Making the Right Choice: February 28, 2018

Focus: How does our understanding of metaphysical conceit help us with MC?

1. Warming up with the poem's dramatic situation:

• Where are they?
• Who are they? 
• What does each one want?
• What are the conflicts?
• Where's the shift?

2. Exploring the MC stems for "The Eolian Harp": What types of questions do you see?

3. Predicting with a partner the answers to the MC stems, then working through the full MC section on your own and discussing the answers as a class

HW:
1. For TODAY: Critical reviews are due by 3:00. They must be printed with the checklist stapled to the top.

2. For tomorrow: 

• Study your Academic Vocabulary Set 6 words for a short assessment.

• Thursday will be a poetry paper/project work day in here, so bring your laptop or any materials you might need.

3. For Friday: Complete your reading assignment, syllabus, and anything else assigned by your book club.

The Metaphysical Conceit: February 27, 2018

Focus: How can vehicle and tenor help us make meaning of metaphysical conceits?

1. Warming up with a poetry exercise: Moving from abstract to concrete and using your unlikeliest comparisons to create a metaphysical conceit

2. Understanding and practicing vehicle, tenor, and meaning with metaphysical conceits

3. Reading "The Eolian Harp" with a focus on unpacking the metaphysical conceit

• What is the vehicle? Underline all imagery and verbs surrounding this vehicle.

• What is the tenor? Underline all imagery and verbs surrounding the tenor.

• What is the meaning of this conceit? What do we understand better or differently by seeing these two unlike things being compared?

HW:
1. For TOMORROW:

• The final draft of your critical review is due by 3:00 pm on Wednesday, Feb 28. IT MUST BE PRINTED WITH THE CHECKLIST STAPLED TO THE TOP.

2. For Thursday: 

• Study your Academic Vocabulary Set 6 words for a short assessment.

• Thursday will be a poetry paper/project work day in here, so bring your laptop or any materials you might need.

3. For Friday: Complete your reading assignment, syllabus, and anything else assigned by your book club.

Pre-Book Clubbing: February 26, 2018

Focus: What foundation do we need to establish to set up our book clubs for success?

1. Warming up with three good things and the Tuesday Night Checklist

2. Setting yourselves up for book club success:

• The shared Google folder; make sure it's shared with everyone in your group and me and has a clear, distinctive label.

• Your Manifesto (click here for a sample)

• The reading schedule (click here for bookmark)

• The syllabus schedule (click here for a sample syllabus)

• Other (reading tickets? Research? Quizzes? Snacks?)

3. Performing a slow read of your novel's first three pages: How do the first pages set up everything you need to know about your novel in terms of setting, characters, point of view, and conflicts?

HW:
1. For Wednesday:

• The final draft of your critical review is due Wednesday, Feb 28. IT MUST BE PRINTED WITH THE CHECKLIST STAPLED TO THE TOP.

• Wednesday will be a poetry paper/project work day in here, so bring your laptop or any materials you might need.

2. For Thursday: Study your Academic Vocabulary Set 6 words.

3. For Friday: Complete your reading assignment, syllabus, and anything else assigned by your book club.

Polishing the Critical Review: February 23, 2018

Focus: How can the process of peer editing and revision improve our evaluative writing skills?

1. Warming up with your new friends, words from Academic Vocabulary: Set #6 (are you trying out your new and improved vocabulary in your writing?)

• Tell us a cool story about your word. What are its roots? What's its story? How can we remember it?

• Use www.oed.com for help (Oxford English Dictionary).

2. Offering you the rubric for the Critical Review and peer editing each other's essays

3. Conferencing, revising, and playing with Writer Reviser

HW:
1. For Monday, Feb 26: Bring in a copy of your British Book Club book.

2. For Wednesday, Feb 28: The final draft of your critical review is due (printed hard copy).

3. For Thursday: If you're writing the poetry paper, bring in your laptop for some work time in class. If you have any idea of what you want to do for your project, bring in your materials.

4. Ongoing: Use your metacognitive feedback to begin drafting your essay or planning your project. Show up for the conference you signed up for.

Critical Review Style Workshop: February 22, 2018

Focus: What elements of style can we develop through the critical review essay?

1. Warming up: What does evaluative language look like, and are you sustaining it throughout your essay?

2. Offering you Style Mini Lesson #3: Sentence Variety

3. Editing our critical reviews with a focus on using concise language, active voice, and sentence variety

• Try Writing Reviser (it does some of the hard work for you).
• Log in (with your Google account).
• Launch Resource
• Create essay --> copy and paste your essay in there

HW:
1. For tomorrow: If you prefer handwritten peer feedback, then print the draft of your essay (otherwise, you can Google share it with someone tomorrow or trade laptops).

