Wednesday, November 30, 2011

SS 11/30

OBJECT of VALUE Paper

WHAT is an OBJECT of VALUE?

An OBJECT is a material thing that can be seen and touched.  VALUE is defined as the importance or preciousness of something.  Therefore an OBJECT of VALUE is a material thing that is important to you. 



The object could be a favorite shirt or sports jersey, jewelry, a toy from when you were younger, a musical instrument, or maybe present from a friend or family member.  You don’t have to use one of these ideas; it’s totally up to you.



SO WHAT is the ASSIGNMENT?

Your job is to write a descriptive paper detailing an object of value and explaining why/how it came to have special meaning.



HOW do I do that?

For the descriptive section, use vivid verbs and powerful adjectives and adverbs as you write. **Vivid means producing powerful feelings or strong, clear images in the mind



1.)     Vivid Verbs include, but are not limited to, these five words



2.)     Powerful Adjectives include, but are not limited to, these five words



3.)     Powerful Adverbs include, but are not limited to, these five words




ALSO Use as many of the senses as you can--sight, sound, smell, touch, taste--as well as deep, rich colors.  

**I know a lot of you were struggling to include taste… if it’s not something that you would actually taste, you can write, “If I were to taste it, it would taste like…” which is kind of an interesting exercise in and of itself



You do not have to follow the following format, but it is a suggestion as to how you might organize your paper.  Each paragraph should provide us with information about the object itself, AND why it’s valuable.  FOR EXAMPLE:

1.)     If it smells like sunscreen, it might remind you of summers spent with your friends. 

2.)     If feels worn out, it might be because you used it every day.

3.)     If it has a stain on it that discolors the leather, it might be because of one time your best friend got sick at an amusement park.

Paragraph One: Introduction—catches our attention, tells us what the object is, possibly where it is, and any other information you think is appropriate.


Paragraph Two: Sight—focuses on how the object looks; its size, level of wear, color, etc.


Paragraph Three: Smell—how does the object smell (or maybe it doesn’t smell at all)?  It might remind you of a place you’ve been like the beach, or your grandma…



Paragraph Four: Taste— it is likely that this is an object you have never tasted (if you have great), but you can still consider what it would taste like if you were to taste it.


Paragraph Five:  Touch— What does it feel like?  What is the texture or temperature?


Paragraph Six: Sound— What does it sound like?  Many inanimate objects don’t make noise independently, but sometimes they do when you sit on them, drop them, or anything else?


Paragraph Seven: Conclude—add any additional information and reiterate why it’s important to you

Sophomore Tempest Questions Act One

Who is Ariel? Why should he be grateful to Prospero, and just do what he's told?



Who was Sycorax? How does Prospero feel about her? Are there any parallels between Sycorax's story and Prospero's?




Who is Caliban? What is his attitude towards Prospero's control of the island?


