Homework, due Thursday, October 12

Re-read and annotate the handout titled: "Explication de Texte." Be prepared for an extensive quiz on both annotating and the methods of close reading/explication de texte as described in the handout.

Homework, due Tuesday, October 10

1. Re-read and re-annotate David Lehman's "A Little History."

2. Choose 3-4 lines and fill out the chart so that you can carefully examine diction grammar and syntax, and enjambment.

Listen to June Jordan’s audiofile of her reading “A Poem About Intelligence for my Brothers and Sisters” at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19038

Read and annotate the text of Jordan’s poem:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=178520

Our Essential Question asks what, if any, identifiable characteristics run throughout what we call American Poetry?  What is poetry?  We have already determined that it is not merely verse written with rhyme and feeling but that it has, to some extent, to do with rules and coming up against them and perhaps transcending them while never breaking them. What, rules are in place and then subsequently broken in the following poems, if these are indeed poems?
“Lost Ones”
“Every Ghetto, Every City”
“Summit Beach”
“A Little History”
“A Poem About Intelligence for my Brothers and Sisters”

Informal Response, 1 page minimum: If you had to include each of these poems/lyrics as falling within the definition of poetry, how then, would you define poetry?  What is it?  What is it not?  List characteristics and use graphic organizers as needed.

Homework, due Thursday, October 5
1. Register a username on our discussion board which can be found at: http://www.mscyou.com/forum

2. Post a question or a response to another student’s comment on our forum
3. Wander through the 11th grade forum and copy down 5 examples in which the respondent made use of emoticons to communicate his/her ideas. Do not use the same emoticons for the 5 examples. Rewrite the sentence in two ways, for a total of 10 sentences:

First, include the word that the emoticon stands for in the sentence
Second, using the methods described above on slide 2, try to communicate the tone or mood of the 11th grader’s comment WITHOUT using the word.

4. Read Lehman’s poem out loud and mark for what you feel are “natural” end-stopped lines

5. Find one enjambment where you think Lehman is deliberately trying to make you think of two different, possibly opposing ideas without allowing you to definitively choose one over the other.

6. Review vocabulary for a quiz: carcinogenic, enjambment, succinct, peruse, succulent, prolific, pantheon, laureate

Homework: Due Thursday, September 28

1. Review keywords relevant to segregation.
   
   
2. Find 2 comma splice/fused sentences/run-on sentences from writing you have done for another class. Rewrite each using the two possible methods for repairing them described in slides #5 and #7 of today's PowerPoint
   
   
3. Compare and contrast the girl portrayed in “Summit Beach” and the girl depicted in Rockwell’s famous illustration, “The Problem We All Live With.” Choose a graphic organizer but be strategic about which organizer you choose and be able to justify why you chose it. The above link to examples of graphic organizers should be of significant help in determining which to use for a compare and contrast.
   
   
4. For both Rockwell’s “The Problem We All Live With” and Rita Dove’s “Summit Beach,” come up with a one-sentence answer to the following question: According to the work, what argument is the artist/writer making about the relationships an individual can have to larger historical forces, such as segregation?

Homework: Due Tuesday, September 26

1. Read and re-read “Summit Beach” out loud three times
2. Annotate the poem using the guidelines from “12 ways to mark up a text” (be sure to look up any words whose meaning you cannot determine from context).
3. For each stanza, come up with ONE sentence that answers the question “What is being said?” Remember, this step is more about comprehension than interpretation
4. Write a one-page response (must be typed) to the following question and make use of the interview with Rita Dove if you feel stuck: How does the historical context of the poem (segregation) affect its meaning? Limit the scope of what you write to the guidelines from “How to Talk About Texts.”
5. Download this PowerPoint on avoiding comma splices
6. Then, take the online quiz on comma splices. If, after going through the presentation and taking the quiz, you do not feel you have fully mastered avoiding comma splices, take this additional quiz and bring in any questions on Tuesday. On the other hand, if you found the quiz too easy, go here for a more challenging lesson on comma splices and how to repair them. You will have a test on comma splices next Thursday.
7. For fun, watch "Conjunction Junction" from SchoolHouse Rock!

No Homework for Friday, September 22.

Homework: Due Wednesday, September 20

1. Re-read the article "Can Hip Hop be the New Driving Force Behind Racial Integration?" If for some reason you have lost your copy, you can find it on the "Handout and Classnotes Archive" section. You will have a reading quiz on Wednesday.

2. Make vocabulary notecards for: assimilate, gestalt, symbiosis

Homework: Due Monday, September 18

1. Read the article "Can Hip Hop be the New Driving Force Behind Racial Integration?" If for some reason you have lost your copy, you can find it on the "Handout and Classnotes Archive" section.

2. Make a vocabulary notecard for the word "succinct"

 Homework: Due Thursday, September 14

Choose one of the two assignments below:

1. Write a biography of about yourself in which you use information from your life (from birth to the present) in a way that would explain a future (imaginary) version of yourself. Perhaps the easiest thing to do would be to imagine your profession in concrete terms and "explain" how aspects of your life, up to this moment, led to who you imagine yourself to be.2. Listen to the song "Lost Ones" by Lauryn Hill. Write a chronological ("First . . . then . . . then. . .etc.) description of the instrumentals and the singing, tracking how it changes. Then, relate the changes in how the music sounds to the lyrics. For each stanza, answer the following questions:

How does the music and the manner of singing affect our understanding of the lyrics? What does the song reveal to us that the mere lyrics, written on a page, do not?Finally, devote a paragraph to any patterns that you notice. There ARE patterns.