2. For Monday, Feb 26: Bring in a copy of your British Book Club book.

3. For Wednesday, Feb 28: The final draft of your critical review is due (printed hard copy).

4. Ongoing: Use your metacognitive feedback to begin drafting your essay or planning your project. Show up for the conference you signed up for.

Critical Review Structure Workshop: February 21, 2018

Focus: How can we revise and strengthen the structure for our critical reviews?

1. Warming up with Academic Vocabulary Quiz #5

2. Engaging in a quick group peer editing of a critical review thesis and structure

2. Revising your own thesis statements and structures; continuing to draft the rest of your critical review essay

HW:
1. Finish the rough draft of your critical review (2-4 pages typed, double-spaced).

2. If you have not turned in your British Book Club proposal yet, please do so.

Playing with Evaluative Language: February 20, 2018

Focus: How is evaluation different from analysis?

1. Warming up with three good things and turning in your British Book Club proposals

2. Finishing the film and discussing it using the 4A's:

• What Assumptions does the documentary hold? 

• What do you Agree with in the documentary?

• What do you want to Argue with in the documentary?

• What parts of the film do you want to Aspire to?

3. Experimenting with evaluative statements

• What was the film's purpose, and how well did it achieve that purpose?

• Who is the intended audience of this documentary, and do you think the film was successful in reaching / moving that audience?

• What's the purpose of a documentary in general? Did this film represent excellence in its genre?

• Is the film a complete success, or did some aspects of it keep it from being fully satisfying?

• Would you watch another film by this director? Why or why not?

3. Perusing one example of published and student critical reviews with a focus on the intro, thesis, and set up

4. Starting to outline and draft your critical reviews

HW:

1. Finish drafting at least the first page of your critical review. 

2. Look over your vocabulary words for tomorrow's brief quiz.

3. Remember to show up for your conference, and come prepared.

4. Acquire your British Book Club book; if you're ordering it, make sure you do so tonight. You need a copy in your hands no later than Monday, Feb 26.

I Am Not Your Negro, Day 2: February 16, 2018

Focus: How is evaluation different from analysis?

1. Warming up with a few reminders

2. Viewing I Am Not Your Negro with an evaluative eye; click here for the note catcher

3. Wrapping up with evaluative statements:

• What was the film's purpose, and how well did it achieve that purpose?

• Who is the intended audience of this documentary, and do you think the film was successful in reaching / moving that audience?

• What's the purpose of a documentary in general? Did this film represent excellence in its genre?

• Is the film a complete success, or did some aspects of it keep it from being fully satisfying?

• Would you watch another film by this director? Why or why not?

HW:
1. Make sure to sign up for a conference.

2. For next Tuesday (Feb 20): Make final decisions on your British book club and complete your proposal.

3. Today marks the end of the first 6 weeks. Make sure you have tied up all loose ends, including the following:

• All Socratic tickets for Invisible Man.
• Your Big Question Blog for Invisible Man.
• Your metacognitive (and make sure you've included your poem)
• You have turned in your Invisible Man book.

I Am Not Your Negro, Day 1: February 15, 2018

Focus: How is evaluation different from analysis?

1. Warming up with an introduction to the critical review and the skill of evaluation

2. Viewing I Am Not Your Negro with an evaluative eye; click here for the note catcher

3. Wrapping up with moments you evaluated

HW:
1. Turn in your Invisible Man books this week and sign up for a conference.

2. For last week: Make sure you have completed your metacognitive and placed in in your shared folder. IF YOU HANDWROTE, YOU MUST PRINT A COPY OF YOUR POEM AND HAND IT IN.

3. For next Tuesday (Feb 20): Make final decisions on your British book club and complete your proposal.

Signing up for the Test: February 14, 2018

Focus: What do we need to know about the A.P. exam process?

1. Warming up with an A.P. presentation brought to you by Mr. Lewis!

2. Writing Valentines to each other using our Set 5 Academic Vocabulary words

3. Starting to think about your British book clubs...happy browsing!

Remains of the Day Trailer

Wuthering Heights Trailer

The Hours Trailer (for Mrs. Dalloway)

Great Expectations Trailer (Charles Dickens)

Dracula Trailer

HW:
1. Turn in your Invisible Man books this week and sign up for a conference.

2. For last week: Make sure you have completed your metacognitive and placed in in your shared folder. IF YOU HANDWROTE, YOU MUST PRINT A COPY OF YOUR POEM AND HAND IT IN.