Pickle Weasel Westerns

Bugle Song

Wallace Stegner

There had been a wind during the night, and all the loneliness of the world had swept up out of the southwest. The boy had heard it wailing through the screens of the sleeping porch where he lay, and he had heard the wash tub bang loose from the outside wall and roll down toward the coulee, and the slam of the screen doors, and his mother's padding feet after she rose to fasten things down. Through one half-open eye he had peered up from his pillow to see the moon skimming windily in a luminous sky; in his mind he had seen the prairie outside with its woolly grass and cactus white under the moon, and the wind, whining across that endless oceanic land, sang in the screens, and sang him back to sleep.
Now, after breakfast, when he set out through the west pasture on the morning round of his gopher traps, there was no more wind, but the air smelled somehow recently swept and dusted, as the house in town sometimes smelled after his mother's whirlwind cleaning. The sun was gently warm on the bony shoulder blades of the boy, and he whistled, and whistling turned to see if the Bearpaws were in sight to the south. There they were, a ghostly tenuous outline of white just breaking over the bulge of the world: the Mountains of the Moon, the place of running streams and timber and cool heights that he had never seen—only dreamed of on days when the baked clay of the farmyard cracked in the heat and the sun brought cedar smells from fence posts long since split and dry and odorless, when he lay dreaming on the bed in the sleeping porch with a Sears Roebuck catalogue open before him, picking out the presents he would buy for his mother and his father and his friends next Christmas, or the Christmas after that. On those days he looked often and long at the snowy mountains to the south, while the dreams rose in him like heat waves, blurring the reality of the unfinished shack that was his summer home.
The Bearpaws were there now, and he watched them a moment, walking, his feet dodging cactus clumps automatically, before he turned his attention again to the traps before him, their locations marked by a zigzag line of stakes. He ran the line at a half-trot, whistling.
At the first stake the chain was stretched tightly into the hole. The pull on its lower end had dug a little channel in the soft earth of the mound. Gently, so as not to break the gopher's leg off, the boy eased the trap out of the burrow, held the chain in his left hand, and loosened the stake with his right. The gopher lunged against the heavy trap, but it did not squeal. They squealed, the boy had noticed, only when at a distance, or when the weasel had them. Otherwise they kept still.
For a moment the boy debated whether to keep this one alive for the weasel or to wait till the last trap so that he wouldn't have to carry the live one around. Deciding to wait, he held the chain out, measured the rodent for a moment, and swung. The knobbed end of the stake crushed the animal's skull, and the eyes popped out of the head, round and blue. A trickle of blood started from nose and ears.
Releasing the gopher, the boy lifted it by the tail and snapped its tail-fur off with a dexterous flip. Then he stowed the trophy carefully in the breast pocket of his overalls. For the last two years he had won the grand prize offered by the province of Saskatchewan to the school child who destroyed the most gophers. On the mantel in town were two silver loving cups, and in a shoe box under his bed in the farmhouse there were already eight hundred and forty tails, the catch of three weeks. His whole life on the farm was devoted to the destruction of the rodents. In the wheat fields he distributed poison, but in the pasture, where stock might get the tainted grain, he trapped, snared, or shot them. Any method he preferred to poisoning: that offered no excitement, and he seldom got the tails because the gophers crawled down their holes to die.
Picking up trap and stake, the boy kicked the dead animal down its burrow and scraped dirt over it with his foot. They stunk up the pasture if they weren't buried, and the bugs got into them. Frequently he had stood to windward of a dead and swollen gopher, watching the body shift and move with the movements of the beetles and crawling things working through it. If such an infested corpse were turned over, the beetles would roar out of it, great orange-colored, hard-shelled, scavenging things that made his blood curdle at the thought of their touching him, and after they were gone and he looked again he would see the little black ones, undisturbed, seething through the rotten flesh. So he always buried his dead, now.
Through the gardens of red and yellow cactus blooms he went whistling, half-trotting, setting the traps anew whenever a gopher shot upright, squeaked, and ducked down its burrow at his approach. All but two of the first seventeen traps held gophers, and he came to the eighteenth confidently, expecting to take this one alive. But this gopher had gone into the trap head first, and the boy put back into his pocket the salt sack he had brought along as a game bag. He would have to snare or trap one down by the dam.
