  there will be a 5 question quiz on John Donne's sermon.

Welcome to English 10

Last day we received our course outlines, talked about expectations and learned what the word Euphemism means (using a more pleasant sounding word in place of a harsh word).  For example, yesterday we had a "Nutrition Break" which was a euphemism for "short lunch."

Today we discussed prefixes.

Finally we discussed what metaphors were and how they are used.  A door can be a metaphor for imagination, death, and opportunity.