DAY 18: Introduction to Poetry Out Loud

We are a little out of kilter between the groups, but we'll all be back on the same page by tomorrow. Here were the differences:

• Today, Group 2 covered the first 5 words in Unit 3 of the vocabulary book, and lesson 5 (predicate adjectives) in the Sentence Diagramming workbook. Groups 4 and 6 will catch up tomorrow.
• Groups 4 and 6 took the vocabulary/story/diagramming quiz today, which group 2 took yesterday.

All groups were introduced to the Poetry Out Loud Project. Here is the overview:

WHAT:
Poetry Out Loud is a nationwide competition in which high school students recite (from memory) anthologized poems and are judged on their performances. The competition is run in a pyramid formation; after winning classroom competitions, students compete against other classroom winners of the sophomore class until three remain. These three sophomores will compete against the top three juniors. Only one student may win to represent USM in the state competition.

Winners at all levels are eligible for prizes.

• SCHOOL PRIZES: To be determined.
• STATE PRIZES: Each winner at the state level will receive $200 and an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington (with an adult chaperone) to compete for the national championship. The state winner's school will receive a $500 stipend for the purchase of poetry books. One runner-up in each state will receive $100; his or her school will receive $200 for the purchase of poetry books.
• NATIONAL PRIZES: A total of $50,000 in scholarship awards and school stipends will be awarded at the Poetry Out Loud National Finals, with a $20,000 college scholarship award for the National Champion.

HOW MANY POEMS MUST YOU MEMORIZE?

• To recite in the classroom and to the sophomore class 1 (this is the one that counts toward your English grade)
• If you are one of the winners of the soph. class competition 2
• If you are the winner of the school competition 3
  
  State and national contestants will recite their poems in rounds, not consecutively, with each student reciting one poem in each round.

WHEN WILL POETRY RECITATIONS TAKE PLACE?

You must be prepared to recite before your class by Tuesday, October 14th.
Sophomore class recitations will be done the week of October 27th.
The recitation assembly will take place Tuesday, November 4th.

WHERE MUST I FIND A POEM?
All poems MUST come from the online anthology at the Poetry Out Loud website: http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poems/

HOW WILL I BE JUDGED?

In the classroom, you will be judged by your peers and your teacher. You will be evaluated on the following elements:

• Physical Presence
• Voice and Articulation
• Appropriateness of Dramatization
• Level of Difficulty
• Evidence of Understanding
• Overall Performance
• Accuracy
  

Please visit the following web address for full details about each of these criteria: http://www.poetryoutloud.org/students/checklist.html

********************END OVERVIEW*******************

After we discussed the overview of the Poetry Out Loud project, we looked at a video so you could see the contest in action.

Your homework tonight:

1. Pick and print THREE possible poems you would be interested in memorizing. All poems must grom from the Poetry Out Loud online anthology.

2. Group 2, you should add 5 sentences to the wikispace.

DAY 17: Discussion Wrap Up

Today, there were no new words and no new lessons in sentence diagramming. Instead, I invited the two groups who met today (groups 4 and 6: group 2 was off today) into a more complicated discussion likely to get unwieldy.

I presented each group with a moral dilemma: Let's say your best friend admits to you that, unable to handle the stress of his/her life, he/she cheated on a significant test. Your friend swears you to secrecy and you agree. However, you later find out another innocent person is getting into major trouble for the cheating your friend did. You beg your friend to come clean, but he/she refuses. What do you do?

Your job was to find a solution that could be acceptable to all. While your debates over the scenario lead me to believe that you're morally sound folks, the discussions hit some bumpy parts: people talked over one another, monopolized, grew entrenched and impassioned, etc. And while some jumped into a hard core debate with just a few others, the remainder of the class grew bored and/or inattentive. While hardcore debating is fun for some and certainly keeps one from falling asleep, that doesn't necessarily make for a productive discussion. We'll continue to work on our consensus building skills.

Your homework:
Study for the quiz. It will include vocabulary from both units 1 and 2 (mostly unit 2), sentence diagramming from lessons 1-4, and questions from the short stories "New African" and "Sponono."

DAY 16: Recap of discussion methods

Today, there were no new vocabulary words or sentence diagramming lessons (alas).  Instead, we took another look at discussion using the questions from last night.  Those who answered 1, 2, 3 and 7 spoke while those who answered 4, 5, 6 and 8 watched and listened.  Each spectator was given one of four things to watch/listen for:

1. Positive Community Building Behaviors: These were instances when participants reached out to quieter students and helped then to join and feel comfortable in the conversation, or did something else to make the conversation a productive and in so far as it was possible, pleasant.
   