On the way back he stopped with bent head while he counted his day's catch of tails, mentally adding this lot of sixteen to the eight hundred and forty he already had, trying to remember how many he had had at this time last year. As he finished his mathematics his whistle broke out again, and he galloped down through the pasture, running for very abundance of life, until he came to the chicken house just within the plowed fireguard.
Under the eaves of the chicken house, so close that the hens were constantly pecking up to its very door and then almost losing their wits with fright, was the made-over beer case that contained the weasel. Screen had been tacked tightly under the wooden lid, which latched, and in the screen was cut a tiny wire door. In the front, along the bottom, a single board had been removed and replaced with screen.
The boy lifted the hinged top and looked down into the cage.
"Hello," he said. "Hungry?"
The weasel crouched, its long snaky body humped, its head thrust forward and its malevolent eyes staring with lidless savagery into the boy's.
"Tough, ain't you?" said the boy. "Just wait, you bloodthirsty old stinker, you. Wait'll you turn into an ermine. Won't I skin you quick, hah?"
There was no dislike or emotion in his tone. He took the weasel's malignant ferocity with the same indifference he displayed in his gopher killing. Weasels, if you could keep them long enough, were valuable. He would catch a lot, keep them until they turned white, and sell their hides as ermine. Maybe he could breed them and have an ermine farm. He was the best gopher trapper in Saskatchewan. Once he had even caught a badger. Why not weasels? The trap broke their leg, but nothing could really hurt a weasel permanently. This one, though virtually three-legged, was as savage and lively as ever. Every morning he had a live gopher for his breakfast, in spite of the protests of the boy's mother that it was cruel. But nothing, she had decided, was cruel to the boy.
When she argued that the gopher had no chance when thrown into the cage, the boy retorted that he didn't have a chance when the weasel came down the hole after him either. If she said that the real job he should devote himself to was exterminating the weasels, he replied that then the gophers would get so thick they would eat the fields down to stubble. At last she gave up, and the weasel continued to have his warm meals.
For some time the boy stood watching his captive, and then he turned and went into the house, where he opened the oat box in the kitchen and took out a chunk of dried beef. From this he cut a thick slice with the butcher knife, and went munching into the sleeping porch where his mother was making beds.
"Where's that little double naught?" he asked.
"That what?"
"That little wee trap. The one I use for catching live ones for the weasel."
"Hanging out by the laundry bench, I think. Are you going out trapping again now?"
"Lucifer hasn't had his breakfast yet."
"How about your reading?"
"I'n take the book along and read while I wait," the boy said. "I'm just goin' down to the coulee at the edge of the dam."
"I can, not 'Ine,' son."
"I can," the boy said. "I am most delighted to comply with your request."
He grinned at his mother. He could always floor her with a quotation from the Sears Roebuck catalogue.
With the trap swinging from his hand, and under his arm the book—"Narrative and Lyric Poems," edited by Some-body-or-other—which his mother kept him reading during the summer "so that next year he could be at the head of his class again," the boy walked out into the growing heat.
From the northwest the coulee angled down through the pasture, a shallow swale dammed just above the house to catch the spring run-off of snow water. In the moist dirt of the dam grew ten-foot willows planted as slips by the boy's father. They were the only things resembling trees in sixty miles. Below the dam, watered by the slow seepage from above, the coulee bottom was a parterre of flowers, buttercups in broad sheets, wild sweet pea, and "stinkweed." On the slopes were evening primroses, pale pink and white and delicately fragrant, and on the flats above the yellow and red burgeoning of the cactuses.
Just under the slope of the coulee a female gopher and three half-grown puppies basked on their warm mound. The boy chased them squeaking down their hole and set the trap carefully, embedding it partially in the soft earth. Then he retired back up the shoulder of the swale, where he lay full length on his stomach, opened the book, shifted so that the glare of the sun across the pages was blocked by the shadow of his head and shoulders, and began to read.
From time to time he stopped reading to roll on his side and stare out across the coulee, across the barren plains pimpled with gopher mounds and bitten with fire and haired with dusty woolly grass. Apparently as flat as a table, the land sloped imperceptibly to the south, so that nothing interfered with his view of the ghostly line of mountains, now more plainly visible as the heat increased. Between the boy's eyes and that smoky outline sixty miles away the heat waves rose writhing like fine wavy hair. He knew that in an hour Pankhurst's farm would lift above the swelling knoll to the west. Many times he had seen that phenomenon—had seen his friend Jason Pankhurst playing in the yard or watering horses when he knew that the whole farm was out of sight. It was the heat waves that did it, his father said.
