February 9, 2015 - February 13, 2015 Weekly Agenda for Contemporary Composition

Monday, February 9^th:

1^st Period:

Turn in posters for The Bluest Eye

Answer the 8 questions over the last three pages of The Bluest Eye 

Final Questions for The Bluest Eye:

1.    How does Morrison use bird imagery to describe Pecola? Cite specific sentences Morrison uses to describe Pecola.

2.    What was the reaction of the people of Lorain to Pecola after her breakdown? Be specific. Cite specific sentences as evidence to support your answers.

3.    A scapegoat is someone that other people blame for the mistakes  a community makes. It comes from the Old Testament where the Israelites would send a goat, symbolically burdened with the people’s collective sins from the previous year, from the village into the desert – symbolically removing the villages’ sins. How is Pecola the scapegoat for Lorain, Ohio? Write in grammatically correct answers. Thoroughly answer the question and use evidence from the book to support your answers.

4.    How did the people of Lorain use the defects, the flaws, the deficiencies of Pecola to make them feel better about themselves?

5.    According to Morrison, what kind of people did the community of Lorain become as a result of their abuse of Pecola?

6.    Marigolds represent grief and cruelty. Why does Morrison use the seeds of marigolds in this story?

7.    What does Morrison mean when she writes, “Love is no better than the lover.”

8.    Read the next the last paragraph on page 206, starting with, “Oh, some of us loved her.” What does Morrison mean when she writes, “The loved one is shorn, neutralized, frozen in the glare of the lover’s inward eye.”

2^nd Period:

Break into groups to work on “HOT SEAT” for The Great Gatsby

HOT SEAT!

Tuesday, February 10^th:

Went over the culminating questions 1, 2, 3, and 5 for the last chapter in The Bluest Eye  together in class.

1.     Answer is on page 204, “Elbows on shoulders….but which filled the valleys of the mind.” Christian - A

2.     The people of Lorain avoided Pecola, and looked away. Claudia and Frieda wanted to talk to Pecola but couldn’t because they believed they failed her.  The people of the community believed that the rape and the pregnancy were Pecola’s fault. “She be all to blame. She ought to be pulled out of school.”  The people judged Pecola harshly to make themselves feel better about themselves. Astrid and Justin

3.     Junior blamed Pecola (used her as a scapegoat) for the death of the cat – Jasmine. The community put all the blame on her. “Pecola is somewhere in that little brown house, on the edges of the town.” Pecola did have the prostitutes who liked her – Maria. Claudia and Frieda thought that since the prostitutes liked Pecola,  they thought the prostitutes would be nice to the sisters, but the sisters revealed that they did not really like the prostitutes which caused them to turn on the sisters. Jalen – Pecola did things, ran errands for the prostitutes so they did not hate her.  Not hating someone is a far cry from loving. Cynthia – the people of Lorain did not look Pecola in the eye anymore. Her one and only mistake was to be born into the wrong family – Cynthia.

4.     Cynthia – “We were not strong, we were aggressive. We were not free, we were merely licensed.”

Participation credit for today: Jasmine, Kamron, Christian, Jalen, Christian, Maria, Cynthia, Astrid, Araksi,

Went over the first three essay questions for The Bluest Eye.

2^nd Period:

Hot Seat for The Great Gatsby 

Wednesday, February 11th: 

1st and 2nd Periods:
Interim Assessment
The class will be taught by Mr. Alex Fox

Thursday, February 12th: 

1st Period:
The class will be taught by Mr. Fox
Vocabulary Charades
Power Point Presentation:
Photos of oil slick
Discussion about assumptions
Analyzing Cartoon Data as Text
Assessment Task
Choosing Your Sources
Definitions: Primary, Secondary
Source Credibility
Types of Websites
Video on sources
Note-taking template
Summarizing sentence

2nd Period:
Interim Assessment

The class will be taught by Mr. Alex Fox
"Power Point: It's Your Turn"
Read and annotate the short opinion piece on vaccination
Data - Analyzing energy sources 

Friday, February 13th: 

1st and 2nd Periods: 

Interim Assessment

The class will be taught by Mr. Alex Fox