Second Semester

Second Day- - -
No blog for Day 1.  Sorry. 

TODAY IN CLASS
We got three strands underway (well, 3rd period, two strands and a fire drill).

Poetry--Start keeping a list of poems we cover (whether lightly in class or via at-home study)
Tennyson's "The Eagle" (501).  I presented it as I always have--just asking kids questions--and I didn't read the blurb in the book because kids have never had the big book with them at the time we started the poetry mini-unit during first semester.  But later today, I actually did read it--and it turns out that this new edition of the book pretty much covers the main points.  So now I wish I'd given you a hand-out as usual, to make sure you weren't able to read what anyone else said about it. I wanted students to act on their own to develop a sense of contrast between the regal majesty of the eagle in stanza 1 and the powerful predator of stanza 2 by looking at all of the features that set up contrast (stanza break, perspective, static/dynamic, different rhyme scheme) as well as to examine the imagery, other devices, and sound features that appear in the poem. That is STUDENTS, using your own powers of observation and reflection, not merely reading what someone else wrote--whether in the textbook or online.

Frankenstein--As noted on the back of the Ibsen/Chopin assignment sheet, you get to start this at a fairly leisurely pace:  The Letters and Chapters 1-3 must be read by Monday, Jan. 31.
And if you've been absent, just know that I pointed out the basic starter information that we are looking at a FRAME STORY (similar to HoD), with an outer narrative structure provided by Robert Walton's letters to his sister, a primary narrative by Frankenstein, and the innermost chapters by the Creature himself.

Topic generation--Ibsen and Chopin

Today's version was the "shorthand" process of what I would like to have done to give you a chance to be more independent in deciding on an element of your choice to compare and contrast from the play and from the novel. You have to do something usefully "deep"--something that ultimately heightens our understanding (illuminates beyond what any reader would be expected to "get" right away). I wanted you to have a chance to generate some topics of your own before handing you the hand-out, but it barely worked in 1st and not at all in 3rd and 6th.  But I didn't want to delay the process, so we're moving ahead.
I am hopeful, however, that you will give some serious contemplation to what might interest YOU first.  I'm especially eager for some topics that do not primarily focus on characters, but certainly there are excellent paper topics to be crafted from the people who inhabit Ibsen's and Chopin's dramatic and fictional space.

One caveat: you cannot simply "compare/contrast Nora and Edna"--you must examine some restricted aspect of their attitudes, relationships toward  XXX, or something specific that you identify as part of some evaluative and illuminating claim. A second caveat: people invariably start research projects or essays with topics that are too broad.  Your goal is a solid four-page paper; select something that with judicious, well-selected quotes (no long block quotations, please!) will be adequately covered in such a span.  That means whatever topic you start with will probably be narrowed before you are done.

FOR TOMORROW

Some choice here.  By the end of class on Wednesday, you must submit a short prospectus of your paper topic and approach.  This is a short form of the proposal grad students must write (and get approved) before undertaking a masters thesis or a doctoral dissertation.  In your case, it's VERY short--three to five sentences--and it's absolutely OK to use the first person.  It is NOT the same thing as a "thesis statement"; in fact, if you're thinking of a worthy topic that will actually illuminate something to people who have already read these with reasonable care, then you don't actually KNOW the complexities of your thesis until you do some significant data-mining and evaluative contemplation.  But it's a start.

Here's where the choice comes in:

• You can decide tonight, write up the short prospectus, turn it in at the beginning of class, and get started with either collecting data from the texts/early planning OR simply reading Frankenstein during class
• OR you can spend class time deciding what you will do, and have a neatly hand-written prospectus to hand in before class time is over. 

Either way, the deadlines for successive steps are on the hand-out you received today.  I'm linking it here for future reference:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J1l4j85Qk2PyzoGsWCsgM8uzjWVUHrYz5nwKkyUKMQY/edit?hl=en&authkey=CPWskZYM#

P.S.  Also note that the back of this hand-out provides the basic dates by which you will need the remaining texts for this course!  No more lost time/lost learning, please!