Graphing Character Shifts: September 28, 2018

Focus: How are Cal and Aron (d)evolving?

1. Warming up by graphing the Cal's and Aron's (d)evolvement

For each character, try the following:

• Find a description of this character as a young child, a description of this character as an older child, and a description of this character as a teenager. 

• Read these three passages for each character closely, examining Steinbeck's diction.

• What has aspects of this character's personality have changed over time?  Why have these aspects changed / what prompted these changes?

• What has aspects of this character have remained unchanged?  Why haven't these parts of the character changed?

• Consider some of the timeless dualities at war in both characters (good vs. evil, nature vs. nurture, white vs. black, love vs. hate, fate vs, free will, sight vs. blindness, empathetic vs. selfish, etc).  

• Put one side of the duality at the top of the Y axis, and the other duality at the bottom of Y axis.

• Use the X axis for the time from the characters were born until now. 

• Graph both character's development/deterioration/fluctuations on the same piece of graph paper. Be sure to annotate your graph with key words and phrases from the passages you examined.

2. Enjoying a Socratic on East of Eden, Chapters 31-43

3. Wrapping up (out loud)

HW:
1. For MONDAY: Read Chapters 44 through 49; create a reading ticket for Monday's Socratic. We have just two discussions left!!! In your final reading tickets, start putting all the pieces together. What larger patterns have emerged, and what do they mean?

2. For TUESDAY: Finish your sonnet metacognitive if you did not finish in class or were absent.

Puzzling Through the Sonnet: September 27, 2018

Focus: How does your mind puzzle through a sonnet?

1. Warming up everyone's favorite game: Name that sonnet!

2. Getting metacognitive with your selected sonnet

• Click HERE for an overview of the method and purpose of the metacognitive.

• Click HERE for a sample metacognitive.

• If you handwrote, please turn in your metacognitive at the end of class.

• If you typed, please make sure your metacognitive is inside your shared A.P. folder.

HW:
1.  For FRIDAY: Read through Chapter 43 and prepare a ticket for Socratic seminar.

2. For TUESDAY: Please finish your metacognitive if you did not finish in class.

Shaking Hands with the Sonnet: September 26, 2018

Focus: What do we need to reflect on to help us progress?

1. Warming up with your first sonnet: "An Echo from Willow-wood"

• Quick title brainstorm
• Moments: Which images, diction, etc. make you pause/take a moment?
• Movement: What patterns can you uncover? Are there any shifts?
• Multiple Meanings: What do you think the poet is trying to do here (tone/themes)?

*A mini break for a puzzle challenge (and metaphor)*

2. Reading and marking up Foster's "If It's Square, It's a Sonnet" 

• How does the form contribute to the poem's meaning?

3. Introducing you to your second Literary Essay: The Sonnet Essay

HW:
1. For tomorrow: 

• Pick one of the four sonnets offered in the packet for your formal metacognitive tomorrow. Bring your charged laptop if you wish to type.

2. For FRIDAY: Read through Chapter 43 and prepare a ticket for Socratic seminar.

The Effects of Timshel: September 25, 2018

Focus: What does "timshel" mean, and how does it apply to Steinbeck's characters?

1. Warming up by applying the concept of "timshel," or "thou mayest" to the characters in East of Eden

• Skim through the scene in Chapter 24 in which Lee, Samuel, and Adam discuss "timshel." 

• Pick a character out of the hat.

• Does the idea of "timshel" apply to this character? How so, or why not?

2. Reading through Chapter 40 for Wednesday and 43 for Friday

HW:
1. For WEDNESDAY: Read through Chapter 40 in East of Eden.

2. For FRIDAY: Read through Chapter 43 and prepare a ticket for Socratic seminar.

Meet Cal and Aron: September 24, 2018

Focus: What's shifting, and what's staying the same?

Housekeeping Items:

• Please submit printed college essays, preferably with the gold Night-Before Checklist on top.

• Did you forget to give back your "Kingdom of Stone" timed writing?

• If I wrote in IC that I can't read your Big Question Blog, please adjust the template.

1. Warming up with three good things and Socratic ticket musical chairs!

Remember to identify yourself at the tops of others' reading tickets!

• Round 1: Ask a question / follow-up question to something on the reading ticket.

• Round 2: Find a specific passage from the book that connects to something on the reading ticket; write down the page number and the first sentence of the passage.

• Round 3: Make a connection between anything on the reading ticket to the concept of "timshel," or "thou mayest."

2. Enjoying the Snowball variation of Socratic seminar on Chapters 30-33 (though feel free to reference earlier chapters)

3. Wrapping up: Lingering questions, epiphanies, kudos

HW:
1. For TUESDAY: Bring your book for a reading day.