The gophers below had been thoroughly scared, and for a long time nothing happened. Idly the boy read through his poetry lesson, dreamfully conscious of the hard ground under him, feeling the gouge of a rock under his stomach without making any effort to remove it. The sun was a hot caress between his shoulder blades, and on the bare flesh where his overalls pulled above his sneakers it bit like a burning glass. Still he was comfortable, supremely relaxed and peaceful, lulled into a half-trance by the heat and the steamy flower smells and the mist of yellow in the buttercup coulee below.
And beyond the coulee was the dim profile of the Bear-paws, the Mountains of the Moon.
The boy's eyes, pulled out of focus by his tranced state, fixed on the page before him. Here was a poem he knew . . . but it wasn't a poem, it was a song. His mother sang it often, working at the sewing machine in winter.
It struck him as odd that a poem should also be a song, and because he found it hard to read without bringing in the tune, he lay quietly in the full glare of the sun, singing the page softly to himself. As he sang the trance grew on him again; he lost himself entirely. The bright hard dividing lines between individual senses blurred, and buttercups, smell of primrose, feel of hard gravel under body and elbows, sight of the ghosts of mountains haunting the southern horizon, were one intensely felt experience focused by the song the book had evoked.
And the song was the loveliest thing he had ever known. He felt the words, tasted them, breathed upon them with all the ardor of his captivated senses,
The splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story. . . .
The current of his imagination flowed southward over the strong gentle shoulder of the world to the ghostly outline of the Mountains of the Moon, haunting the heat-distorted horizon.
Oh hark, oh hear, how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going,
Oh, sweet and far, from cliff and scar . . .
In the enchanted forests of his mind the horns of elfland blew, and his breath was held in the slow-falling cadence of their dying. The weight of the sun had been lifted from his back. The empty prairie of his home was castled and pillared with the magnificence of his imagining, and the sound of horns died thinly in the direction of the Mountains of the Moon.
From the coulee below came the sudden metallic clash of the trap, and an explosion of frantic squeals smothered almost immediately in the burrow. The boy leaped up, thrusting the book into the wide pocket of his overalls, and ran down to the mound. The chain, stretched down the hole, jerked convulsively, and when the boy took hold of it he felt the terrified life at the end of it strain to escape. Tugging gently, he forced loose the gopher's digging claws, and hauled the squirming captive from the hole.
On the way up to the chicken house the dangling gopher with a tremendous muscular effort convulsed itself upward from the broken and imprisoned leg, and bit with a sharp rasp of teeth on the iron. Its eyes, the boy noticed impersonally, were shining black, like the head of a hatpin. He thought it odd that when they popped out of the head after a blow they were blue.
At the cage by the chicken house he lifted the cover and peered through the screen. The weasel, scenting the blood of the gopher's leg, backed against the far wall of the box, yellow body tense as a spring, teeth showing in a tiny soundless snarl.
Undoing the wire door with his left hand, the boy held the trap over the hole. Then he bore down with all his strength on the spring, releasing the gopher, which dropped on the straw-littered floor and scurried into the corner opposite its enemy.
The weasel's three good feet gathered under it and it circled, very slowly, around the wall, its lips still lifted to expose that soundless snarl. The abject gopher crowded against the boards, turned once and tried to scramble up the side, fell back on its broken leg, and whirled like lightning to face its executioner again. The weasel moved carefully, circling, its cold eyes never leaving its prey.
Then the gopher screamed, a wild, agonized, despairing squeal that made the watching boy swallow and wet his lips. Another scream, wilder and louder than before, and before the sound had ended the weasel struck. There was a fierce flurry in the straw of the cage before the killer got its hold just back of the gopher's right ear, and its teeth began tearing ravenously at the still-quivering body. In a few minutes, the boy knew, the gopher's carcass would be as limp as an empty skin, with all its blood sucked out and a hole as big as the ends of his two thumbs where the weasel had dined.
Still the boy remained staring through the screen top of the cage, face rapt and body completely lost. And after a few minutes he went into the sleeping porch, stretched out on the bed, opened the Sears Roebuck catalogue, and dived so deeply into its fascinating pictures and legends that his mother had to shake him to make him hear her call to lunch.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

