DAY 4 - CYCLE 14 - SEMESTER 2

Notes are on the wikispace for today's class, in which we talked about Huck's growing appreciation for Jim's situation and his own sense of moral agency (i.e. responsibility to and for others). He is clearly making the transition from being self-preserving to being self-sacrificing, and we like him more for it. Where are YOU on the scale? Are you more advanced than Huck?




We'll work on our T-Shirts in Friday's class. Try diagramming your sentences to speed your efforts. Some links to help you:
The author's website with LOTS of sample diagrams
More easy to follow examples.
How to diagram "See Spot run" (more complicated than you think).
Most basics covered here; see esp. slides 7 & 10

Please read up through 275 for tomorrow. While we will not discuss the book, please remember that you must have all of the Steinbeck novel read for Tuesday, and I want you to parse out your time accordingly.

DAY 3 - CYCLE 14 - SEMESTER 2

Today, we reviewed sentence diagramming, lessons 13-18. I had you diagram the following sentences:

• Most of the students did well on the first part of the test. (Prepositional phrases)
• Roberta, did you eat the dessert in the faculty refrigerator? (Direct address)
• Charlie, a senior, is scared of college. (Appositives)
• Hooray! We beat out opponents, the Nicolet Knights! (Interjections and appositives)
• Have the freshmen girls' backpacks been found? (Possessive pronouns)
• Why aren't they going with us to the game? (Interrogative Adjectives and Adverbs)

If you can't figure out one of those sentences, check out the corresponding lesson.

In today's discussion of the novel, we looked at mob behavior in general, and at the important moral lessons Huck is learning from exposure to many mobs. The three classes all took slightly different paths, so be sure to check out the notes.

For tonight, read up through page 248 (chapter 26 through chapter 28). FORGOT YOUR NOVEL? CLICK HERE!

DAY 2 - CYCLE 14 - SEMESTER 2

Today, we covered the first 5 words of Unit 9 vocabulary. Tomorrow, we will review lessons 13-18 in the Sentence Diagramming Workbook.

We covered A LOT of ground today, including the tragic end of the Grangerford-Shepherdson feud, the arrival of the duke and king (notice that Huck doesn't capitalize their names: neither should you), the Boggs-Sherburn incident, and the circus. In these passages, Twain offers plenty of subtle commentary about society and its tendencies at ALL levels. Please see your class notes for today for a full picture.

For tomorrow, please read to page 219.

DAY 1 - CYCLE 14 - SEMESTER 2

Today, you took the unit 8 vocabulary quiz and had a reading day with Mrs. Parsons. Please be up to page 195 in Huck Fin by Monday, and be finished with Of Mice and Men by Tuesday, May 26th.

DAY 5 - CYCLE 13 - SEMESTER 2

Today, we spoke about Huck's change of heart. Some were surprised that he could consider turning Jim in, but given the culture he was a part of, we shouldn't be. We looked at the video clip I put in last night's blog post to get just the merest sense of how bizarrely race relations were structured. If that clip was OK in 1950, what on earth could have been OK in 1880? Yeesh!

In last night's reading, Huck sees Jim unabashedly look forward to freedom. While we place our sympathies wholly with Jim, whose family is torn apart because his wife and children are owned by others, Huck places his sympathies elsewhere. In responding to Jim's talk of freedom and what it means, Huck is conflicted about whether to listen to what he has been taught or what he has experienced with Jim. He has been taught to identify with white slave owners, but he has experienced Jim's friendship. Which to follow? In the heat of the moment, he chooses to listen to the wisdom of experience, but is this full-out loyalty? Well, check the class notes to see what you all think.

We also spoke about the Grangerfords and the Grangerford home. This episode, though it seems silly and foreign to us, is really not that far removed from us. I asked how many of you have rooms in the house you're not allowed in, or fancy books that are pretty much for decoration. Some of you brought up the candles you're not allowed to light--ever--or the fancy Christmas dishes. These items are the icons of respectability. How else do you show you're respectable but have fancy things you don't use or consult much? It is this idea that Twain is having fun with, and he takes it a whole lot further. He sees that our emotional relationships to one another are just as contrived as our economic ones, hence the spidery armed drawing and absurd poem. Our Sense of Occasion is silly, even if the impetus that moves us to seek out occasions is pure and admirable (Emmaline, after all, is kind to mourn the loss of a drowned child, which truly is quite sad. But her poem? Preposterous.). Please see the Explanatory Notes on 415-422 to get a sense of just what Twain is talking about in this chapter. It's worth it.

Tomorrow will be a reading day; you may read either Huck Finn or Of Mice and Men. By Monday, you should be up to page 195 in Huck Finn.

QUIZ TOMORROW ON VOCABULARY UNIT 8 and SENTENCE DIAGRAMMING 1-12.

DAY 4 - CYCLE 13 - SEMESTER 2

Today, we started with a review of some plot facts, and then went into interpretive work, with a close look at the conversation Jim and Huck have after being separated in the fog. All three sections did great work on the topics and you can find notes detailing these discussions here.

Minstrel shows came up in today's discussion. You can read more about them here. Minstrel shows lasted well into the twentieth century and faded out as movies and eventually TV took over as a primary means of entertainment. Although they were no longer common by the fifties, here you can see a clip of a 1950 performance that has all the elements of a minstrel show. How can this help us understand Twain's novel? If what this clip demonstrates passed as entirely acceptable just 15 years before major Civil Rights legislation passed Congress, imagine what must have been considered "acceptable" to Twain's audience just fifteen years after the Civil War (when Twain began writing the novel). The oddities of Jim and Huck's ability to be honest with one another (and honest with themselves about one another) make a great deal more sense.



If you are struggling with understanding the text, check out the apps on iTunes for Huck Finn. Cheap and useful, they can help you get through those troublesome passages by reading the vernacular aloud, allowing your ears to surely catch what your eyes are having trouble with.

REMEMBER:
Vocab Quiz on Friday with five sentence diagrams

HOMEWORK:
Read 106-107 (stop with the paragraph that ends "...a good plan when you wanted one.)" & 123-141 (resume on 123 with the paragraph that begins, "I didn't wait to kiss good-by...")

DAY 3 - CYCLE 13 - SEMESTER 2

We began with an eight question quote quiz covering pages 1-85. Two classes used today as a reading day. One discussed the text. Notes are on the wikispace.

In the reading for today, Huck and Jim are forming a budding relationship. In their reactions to the discovery of a murder victim in a house washed away in flood waters, we see Huck and Jim are very practical, and desensitized to violence, but still wary around it. Jim is loath to talk about the body, and at first, Huck is happy to leave it alone (though afterwards, he's fascinated). We see Jim demonstrate care for Huck and vice versa--here is a healthier relationship, and one steeped in similar belief structures. But we also see that the two are on unequal footing. There is an incongruity in Judith Loftus' reactions to the two runaways: she sympathizes with white boy whom she thinks is a runaway apprentice, but wants to hunt down the black runaway slave. Is she motivated solely by money? We don't know. We do know that Jim has it harder than Huck, a fact underscored by his desire to explore the wreck of the Walter Scott while Jim, with so much at risk, fears to do so, and rightfully so.

In tonight's reading, we'll see how some of that society's pervasive racism affects these two. While there will be many questions to tomorrow's discussion, the ones you should be prepared to answer are these:
1. Why does Jim call Huck "boss" on page 103?
2. Does Jim think he dreamed the separation?

For the next class, be up to page 105 and ready to answer the questions above.