The 60 Sixties Party

My dad turned 60 over the weekend, and my mom threw him a Sixties themed party -- not in the number sense but in the hippies and tie-dye sense. We had a great time and, as you can see, enjoyed getting into the spirit of things. My mom said that I looked like someone she would have met in high school, which means that my attire for the evening was a success.

Frosh
Blogspot allows users to view certain stats, such as page views, referral links and web search keywords that lead to the user's particular blog. In the close to two years that I've maintained this blog, no post has come close to the number of page views as the one that I wrote that mentions plot diagram. It's never made sense to me; the picture that accompanies that post isn't unique to my page since I nabbed it from someone else on the Internet. Also, I can't help but wonder how many people must be disappointed when they do a search for "plot diagram graphic organizer" and discover that the extent to what they can find consists of just those words and the idea that it was assigned on a Thursday. That can't be too helpful to prospective educators. Maybe I'll include a link once I update School Loop later this week.

Anyway, besides a cheap ploy for more page views on a different post, all of that is roundabout way of saying that we finished our notes on the Elements of Plot this past Monday.

Tuesday, you received a day to annotate your Animal Farm books. While my chief concern is that everyone find a way to annotate their books that best works for them, do your best to have at least something on each page. Granted, that might not always happen, but make the effort, especially considering the book is so short, it shouldn't be hard to find notable ideas throughout the novel. Also, you're responsible for noting the climax of the story with a stickie note. Those annotations are due on Wednesday, August 31.

Meanwhile, you read through The Most Dangerous Game this past Wednesday and Thursday. Once you finished, you were responsible for filling out the Plot It Out graphic organizer.

Friday, we came together as a class and discussed specific events that contributed to the rising action, and everyone did a great job in identifying moments where the tension increased, which is the whole point of rising action in the first place. Noting the climax of the story was a little more difficult, although I was impressed the number that correctly named Rainsford jumping off the cliff as the correct moment. Keep in mind that a climax will not take place anywhere in the first half of a traditionally plotted story. Following that powwow, I handed out the Animal Farm discussion questions. You'll need to plan out your responses for the class discussion on Tuesday and Wednesday so that you can earn points.

Finally, don't forget the Animal Farm re-test on Monday, August 29!

Seniors
Monday, you turned in the ethical dilemma questions and we spent the period discussing your answers. These are supposed to be difficult choices, so going for the easiest loophole doesn't quite get anyone off the hook. But emphasizing that to everyone as a class is part of what makes that discussion so fun for me as a teacher.

You received an overview of the lit project on Tuesday, and we spent the period discussing the expectations as well as the book choices. Remember that the lit project takes up roughly 60% of the semester grade, and it's a project that's broken up into smaller chunks over the course of the entire semester.

Wednesday and Thursday were focused on the first set of lit terms, listed below.

1. analogy
2. theme
3. hyperbole
4. syntax
5. foil
6. alliteration
7. oxymoron
8. stereotype
9. pun
10. sarcasm
11. satire
12. imagery
13. diction
14. allusion
15. style
16. tragedy
17. motif
18. personification
19. metaphor
20. paradox

Your test on these terms will be on Wednesday, August 31 and will follow a matching format. If you wrote down and studied the definitions given in class, you will be prepared. These are ideas and concepts for which you should attempt to find examples over the course of reading your lit project books and doing so can go a long way in your attempts to annotate that novel.

Additionally, I handed out the collection of due dates for the lit project on Thursday and only managed one typo for the entire document. This bit of planning is always the part of the year I dread because I really have to focus my attention the calendar to make sure that I'm not overwhelming the students nor overwhelming myself with my own grading deadlines. I'm hoping the changes Ms. Windt and I have implemented this year help everyone in that regard.

Friday, you received a short history of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. I don't think our discussion went particularly well during class as not too many folks were participating and I felt slightly scatterbrained during our reading, so I hope our subsequent days focused on Plato's Allegory of the Cave go a bit better. Please make sure to read the rest of that sheet so that we may review the ideas on Monday, August 29.