2. Positive Consensus Building Behaviors: These were instances when participants sought to make intellectual connections between ideas mentioned by others, or contributed additional/different information to create a newer, deeper understanding.
3. Key Ideas: Spectators here simply kept notes on the ideas as they progressed.
4. Negative Behaviors: This included anything that stalled conversation, contributed to unease or polarization (interrupting, ignoring, not making an effort, etc.).

Once the first group finished speaking, groups swapped roles.  Each speaking group had about fifteen minutes to discuss their four questions and then address the over-arching question (see DAY 15 for full set of questions).  Speakers could use the paragraphs they prepared last night.

The final fifteen minutes of class involved a discussion about the discussions.  Before we began that, I asked everyone to give themselves a "gut check grade" on their own discussions and on the other groups.  While all groups had "A" level moments, averages actually tended to be in the mid "B" to high "C" range.  Why?  Not everyone pushed him or herself to contribute, seek consensus, or demonstrate leadership.

I am confident from the comments that I heard that you know what it takes to have an excellent discussion, but now we need to challenge ourselves to do what's required: invite others, lead in whatever way we can, and construct meaning from our collective efforts.

The homework is to review for the quiz on Monday/Tuesday (depending on what section you are in) which covers units 1 & 2 vocabulary (predominantly unit 2), up through lesson four in the sentence diagramming workbook, and the short stories "New African" and "Sponono."

If you will be celebrating the high holy days, please let me know so we may make alternative arrangements.

DAY 15: Sentence Diagramming

NOTICE: I will give extra credit to those who find typographical errors in my blog posts. The first person to find an error should post a comment at the end of the entry. In the post, please explain what the error is and how to correct it. To receive the credit, your own comments must be error free.


Today, we came back after a weekend and two alternative learning days where you heard all about water and built community with our second and third graders. Exhausting, yes, but I hope interesting, too!

You turned in your revised paragraphs to me.



So, we had a lightweight day, covering the last five words of Unit 2 in the vocabulary book, doing the review exercises for lessons 1-3 in the Sentence Diagramming Workbook, and going through lesson 4 on attributive adjectives.


See if you can answer all of the following questions. If you cannot, you still need to review:

• What's a modal auxiliary?
• What gets capitalized in a sentence diagram?
• What is an indefinite article?
• Where do articles appear in a sentence diagram?
• What is a predicate nominative?
• How far down does the line separating subject and verb extend?
• How do you indicate a predicate nominative?
• If there is more than one attributive adjective, how is that handled?

Now, the syllabus said that you would be given an MLA worksheet today and would take a quiz on MLA formatting tomorrow. THAT IS NO LONGER TRUE! That has been postponed.


HOMEWORK
1. Write five new sentences on the wikispace.
2. Choose ONE of the questions (1-8) handed out in class, and write a paragraph in response. Your paragraph must be a minimum of six sentences in length, and must contain at least two pieces of evidence.

OVERARCHING QUESTION: Why doesn’t Sponono ever learn to change his ways?

1. Why can Sponono be an excellent gardener on his own, but get into trouble whenever he has to work with someone else?
2. When Sponono quarrels with someone, why he is quick to point out the other person’s faults, even though he has many faults of his own?
3. Why isn’t Sponono able to conceal from the principal the fact that he stole the Anderson’s money? Why can’t he keep his eyes off the stone?
4. Why does Sponono keep asking to work in the principal’s garden?
5. Why does Sponono think that being near the principal will keep him out of trouble, when it has not helped him in the past? Why does he regard it as “unethical” for the principal to remind him of this?
6. Why does Sponono expect the principal’s conduct toward him to surpass “in super-human degree” his own conduct toward the principal?
7. Why does Sponono take it on himself to try to talk him out of sending Johannes Mofoking to prison? Why is he able to make the principal change his mind?
8. Why does Sponono tell the principal that he doesn’t think it is wrong to lie in order to save a person?

