Homework: December 20

English 11

• You should make sure that these three things are completed before you come to class tomorrow:
• Read "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong"
• Complete the chart about Mary Anne and Mark
• Complete the handout (white paper) from class today
• You may want to work on your response to the story (What are THREE big ideas that you can take away from the story "Sweetheart..."? HOW does O'Brien get those ideas across to you as an audience?) Remember, your response can be written, or visual (mind map, etc.). Show me what you know--include analysis and proof!

Honors English 12

• Enjoy the holiday party!
• For Wednesday the 2nd, complete the following:
• Find a picture of yourself as a kid! (Read the assignment sheet and model essay for "The Stranger in the Photo..." for more information about why.)
• Read Frankenstein, Letters 1-4 (that's pages 1-16). Use the Mary Shelley packet to help guide your reading. Remember, as I told you in class, this is a frame narrative--the letters help frame the story.

Creative Writing

• We'll finish our film study tomorrow. 
• Many of you have work to get in to me, so DO IT!

Homework: December 19

English 11

1. Fill in the first row on the chart for "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong"
2. Read to the break on p. 106 in the story
3. FIll in the second row on the chart.

Honors English 12

• Finish your Hamlet essay! Don't forget a works cited list...

Creative Writing

• Spend 20 minutes working on your story from today's class exercise.

Homework: December 18

English 11

• Finish your essay on theme in "How to Tell a True War Story." (The directions are on that bright pink sheet!)

Honors English 12

• Work on your Hamlet essay; bring a copy of your critical essay as well as a print out of what you've completed so far on your essay to class tomorrow.

Creative Writing

• Your reader response for Three-Minute Fiction is due tomorrow. Check earlier posts for specific directions.

Creative Writing exercise

Here's the writing exercise from class on 12/17/12. It's from a great book called The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction: Advice and Essential Exercises from Respected Writers, Editors, and Teachers, edited by Dinty W. Moore.

Hamlet resources, part 2

 Here's a link to a page of instructions posted by my Shakespeare professor in college, Prof. Osborn, for citing Shakespeare's plays! When I Googled "mla citation shakespeare text," this page of directions was the first hit. Perfect! Use it to guide your work with citations. The only change I'll ask is that you use ITALICS for the title, instead of underlining.

When you're needing to cite line numbers, this text will help. The line numbers are over to the right...you might need to do a little counting!

Here's the link to a Hamlet concordance...you can search it!

The view from F204 today...

...was not the worst...

Homework: December 17

English 11

• Work on your essay. It's due Wednesday.
• You should come to class tomorrow with an introduction (including thesis), as well as your topic statements and proof identified.

Honors English 12

• Work on your essay. It's due Thursday. (Check in with me if you'd like to discuss an extension.)

Creative Writing 

• By Wednesday, you should go to the 3-Minute Fiction site (linked in an earlier post), read and annotate 3 stories of your choice (based on the same prompt you did in class).
• Then, you'll write a response. The response should include: 
• A response that discusses the approaches each writer took to the same prompt...compare/contrast/discuss...
• Which is your favorite of the three, and why?
• 1 quotation with response from each of the 3 stories.

Homework: December 14

English 11

• We have folks in different places right now. Here's what you need to make sure you've done for Monday:
• Finish reading "How to Tell a True War Story."
• Complete your Mind Map for "True War Story."
• Write the introduction for your essay (check the bright pink sheet for specific instructions) and plan out your essay.

Honors English 12

• Work on your essay! You should check out some of the resources online (check the blog post from earlier today), and do some thinking and planning. 
• Remember, it's due on Thursday of next week. In that time, you need to discern a topic, develop an idea, make some connections between Hamlet and another text, and work in a critical text. You don't want to wait to get started, because you'll want to figure out what your problems are early...

Creative Writing

• Read three short stories on the Three Minute Fiction website (check yesterday's homework post for details).

Looking for a new book? Check out this great chart!

The folks at the Lawrence (Kansas) public library did a whole lot of work to put together charts of book suggestions. There are a bunch more pages...it's a great resource!

CLICK HERE to go to the rest of the charts...

Hamlet resources--Honors English 12

Kenneth B. says, "It's time for YOU
to write something great!"

You're writing an essay! Hooray!

In order to complete this essay, you need to:

• Identify a topic and argument.
• Incorporate another text to compare, contrast, develop or inform your main argument.
• Use at least one piece of literary criticism to help build your argument.

Here are some resources for you:

You can go to this page, which is the HHS Lib Guide scholarly resources page. See over on the left, where it says "Literary Criticism"? Use the search features to look for articles that might help you. You can also use JSTOR from this page.

Before you do that, you might want to check out this site, called Hamlet Haven. A LOT of work has been put into this site, and it presents a massive annotated bibliography of Hamlet resources on all kinds of topics, characters, schools of thought, etc. If you find an article that looks interesting, you'll have to make note of it, then perhaps search through that "Literary Criticism" link on the Lib Guide to access it.