3. For next Tuesday (Feb 20): Make final decisions on your British book club and complete your proposal.

Writing About Invisible Man: February 13, 2018

Focus: What can we discover about Ellison's intent through the process of writing?

1. Warming up with a gallery walk of yesterday's sketchnotes / concept maps and getting to a thesis-like statement

What does your symbol / scene / character / word help you understand better or differently about Ellison's intent in writing Invisible Man?

Consider a "______ and also _______" statement or a "_____ but also _____ "statement.

2. Writing about Invisible Man, TW-style

HW:
1. If you have not yet published your Big Question Blog, please do so tonight. Turn in your Invisible Man books this week..

2. For Wednesday: 

• No vocabulary assessment yet; we will go over Set 5 on Wednesday.
• Mr. Lewis will be here to discuss A.P. exam registration items with you. 

3. For last week: Make sure you have completed your metacognitive and placed in in your shared folder. IF YOU HANDWROTE, YOU MUST PRINT A COPY OF YOUR POEM AND HAND IT IN.

Making the Invisible Visible: February 12, 2018

Focus: How do we take cloudy/invisible concepts from Invisible Man and make them visible?

1. Warming up with three good things

2. Close reading the epigraph:

• What do you see? 
• What are you wondering? 
• What do we need to look up? 
• What did you discover?

3. Mapping the motifs with sketchnoting

Large-class brainstorming:

• Which characters are you wondering about?
• Which objects are you wondering about?
• Which scenes are you wondering about?
• What words are you wondering about?

Small group mapping:

• With your partners, form a specific, open-ended question about your character, object, scene, or word. 

• Next, create a map / use sketchnoting that combines visual images, arrows, quotations, characters, symbols, epiphanies, etc to form a complex response to your question.

I will combine these into a little notebook and make copies for all of you! Should come in handy in May when you're trying to remember concepts and details from Invisible Man.

HW:
1. For TOMORROW: Finish your Invisible Man Big Question Blog. My tip: Get extremely specific by going into depth on ONE motif/character/scene/word and bringing in ample textual evidence. We will have a Tuesday writing tomorrow on Invisible Man.

2. For Wednesday: 

• No vocabulary assessment yet; we will go over Set 5 on Wednesday.
• Mr. Lewis will be here to discuss A.P. exam registration items with you. 

3. For last week: Make sure you have completed your metacognitive and placed in in your shared folder. IF YOU HANDWROTE, YOU MUST PRINT A COPY OF YOUR POEM AND HAND IT IN.

The End in the Beginning: February 9, 2018

Focus: How is the end in the beginning (and still lies far ahead)?

1. Warming up by rereading the Prologue

• What do you see now that you didn't see the first time? What are you still wondering about?
• Flip through the Epilogue: What shift has the narrator undergone between the Prologue and the Epilogue?
• How is the end in the beginning, and how does it still lie far ahead?

2. Enjoying our final Socratic seminar: Invisible Man, Chapter 24-Epilogue

3. Wrapping up with questions, epiphanies, and kudoes

HW:
Start working on your Invisible Man Big Question Blog (due Tuesday). My tip: Get extremely specific by going into depth on ONE motif and bringing in ample textual evidence.

The Metacognitive: February 8, 2018

Focus: How can you use metacognition to find your way into a poem?

1. Warming up by filling out your poem information on THIS FORM

2. Performing a metacognitive on your poems

Reminders:

• Please place this in your shared folder and label it "__________ (your last name) February Metacognition)"

• Include a copy of the poem at the TOP of your document; remember to include the author. If you're handwriting, please print a copy and staple it to the front of your metacognitive.

• Include an MLA heading.

• This is a Tuesday Writing grade. I'm looking for 55 minutes worth of metacognition in which... 
• each train of thought stems directly from the poem's words and phrases, and...

• you end in a better place than where you began.

3. Turning in your metacognitive if you handwrote

HW:

1. Finish reading Invisible Man (including and especially the Epilogue); complete your final Socratic ticket of your high school career. Let's make it a good one.

Staying on Top of Your Game: February 7, 2018

Focus: How can you find success in A.P. Literature this week?

1. Warming with a brief quiz: Academic Vocabulary, Set 4 and meeting Academic Vocabulary, Set 5!

2. Offering you a a quick style tune-up on yesterday's writing

3. Taking time to either read Invisible Man, compose your final reading ticket, or find your poem for tomorrow's metacognitive

Pick a poem that challenges you; by the end of 55 minutes of metacognitive writing, you should understand the poem better, but perhaps not fully.