DAY 14: Assembly line editing

Tooday, we covered words 11-15 in Unit 2 of the vocabulary book and lesson 3 in the Sentence Diagramming workbook. Lesson three focused on Predicate Nominatives, which are nouns that:

1. Come after a form of the verb "be" (is, am, are, were, will be, had been, etc.) or "become" (had become, becoming, will become, etc.), and;
2. Rename the subject (e.g. in the sentence "We are neighbors," "we" is the subject and "neighbors is the predicate nominative.

So, do a quick review and see what you can identify and explain. If you can't explain it or quickly think of how to diagram it, GO REVIEW! Here is what you should know so far:

• Subjects
• Verbs
• Helping Verbs
• Modal Auxiliaries
• Definite Article
• Indefinite Articles
• Predicate Nominatives

After we finished with vocabulary and diagramming, I had everyone place his or her homework from last night (the 12-sentence paragraph about "New African") in a manila folder, and write his or her name on the tab. Then, everyone was assigned a job on the Editing Assembly Line.

• 2 people reviewed central claims (thesis statements). This handout can be found on the wikispace.
• 3 people reviewed sandwich #1. This handout can be found on the wikispace.
• 3 people reviewed sandwich #2. This handout can be found on the wikispace.
• 3 people reviewed sandwich #3. This handout can be found on the wikispace.
• 2 people reviewed style and mechanics. The handout they used can be found on the wikispace.
• 3 people gave a holistic, overall "gut-check" review. The handout they used can be found on the wikispace.

At the end of the period, you had about ten assessments of your paper. Even better, you got to read ten sample paragraphs of differing qualities, which allowed you to draw some new conclusions about the qualityof your own.

YOUR HOMEWORK FOR WEDNESDAY:

1. Write 5 new sentences on the wikispace
2. Read and annotate (using a system that works for you) "Sponono" in Junior Great Books.
3. Revise the paragraph that we worked on today, using the feedback you received and the MLA handout which I put in your mailbox, and which you may also download from the wikispace.

DAY 13: "New African" and Point of View & Conflict

Today, we reviewed words 6-10 in unit 2 of the vocabulary book, and covered lesson 2 in the Diagramming Sentences workbook. There, we learned about how to diagram definite and indefinite articles. For purposes of review, I also asked you to circle the modal auxiliaries in each sentence where they occurred.

Afterwards, I asked you to spend several minutes flagging parts of the story where:

• Sarah experienced conflict with herself, others, or larger forces.
• Sarah's perspective seemed limited.
• Sarah's perspective differed markedly from those around her.

I then reminded you that the story is set in 1963, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, and suggested you consider what is implied by that. Starting with your own interpretive questions from the night before, I asked you to discuss the story, eventually trying to steer conversation toward answering the following questions:

• What does the title of the story mean?
• By the end, whose perspective is the reader supposed to consider limited?
• Aside from Sarah's conflict with joining a Baptist church, what larger conflict is suggested by the story?

When conversation seemed to stall or drift, I pointed you to passages that indicate what the African-American church-going community of New African seem to have traditionally valued. Then, keeping in mind that Baptism is the means by which an individual officially joins a church community, I asked you think about just why she doesn't want to join the church.

That's about as far as we got.  I asked one of the three sections to complete a self-assessment on participation.  Those of you who did not get the assessment will see it soon enough (to be added to the wikispace on Thursday).

HOMEWORK:

1. Post your sentences on the wikispace.

2. Write a 12 sentence paragraph on "New African."  You may choose any topic of your choice, but if you are at a loss, try this: Why doesn't Sarah want to be baptized?

DAY 12: Reviewing the 12-sentence

Today, we started with Unit 2 in the vocabulary book, and did one lesson in the Sentence Diagramming Workbook. It was painless. The technical terms we covered included: subjects, verbs, helping verbs (words that determine tense, e.g. will have been, will be, had, had been, etc.), and modal auxiliaries (words that determine condition/obligation, e.g. could, should, would, can, may).

Then, I asked you to consider the specific skills we have covered so far:

READING (associated handouts are in parentheses):

• Annotating (Annotating Literature)
• Determining relationships between characters & taking good notes on that (COMC Family Tree)
• Considering a story in terms of its parts to see how meaning is constructed (literary terms)
• Learning to question a text interpretively (writing questions)

SPEAKING & LISTENING:

• Asking follow up questions ("What leads you to think that?")
• Inviting others to join the conversation
• Proffering your opinion with evidence
• Summarizing other people's statements for more useful notes
• Forcing yourself to take risks and jump in

WRITING:

• Writing an arguable, focused, text-based thesis.
• Making a claim in support of the thesis.
• Introducing a quotation.
• Explaining the quotation's relationship to the thesis.
• Transitioning within a paragraph.

