That long promised Level Questions Example

We're going to skip the preamble tonight. Check it out next time as I have a bit to say about the new television show, Teach: Tony Danza.

Frosh
You worked on grammar when I was gone on Tuesday.

Wednesday, we finished going over the Elements of Fiction and you received the examples assignment. Remember that you'll be finding five examples of any of the elements we went over. You'll then fill out the following:

1. Element
2. Story
3. Quote from the text
4. 2 - 3 sentences explaining how the quote qualifies as that element

This will be due on Monday, October 18.

Today, we began going over the Elements of Theme, which is the final Element of Lit and the most important one.

Seniors
My jaw betrayed me on Tuesday, so I wasn't there, and you had a reading day.

Wednesday, we started going over level questions.

Mad Men

Today, you took the lit terms test that covered both sets of terms, and then we finished going over the level questions, an example of which is below.

Mad Men is an excellent show, and the episode that aired on August 29 provided the inspiration to complete a series of level questions.


Level 1 (explicitly from the text): Where did Don Draper first meet advertising executive Roger Sterling?

Answer: Don Draper met Roger Sterling at a fur store. The two later met for lunch where Roger offered Don a job, although the former was too inebriated to remember doing so. Many years later, Roger claims to have "discovered" Don.

Level 2 (implicitly from the text): Why is Don Draper interested in getting a job in advertising?

Answer: Dick Whitman took on the persona of his commanding officer, Don Draper, after the latter was killed in an accident during the Korean War. Whitman was unsatisfied with his life and felt like he did not belong with his family, so he took the opportunity to assume a new identity and craft a more preferable life. As Don Draper, he is able to mold himself into the man he wants to be. Advertising is a natural fit for this Don Draper; it is the one of the few arenas where someone is able to take a simple product and perfectly shape the image other people perceive, much like Draper/Whitman himself.

Level 3 (beyond the text): How does advertising reflect the people it targets?

Answer:  Advertising shows people the idealized version of the things they desire. In reality, the product never looks as good as the ad. Truly great advertising does not sell a product as much as it does a life style. People prefer to see themselves as the best possible version that they can imagine, regardless of if that is true or even possible. Advertising represents a lie that people sell themselves. It is meant to show human beings at their best but actually shows them at their worst.

Theme: A career provides a person with the opportunity for self-discovery.

ITEM! Old timey news radio voices are my favorite kind of radio voices.

ITEM! Rhys Ifans, he of Notting Hill, The Replacements and constantly getting mistaken for Paul Bettany fame, has been cast as the villain in the latest Marc Webb directed Spider-Man reboot picture leading to speculation as to which of the webbed wall-crawler's rogue's gallery he will play. Smart money is on the Lizard.

ITEM! The air conditioning malfunctioned for most of the day in the B building resulting in hotter than normal temperatures and a teacher in a sour mood in room 37 who didn't expect to sweat through his shirt in such a short amount of time.

ITEM! Brett Favre is allegedly a dirty, dirty old man.

ITEM! In developing news, above-mentioned sourpussed teacher has experienced a strange clicking pain and swelling in his jaw which has made the rest of the day hard to bear, leaving his presence at the school tomorrow in question.

ITEM! Noted British graffiti artist Banksy directed a decidedly dark and pointed opening couch gag for noted television show The Simpsons this past Sunday. Banksy, known for being elusive and notoriously difficult to track down, directed the opening which features an Asian sweatshop manufacturing Simpsons merchandise to the detriment of cats, dolphins and unicorns everywhere.

Frosh

On Thursday, you turned in your third ORU, and then we listened to Alanis Morissette's song, "Ironic." Hopefully, you used the time wisely and finished the assignment by the end of the period.

Today, we started going over the Elements of Fiction, which is my catch-all name for everything that I think you need to know but didn't warrant its own "element" title. Sure, I could spend an entire day discussing symbolism, and it's worth knowing. However, there are broader topics we need to cover that are more vital to the rest of the year, so we're going to focus on those things first. If you're interested in symbolism, though, ask me sometime and we can discuss it. I like those kinds of talks.

Seniors

Thursday, you had your second writing day. Since there was no school on Friday, thus you didn't get your books back in time because of the second annotation check, that means the revision will not be due until Wednesday, October 13. You also turned in the second article selection assignment. There were far fewer for me to grade this time around; that's great for the fact that it didn't take me that long to get them back to you, however, everyone should take note that the more free time I have due to a lack of grading usually means that your grade will conversely suffer. Those of you that turned the assignment in, kudos! Those of you that didn't, boo!

You received the Lit Project Problems assignment today, and I hope everyone takes the time to take into account these errors, which, while not as prominent as prior years, are rearing their ugly heads more often than I would like considering how many times I've explained them so far. Everyone worked on that for the period, and, health permitting tomorrow, we'll discuss the answers.

P.S. You may or may not have noticed that I've been providing links to PDF versions of assignments I've handed out in class using Google Docs. I'm hoping that this is helpful to those of you who may have missed class. If successful, it may provide me the excuse to finally delete my Teacherweb site that I find to be a pain to update and allow me to focus everything here instead. Streamlining my Internet presence may be the way to go in order to make it easier for students and parents to keep up with the events in class.