Another useful site might be this one. It has a few articles that are linked from the site, with annotations to tell you what you're looking at.

I also have a few books available in the classroom for you to use; they are collections of critical essays. 

If you find other resources, or have questions about what you've found, please let me know! Happy researching, scholars!

Homework: December 13

English 11

• Work on your Mind Map assignment: You should include content for parts 1-6, at least. (Check the numbered content on the bright green assignment sheet.)

Honors English 12

• Write a 1-page freewrite, in which you examine some of the ideas/topics/etc. that you might write about for your synthesis essay. Remember that you'll need to discern a big idea, a connecting text and a critical essay view. In your freewrite, you can write about one idea in some depth, looking for potential evidence, etc. Or, you might write about a couple of different things you're thinking about.

Creative Writing

• Read and annotate Junot Diaz's short memoir "The Money" (handout from Best American Nonrequired Reading, 2012). Here is is online, in case you forgot your copy somewhere.
• By next Wednesday, you'll need to read, annotate, and write about three of the "Three-Minute Fiction" stories. You can find them at this website.

Homework: December 12

English 11

• Read and take notes on "How to Tell a True War Story" in The Things They Carried--read to the first break on page 76.

Honors English 12

• Finish Act 5, Scene 1 of Hamlet.
• Choose 3 important quotations and respond to them in your journal

Creative Writing

• You're off the hook tonight...we start a new assignment tomorrow.

Homework: December 11

English 11

• If you haven't updated your website yet, that's your homework for tonight! Directions, once again, are here. 
• Make sure you've completed the green sheet on "On the Rainy River," and that you've read "Enemies" and "Friends."

Honors English 12

• Finish reading Hamlet, Act 4.
• Annotate it.
• Write a one-page response about your Act 4 character. Use the Character Focus handout to guide you.

Creative Writing

• We'll discuss The Laramie Project in class tomorrow. Thank you all for being a great audience, and thanks to Krystal and Brooke for getting involved in this important production.
• You have a Reader Response due tomorrow!

Homework: December 10

English 11

• Read "Enemies" and "Friends"
• Complete the Close Reading organizer. Don't forget to respond to one of the prompts from the Making Connections section of your reading response handout on the back!

Honors English 12

• Read Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 1-4. Annotate, and write a reflection based on the Character Focus handout. If you character doesn't show up at all yet, use the regular Reading Log handout for your reflection.
• Keep an eye out for possible topics for your essay--you'll want to start narrowing down a topic as we finish the story this week.

Creative Writing

• Your Reader Response on something funny that you've chosen is due on Wednesday (you have an extra day!)--check previous posts for the directions...

Homework: December 7

English 11

• Finish your character map. You were doing a great job with them in class--make them awesome! Use the guidelines on the handout to make sure that you're meeting all the requirements.

Honors English 12

• Finish reading Act 3, Scene 2 of Hamlet, and read Act 3, Scene 3.
• Write a Reading Log.

Creative Writing

• You have a Reading Response due on Tuesday. Remember, you're picking the text yourself! It should be something humorous, and scripted. You need to annotate it (either writing on a paper text, or writing notes about a video/film/TV text). You should choose and annotate your text by Monday.

Homework: December 6

English 11

• Plan out your character map--you'll do the artwork in class tomorrow!
• Planning involves reading the assignment sheet (it's the second page in your bright green handout) and writing down the information that will need to go on your map. Remember, this task involves pulling quotations that will help explain O'Brien's mental and physical journey.

Honors English 12

• Read and annotate Act 3, Scene 2, up until the break noted in class today. 

Creative Writing

• Your project is due tomorrow! Hooray!

Homework: December 5

English 11

• Read the story "On the Rainy River" from the book The Things They Carried from where we finished reading in class today until the break on page 55. Be prepared for a quiz!
• Take notes on that green sheet...it's how you'll show your growth, and it's prep for the final assessment.

Honors English 12

• Write a response using the Character Traits handout you received in class. If you need another copy, click here.
• Here's the question: Which of the words on that list BEST describes Hamlet? And, which LEAST describes him? Write a justification for each choice.

Creative Writing

• Projects due Friday! 
• Reader Response due Monday.
• If you're going on the field trip Tuesday, spend some time reading the excerpt from The Grief of Others.

Homework: December 4

English 11

• Catch up on any work you need to finish: read through the story "Spin" in The Things They Carried (that's through page 38).
• Work on your Jimmy Cross paragraph if it's not done.
• Write your response in your journal about today's questioning activity (remember, in small groups you asked questions about the statement: Making decisions is easy). The prompt for this journal response is: How did you feel about today's questioning activity? 

Honors English 12

• Thank your folks for writing advice letters to you! (If you're a parent and you don't know what this means, feel free to check in with your student!)
• Read Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1, and write a Reading Log response.

Creative Writing

• Work on your project! It's due Friday, remember?