Sunday, March 22, 2015

March 23, 2015 - March 27, 2015 Weekly Agenda for Contemporary Composition




Monday, March 23rd:
1st Period:
Password:
8:00 - 8:15
Class is divided into two groups
A representative from each group sits on stage with their backs to the screen.
On the screen is projected a vocabulary word which members from their team give hints to using synonyms, etc.
Peninsula
Suppressed
Tactlessly
Rendered
Gaudily
Innumerable
Reproachfully
Scrutinized
Read THE GREAT GATSBY
As we read we work on the "In-class Scaffolding" and the Figurative Language Graphic Organizers.

For homework read the next five pages

2nd Period:

Password:
Surfeited
Phlegmy
Quenched
Rivulets
Petulant
Epithets

Read THE BLUEST EYE
As we read we work on the "In-class Scaffolding" and the Figurative Language Graphic Organizers





 
Monday, March 23rd:
Password Game: Tactless and Reproachful
Write sentences using the two words
Rewrite of the Friday Vocabulary Test, Gatsby Chapters 1 - 3 Vocabulary Test:
Assigned a rewrite for the vocabulary words given on Friday, Gatsby Vocabulary, Chapters 1 – 3: Write a synonym, antonym, and a grammatically correct sentence correctly using the vocabulary words.  This will be due on Wednesday, March 24th. 50 points for the rewrite.

Writing assignment for The Great Gatsby: Daisy and Gatsby Dialogue; page 88:
Create the scene, complete with dialogue and descriptive narrative, of the meeting between Gatsby and Daisy on page 88. The scene, which is left unwritten by Fitzgerald, occurs in Nick Carraway’s house, between Gatsby and Daisy after a long five-year break in their relationship. A lot has happened within those five years – Gatsby’s time as a soldier in the war, Daisy’s courtship and marriage to Tom, Gatsby’s brief tenure in Europe, Daisy’s pregnancy, Gatsby’s dizzying climb to great wealth, Daisy giving birth to her daughter, and Gatsby’s illegal business dealings with the underworld.  What might they have talked about during those thirty minutes?
The assignment must include dialogue and prose. It should look like two pages out of the novel, The Great Gatsby. 
Rubric: 
The scene should be two pages.
The scene should include both dialogue and prose narrative. (It should look like two pages out of the novel, not a screenplay or a play.)
You may work with your scene partner.
It must be typed. 
This will be due at the beginning of class on Wednesday, March 25th.
Please finish reading Chapter 5 in The Great Gatsby for tonight.

Period 2:
Figurative Language Paper
In-Class Scaffolded Reading Graphic Organizer
Page 56 –61
To be in one’s shoes: to be in someone else’s place or position
Solicitous: to show care, consideration for another
Vengeance: furious, exacting a kind of revenge,
Adept: dexterous, good at something, usually with one’s hands.
Belch: to burp
Page 61
What do we attribute to the season of winter?
Who is speaking on page 61?
Go through the paragraph on page 61, which describes Claudia’s father.
Write the text; write the two things being compared; the qualities the two things share and the tone (what aspect of her father’s face is like the thing and what does this say about her father?).
Text
Two Things Being Compared
Qualities the 2 Things Share
The Tone
What does this comparison reveal about her father?
“His eyes become a cliff of snow threatening to avalanche.
Claudia’s father’s eye and snow threatening to avalanche
Cold and threatening
Cold, foreboding, strong, unrelenting
Her father is strong, cold, forbidding











What is  Claudia’s father’s eyes compared to? A cliff of snow threatening to avalanche. What does this say or imply about Claudia’s father? 
For tonight look up the definitions for the following words: gelid and eddy. Write two grammatically correct sentences each  using the words gelid and eddy.
Vocabulary:
Gelid
Eddy
For tonight look up the following figures of speech, "wolf-killer" and "hawk-killer". These phrases are based on the phrases "Keeping the wolf from the door" (and variations) and "The hawk flies tonight."
Figures of Speech:
Wolf-killer
Hawk fighter
Vulcan: Roman god of fire, and the god of blacksmiths and the forge
Explain the following metaphor:
“And he will not unrazor his lips until spring.”
The graph, the definitions, and the figures of speech  will be due tomorrow Tuesday, March 24th

Tuesday, March 24th: 

1st Period:
Students worked together writing their Daisy and Gatsby scene (page 88). This will be due first thing tomorrow.