Ode to My Wife

As I get ready to publish this particular entry, it's my lovely wife's birthday. She's a great lady whose company I am lucky to have on a daily basis. Angela is a beautiful woman, and she makes me a better man. She endures all of my nonsense, from cartoons to superheroes to cartoon superheroes, and even engages in some of my weirder obsessions like my love for UFC. My wife is a compassionate, empathetic, loving, gorgeous, crazy cool chick that always keeps me on my toes. Without her, my life would be much emptier.


Frosh
On Monday, we went over the class syllabus and policies for the classroom.

Tuesday, the modified dialectical journals were due. All of the journals will take awhile to grade, so try to keep that in mind when wondering when you'll see those returned. You also took the test on Animal Farm that didn't go so well. Ms. Windt and I are doing our best to see where everyone stands, and we made the mistake of giving you a test that focused more on analysis than whether or not you read, the latter of which was our purpose. Just like you students, teaching itself is a learning process. The plan is to regroup and try again testing-wise next Monday, August 29, this time with a test that focuses on more objective goals.

Wednesday, we made a trip to the library and started taking notes on the different elements of plot. Pay attention to many of these terms as you can apply them while annotating.

We discussed annotation and how to approach it on Thursday. For some of you, this was review, but you'll be applying this idea throughout the school year and your time in the honors program at ALHS. Don't lose the bookmark; it's a valuable tool to focus you any time you read.

Friday, you received the period to annotate.

Seniors
Monday, we discussed the quotes that everyone chose to exemplify their personal philosophy. Many of you clearly put some thought into your choices. My suggestion is to memorize at least one quote over the course of your life so you can use it at a social gathering to impress friends and acquaintances. Never underestimate the implementation of a good quote at an opportune time.

On Tuesday, you wrote down your own definition of philosophy and your thoughts on the distinction between ethics and morals. From there, we started discussing the three ideas so that we came to a consensus of understanding in the class. For the record, philosophy is the love or study of wisdom while morals deal with feelings of what constitutes good and bad and ethics focus on the actions that are good and bad. This is by no means the be-all and end-all definition of any of the three ideas, but it's a suitable foundation for the class. We began discussing essentialism and relativism but our the bell postponed that for another day.

We finished discussing essentialism and relativism on Wednesday so that you could begin the ethical dilemma questions and made a trip to the library. Remember that essentialism means that there is a line where one can measure right and wrong; the line never changes and anyone in the past who fell on the wrong side of the line was wrong. Relativism posits that right and wrong is completely dependent on the culture and era of the time period and location.

Thursday focused on giving you time to work on the above-mentioned questions.

I was gone on Friday, and you wrote a writing sample.

Book 19 of 2011

After devoting a good portion to reading on Sunday, I finished this today during SSR.

19) Animal Farm by George Orwell

It's an old, allegorical story that many people know by now: animals rise up against their human oppressors with the goal of establishing equality for all except that things don't quite work out that way.

My goal in rereading this was to annotate a new copy. Ms. Windt and I will be taking over the Frosh Honors classes next year, which provided us with a great opportunity to change some of the curriculum around. Instead of having students read Lord of the Flies, we opted for Orwell's tale of revolution gone horribly wrong, which will dovetail nicely into our first semester reading of Fahrenheit 451. This is a book that I could finish in an afternoon, but I was laser focused on making sure to highlight the important lines and note the thematic elements throughout, so it took me three days instead. Also, if you're into that sort of annotating thing, this is a great edition for it. The margins are wide and the print is even spaced out well to allow for liberal handwriting and underlining.


The essay at the beginning of this edition stands out and makes some excellent points about Mollie, a character I tend to forget about when I get to the later chapters. As for the book itself, I'm torn as to how to properly discuss it here, since I plan to go over it with next year's freshman. To overly analyze it may unduly influence them into parroting my views as opposed to coming up with their own take. Also, that might just be my own arrogance coming into play. I'm torn, you see, since I've never taught an honors class before and my biggest goal is to not completely screw it all up.

I will say this, though: my biggest complaint is that the book is very on the nose. But don't we need some things to be on the nose? There's very little one can mistake about the book: the roles everyone plays are very clear and the allegory for the Russian Revolution even moreso if anyone has a bit of history under their belt. I'm looking forward to teaching this and I hope the students really take the time to give it a proper read because it's probably the easiest book they'll be assigned all year.