11/29

PW: Worked on Western stories, watched scenes from High Noon to give you some ideas.  I am hoping that you will take the time to write/describe the scenery.

PA: How is the Squire different from his sons?
To what extent might the state of the Cass home have been an influence on Godfrey and Dunsey?

Monday, November 28, 2011

8th Hour

12ers: Reading Code Orange
FW: Two more projects if the projector doesn't go up in flames.
SS: Finishing testing... new unit tomorrow!
Crew: Anticipation guide and this worksheet

Name: __________________________________

Vocabulary for
The Glass Menagerie. 
Work with a partner.  Answer part a; ask your partner for the parts of speech listed in part b; write a sentence using your partners word AND the vocabulary word for c.

1.) Conglomeration: To form into or merge

a.       A sentence showing you understand the word



b.       Two Nouns; Three Adjectives (how you feel after riding on a rollercoaster)



c.        A sentence using your partner’s input



2.)     Fundamentally: In central or primary respects

a.       A sentence showing you understand the word



b.       Two Nouns; Three Adjectives (how you feel after riding on a rollercoaster)



c.        A sentence using your partner’s input



3.)     Automatism: The performance of actions without conscious thought or intention

a.       A sentence showing you understand the word



b.       One Noun (Your dream vacation destination); One Verb (something a dog might do)



c.        A sentence using your partner’s input




4.)     Implacable: Relentless; unstoppable

a.       A sentence showing you understand the word



b.       One Noun; One Verb (how you like to spend your Sunday mornings); One Adverb



c.        A sentence using your partner’s input






5.)     Predominantly: Mainly; for the most part

a.       A sentence showing you understand the word



b.       Two verbs (first things you’d do if you dominated the planet); One Adjective



c.        A sentence using your partner’s input




6.)     Proscenium: The part of a theater stage in front of the curtain

a.       A sentence showing you understand the word




b.       Three adjectives (how you’d describe a baby elephant)



c.        A sentence using your partner’s input



7.)     Portieres: window treatment used in cased door openings made of two separate drapery panels tied back, utilizing identical or contrasting fabrics

a.       A sentence showing you understand the word



b.       One Verb (whatever you want)



c.        A sentence using your partner’s input



8.)     Ineluctably: inescapably: by necessity

a.       A sentence showing you understand the word




b.       One Noun; One Verb; One Adverb



c.        A sentence using your partner’s input



9.)     Convention: A widely used and accepted device or technique, as in drama, literature, or painting

10.)    Latticework: An open, crisscross pattern or weave





One and Two

PW: Start working on your Western short stories.  You get to talk about lawlessness (or personal moral codes), women, saloons, and wilderness.  I'm really excited about them... and to learn about your sense of morality.
PA: Readers' theater today.  Josh and Billy were the most apathetic Marners ever. 
Chapter 8
1.) Describe how the story of the peddler grew.  What does this say about the people of Ravelow?
2.) Explain Godfrey's thinking as he contemplated telling his father about the situation.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Almost Thanksgiving.

Relaxed day today... for everyone except the freshmen who are taking their lit circle final tests!  Sophomores-- almost done with presentations. 
12ers-- reading chapters two and three with discussion questions. 
Crew-- we'll see what Scott has in store for the day.  Don't be afraid to get ahead on The Glass Menagerie.
PW-- Make sure you have your literary elements worksheet completed
PA-- The Complainy Pants Team won in Scattegories today... keep working on Marner (or catch up if you're behind!)

Monday, November 21, 2011

Awesome Site

http://dragonwritingprompts.blogsome.com/category/writing-prompts/picture-prompts/
PLEASE note THREE differences (or add information) to the SPARK NOTES below.



Silas Marner Chapter 6

The conversation in the tavern is quite animated by the time Silas arrives, though it has taken a while to get up to speed. The narrator describes this conversation in considerable detail. It begins with an aimless argument about a cow, followed by a story from Mr. Macey about a time when he heard the parson bungle the words of a wedding vow, a story that everyone in the tavern has heard many times before. Macey says that the parson’s lapse set him thinking about whether the wedding was therefore invalid and, if not, just what it was that gave weddings meaning in the first place. Just before Silas appears, the conversation lapses back into an argument, this time about the existence of a ghost who allegedly haunts a local stable. The argumentative farrier, Mr. Dowlas, does not believe in the ghost, and offers to stand out in front of the stable all night, betting that he will not see the ghost. He gets no takers, as the Rainbow’s landlord, Mr. Snell, argues that some people are just unable to see ghosts.