2nd Period:
Vocabulary:
Gelid: extremely cold
The Titanic passengers could no longer survive in the gelid waters. (Marlinda)
Eddy: a circular movement of water counter to the main current of water, resulting in a whirlpool.
Jahayra rocks with good definitions and sentences!!!!!
A tsunami can cause deep and dangerous eddies.
Cat: The children swam in a pool of small eddies.
Lupo:
Clarissa: declined
Tyler: As I stared at the river, small eddies formed in the water.
Lupo: As I was washing the dishes, I saw a large whirlpool begin to form as the eddies swirled in the sink.
Went through last night’s homework, page 61; “My daddy’s face is a study…..”Only about four people did it. No one was paying attention. No one cared.
Read pages 61 to 62. Went over “Winter had stiffened itself into a hateful knot.”
“…splintered the knot into silver threads….” “…dull chafe of the previous boredom.”
Discussion of Maureen Peal and Claudia’s contrast of her with Claudia’s father and winter.
“…hint of spring in her sloe green eyes…” “…something summery in her complexion, and a rich autumn ripeness in her walk.”
Assigned the next five pages to read at home for homework. Must do the “In-class Text Scaffolding” and the Figurative Language Graphic Organizer for pages 61 through 67. This is due tomorrow.


 Wednesday, March 25th: 
1st Period: 
Daisy and Gatsby's scene is due today. 
The Gatsby Vocabulary Test Rewrite, Chapters 1 - 3, due today! 

8:00 – 8:15
Read your scene on page 88 between Daisy and Gatsby
Or
Work on your In-class Reading Scaffolding Handout
Or
Work on your Figurative Language Handout on The Great Gatsby

Quick Write: Connotative/Denotative: "My Best Friend"
Connotation: the emotional power of a word
Denotation: the dictionary meaning of a word

­Negative­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­______________Objective________Positive
Whale, Pig, Porky          Overweight        Voluptuous


Write a quick paragraph describing your best friend. Be sure to use powerful, positive connotative words to describe her/him.

Connotative/Denotative “My Best Friend” 

Positive Connotations: 

My best friend is a delightfully short, super cute girl with big, beautiful, brown soulful eyes. She is so cute and little, she looks like a fairy. Everything about her is delicate from her small, graceful shoulders to her cute slender legs.

You just caught your best friend making out with your boyfriend/girlfriend. Now, describe her/him!

Negative Connotations: 

My ex-best friend looks like a pig-troll-dwarf! Her eyes look like mounds of dirt and are constantly pink – like she’s got pink eye! Her shoulders look like twigs ready to snap, and worst of all, she’s got scrawny, skinny chicken legs! She has NO sense of humor at all – it’s like she has no soul!!!!!

Denotative: Objective (Neither good nor bad) 
Audrey's objective description with denotative diction:

My best friend is very short. She used to be taller than me, but now I am taller.  Her hair is reddish-brown and she is Cuban. She has large brown eyes and freckles. 


Kamron and Stephanie read their scene from page 88: the imaginary scene between Daisy and Gatsby.
Christian and Jose read their scene from page 88: the imaginary scene between Daisy and Gatsby. 

Read pages 97 - 98 in The Great Gatsby:

Vocabulary: 
 Laudable: praiseworthy; worthy of high praise or of compliments.
Insidious: capable of doing something evil
Meretricious: pretty but in a cheap flashy way. Seeming to have value but having no real or intrinsic value or worth. 
Altruistic: completely unselfish; without any thought of personal gain.

Question #1: Do you think James Gatz's decision to row out to Dan Cody's yacht was altogether altruistic? What do you think the seventeen-year old James Gatz's intentions were? 

Question #2: What do you think the following quotation means? What does this say about the young seventeen-year old James Gatz? Refer to the text in your answer.

"It was James Gatz who had been loafing along the beach that afternoon in a torn green jersey and a pair of canvas pants, but it was already Jay Gatsby who borrowed a rowboat, pulled out to the Tuolomee, and informed Cody that a wind might catch him and break him up in half an hour."
 

For tomorrow: Go over Platonic Ideal in class tomorrow

Platonic Idea: based on the philosophy of Plato, one of the most important Greek philosophers (born 428 in ancient Greece), who believed that this world, the one we humans inhabit,  was a dim representation of the real world, which existed in a realm of perfection. Everything in this realm, which existed in a place impossible for humans to reach,  was  perfect but the real world, the one in which we live, was a dim, flawed representation or imitation or copy of the perfect realm. 

 Extra Credit for those who turned in their phones:
Stephanie
Audrey
Cynthia
Jasmine
Kamron
Marine
Astrid 

Continue working on your In-class Scaffolded Reading Sheet and your Figurative Language Analysis Sheet. These will be due when we finish Chapter 6. 