If you're looking for something different, may I recommend e.e.cummings?

Old School:
Books and anthologies

New School:
Contemporary literary journals
Poetry In Voice (it's like Spotify, but for poems)

HW:
1. For TOMORROW: Decide on your paper/project poem and bring it to class (electronically or hard copy). It must be from a different time period than your first semester poem. You will spend all of Thursday performing a metacognitive on it. Bring your laptop to class. When you know which poem you're venturing into, sign up HERE.

2. For Friday: FINISH INVISIBLE MAN FOR YOUR FINAL SOCRATIC SEMINAR! YOU WON'T WANT TO MISS IT!

The Myth of Music: February 6, 2018

Focus: How can a slow-down help us speed up in our poetry analysis?

1. Warming up a cold reading / group metacognitive:

• Whiteboard title brainstorming
• Circle the Wagon reading for moments
• Back to the whiteboard for movements

2. Composing the structure of a timed writing:

• Introduction PARAGRAPH with thesis (let your argument drive your structure, not your literary devices)
• Topic sentences
• One really, really good close reading

3. Editing for style: Recap redundancy and teach active voice (also, would any of your new vocabulary words work well here?)


HW:
1. For Wednesday: Keep looking over Academic Vocabulary: Set 4 (and Sets 1-3).

2. For Thursday: Decide on your paper/project poem and bring it to class (electronically or hard copy). It must be from a different time period than your first semester poem. You will spend all of Thursday performing a metacognitive on it.

3. For Friday: FINISH INVISIBLE MAN FOR YOUR FINAL SOCRATIC SEMINAR! YOU WON'T WANT TO MISS IT!

What Makes the Sambo Doll Dance: February 5, 2018

Focus: How does the dancing Sambo doll serve as an extended metaphor?

1. Warming up with three good things

2. Performing a reverse close reading (starting Chapter 21, then rewinding to Chapter 20) of the Dancing Sambo Doll and its larger, metaphorical significance



3. Enjoying our penultimate Socratic of your high school English career: Invisible Man, Chs. 21-23

4. Wrapping up with kudos, questions, and epiphanies

HW:
1. For Wednesday: Keep looking over Academic Vocabulary: Set 4 (and Sets 1-3).

2. For Thursday: Decide on your paper/project poem and bring it to class (electronically or hard copy). It must be from a different time period than your first semester poem. You will spend all of Thursday performing a metacognitive on it.

3. For Friday: FINISH INVISIBLE MAN FOR YOUR FINAL SOCRATIC SEMINAR! YOU WON'T WANT TO MISS IT!

Plunging Outside History: February 2, 2018

Focus: What does it mean to plunge outside history?

1. Warming up musical chairs and a quick inside vs. outside history whiteboard activity

2. Enjoying a Socratic Seminar on Invisible Man, Chapters 17-20

3. Wrapping up with questions, kudos, and epiphanies

HW:
1. Please read Chapters 21, 22, and 23 for Monday and prepare a ticket. THIS IS YOUR PENULTIMATE SOCRATIC OF YOUR ENTIRE HIGH SCHOOL CAREER! WE'RE GOING FOR 100% PARTICIPATION NEXT WEEK!

2. Start looking for a poetry paper/project poem; it must be from a different time period than the one you selected last semester. We will be briefly recapping the paper/project tomorrow in class. You will need your poem by Thursday, Feb 8 for your metacognitive.

Left-Handed Poems: February 1, 2018

Focus: How can your non-dominant hand unlock a new kind of poetry?

1. Warming up with a 3-minute refresher on expectations of poetry projects and papers

2. Meeting Academic Vocabulary: Set 4 (www.quizlet.com)

3. Enjoying the "left-handed" poems of Galvin and Levine

For Galvin:

• Find one line with unusual syntax or an unusual line break.  
• Try rewriting it in a way that makes it more "usual."  
• What did it lose?
• What makes this poem "left-handed"?

For Levine:

• Find three examples of enjambment that seem significant to you. 
• Why do you think he broke the lines there?  In other words, how does it emphasize or create meaning?
• What makes this poem "left-handed"?

4. Trying out your own left-handed poems (or right-handed if you're a lefty like me)

5. Reflecting on the process: How did writing with your non-dominant hand affect your writing? Did it affect your syntax? Line breaks? Other?

HW:
1. Please read through Chapter 20 for Friday and prepare a ticket. 

2. Start looking for a poetry paper/project poem; it must be from a different time period than the one you selected last semester. We will be briefly recapping the paper/project tomorrow in class. You will need your poem by Thursday, Feb 8 for your metacognitive.