These are the major skills we have look at so far. I then asked you to consider them, overall, as a game you ar learning, and to then assess yourself using the following statements as guidelines:

• I know the rules of the game, but I haven't played.
• I'm playing the game, but I'm at JV level.
• I'm a bubble player.
• I'm varsity level.

In terms of my expectations of you, you should feel that you are somewhere around the first two. As the semester keeps going and we keep practicing these skills (as you would dribbling, passing, defending, etc.), you should feel yourself increasing in mastery and working toward bubble status. By June, you should not only be at varsity level, but in contention for captaincy!

The reason I brought any of this up is because some of you are fretting about whether or not you're doing it all right. So long as you feel you know what is expected of you, and that you have a sense of what you'll need to improve as we go, you're in good shape. This isn't an invitation to let up if you feel you've got a sense of things. I still expect you to give me the best of your work and that you will actively strive to master each skill as we go. From watching your behavior in class, the amount that's written in your homework, the degree to which you participate and take notes, the quality of what you turn in, your quiz scores, your willingness to come ask questions if you are uncertain about something or need help, your ability to plan ahead, and just plain general comportment at school, I have a pretty good idea of what your best ought to look like, and you do, too. You know what your effort grade would be right about now, and so do I. Keep it up, work hard, and all will be well.

After that little diversion, I had you grade each other's paragraphs using an editing worksheet, which you can find on the wikispace. In addition to having you look at specifics of the paragraph that we've discussed, it also brought in some new ideas, including:

• Use of the literary present: We use the literary present because characters forever do what they do. Edmond Dantes will forever by arriving in Marseilles in the opening chapters of The Count of Monte Cristo. You can check your book to confirm! Ten bucks says it will be the same tomorrow and the next day, too. To acknowledge this perpetual being of the characters, we use present tense, so say "The Count says..." and not "The Count said..."
• Avoiding second person address: Never use "you" in formal writing, unless the word appears in a quote. "You" is informal in writing, and to use it in a formal essay is akin to wearing a grubby t-shirt with your nicest pants or skirt.
• Choosing precise, vivid words.
• "The character is very interesting and has many bad traits" = DULL & VAGUE.
• "The antagonist is a mesmerizing but vicious scoundrel whose cruelty seems limitless" = FAR MORE INTERESTING.
• Avoiding drab "docent-isms" like "This shows that..." Docent-isms (my word) make papers feel like dull, grade-school tours to the museum. Get rid of them altogether to improve the readability and appeal of your paper.

HOMEWORK:

1. Add new sentences to the wikispace, using the link for your class.
2. Read "New African" in Junior Great Books.
3. Add 2 interpretive questions about the story to the wikispace. One question sould stem from consideration of "Point of View" from the Literary Terms sheet, and the other question should stem from consideration of "Conflict" from the Literary Terms sheet.

Questions? Leave a comment or send an email.

DAY 11: Symbol as a key into a story

Today, you took your first vocabulary quiz of the year. You were asked to pick words that best fit sentences about the stories we have read, to write sentences of your own about the stories which used vocabulary terms and provided adequate context to discern meaning, and finally to determine which sentence out of several used a vocabulary term correctly. You should continue to study vocabulary in a way that prepares you for this kind of thinking. If you are still just using flashcards with words and definitions on them, you should go back and read the blog entry for DAY 2, and definitely read the corrected sentences on  the wikispace.

After the quiz, I asked you determine where the narrator appears on the spectrum seen below when the story first opens, and then to consider where he appears at the story's close:

Inexperienced                                                  Experienced

Ignorant ---------------------------------------Knowledgeable

Un-evolved                                                      Evolved

Youthful & Idealistic                            Older & Wiser

After you made your determination, I asked you and your table mates to consider how the author's use of a symbol helps demonstrate the story's theme of "evolution."  To help, we consulted the Literary Terms guide given out last week, and which you can find on the wikispace.

Remember, a symbol is an object that has literal qualities that are used to reflect an abstract idea.  For example:

FOSSIL: 

• Unchanging artifact;
  
• Studied by scientists; 
  
• from a past, less developed state; 
  
• gives clues about a life, but doesn't necessarily explain it.
  