2. For WEDNESDAY: Read through Chapter 40 in East of Eden.

3. For FRIDAY: Read through Chapter 43 and prepare a ticket for Socratic seminar.

Timshel: September 21, 2018

Focus: How does the concept of "timshel" free the characters?

1. Warming up with a mini-write on two Adam and Cathy scenes: 199-200 and 322-323

• What has shifted?
• How does Steinbeck depict that shift?
• Why has this shift happened? How does it contribute to the meaning of the work as a whole?

2. Enjoying a big Socratic seminar on Chapters 22-30

3. Wrapping up with remaining questions, epiphanies, and kudos

HW:
1. For MONDAY: 

• Read through Chapter 33 to get ready for Monday's Socratic.

• Complete, print, and turn in your college essay if you have not yet done so. Please use the Night-Before checklist and staple it to the top of your essay.

2. TUESDAY will be your reading day next week (I will be going on a 2nd grade field trip).

The Call of the Whippoorwill: September 20, 2018

Focus: How do we unravel the extended metaphor in a contemporary poem?

1. Warming up with a close reading of "Hope is the thing with feathers--"

2. Rereading "The Whippoorwill in the Woods" with a focus on its extended metaphor (conceit)

Throwback Thursday:

• The paper doll is a metaphor for a fragile woman (the comparison: both are too easily changeable in the hands of another)

• Taking off Emily Dickinson's clothes is a metaphor for reading her poetry (the comparison: both activities involve grappling with tricky "locks," but both expose something vulnerably beautiful when accomplished)

• A prison is a metaphor for traditional prose (the comparison: prose locks up the speaker's mind, while poetry offers her the mental freedom of wonder and curiosity)

• _____ is a metaphor for _____, and here's how:

3. Taking on the MC practice and comparing your choices

(The sound of the whippoorwill)

HW:
1. For FRIDAY: Read through Chapter 30 and prepare your ticket for our big Socratic!

2. For MONDAY: 

• Read through Chapter 33 to get ready for Monday's Socratic.

• Complete, print, and turn in your college essay if you have not yet done so. Please use the Night-Before checklist and staple it to the top of your essay.

3. TUESDAY will be your reading day next week (I will be going on a 2nd grade field trip).

Reading...Actually Reading: September 19, 2018

Focus: What larger motifs are emerging in East of Eden?

1. Warming up with the Sparknotes Oath

2. Reading through Chapter 30 for Friday

HW:
1. For THURSDAY: Early deadline for College Essay turn-in. Use the Night-Before checklist.
If you need the extended deadline, you may have all the way until next Monday to complete your essay. 

2. For FRIDAY: Read through Chapter 30 for a big, formal Socratic.

Undressing the Metaphor: September 18, 2018

Focus: How can we undress extended metaphors in poetry?

1. Warming up with "Paper Doll"

• Brainstorming connotations: What do you know about paper dolls?

• What's an extended metaphor?

• What object serves as the central metaphor? (The title often gives it away.) To what/whom is that object being compared?

• What other images and verbs go along with this object? How do they contribute to / shape / extend the metaphor?

• Does the metaphor's meaning shift throughout the poem? How so?

• Try out a thesis that goes something like this: 
• John Mayer uses the extended metaphor of the paper doll in order to....

2. Glimpsing Emily Dickinson's poetry and trying to take off Emily Dickinson's clothes with Billy Collins

3. Uncovering the slightly less yielding extended metaphor in "They Shut Me up in Prose"

HW:
1. For WEDNESDAY: Continue reading like a phenom; IF YOU AVERAGE 25-30 PAGES A NIGHT, YOU'LL BE IN GOOD SHAPE. Aim to be through or on Chapter 26 for Wednesday.

2. For THURSDAY: Early deadline for College Essay turn-in. Use the Night-Before checklist.
If you need the extended deadline, you may have all the way until next Monday to complete your essay. 

3. For FRIDAY: Read through Chapter 30 for a big, formal Socratic.

Zooming In and Out: September 17, 2018

Focus: What is Steinbeck trying to do, and how is he trying to do it?

1. Warming up with three good things

2. Experimenting with two sample close readings:

• As a class: What's up with the flowers? (page 75 and 85, end of Chapter 22)

• On your own: What and how does Cathy eat? (page 170)

• Identify significant diction, imagery, figurative language, symbols, etc.
• Brainstorm the connotations of the ones that strike you the most.
• Use the connotations to make a statement about what Steinbeck might be up to.

3. Enjoying our first Silent Socratic (Chapters 17-21)

4. Wrapping up with kudos, questions, and epiphanies

HW:
1. For WEDNESDAY: Continue reading like a phenom; IF YOU AVERAGE 25 PAGES A NIGHT, YOU'LL BE IN GOOD SHAPE. Aim to be through or on Chapter 26 for Wednesday.

2. For THURSDAY: Early deadline for College Essay turn-in. Use the Night-Before checklist.
If you need the extended deadline, you may have all the way until next Monday to complete your essay. 

