Warren Pryor work

Today I bought everyone Timbits because of how awesome last class wen (everyone work really well).

The Warren Pryor paragraph is due on Monday (it's for homework).
We came up with the following checklist for your paragraph.  Your paragraph should
1. Focused and on-topic (you need to use the word imagery more than once)
2. Use connecting words
3. Have elevated vocabulary (you shouldn't use the word 'things' or 'happy')
4. Employ a formal tone (no slang, or euphemisms, or informal language, or idioms).
5. Be organized (have a thesis statement, have a body, and have a conclusion).
6. Use the present tense.

I also reminded everyone of the test on Wednesday.

Test next week

The Warren Pryor paragraph we worked on today (which is listed waaaaay below), will be due at the end of the class on Friday (but do some work on it at home still!)

There will be a Sightlines 10 test next long block -- Wednesday, March 11th
There will be about 20 multiple choice questions. There will also be a section where you have to read a story, answer questions, and write a literary composition.

You will be responsible for knowing the following pieces of writing:
Meditation XVII
I Am a Rock
The Face in the Pool
This is a Test
Self-Portrait
Nonconformist
The Bicycle
Envy
The Ninny
My Body is My Own Business
Warren Pryor
My Left Foot
Dreams
I Have a Dream

You should also be familiar with how to write a literary paragraphs and all the new terms and words we've learned (here are just a few): allusion, ambiguity, vanity, metaphor, connotation, dennotation, nonconformity, free verse paradox, euphemism, synonym, lyric, idiom, taut, marsupial, pithy, soltude, thesis, narcissistic, jargon, imagery

My Nephew Dennis

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Dear Uncle Andy,

Good yakkin’ with ya again on the phone (man you’ve got to get on Facebook 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 in English 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

Waddup?

Hey guys.  My uncle Andy called the other night (he’s a bit too . . . um . . . well let’s just say he thinks Snapchat was one of the Spice Girls).  Anyway, he called and mentioned, among other things, that he’s trying to get his grade 10’s (that’s you) to write a literary paragraph.  I hope he hasn’t been too mean to you.  My dad and him are brothers but they’re nothing alike:  my dad’s 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 so that your parents let you go out this weekend; how to get out of shoveling snow; 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).  At least this helped me a bunch when I was in school a couple years ago

Let’s Get Ready to Rumble!

Let’s begin by lookin’ at a paragraph topic:  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 do) 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

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

Let’s start by listing the images and what feeling they mean or convey 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.

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. . . I guess that’s Mr. Pfeiffer to you, 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 and stuff.”  He’s really messed?  We know, though, that the message is that when a person shuts themselves up, and withdraws from those around  them, that that only hurts 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 with the problem, 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 -- this dude’s in some hard-core denial).

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 out!  Not bad IMO.  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” suck 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.”

SUHWEET!  I’ve got a fairly decent okay first sentence or thesis statement.  Gotta go. I’m binge-watching the Walking Dead.

Zombie Baby!

Okay, I’m back.  Man that show’s so awful it’s awesome.  I can’t believe what just happened to Rick’s wife. Gross. 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 show 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 show 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, will get my uncle all excited.

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

·  I tried not to use the 14 deadly, simple words that you should never use in your writing (well almost never): big, small, sad, little, happy, glad, nice, large, huge. mad, good, ‘like’.  I know that’s only twelve; the other two 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,  and don’t miss the season premier of the OTH ‘cuz I won’t.

Dennis Pfeiffer (Mr. Pfeiffer’s nephew)

Read the poem “Warren Pryor” from the textbook Sightlines 10. 

Your task is to do the following:  referring back to the notes on how to write a literary pargraph, write a literary paragraph in which you discuss the imagery in the poem “Warren Pryor.”

My Body is My Business

Today we briefly reviewed last day's work.
We discussed the opening photograph on p. 51 for the article My Body is My Business. We discussed Islam as a religion and I gave my "3% Theory" to the class (my own theory that 3% of the people in the world really struggle with their behaviours).


Students completed the following work on this article:

My Body is My Own Business p. 51 Sightlines 10

Answer the following in full sentences:

 1.     Why were the Muslim girls kicked out of Montreal schools?

2.     What misconceptions did popular movies spread about Muslim women who wear veils?

 3.     How according to the author, does the hijab empower women?

 4.     Why, according to the author, is it a myth that women in today’s society are liberated?

 5.     In the context of the article, what does the author mean when she says, “I am not under duress.” 

Also -- Complete Question#1 on page. 53

ambiguity, Envy poem and The Ninny short story

Today we discussed the importance of ambiguity in literature.
We discussed the power-balance in relationships and read the short story The Ninny from Sightlines. In the story, there is a clear power imbalance and the protagonist used his power to mock and ridicule Yulia.

Yulia's response at the ends has some ambiguity: the reader is not sure if she is a weak person who cannot advocate for herself or if she is, in fact, a strong young woman who is merely caught up in the power imbalance.

Napolean:  "absolute power corrupts absolutely"

I handed out an orange-yellow handout that lists all the terms that need to be known for the provincial exam and we discussed some in class.

We also read the poem Envy and discussed how the form of the poem reflects the duality of the content.