• Identify and describe each person at the Rainbow Inn that evening.




• How is Raveloe like our neighborhood, community, town? Are there similar people? What place is like the Rainbow Inn?

Friday, November 18, 2011

11/18

PW: Working on creative writing... I want you to extend your answers (your stories about the graphic novel were on the short side). 
PA: Thanks for helping clean off the desks today.  Scattegories... and a little break to catch up on Silas Marner reading over the weekend.  Team Awesome dominated.
12ers: PRESENTATIONS start on MONDAY.  I hope to see everyone (when there's only three, it's hard even when one person is gone).
FW: Fallacies presentations... be sure you can be a good discussion leader/make people look deeper/more seriously at your song/video.  Don't accept any old answer!
SS: Some of you have a lot of catching up to do!  Take your books home over the weekend!  Finish your packets!  The test won't be until WEDNESDAY so you have some time to review.
Crew: College essays due today.  I can't wait to read/see them.

I love my taxidermy sweatshirt.  Thank you JOSH for selling me the winning ticket! :)

Thursday, November 17, 2011

11/17 Silas

Compare Silas's actions and thoughts with any you have had when something terrible or dreaded has happened.




To what does Silas turn for comfort?  When had he sought comfort before from this same source?

Tofurkey

The Power of Language
PETA Asks Turkey, Texas, to Change Its Name to 'Tofurky' for Thanksgiving

November 14, 2011
The Honorable Pat Carsona
Mayor of Turkey

Dear Mayor Carson,

I am writing on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and our more than 3 million members and supporters, including thousands in Texas, with an idea that will boost Turkey into the spotlight and promote compassion: Rename your town "Tofurky" for Thanksgiving. If you agree to adopt this moniker for just one day, we'd be happy to provide a delicious, healthy vegan holiday feast for all the town's residents.

Tofurky is a savory, flavorful, "meaty" vegan entrée with wild-rice and bread-crumb stuffing that is 100 percent cruelty-free. In contrast, virtually all turkey meat sold in the U.S. comes from factory farms, where birds are confined by the thousands to filthy, barren sheds. They are drugged and bred to grow such unnaturally large upper bodies that their legs often become crippled under the weight. These bright and social animals are denied everything that is natural and important to them, and at the slaughterhouse, turkeys are still conscious when their throats are slit. Changing the town's name to Tofurky will remind people around the country that we each can have a delicious, protein-packed, and satisfying Thanksgiving meal without supporting animal abuse.

PETA's feast would feature Tofurky with mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes (made with vegan margarine), and vegan apple pie topped with vanilla dairy-free ice cream. Introducing vegan cuisine to your residents would help improve their health: A vegan diet is free of the saturated animal fats and cholesterol found in meat and dairy products, and according to the American Dietetic Association, a vegan diet reduces the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity.

Thanksgiving is the perfect time to rename your town and give turkeys, as well as your town's citizens, something to gobble about! Please let me know of your decision.

Sincerely yours,
Tracy Reiman
Executive Vice President

And (in an interview): "Thanksgiving is murder on turkeys," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "By changing its name to 'Tofurky,' Turkey would send a clear message that delicious, savory mock meat is an easy way to celebrate without causing suffering—and give a bird something to be thankful for."

Please write a response to this letter, as if you were the mayor of this town (I’m pretty sure he chose not to respond, but what would you say?).  Consider why would a name change be important?  What kind of statement are the members of PETA hoping to send?  Are the words we use important afterall?

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

SPARKNOTES?! I am on to you.

Read the Sparknotes—note at least three places in each chapter where you could add (or change) information.  These kinds of summaries can be used as a tool for increased comprehension, but should not replace the text itself.  **ALSO you need to continue your listing activity... which requires you to read the actual text!**


Summary: Chapter 3
Squire Cass is acknowledged as the greatest man in Raveloe, the closest thing the village has to a lord. His sons, however, have “turned out rather ill.” The Squire’s younger son, Dunstan, more commonly called by the nickname Dunsey, is a sneering and unpleasant young man with a taste for gambling and drinking. The elder son, Godfrey, is handsome and good-natured, and everyone in town wants to see him married to the lovely Nancy Lammeter. Lately, however, Godfrey has been acting strange and looking unwell.