3. For FRIDAY: Read through Chapter 30 for a big, formal Socratic.

"The Free, Exploring Mind": September 14, 2018

Focus: What does Steinbeck want us to understand about the movement from Part 1 to Part 2?

1. Warming up with a Socratic ticket walk

• While the song plays: Identify something on each ticket that you'd like to talk about in depth.

• When the song is over: Return to your ticket and write down a pattern you noticed in the reading tickets. In other words, what is one specific topic that many people wish to discuss today?

• Transitioning to Socratic: Find one passage from the reading that relates directly to that topic. Consider reading it aloud during discussion today.

2. Enjoying a Socratic seminar on East of Eden, Chapters 11-16

3. Wrapping up with kudos, epiphanies, and lingering questions

HW:
1. For Monday: Read through Chapter 21 for Monday's Socratic.

2. For Wednesday: Read through Chapter 26; all of class that day will be a reading day.

3. For Thursday: Finish your college essay. Use the Night-Before Checklist to make sure your essay is ready to turn in.

Imagery, Shift, and Authorial Intent: September 13, 2018

Focus: How do we use imagery to unravel authorial intent?

1. Warming up with our old friend, Billy Collins, and a straightforward poem (with partners)

Remember that it all boils down to these two questions:

What is the author trying to do?

How is he/she doing it?

Two useful techniques: 

(1) Explore the imagery/diction.
(2) Find the shift (circle your buts).

2. Applying the same process to the complicated poem from Tuesday's timed writing

3. Analyzing sample essays as a class

• Which ones are the strongest, and what do they have that the others don't?

4. Offering constructive feedback to each other's drafts

• Underline the thesis and comment on it. 

• Underline the sentence in the first body paragraph that best captures its argument. Then, do the same for the second body paragraph (and the third, if there is a third).

• Identify one structural success you see in this essay (see blue questions below for ideas). 

• Identify one structural aspect that writer could improve upon (see blue questions below for ideas)

5. Rewriting your thesis and topic sentences to emphasize complexity

HW:
1. For FRIDAY: Read Chapters 14, 15, and 16 and compose a reading ticket for Socratic.

2. For next THURSDAY, SEP 20: College essays due (you'll a get a "Night-Before Checklist" next week).

Oh, the Irony! September 12, 2018

Focus: Isn't it ironic?

1. Warming up with a mini lesson on irony

Verbal irony: The use of language to express something that is the opposite of its literal meaning.

• Ex: It's pouring down rain, and somebody grumpily says, "Great weather we're having."

Situational irony: An event in which the opposite of what's expected happens.

• Ex: A fire station burns down.

Dramatic irony: A situation in which the audience knows more than the characters know, causing the characters' speech and actions to take on unusual meanings.

• Ex: In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus declares that he hopes the killer of Laius will suffer "the worst of agonies" (not realizing, of course that he is the killer Laius). 

• Also, the words "eyes" and "sight" and used repeatedly throughout the play before the dramatic action culminates with Oedipus gauging out his eyes. 

• Another one: Jocasta mentions once or twice that Oedipus does happen to look just a little like Laius. Sigh. There's dramatic irony all over the place.

Viewing an example of dramatic irony from your favorite Disney hero's journey (1:18)

What is the effect of dramatic irony? Or, why might an author use dramatic irony?

2. Reading East of Eden with an eye out for dramatic irony, especially in Chapter 11

HW:
1. For FRIDAY: Read Chapters 14, 15, and 16 and compose a reading ticket for Socratic.

2. For next THURSDAY, SEP 20: College essays due (you'll a get a "Night-Before Checklist" next week).

Timed Writing #2: September 11, 2018

Focus: How can we synthesize what we've learned so far into a persuasive timed writing?

1. Warming up with a partner reading of today's timed writing poem (10 minutes)

• Imagery (appeals to the five senses)
• Shifts (circle your buts)
• Patterns (especially dichotomies)

2. Looking back to your previous timed writing to remind yourself what you need to work on in terms of structure

3. Enjoying your first poetry timed writing (40 min); start no later than 1:45

HW:
1. For WEDNESDAY: Read Chapters 11, 12, and 13. Also, you will have about 20 minutes of in-class reading. You're welcome!

2. For FRIDAY: Read Chapters 14, 15, and 16 and compose a reading ticket for Socratic.

3. For next THURSDAY, SEP 20: College essays due (you'll a get a "Night-Before Checklist" next week).

The Found Poem, Take 2: September 10, 2018

Focus: What do you find in a found poem?

1. Warming up with three good things

2. Understanding the method and purpose of a found poem: Cathy or the Hamilton kids

• Take two short phrases from the Chapter 1. One will be your title, and one will be your last line.

• Find two or three phrases that capture ____'s physical description.

