And Still the Box Is Not Full: August 31, 2018

Focus: Why this book, right now?

1. Warming up with a metacognitive on the opening letter in this book

2. Offering you the best gift I have:

"Well, here's your box. Nearly everything I have is in it, and it is not full." -- Steinbeck

3. Structuring your essay with Ms. Leclaire's college boot camp

HW: 
1. For Wednesday:

• Read (and annotate) through Chapter 3 in East of Eden; compose your Socratic ticket. 
• Click HERE for the reading bookmark.
• Click HERE for Socratic ticket possibilities.

2. For next Friday:

• Read (and annotate) Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7 in East of Eden; compose your Socratic ticket.

3. Ongoing: Stop in for a conference on your college essay!

4. If you haven't signed up for our Quizlet account, take about 60 seconds to do the following:

• Augmenting your vocabulary with Quizlet: Click HERE to join our class

Thursday Workshop: August 30, 2018

Focus: What does writing workshop look like in A.P. Literature?

1. Warming up by unpacking the prompt in small groups and considering the following:

• Finding the heart: What's this prompt asking you to do?

• Using the literary terms: What do these terms mean? Which ones were helpful?

• Figuring out how to brainstorm effectively: What method do you use? How well does it work for you?

2. Thinking about what an A.P. Lit thesis statement wants to do

Sample thesis that's too plot summary-ish:
The title "Werewolves in Their Youth" reveals the story of two boys who transform into werewolves.

Sample thesis that's too broad / "out there":
"Werewolves in Their Youth" criticizes public education for ostracizing its most imaginative pupils.

Sample thesis the regurgitates the prompt:
Chabon chooses the title "Werewolves in Their Youth" to display the significance of the setting, diction, and characters.

What your thesis should address (and what we're most interested in A.P. Lit):

• What is the author trying to do?
• How is the author trying to accomplish that? 

Sample thesis that responds to those two questions:

Chabon subverts the traditional werewolf myth by making becoming a werewolf the one thing his young characters can control rather than the one thing they cannot; instead, the human world is the one that lies beyond their power.

3. Exploring a sample essay together and discussing its structure

4. Peer editing with a focus on structure

HW:
1. Keep working on your college essay; come by for a conference! I'm nice! And helpful!

2. FOR TODAY: Make sure your Oedipus Rex blog is published.

3. For tomorrow: Bring your laptop to class for 30 minutes of college essay drafting.

Making Socrates and Sophocles Proud: August 29, 2018

Focus: What should we take away from reading Oedipus Rex?

1. Warming up with one lightening-fast round of Socratic ticket musical chairs

2. Enjoying our first full Socratic seminar: Oedipus Rex

3. Wrapping up with kudos, questions, and epiphanies

HW:
1. For Thursday: Finish your first blog post before class on Thursday (unpack your question, use it to explore Oedipus Rex, and make sure you click on the "Publish" button).

2. For Friday: Bring your laptop to class; we will spend 30 minutes on your college essays.

3. Ongoing: Come in to see me for a conference on your college essay!

It's All Greek To Me! August 28, 2018

Focus: Why is Sophocles' interpretation of Oedipus Rex the one that still intrigues us?

1. Warming up with your partner: Creating a literary 3 x 3 for Oedipus Rex using one of Foster's archetypes, such as blindness, quests, violence, symbols, flights of season, sex, geography, seasons, or marks

OR

If you're not ready for that, it's okay! Create a family tree for the play and/or a map of what happens in different locations.



2. Offering you a few helpful background items on Oedipus Rex with high velocity freewrites

• Check out what the Greek theater looked like (above).

• Role of the Chorus: To guide the readers in how they should be interpreting the play.

• Teiresias's story: Why is he blind and prophetic?

• Dramatic irony: The Greek audience would have known this myth quite well before seeing the play. They know exactly how what's going to happen to Oedipus even though he doesn't. Look for evidence of Sophocles playing with this irony.

• Catharsis: The process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions

3. Diving into our first Socratic tickets and Big Question Blogs

Mike's Sample Blog

Mara's Sample Blog

HW:
1. For Wednesday: Finish rereading Oedipus Rex and complete your first Socratic reading ticket.

2. For Thursday: Finish your first blog post before class on Thursday (unpack your question, use it to explore Oedipus Rex, and make sure you click on the "Publish" button).

3. For Friday: Bring your laptop to class; we will spend 30 minutes on your college essays.

4. Ongoing: Come in to see me for a conference on your college essay!

Pride Goeth Before the Fall: August 27, 2018

Focus: What foundational ideas do you need to guide your year in A.P. Lit?

1. Warming up with three good things

2. Indulging in some terrifying Greek myths and understanding hubris

• Read your myth together (Icarus, Phaethon, Arachne, Niobe, or Tantalus).

• Discuss the nature of the error that the human made.

• Use your bodies to create a sculpture/tableau that captures the moment of downfall in your myth; leave out one person to summarize the myth and read a line or two aloud from the myth that captures this moment.

• As you watch other's sculptures, think about what the downfalls have in common.

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3. After presenting the tableaus, journalling on the following questions:

• In what ways did Oedipus exhibit hubris? To what extent did this contribute to his downfall?

• What questions does this play raise that are central to us as humans? In other words, why is this tragedy heralded as the tragedy?

HW:

1. For Wednesday: Finish rereading Oedipus Rex and prepare your first Socratic ticket for our first real Socratic seminar. Bring Oedipus Rex to class tomorrow and Wednesday.

2. For Thursday: Compose your first big question blog on Oedipus Rex (see website for examples).

3. Ongoing: Continue working on your college essay. Come conference with me when you need help.

BIG Topics: August 24, 2018

Focus: How do we generate authentic topics for our college essays?