One November afternoon, the two Cass brothers get into a heated argument over 100 pounds that Godfrey has lent Dunsey—money that was the rent from one of their father’s tenants. The Squire is growing impatient, Godfrey says, and will soon find out that Godfrey has been lying to him about the rent if Dunsey does not repay the money. Dunsey, however, tells Godfrey to come up with the money himself, lest Dunsey tell their father about Godfrey’s secret marriage to the drunken opium addict Molly Farren. Dunsey suggests that Godfrey borrow money or sell his prized horse, Wildfire, at the next day’s hunt. Godfrey balks at this, since there is a dance that evening at which he plans to see Nancy. When Dunsey mockingly suggests that Godfrey simply kill Molly off, Godfrey angrily threatens to tell their father about the money and his marriage himself, thus getting Dunsey thrown out of the house along with him.

Godfrey, however, is unwilling to take this step, preferring his uncertain but currently comfortable existence to the certain embarrassment that would result from revealing his secret marriage. Thinking that he has perhaps pushed Godfrey too far, Dunsey offers to sell Godfrey’s horse for him. Godfrey agrees to this, and Dunsey leaves. The narrator then gives us a glimpse of Godfrey’s future: the empty, monotonous prosperity of the aging country squire who spends his years drinking and wallowing in regret. The narrator adds that Godfrey already has experienced this regret to some degree: we learn that Godfrey was talked into his secret marriage by none other than Dunsey, who used the idea as a trap to gain leverage with which to blackmail Godfrey. Godfrey does genuinely love Nancy Lammeter—as the narrator suggests, Nancy represents everything missing from the household in which Godfrey grew up after his mother’s death. The fact that Godfrey cannot act upon his emotions toward Nancy only increases his misery.

Summary: Chapter 4
Dunsey sets off the next morning to sell his brother’s horse. Passing by Silas Marner’s cottage, Dunsey remembers the rumors about Silas’s hoard of gold and wonders why he has never thought to persuade Godfrey to ask Silas for a loan. Despite the promise of this idea, Dunsey decides to ride on anyway, since he wants his brother to be upset about having had to sell Wildfire and he looks forward to the bargaining and swagger that will be involved in the sale of the horse.

Dunsey meets some acquaintances who are hunting. After some negotiation he arranges Wildfire’s sale, with payment to be handed over upon safe delivery of the horse to the stable. Dunsey decides not to deliver the horse right away, and instead takes part in the hunt, enjoying the prospect of jumping fences to show off the horse. However, Dunsey jumps one fence too many, and Wildfire gets impaled on a stake and dies. No one witnesses the accident, and Dunsey is unhurt, so he makes his way to the road in order to walk home. All the while he thinks of Silas’s money. When Dunsey passes Silas’s cottage just after dusk and sees a light on through the window, he decides to introduce himself. To his surprise the door is unlocked and the cottage empty. Tempted by the blazing fire inside and the piece of pork roasting over it, Dunsey sits down at the hearth and wonders where Silas is. His thoughts quickly shift to Silas’s money and, looking around the cottage, Dunsey notices a spot in the floor carefully covered over with sand. He sweeps away the sand, pries up the loose bricks, and finds the bags of gold. He steals the bags and flees into the darkness.











QUESTIONS for Chapter Three  

What characteristics of Dunstan are brought out through the incidents in this chapter?  How is this shown?

















 How does Dunstan justify stealing Silas’s gold to himself?
















What observations can you make about the narrator?


Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Seniors: Peer Editing Personal Statement

Peer Editing Sheet: Personal Statement Essays

Writer:

Editor:

Title of Essay:

1.)    What qualities does the person show about themselves through their writing?  List them.







2.)    Is the writing clear and concise?  Is there anything that you think they could do without?  Be ruthless (you can write this in the draft… don’t actually cross it out—ultimately it is the writer’s decision-- but underline and label things you think should be deleted).