• It represents a life form, but doesn't have a real existence.

HOW MIGHT THIS APPLY TO "At the Pitt-Rivers" by Penelope Lively?

• Well, rather than actually form a human relationship, the narrator goes to a museum.  Without real world experience, his odds of changing are little.
  
• He studies the couple of the older man and younger woman to study a life that is not his.
• He himself is less evolved in love than the couple he watches.
• In the same way fossils don't speak to us or explain things, the narrator relies totally on observation--they never actually communicate directly.
• As the narrator hides  from life in the museum, and there the couple hides away from the world, too, neither really have a genuine existence either.

In this exercise, you got a feeling of how you might use a part of a story to help explain a whole.  To be frank, I'm not sure this went so well (things were rushed at the end), which is why I will email this entry to you so you can read all the detail I had hoped the lesson would contain.

The trick to thinking about symbols is to list their literal qualities, figure out what is suggested by them, and then see points of connection with the stories.  If you get the logic of the fossil example above, then you're in good shape.

HOMEWORK

Your homework tonight is to take a stab at a 12-sentence paragraph, which you should write about "At the Pitt-Rivers."  Answer an interpretive question that is of interest to you.  You know enough now to create your own.  But, if you get stuck, try this: Why does the narrator rip up his poem after he sees the man jilt the younger woman?

The other reminder: Bring your sentence diagramming workbook tomorrow!

DAY 10: The paragraph in detail and "Zoo Island"

Today, we looked at the 12 sentence paragraph in depth, studying a model and talking about its individual parts, specifically:

How the thesis statement is a more focused answer to an interpretive question:

For example:
The question:

Public rituals are often a means of bringing communities together and making them stronger. Is this the case in “The Lottery”?

The general response:
In this story, rather than promoting a strong community, tradition works to destroy it.

Tweak response to meet the criteria of a good thesis and give it more specific shape:
Rather than promote a strong community, the tradition of the lottery, in which one of the town residents is randomly selected to be stoned to death, works to destroy all that strong communities rely upon: thoughtful individuals, healthy families, and collective respect for all members.

Tweak the individual claims of the quote sandwiches to focus ideas further:

• Individuals in the town do not know why they are doing what they doing and are not encouraged to think independently or take responsibility for their actions
• Individuals within families worry more about their own fates that about the fate of the family itself
• As a result, respect for human life isn’t fostered on any level, and the whole community is damaged.

We also talked about including evidence effectively to back up these claims, and using commentary sentences to carefully explain just how our quotes demonstrate our claims. Finally, we mentioned how writers can include exposition (see your literary terms sheet!) to make sure readers understand what is going on. You can find a copy of the PowerPoint presentation from today's class on the wikispace.

Afterward, I had you start with a partner and start working up toward larger groups in discussing the following question: How does the census promote self-respect among the residents of Zoo Island?

You came up with about four or five reasons. These are the sorts of reasons you would include in a thesis if you were writing a 12-sentence paragraph.

HOMEWORK:

Finally, I gave you a handout about annotating literature (also on the wikispace), and I asked you to try it on the short story "At the Pitt-Rivers" which you will read this weekend. There is also a vocab and short story quiz on Monday. Be sure to click the "corrected sentences" link on the wikispace so you can download a studyguide for the vocabulary portion (as of 7:15 PM on Saturday, all sentences were corrected and available for download).

Football players, you have a late game Monday and a big assignment that night. Plan ahead.

DAY 9: Condiments for serving up quotes & the big picture

Today, we went over the last 5 words of vocabulary unit 1.  The quiz will be on Monday AND will contain questions about the short stories we have been reading as well, including:

• "The Village Watchman"
• "Miriam"
• "Zoo Island"
• "At the Pitt Rivers" (which you'll have for homework over the weekend).

Then, we talked about the condiments you might use to serve up a quotation sandwich (I know, I know, the metaphor is growing hackneyed, but bear with it): the dab, the dollop, and lotsa sauce.  Please refer to the handout given in class, and which you may find on the wikispace. Essentially, no matter how you include a quote, you MUST identify certain features for your reader:

• Who is speaking?
• Under what circumstances?
• In what manner?

Once we had an idea of the different ways we could introduce a quote, we graded each other's homework, using a guide sheet, which may also be found on the wikispace.