1. Warming up with the Big Question Blog (links are also on class website)

List of possibilities

Mike's Sample Blog

Mara's Sample Blog

• Please make sure give yourself a unique blog title that includes your first name.

• Include your big question in the header.

2. Offering you an overview of your first independent literary essay: The College Essay

• Select one essay that you're writing for college acceptance (if you're not going to college or you don't have to write any essays, use one of the 500 prompts posted below).

• Do your best to abide by the word limit set by your college; if you're composing multiple essays, pick one of your longer ones to turn in.

• Include the name of the college, the exact prompt, and any other directions that your college included, such as a word limit.

• Conference with me at least once, either before the essay is due or after you've turned it in.

• Turn it in by September 20 by 3:00 pm (printed copy).

3. Generating ideas with a few stream-of-consciousness writing prompts:

• "Directions to Where I Live"

• Freewriting with 500 New York Times personal writing prompts

• Highlight two or three moments that you remember well enough to describe using at least three of your senses.

• Look for any patterns and/or shifts.

• Click HERE for the 2018-19 Common App Essay Prompts

4. Using a sample essay to talk about the balance of slowing down moments and reflecting on the larger meaning

HW:
1. Continue freewriting (or drafting) in preparation for your college essay.

2. For Monday: Reread the first half of Oedipus Rex. 

3. For Wednesday: Reread the second half of Oedipus and create a Socratic ticket full of good, Socratic-style questions. 

4.For all of next week: Bring Oedipus Rex and How To Read Literature Like a Professor to class each day.

Sampling a "Tuesday" Writing: August 23, 2018

Focus: What does a timed writing feel like in A.P. Lit?

1. Warming up with wrapping up yesterday's Socratic: Your kudos, questions, and epiphanies

2. Walking through your first AP Lit prompt as a class; composing your first "Tuesday" writing individually

• Find the heart of the prompt and underline it.
• Brainstorm and/or outline in a way that works for you  (3-5 min).
• Don't start writing until you have an idea of what you're going to say after your first body paragraph.
• Write in the present tense.
• Cite the author's last name after your first quotation; after that, don't worry about citing.
• MOST IMPORTANTLY: Let yourself discover new meanings as you write. End in a better place than where you started.

(Intermission: Start at 3:49)

3. Turning in your essays

HW:

1. For Friday: 

• Make sure you have completed the survey I e-mailed you last week (and encourage your parents/guardians to complete theirs, too). 

• Bring your laptop to class (along with any college essay you're already working on).

2. For Monday: Reread the first half of Oedipus Rex. 

3. For Wednesday: Reread the second half of Oedipus and create a Socratic ticket full of good, Socratic-style questions. 

4.. For all of next week: Bring Oedipus Rex to class each day.

The Socratic Experience: August 22, 2018

Focus: What does a real Socratic seminar look like? How do we prepare for it?

1. Warming up with Ms. Leclaire's favorite trick and your first whiteboard challenge: Close reading the title

2. Offering you an overview of Socratic seminars and an explanation of Socratic grades; creating your first Socratic tickets and playing your first round of Socratic ticket musical chairs

3. Trying out your first (mini) Socratic seminar on "Werewolves in Their Youth"

4. Debriefing as a class and reflecting on Socratic individually

• What did we do well?
• What do we need to work on?  How?
• How would you grade your first time participating in an A.P. Lit Socratic?

HW:
1. For Thursday: 

Bring paper and a pen or pencil for your first timed writing (on "Werewolves"). Bring your copy of "Werewolves" to class as well.

If you have not yet done so, please click HERE to join our Remind account.

2. For Friday: 

• Make sure you have completed the survey I e-mailed you last Thursday (and encourage your parents/guardians to complete theirs, too). Sign up for Remind texts by clicking  here.

• Bring your laptop to class. We will be exploring college essay prompts and setting up your big question blogs.

3. Peering into next week: Reread the first half of Oedipus Rex for Monday and the second half for Wednesday; bring Oedipus and How To Read Literature...to class each day next week.

How To Read Like an A.P. Lit Student: August 21, 2018

Focus: How do we use Foster's ideas to see what was previously invisible to us?

Please have out your summer reading assignments at the beginning of class.

1. Warming up with highlights from the class syllabus

2. Using Foster to (re)interpret three scenes:

• The start of a journey (30:26)
• A lunch scene
• Tunneling to freedom

• Which chapters/lines from How To Read Literature Like a Professor might apply to these clips? How so?

• What do you see now that might have been invisible to you before?

3. Reading closely the first page or so of "Werewolves in Their Youth" in small groups; what do you see that other readers might not notice? (Feel free to invoke Foster directly or to simply put your own close reading skills to work.)

4. Indulging in your concrete, Type-A, organization skills and setting yourself up for this class:

• Augmenting your vocabulary with Quizlet: Click HERE to join our class

• Organizing yourself with Google folders within folders within folders:

• Create an A.P. Lit folder called "Yourlastname_A.P. Lit" 

• Share it with me at kleclaire@lps.k12.co.us

• Within that folder, create a "1st Semester" folder.

• Within your "1st Semester" folder, create the following folders (feel free to spice up your labels):
• College Essay
• Introductory Stuff
• East of Eden
• A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Poetry
• Beloved

HW:
1. For Wednesday:

• Finish reading "Werewolves in Their Youth" for our first Socratic seminar. We will do our first Socratic ticket in class, but make sure you annotate the story in whatever way works for you.

• Please ask your parents/guardians to read and sign the course syllabus.

2. For Friday: 

• If you have not yet done so, please complete the survey I e-mailed to you (and urge your parents to fill theirs out, too).

• Bring your laptop to class.

3. Ongoing: Bring your old school supplies to class (pens, pencils, JOURNAL/NOTEBOOK that's just for this class).