Midterm in room 329 for Sackstein

Please come to school dressed in uniform tomorrow with 2 pens.

please report to room 329 for your exam.

See you in the morning... rest up.

Class analysis assignment - 1/23/09

After reading over your passage choices and analyses from Tuesday, I'd like us to do more work on this...

Directions: In class today, please select passages from the "Winter" p.61-93 (only) to meet the following criteria:

1. passage that reveals an important quality of the main character (protagonist)
2. passage that shows the symbolic importance of something or a passage that suggests why the book has the title it has

Make sure to write the passage and page number and then analyze the passage based on the criteria... what does Toni Morrison do to show the above? How is it effective? How does it relate back to the novel as a whole? Be specific - underline words, make direct references to what you've selected...

Please post both of your passages and comments to this post.

For instance: (and you can't use this as an example of your own...)

passage that the author used language in a particularly effective way:

"My daddy's face is a study. Winter moves into it and presides there. His eyes become a cliff of snow threatening to avalanche; his eyebrows bend like black limbs of leafless trees. His skin takes on the pale, cheerless yellow of winter sun; for a jaw he has the edges of a snowbound field dotted with stubble; his high forehead is the frozen sweep of the Erie, hiding current of gelid thoughts that eddy in darkness. Wolf killer turned hawk fighter, he worked night and day to keep one from teh door and the other from under the windowsills. A Vulcan guarding the flames, he gives us instructions about which doors to keep closed and opened for proper distribution of heat, lays kindling by, discusses qualities of coal, and teaches us how to rake, feed, and bank the fire. And he will not unrazor his lips until spring" (Morrison 61).

Analysis: In this passage Morrison uses the motif of winter to characterize Mr. Macteer. She uses the extended metaphor comparing his features to wintery imagery, such as "eyes become a cliff of snow threatening to avalanche." This image is strong and potentially scary, almost threatening, yet at the same time respected. She uses the simile "eyebrows bend like black limbs of leafless trees" to show the curves of his brow emphasizing the power of the before mentioned avalanche in his eyes. He is "cheerless" like the winter sun, not yielding enough warmth to keep them sated. Morrison characterizes Mr. Macteer in this stern manner to give us a contrast to Cholly Breedlove as well as present a tone for what the winter section will be about. It is effective as the reader gets a better sense of who Claudia is in its description and how she is raised. We've already learned a little about Mrs. Macteer and now we get the other half. The whole Macteer family serves as a barometer to which we can compare/judge the Breedloves in the future. The strong imagery and diction further solidifies the watchful way that her father protects the family :"A Vulcan guarding the flames, he gives us instructions about which doors to keep closed and opened for proper distribution of heat, lays kindling by, discusses qualities of coal, and teaches us how to rake, feed, and bank the fire." He both protects and instructs as a good, authorative parent should. The reader walks away from this description feeling like children, slightly afraid of him, but curious nonetheless.

Independent Reading Assignment #4 due 1/23 -TOMORROW

Directions: Identify and present passages from your independent reading book that illustrate the qualities listed below. Limit passages to one page of text. To present them, you may type them or photocopy and paste them.

After each passage, write a brief but specific explanation of hot the passage exemplifies the quality stated (three to five sentences). Remember to provide the page number of each passage.

1. passage that reveals an important quality about the main character (protagonist)
2. passage that shows an important part of setting
3. passage that suggest the complexity of the protagonist's conflict(s)
4. passages that suggest the complexity of the protagonist's conflict(s)
5. passage in which the author uses language in a particularly effective way
6. passage in which the author uses language in a particularly effective way
7. passage that shows teh symbolic importance of something or a passage that suggests why the book has the title it has
8. passage that shows the protagonist's situation at the end
9. passage that suggests and important idea, theme, or insight the book conveys
10. passage that shows what you liked about the book

Bluest Eye Reading for Regents Week

I'd like you to read all of the Spring section for Tuesday, 2/3 - p. 97-183

Make sure to take notes and annotate as you go - marking passages that you feel Toni Morrison uses language well, passages that show good examples of characterization, particularly good uses of figurative language... etc.

This should all be done in your sourcebook.

Independent Reading assignment #4

This is due on Friday 1/23 (this week) - please don't forget to turn your work in.

Independent Reading assignment #4

This is due on Friday 1/23 (this week) - please don't forget to turn your work in.

English Regents Midterm

Folks, many of you haven't turned in your consent forms for your practice regents. Please have your parents email me or turn in your consent. You will not be able to take the test on Tuesday 1/27 and Wed. 1/28 if you don't turn one in.

thanks in advance.

Homework due for Tuesday, 1/20

Read all of the winter section (p.61-93) - summarize what happens in this section and discuss if there is a tone shift from autumn.
Are there images that are traditionally associated with winter that you notice in the section?

Write an essay about beauty in The Bluest Eye. - Make sure to use textual support with whatever assertion you make...