Few people received an A range grade from their peers, and the problems in each section tended to be the same, with the three primary ones being:

• The thesis didn't answer "how" or "why."
• Quotes were plopped in without an introduction.
• The commentary sentences didn't always relate back to the thesis.

Get used to subjecting every thesis you write to the "how or why" test.  I suspect that many of you are studying hard for the Sparta/Athens history test these days.  Take a look at your thesis statements written in response to potential essay questions.  Are you stating facts, or are you explaining how those facts came about, or how they affected other people, or why they were the way the were?  I cannot emphasize this enough: ensuring that every thesis you write addresses some aspect of explaining how or why things are the way they are will make you a better writer and a better thinker.  This all goes back to Bloom's Taxonomy (see Day 2 of the blog posts).  By answering how or why, you are forcing yourself to think at the analysis and synthesis levels, whereas you are at the comprehension and application levels if you simply state a fact.  Ask your parents to look over thesis statements with you, using the five key rules of a good claim to guide you.  This does not come naturally at first, so don't worry if things aren't easy.  They'll get easier.  I promise.

As for testing your quotation sandwiches, ask yourself:

• Did I name the speaker?
• Did I explain the circumstances? (Who is being spoken to, in what situation, etc.  Include these details so your reader can keep track of what is happening.)
• Did I precisely indicate how the speaker is speaking?

Now, read JUST your thesis statement and your comment sentences.  The two should have an obvious connection.  If they don't, you'll need to go back and tweak it. 

To end the period, we quickly looked at a sample 12-sentence paragraph about a story that you have not read.  Even though the story was unfamiliar to you, you could make sense of the author's argument because the author put in a number of details to help give you, the reader, a firm grasp of what was going on.  Tomorrow in class, we'll take a close look at that paragraph to see just how it's structured, and pay extra attention to those areas which cause problem on your homework last night.  

Your homework:

1. Write 5 new sentences for the last 5 words of unit 1.

2. Read "Zoo Island" in Junior Great Books.

DAY 8: Claims and Sandwiches

Today, we did words 11-15 in unit 1, and addressed some of the issues regarding too many people working on the wikispace at once. Copy and paste rather than save over someone's work. In unit 2, we'll get things squared away. To wrap up our conversation about the short story "Miriam," we responded to a contentious statement:

Miriam helps Mrs. Miller by forcing the widow to face her demons and listen to her desires. Most of the classes split into smaller groups to discuss this individually. During the course of the discussion, I asked you to pause and take stock of the conversation: was everyone speaking? Were people asking follow up questions? Were people furnishing evidence to back up their ideas? At the end, I asked each person in each group to go around and summarize what he or she took away from the group's conversation. These sorts of summaries are critical to taking good notes, and to clarify our own thinking. When the groups had finished, each group wrote a response on the board to the original statement, explaining why there was agreement or disagreement with the statement.

In some ways, what you informally presented in this statement was a thesis. Even if people disagreed with the idea, they could tell from the phrasing and clarity whether or not is was a compelling thesis.

In the days ahead, we will be working on thesis writing carefully. I provided two handouts today:

1. The first is "What Makes a Good Claim?" and you can find that on the wikispace. Here, we looked at the 5 crtiteria any good thesis must meet: arguable, text based, focused, provable, and answers how or why. Study the examples provided.
2. The second document is tonight's homework, "The Quotation Sandwich." There, I ask you to develop an original claim about the short story "Miriam" and to support it with one quotation sandwich. We'll workshop those in class tomorrow.

In none of the sections did we get as far as I had hoped--your discussions were just too good.

HOMEWORK:

• Do 5 new wikispace sentences.
• Using the worksheet from class, practice making an original claim about the story “Miriam” and backing your claim up with three different sandwiches.

Day 7: Interpretive Questions and Literary Terms

Today, we examined how the collective answers to an interpretive question can yield larger, more encompassing understandings of the story.

We began with the question: Why does Miriam smash the vase of imitation flowers on the ground?

To make sure that we had a firm grasp of just what the question was asking and to refresh our memories, we read the paragraphs in question, which appear in the middle of page 8.

Then, we brainstormed, and you yielded up a wide variety of answers:

• She didn't like imitation flowers.
• She was testing Mrs. Miller's resolve.
• She was angry that she did not get a good night kiss.
• She wanted to provoke the old woman to react.