3.)    Is the writing SPECIFIC?  If they say something was great or sad or desirable, do they explain why/how?  If anything leaves you guessing, list it below.








4.)    Did the writer use interesting verbs (those are the action words)?  Circle the verbs in each sentence.  Think about it and possibly suggest synonyms.





5.)    Did the author divide their essay into paragraphs?  If they did, make sure their paragraphs hang together and not apart (it’s divided at appropriate junctures).  If not, where should they be?






6.)    Did the author use topic sentences to allow their essay to hang together?  At no point should you feel lost.  Point out places that are unclear and suggest improvements.



7.)    Did the author use effective transitions throughout so their essay is easy to read/follow?  Put a square around them (I am running out of symbols here, sorry).






8.)    Did the essay capture your interest?  Why/how?





9.)    If you ONLY knew this person from their essay, would you think they would be an interesting/dynamic person to go to college with?  Why or why not?  Consider the content AND the writing style.  (Be reasonably kind and constructive).





10.)  Any other suggestions or comments?

Juniors...

Silas Marner Chapter 3:
What is the social structure of the community?
What weakenss does Godrey display in the Cass family?
What means does Eliot use to tell us about various characters?

Continue with your lists please!  I gave you some time to catch up today... please stay that way!

Peer Editing for Fallacies Paper

Fallacies Paper Peer Editing Sheet

Writer:

Editor:

Paper Title:

Does the writer clearly introduce the song, band and why they chose it at the beginning of their paper?  If not, explain what they should change.



In the second paragraph, does the writer quote SPECIFIC LYRICS and explain what they think the song means?  How many times (at least four)?



In the second paragraph, does the writer consider the audience of the song and explain why?



In the second paragraph, does the writer consider multiple interpretations of the song?



In the third paragraph, does the writer relay the story told by the video using SPECIFIC IMAGES (at least four)?  List them.



In the third paragraph, did the writer note anything that seemed odd or out of place?  Consider the multiple interpretations in the second paragraph—was this the video something that fit in with what the writer feels the song is about?



CHECK FALLACIES IN THE FOURTH PARAGRAPH!  Take out your sheet—check that they are using them correctly (many of you made mistakes with Red Herrings and False Cause).  Make sure they used SPECIFIC, DIRECT EVIDENCE.



In the fifth paragraph, read and consider SOCIAL implications.  What is being said about who and why (consumerism)?  Who has power?  Who is a definer (most of you used hasty generalization)?  This paragraph should talk about LARGER groups, not simple the artist—consider men/women, old people/young people, rich/poor, race, etc.

In the conclusion, make sure the writer drives home their SO WHAT?!  This paragraph should relate back to the writer personally.  They should have considered: Does the music you listen to define YOU in any way, or is it simple an arbitrary choice?  What are you advertising by your music choices?  Is this SEEN in the video?  Underline any of these questions that are missing from the final analysis.





Look at TOPIC SENTENCES.  Does the writer clearly communicate what each paragraph will be about?



Look at TRANSITIONS.  Does the writer hold your hand (tell you where they’re going with their writing) in a way that logically makes sense and helps you understand their observations and interpretations?



Are there any places that you had QUESTIONS about what they were trying to say?  Point them out and suggest how they can make them more specific.



Any general comments (hopefully this paper blew your mind).

Monday, November 14, 2011

1: WKCE Testing
2: Silas Marner... keep lists of truths about life, social class or Molly and Godfrey.  Also answer: (1) How does Silas spend his time?  Why? (2) In what ways do people cope with severe setbacks? (3) What is revealed about Silas's nature by the brown pot incident?
3: Infectious disease presentations due FRIDAY the 18th (I can figure out the date, really)
5: Fallacies papers and presentations due THURSDAY at the beginning of class.  First draft, editing sheet, final draft.
7: Keep working on your literature circle packets and books.  I THINK things are going much better... but some of you need to use your classtime more wisely.
8: Personal statement finals due Friday... work time today and tomorrow, editing on Wednesday, revision on Thursday... sharing Friday for those who are comfortable.