Period 2:

Get out your:
 The Bluest Eye
Figurative Language Handout
In-class Reading Scaffold
Pen
Paper 

Title this: The Bluest Eye Creative Writing: Extended Metaphor (page 61)

 Using page 61 in The Bluest Eye, write a short paragraph describing someone you love.  Compare the person you love to something else. This can be a season, or a month, a day of the week, a type of music, food, etc. This is called an extended metaphor. Find the qualities your beloved shares with this thing. Make sure you use examples of imagery, metaphor, personification. Try to write five to six sentences.

Example:

My mother is a spring day. Streaks of white run through her hair like clouds on a cool April morning. Her voice is the sound of a spring rain on the window pane.

Questions to get you started:
How are her eyes like a spring day? How is her skin like a spring day? Her hands? Her walk?

Example:

My brother is a rap song, moving to the sound of his own insistent beat – hard, pounding, relentless. His eyes constantly moving from left to right, right to left, listening to his own inner drum machine, laying down beats – restless, never ceasing – trying to land on something interesting but bored and launching off looking for something else –

Questions to get you started:
How is his voice like a rap sound? How are his eyes like a rap song? How is his skin like a rap song? How is his walk like a rap song?

The Bluest Eye
Vocabulary (page 63)
Equilibrium: a state of balance;
“We looked hard for flaws to restore our equilibrium….”

Fastidious: great care in preparation; done without mistakes; excessive attention to details.
“…where she opened fastidious lunches…” She is Maureen Peal. What does this reveal about Maureen’s home?

Epiphany: a sudden revelation
“Later, a minor epiphany was ours when we discovered that she (Maureen Peal) had a dog tooth – a charming one to be sure – but a dog tooth nonetheless.”

Vocabulary (page 65)
Moult: to shed feathers, hair or skin. Snakes shed or moult skin and birds moult their feathers.  Claudia and Frieda were moulting their winter coats as they were walking home in the warm spring day.
“As we emerged from the school with Maureen, we began to moult immediately.”

Extemporize: to create something off the top of one’s head.
“They had extemporized two insults over which the victim had no control, the color of her skin and  speculations on the sleeping habits of an adult (Pecola’s father). ”

Speculations: forming an opinion or a theory about something without firm evidence.

Macabre: disturbing or horrifying because of its involvement with death or disease or cruelty.
“They (the boys) danced a macabre ballet around the victim (Pecola).”

Gaily: adjective form of the word gay.

Figurative Language:
 “They (the bullying boys) seemed to have taken all of their smoothly cultivated ignorance…sucked it all up into a fiery cone of scorn that had burned for ages in the hollows of their minds – cooled – and spilled over lips of outrage, consuming everything in its path.”

Extended metaphor:
Comparing the boys’ ignorance and self-hatred to hot molten lava or iron.
The tone is angry, scalding, and bitter. 
Morrison is saying that the boys have internalized the racism – the ignorance and the self-hatred – and this is fueling (causing) them to bully Pecola for being even poorer and blacker than they.

For tomorrow: go over the vocabulary and the figurative language. 

Continue working on your In-class Scaffolded Reading Sheet and your Figurative Language Analysis Sheet. These will be due when we reach page 80 in The Bluest Eye. 


Thursday, March 26th: 

1st Period: 

The title  Jay Gatsby, the Platonic Ideal and the American Dream
Question #1:
Do you think James Gatz's decision to row out to Dan Cody's yacht was altogether altruistic? 
What do you think the seventeen-year old James Gatz's intentions were? 

Question #2: What do you think the following quotation means? What does this say about the young seventeen-year old James Gatz? Refer to the text in your answer.

"It was James Gatz who had been loafing along the beach that afternoon in a torn green jersey and a pair of canvas pants, but it was already Jay Gatsby who borrowed a rowboat, pulled out to the Tuolomee, and informed Cody that a wind might catch him and break him up in half an hour."

The following vocabulary words, definitions, and figurative language are necessary to answer question #3. 
 
Vocabulary: 
Meretricious: Flashy, gaudy but intrinsically worthless. Attractive perhaps but of little or no value or worth. 

 Platonic Idea: based on the philosophy of Plato, one of the most important Greek philosophers (born 428 in ancient Greece), who believed that this world, the one we humans inhabit, was a dim representation of the real world, which existed in a realm or another dimension of perfection. Everything in this realm, which existed in a place impossible for humans to reach, was perfect but the world in which we live, was a dim, flawed representation or imitation of the perfect realm.  

Figurative Language: 

Allusion: "...and he must be about His Father's business...." 
This is a reference to the New Testament story in which the young Christ said to his mother, "Know ye not I must be about My Father's business?

Questions #3: On page 98, Fitzgerald writes, “…the truth was that Jay Gatsby….sprang from his Platonic Ideal of himself…..He was a son of God…and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty….” What is Fitzgerald saying about Gatsby and the American Dream?

