read, write, view, listen: stretch your mind.

English 20-1: Weekly Backgrounder (February 20)

2012-02-20T23:57:00.000-07:00

This week's backgrounder combines our work on parallel/balanced sentence structure with some history of American election campaigns (appropriate since 2012 is an election year in the United States).

Below are ten commercials from American Presidential election campaigns. In each, parallel/balanced sentence structure is used, most often at a key moment to highlight a main idea or capture a catchphrase or slogan that will stick in a voter's mind. Watch each commercial and write down ONE parallel/balanced sentence that is used in each commercial.

That's the technical part of the backgrounder. The background part is passing your eyes over a few slices of American political history. To solidify that a bit in your mind, visit the website that was the source for all these ads (http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/). Then, complete one of the following TWO response options:

OPTION ONE

Pick FOUR of the elections (you'll find the year of each election on the top bar of each video clip)and click on the summary of that year on the website. Then for each of the four elections, briefly answer the following questions:

1. What forces led to the candidate winning the election and becoming President?
2. How did the particular ad we watched capture an idea or emotion that contributed to the candidate's victory?

OPTION TWO

Examine all the ads. What common tactics do you see being used -- everything from the message to the images, sound, music, and colors that package the message -- to persuade an audience? What emotions do the ads generally seek to play on and manipulate?

Okay, here they are!

English 20-1: Speeches and Parallel/Balanced Construction

2012-02-19T17:37:00.000-07:00

Here's the speech we looked at in class as an excellent example of the powerful effect parallel and balanced structures can have in the ear of the reader/listener (and through the ear, the heart and the mind).

And here's the other speech we looked at in class, just as a reminder that parallel and balanced constructions aren't everything: you also need tone and volume that are consistent with the occasion, and an ability to resist the urge to pace nervously and glare intensely at your audience!

English 10-1, 20-1: Weekly Backgrounder (February 13)

2012-02-13T08:54:00.001-07:00

Every week, you're going to have two pieces of homework: a ThinkWrite that asks you to practice some aspect of writing skill/process and/or deepen your thinking around a certain theme or issue, and a Backgrounder that will get you to build your background knowledge (of the past, of different subjects of interest).

Sometimes, Backgrounders will be more specifically targeted; other times, you will have free rein to find something you want to read/watch/listen to.

This week's Backgrounder is simple -- something just to get your feet wet. Find something under Interest Audio or Interest Video to watch/listen to, and then in the Brain Gym section of your notebook, write a very brief response (1/3 to 1/2 a page) to what you watched/listened to. The response can be wide open -- a summary of the piece, a response to some of the ideas it presents, whatever you like. All I need is some evidence that you read/watched something and did some thinking-on-paper about it.

Have this completed in your notebook by MONDAY, February 20.

English 20-1: The Lottery

2012-02-13T08:35:00.003-07:00

The classic 1969 educational film version of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery", and a post-discussion piece as well:

English 30-1AP: Romantic Poet Background Info

2012-02-12T13:12:00.000-07:00

A compilation of helpful resource material from the interweb that will aid our look at these poets.

For general background on Romanticism as a poetic/artistic philosophy, there's this.

Here's a good video about Wordsworth. And a reading of "Tintern Abbey":

As for Coleridge, some background and analysis of "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison". And a general biography of the poet.

As for our man Blake, here's the William Blake archive.

And last but not least, Keats: Keats' Kingdom for biography and other information, and a reading of "Ode to a Nightingale" by Benedict Cumberbatch (aka Sherlock Holmes if you're a BBC Canada fan!)

English 20-1: Weekly ThinkWrite (February 6)

2012-02-06T23:45:00.002-07:00

Here are the videos (from Michael Sandel's Harvard University Justice course) you'll need to complete this week's ThinkWrite assignment (given in class). Complete in the Reader Response section of your notebook by MONDAY, February 13.

If you're interested in other episodes from this series of course lectures, they can be found at the Justice with Michael Sandel website.

English 30-1AP: "Easter Wings" follow-up

2012-02-06T23:40:00.002-07:00

Yeah branch-off discussion! For your interest, here's some links to material that relates to the talk we had today that emerged from George Herbert's devotional lyric "Easter Wings".

Alfie Kohn's article "Remember When We Had Higher Standards? Neither Do I"

Dr. Jean Twenge's website

A CBC documentary Hyper Parents and Coddled Kids (you may have seen this if you studied Brave New World with Mr. Womack)

English 10-1: Weekly ThinkWrite (February 6)

2012-02-05T23:42:00.000-07:00

The Poetry 180 website was designed as a poetry resource for American high schools. Select any poem from the site and complete any one of the following freewrite assignments in the Reader Response section of your notebook. Have this done by next MONDAY, February 13.

CREATIVE SPEAKER RESPONSE: Assume the identity of the speaker/voice in the poem. Keep writing after the poem’s done, or before it started. Fill a page.

CREATIVE VOICE RESPONSE. Assume the identity of a voice in your poem other than the speaker’s voice – someone they’re addressing, a figure that’s referred to, a voice that’s somehow under the surface or at the edges of the poem. Fill a page.

CREATIVE POEM RESPONSE: Assume the identity of the poet. What thoughts, feelings, experiences of theirs surrounded the creation of that poem? Write in their voice. Fill a page.

PERSONAL JUMP-OFF RESPONSE. Take an element from the poem – a line, a phrase, even a single word – and use it as a jumping-off point to write a personal narrative – an account of an experience. Fill a page.

English 30-1AP: The Luminarium

2012-01-31T12:55:00.000-07:00

English 30-1APers: allow me to introduce you to The Luminarium, a great resource for further information (biography, criticism) on the Renaissance poets we are currently studying!