• Find a phrase that captures what people say to or about _______.

• Find a phrase that captures what ____ says aloud or thinks.

• Find two or three phrases that capture a description of nature/weather/setting in Chapter 8.

• End with your line you took from the first page.

• Trade. Any epiphanies?

3. Enjoying a Socratic seminar on Chapters 9 and 10 in East of Eden

4. Wrapping up with questions, kudos, and epiphanies

HW:
1. For WEDNESDAY: Read Chapters 11, 12, and 13.

2. For FRIDAY: Read Chapters 14, 15, and 16 and compose a reading ticket for Socratic.

3. For next THURSDAY, SEP 20: College essays due (you'll a get a "Night-Before Checklist" next week).

Finally, a Full Socratic: September 7, 2018

Focus: How are Steinbeck's characters evolving (or devolving)?

1. Warming up with Socratic ticket musical chairs

2. Enjoying our first real Socratic seminar: Chapters 4-8 in East of Eden

3. Wrapping up with final take-aways, questions, and kudos

HW:
1. For Monday: Read Chapters 9 and 10  and create your next reading ticket for Monday's Socratic (click here for some reading ticket ideas).

2. In general: 

• If you're struggling to keep up with the reading during the week, use the weekend to read ahead (see bookmark for this week's chapter assignments).

• If you haven't posted your Big Question Blog(s)--one paragraph or so to unpack the question; one paragraph or so to use Oedipus Rex to explore your question--please take care of that over the weekend.

• Work on your college essay (due September 20).

The Found Poem: September 6, 2018

Focus: How can we develop our close reading skills?

1. Warming up with Steinbeck's allusion:

• (Re)read Verses 2 and 4 from Genesis. Describe Steinbeck's allusion to Genesis: How, specifically, does Steinbeck dramatize the first few verses of Genesis? What parallels can you find, and what does he alter?

2. Understanding the method and purpose of a found poem

• Take two short phrases from the Chapter 1. One will be your title, and one will be your last line.

• Find two or three phrases that capture Cathy's physical description.

• Find a phrase that captures what people say to or about Cathy.

• Find a phrase that captures what Cathy says aloud.

• Find two or three phrases that capture a description of nature/weather in Chapter 8.

• End with your line you took from the first page.

• Trade. Any epiphanies?

HW: 
1. For next Friday:

• Read (and annotate) Chapters 4 through 8 in East of Eden; compose your Socratic ticket.
• Click HERE for Socratic ticket possibilities. We will have a full Socratic on Friday.

2. Ongoing: Work on your college essay (due Sep 20 by 4:00 pm).

3. 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

First Impressions: September 5, 2018

Focus: How does Steinbeck introduce his characters?

1. Warming up with your favorite characters

• Left side: A character you love
• Right side: A character you love to hate
• Middle: A character you're not sure how to feel about

• Quick follow-up: Listening to each other's lines and thinking back to your Venn diagrams from yesterday, what parallels can you find between the way Steinbeck describes the characters and the way he describes the land they live on?

2. Questioning Steinbeck's first chapters with a Bucket List

Level 1 Bucket: questions for clarity--what's confusing you about the plot?

• Who is the narrator? Is it Steinbeck himself?

Level 2 Bucket: Socratic-style questions

• On page __, what do the descriptions of Samuel Hamilton's strengths have in common? Why might Steinbeck emphasize this particular pattern?

"What Would Foster Say?" Bucket

• After being beaten nearly to death by his brother, Adam lies briefly in a stream of water. What would Foster say about the significance of this "baptism"?

3. Discussing your Bucket questions in a pinwheel

4. Wrapping up with your Biblical story of the day: Cain and Abel

• (Re)read Verses 2 and 4 from Genesis. Describe Steinbeck's allusion to Genesis: How, specifically, does Steinbeck dramatize the first few verses of Genesis? What parallels can you find, and what does he alter?

HW: 
1. For next Friday:

• Read (and annotate) Chapters 4 through 8 in East of Eden; compose your Socratic ticket.
• Click HERE for Socratic ticket possibilities. We will have a full Socratic on Friday.

2. Ongoing: Work on your college essay (due Sep 20 by 4:00 pm).

3. 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

The Garden of Eden: September 4, 2018

Focus: What central dichotomies does Steinbeck set up in the first chapter of East of Eden?

1. Warming up with three good things

2. Interpreting the dichotomies in two famous paintings of the Garden of Eden

Click HERE for the slides.

3. Using Venn diagrams to unpack the dichotomies in Steinbeck's setting (with a partner, of course!)

4. Enjoying a gallery walk of your Venn diagrams to revisit the title:

• What does the phrase East of Eden mean to you right now?
• Why does Steinbeck start his book like this?
• Listen to the original description of the Garden of Eden: How does Steinbeck's first chapter dramatize this? What parallels do you notice? How does he change the story?

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