This brainstorming also led to other recollections:

• She likes beautiful or luxurious things, like the brooch or almond cakes or glazed cherries.
• She is well (if inappropriately) dressed, with high-end materials.
• She often ignores Mrs. Miller's questions in a way that is rude.
• She demands that Mrs. Miller behave in certain ways (e.g. telling her to "sit down," etc.)

Once we looked at all of these answers, we saw that collectively, they yielded a pretty full picture of who Miriam is as a character.

Then, we looked at the "Literary Terms" sheet, and, using the description and questions to guide us, we determined that Miriam is certainly the story's antagonist and that you could argue that she is static (her approach to Mrs. Miller remains insistent and bizarre) or dynamic (she grows more intense and complex in her wants). Miriam remains a largely flat character, as the only expository or background information given to us is mere physical description. That, however, is nonetheless telling, providing us with indirect characterization, through which we may make our own interpretations about this creepy little girl.

In the course of our study today, we came across a vocabulary term we didn't know: wanly. For every unknown word you find that cannot be deciphered from context, you should LOOK IT UP. http://www.dictionary.com is your friend, one you should consult often.

We also talked more broadly about how literary terms are used to help clarify this sort analytical work. Tonight, we will be working on our understanding of the two main characters is "Miriam": Miriam the younger and Mrs. H.T. Miller. Please be sure to check out the wikispace if you need either of the handouts from class ("Literary Terms" & "Miriam and Characterization"). I also passed out a new syllabus for the unit. There, you can see what we will be focusing on, when your quizzes will be held, etc. See me with questions on any of it.

DAY 6: The mechanics of discussion.

Today, we started our study of vocabulary, and looked at the dynamics of conversation about a story, using Terry Tempest Williams' "The Village Watchman."

For homework, you were to read the story and flag evidence in answer to five questions found at the end of the story (see the copy provided to you).

In class, you were randomly assigned a role designed to isolate a specific aspect of class discussion. Each student drew a slip of paper from a bag. Seven slips said “SPEAKER”; seven said “OBSERVER” (four of which had pink dots) and four said “NOTE-TAKER.” Each job had a job description, as noted below. The speakers then discussed the story for fifteen minutes. Then observers discussed the speakers' behavior and ideas for fifteen minutes. Note takers then had a chance to say what helped them be successful and what worked against them.

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SPEAKERS

· Your job is to address the question with other speakers in a substantive, useful, civil way.

· Your goal is to come to a larger understanding about the work as a whole, and to be able to summarize not only that understanding, but the reasoning and interpretation that got you there.

OBSERVERS

If you have a pink dot:

· Your job is to pay close attention to HOW people are speaking, with consideration to the following:

• Are they civil?
• Are they relying on one another for help?
• Are they using the text for evidence?
• Are they staying on topic?
• Are they keeping their goal in mind?
• What specifically are they doing well?
• Who is exercising good leadership and how?
  

· Your goal is to create an effective assessment of how the participants work together, and to generate a list of suggestions about what to continue doing, and how to improve. You will give a grade to the discussion, and three specific reasons to substantiate it.

If you do not have a pink dot:

· Your job is to pay close attention to WHAT people are saying, with consideration to the following:

• Are ideas being fully developed before participants move on?
  
• Are ideas being supported with strong evidence?
  
• Is the logic people are pursuing sound and true?
  
• Is the larger understanding a useful, detailed one?
  
• Does what they are saying help make the rest of the story make sense?
  

· Your goal is to create an effective assessment of the quality of their ideas, and to assess the degree to which the speakers have met their goal. You will give a grade to the discussion, and three specific reasons to substantiate it.

NOTE TAKERS

· Your job is to take notes on the conversation as it progresses.

· Your goal is to generate a list of key points made by each speaker and to note the larger understanding the speakers have reached. You will be explaining what helps you do your job and what is problematic. From this, we will generate a list of suggestions that make good note taking easier to do.

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All three sections offered similar results:

1. To participate effectively, one must be prepared.
   
2. Leaders lead not by speaking most, but by asking questions that get more people involved. Follow up questions to other speakers work well, but an even higher level of leadership is shown when participants look for ways to get quieter students involved in a way that is not uncomfortable to them.
   
3. "What makes you think that?" is an essential question to any substantive discussion and should be uttered often. It is OK to challenge other people's ideas with this question because it allows one to be civil while disagreeing, and also demands a higher quality of scholarship from everyone.
   
4. More is gained from discussion when the text is used. Closely investigating the language of a text makes it easier to talk about, and yields more nuanced understandings.
   