These questions will be due at 8:45, Thursday, March 26th.
Break into your reading groups of three and finish reading Chapter 6. Be sure to work on your Figurative Language paper and your In-Class Scaffolded Reading Log.
            1. You may take turns reading
            2.  One person should be in charge of the figurative language
            3.  Another person should be in charge of the critical reading

Please finish reading Chapter 6 in The Great Gatsby. The Figurative Language Handout and the In-Class Scaffolded Reading Handout will be due.
Period 2:
The Bluest Eye; page 61
Description of Claudia and Frieda’s father:
“Wolf killer turned hawk fighter, he worked night and day to keep one from the door and the other from under the windowsills. A Vulcan guarding the flames, he gave us instructions about which to keep closed or 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.”

“I gotta keep the wolf away from the door.”
Wolf represents hunger, want, poverty

“The hawk flies tonight” means it is going to be very cold.
The hawk represents extreme cold. 

Vulcan is the Roman god of fire, forges, iron making and blacksmithing.
“A Vulcan guarding the flames….” Claudia’s father is taking care of and instructing his children in how to keep the coals burning in the coal burning stove. The potbelly stove was probably the only source of heat in most of Claudia’s house.

Kindling: small twigs, branches

What does the first paragraph on page 61, beginning with “My daddy’s face is a study....” to “…And he will not unrazor his lips until spring….” reveal about Claudia’s daddy?

Break into groups of three and read to page 80, work on the figurative language and the “In-class Scaffolded Reading Handout”.

Friday, March 27th:

1st Period:
Due today: Chapter Six In-Class Scaffolded Reading Handout and Figurative Language Handout
For Homework over the Break: Please read Chapters Seven and Eight in THE GREAT GATSBY
Chapter Six and do the In-Class Scaffolded Reading Handout and Figurative Language Worksheet for each section. Make sure you have a minimum of four examples of figurative language for each section:
Pages 97 – 101: In-Class Scaffolded Reading Handout and Figurative Language
Pages 101 – 109: In-Class Scaffolded Reading Handout and Figurative Language
Pages 110 – 111: In-Class Scaffolded Reading Handout and Figurative Language
Chapter Seven:
Pages 113 – 120: In-Class Scaffolded Reading Handout and Figurative Language Handout
Pages 121 – 125: In-Class Scaffolded Reading Handout and Figurative Language
Pages 126 – 136: In-Class Scaffolded Reading Handout and Figurative Language
Pages 136 – 145: In-Class Scaffolded Reading Handout and Figurative Language
Chapter Eight:
Pages 147 – 151: In-Class Scaffolded Reading Handout and Figurative Language
Pages 152 – 155: In-Class Scaffolded Reading Handout and Figurative Language
Pages156 – 160: In-Class Scaffolded Reading Handout and Figurative Language
Pages 160 – 162: In-Class Scaffolded Reading Handout and Figurative Language


 Continue doing the Freyer Vocabulary Handout.
Please do the following twenty words from Chapters Six and Seven. For every five extra unfamiliar words you do, you will receive 50  bonus points. This will be due on the day we get back from vacation on Tuesday, April 7th.
Dilatory
Turbulent
Ineffable
Oblivious
Reveries
Unsavory
Turgid
Madame de Maintenon
Ingratiate
Pervading
Genially
Appalled
Proximity
Desolate
Trimalchio
Tentatively
Contingency
Vigil
Sensuous
Eludes

Vocabulary Words:

Period 2:
For home work over the spring break, please read pages 66 – 80, and pages 81 – 93
Please do the In-Class Scaffolded Reading Handout and Figurative Language handouts for the following pages. Make sure that you have a minimum of four examples of figurative language per section: 
Pages 61 – 65: In-Class Scaffolded Reading and Figurative Language Handouts
Pages 65 – 74: In-Class Scaffolded Reading and Figurative Language Handouts
Pages 75 – 80: In-Class Scaffolded Reading and Figurative Language Handouts
Pages 82 – 86: In-Class Scaffolded Reading and Figurative Language Handouts
Pages 87 – 93: In-Class Scaffolded Reading and Figurative Language Handouts
Pages 97 – 101: In-Class Scaffolded Reading and Figurative Language Handouts
Pages 101 – 109: In-Class Scaffolded Reading and Figurative Language Handouts

For the following vocabulary words, please continue the Freyer Vocabulary Model. This assignment is worth 200 points. For every additional five words you do – those words you are unfamiliar with – you will receive 25 bonus points.

Vocabulary Words:
Genuflected
Bemused
Equilibrium
Fastidious
Epiphany
Snickering
Commotion
Moulting
Extemporized
Macabre
Placidly
Acrid
Fretful
Inviolable
Surreptitiously
Satiety
Laurels