Consider beauty vs ugliness - images of beauty, expectations of beauty, definitions of beauty
It should have a clear beginning, middle and end with specific examples cited from the text... with quotation marks and page numbers... proper MLA citation

"the text you wish to cite in quotation marks" (Morrison 3). (author and page number goes in parenthesis and then the period goes after the the close parenthesis.)

Independent Reading assignment #4

Reminder that IR assignment number 4 is due on Friday, 1/23 (next week)

If you are still having difficulty, please come see me.

English Regent Midterm

Please make sure to have your parents either email me or send in the consent form for Regents week.

The exam will not only be serving as a barometer for where you are now, but it will count as a midterm.

The dates are Tuesday, 1/27 8:00-11:00 am for tasks 1 ad 2 and Wednesday, 1/28 8:00-11:00 for tasks 3 and 4

You will be dismissed when you are done taking the exam.

Please come prepared with 2 working pens in either blue or black ink. You must wear a uniform.

If you cannot make these dates (both of them) - you will need to make them up on 2 saturdays in February.

Not all of you have given in your consent forms yet. Please do so.

Homework due on Friday -

Read p. 33-58
Summarize the main events in your sourcebook.

How does Morrison define beauty so far? Give examples from the text.

Tonight's homework - due for class tomorrow

Read p.23-32

Answer in your sourcebooks -

What happens to Pecola in this section? How is it significant? How do the other girls react? Try to find the specific passages and cite your thoughts with page numbers.

Comment to this post -
What do you think of the novel so far?
Any predictions?

Bluest Eye homework due tomorrow

Read pages 9-23 (there is a break in the page that you will stop at)

Do a double entry journal in your sourcebook focusing on questions you have about the text.

So on one side you'd have text and the other the questions you have about it...

For instance:

text: "Hereisthehouseitisgreenandwhite..."p.4
question - Why does Morrison take out the punctuation and spaces after she repeats the same thing 3 times?

You can even try to make meaning of your own question if you feel compelled to do so. We will be working with the questions you ask, so please make sure you do them in your notebooks and post one of your questions to this post.

Summer Journalism Program at NYU

http://journalism.nyu.edu/ujw/

Anyone interested?

Discussing Romantic lit and its components.

Post to the blog – what do all of the author’s we’ve discussed who wrote during the romantic period (whether romantic, transcendental or gothic) have in common? Give specific examples.

Please remember to bring in a copy of the Bluest Eye for class tomorrow.
http://www.amazon.com/Bluest-Eye-Toni-Morrison/dp/B000M0FDNC/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231759415&sr=8-7

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Bluest-Eye/Toni-Morrison/e/9780452273054/?itm=2

Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Please make sure you come to class with a copy of the novel by Tuesday, 1/13

Masque of the Red Death

for homework tonight, please comment to this post:

What conclusions do you think Poe expects you (the reader) to draw as a result of the neighborhood, culture and larger world of the story?

How do these conclusions keep with gothic ideals?

Masque of the Red Death

Please reread the story tonight...

look up any 10 words that you don't know and put them in the glossary at the back of your notebook.

please start to consider reading more often and more challenging books for your independent reading.

come prepared with your copy of the story tomorrow...

synopsis of the story:

A disease known as the Red Death plagues the fictional country where this tale is set, and it causes its victims to die quickly and gruesomely. Even though this disease is spreading rampantly, the prince, Prospero, feels happy and hopeful. He decides to lock the gates of his palace in order to fend off the plague, ignoring the illness ravaging the land. After several months, he throws a fancy masquerade ball. For this celebration, he decorates the rooms of his house in single colors. The easternmost room is decorated in blue, with blue stained-glass windows. The next room is purple with the same stained-glass window pattern. The rooms continue westward, according to this design, in the following color arrangement: green, orange, white, and violet. The seventh room is black, with red windows. Also in this room stands an ebony clock. When the clock rings each hour, its sound is so loud and distracting that everyone stops talking and the orchestra stops playing. When the clock is not sounding, though, the rooms are so beautiful and strange that they seem to be filled with dreams, swirling among the revelers. Most guests, however, avoid the final, black-and-red room because it contains both the clock and an ominous ambience.

At midnight, a new guest appears, dressed more ghoulishly than his counterparts. His mask looks like the face of a corpse, his garments resemble a funeral shroud, and his face reveals spots of blood suggesting that he is a victim of the Red Death. Prospero becomes angry that someone with so little humor and levity would join his party. The other guests, however, are so afraid of this masked man that they fail to prevent him from walking through each room. Prospero finally catches up to the new guest in the black-and-red room. As soon as he confronts the figure, Prospero dies. When other party-goers enter the room to attack the cloaked man, they find that there is nobody beneath the costume. Everyone then dies, for the Red Death has infiltrated the castle. “Darkness and Decay and the Red Death” have at last triumphed.

Gearing up

Happy New Year everyone. Please come prepared to class on Monday with the following...

all copies of the stories set to be read. Your essay that is due, typed.

Make sure to read the Masque of the Red Death by Tuesday.