5. We need to work on genuinely responding to other people's ideas, rather than waiting for our turn to speak. In every conversation, discussion seemed to go around the room with not much connection between what speakers were saying. This was especially the case when conversation started. One person would give her answer to the question, then the next person would give him answer to the same question, but the two speakers didn't talk about how their answers related. We need to work on that.
   
6. It is important to pause and summarize what has been said from time to time. This makes it much easier to take useful notes.
   
7. We should have an idea of what we want to understand more fully by the end of class when we begin our discussion, and save a few minutes at the end of class to figure out what we have learned.
   

YOUR HOMEWORK FOR TONIGHT: Read "Miriam" in Junior Great Books and write two interpretive questions based on the story. You should use the handout from class to help you.

DAY 5: In class impromptu

Today in the computer lab, you were asked to apply the same logic you used in your homework--determining whether or not the Count is fair overall--to a specific situation: is the Count fair in his dealings with Mercedes? You were pointed to specific passages within the novel to help guide your thinking, and asked to provide concrete evidence to back up your assertions. Your final product was to be one page, one paragraph in length.

This assignment gives me a base line understanding of how comfortable you are analyzing text, providing, contextualizing and explaining evidence, and demonstrating mastery of standard English rules. In the weeks ahead, we will be taking a close look at the specifics of writing literary analysis papers, addressing the skills they require.

When you get your papers back, you will be given reviews and exercises tailor-made to address your specific weaknesses. You are to take those handouts and exercises seriously, for repetition of those errors in your work can cost you on future grades. I will ask you to meet with me for one on one instruction if you feel the overviews and exercises I provide are not enough to help you achieve mastery.

DAY 4: Notes and Conversation

After taking our quiz, we looked at the topic of whether or not the Count is fair in his treatment of others.  I asked you to take notes on the discussion, which some of you found easier to do than others.  A lot of us felt that our notes were of little use.  So, either our conversations didn't come to well-defined points, or we need to practice note taking.  Which do you think it is?

I recommended that all of you make sure that you title and date your notes, make a point of referencing the questions that were asked and those who answered.  With those triggers, it will be easier later to recreate what someone said and to jot down those ideas.  However, in the conversations of days to come, we'll pause frequently for people to summarize their key points.

One thing we will clearly have to work on is referencing text specifics, rather than alluding to general plot points.  In the weeks ahead, expect us to pay attention to how we can best talk about stories and be productive at it.

In the next class, you'll be showing me how you can answer a specific question on a specific passage in clear, cogent prose.  The journal entry for next class (asking you to explain whether or not the Count is fair in his treatment of others) will help you prepare.

DAY 3: Preparing for quote quizzes

Today, we did two things: first, we double checked our character maps, and then we created mini-quizzes, containing easy, medium and hard quotes. To see all of the quotes that students wrote on the board, click here.

We noted that easy quotes are those which have plenty of context clues so that people who have done a basic, quick read of the book should be able to put together the clues offered to draw a conclusion about who is speaking and under what circucmstances. Hard quotes are those which require a more in-depth, nuanced knowledge of the story and a keen eye for language. Medium quotes are those which fall somewhere in between.

Regardless of whether a quote is easy or hard to decipher, all quotes for a quote quiz should relate to something essential about the character and/or the plot, and the best way to study for a quote quiz is as follows:

1. Make sure you understand the relationships, motivations, actions and emotional states of characters. For example, in our character maps, many of us identified how people related to one another by drawing connecting lines between names. It is important to go beyond that and to write words that explain the connection. For example:
   
2. Once you have the connections explaining how and why people behave as they do, it is easier to determine essential quotations. For example, just knowing the above makes it easier to determine the source of this quotation: "'I'm a Bonapartist, too, and I have only one thing to say to you: I'm going to kill you. From this moment I declare a vendetta against you. The next time we meet, it will mean that your last hour has come'" (186).
   
3. When you go to the book to study, you should be asking questions, not memorizing quotes. Specifically:

What is the essence of the character?

Why does the character behave as he or she does?

What are the major actions this character undertakes?

What quotes reflect this?

By approaching the book in this manner, you should be able to identify those quotes most likely to be used in a testing situation, and to explain why they are signficant in explaining character, plot or theme.

Be sure to check out the end of the DAY 2 post for tips about questions to ask yourself when seeing a quote you can't quite place!