SCHOLA BREVIS AUGUST 10
Welcome, young men. Who am I? Who are you?
PLEASE COMPLETE BEFORE OUR FIRST CLASS:
(1) Register on Turnitin. The Class ID is 30505195. The Class Enrollment Key is Magis. Please use your full first name, last name, and mail.strakejesuit email.
(2) Make sure you have the Quizlet app, Notability, Google Drive, and Google Docs loaded on your iPad.
(3) Download Socrative Student from the App Store on you iPad. You’ll use this occasionally to take quizzes.
(4) How many of the above authors can you identify? Impress me next time.
Problems with any of the above? Don’t panic. Keep trying to figure it out yourself, and if you’re still struggling, we’ll work at it together next time.
cycle 1, class 1 august 12, 13
Glad you’re back.
(1) At what point did you know whodunnit?
(2) Next, we’ll look at TS Eliot’s requirements for a successful detective novel. In what way(s) might The Murder of Roger Ackroyd receive a failing grade?
(3) In the second half of class, we’ll step back to talk about the purpose of an English class as I see it, what you’ll be doing this year in my class, and the best ways to succeed.
(4) What’s most important to me? What do I value the most in my students?
(5) We’ll dive deeper into policies of the class and what’s expected of you.
(6) I’ll finish by telling you two stories. Each raises a question that I’ll use as one of the essay questions on the fall final exam.
TO DO:
(1) Review ALL of the policy page. Familiarize yourself with how the class works. Look through the website to see what's available. I’ll be checking for understanding next time.
(2) Open this essay, “Murder Most Foul” by PD James, in Notability. Read the essay as best you can, and we’ll use it as a discussion starter during our next class. Some of it might be hard and some of its references might seem obscure, but do your best. That’s all I’ll ever ask of you.
cycle 1, class 2 august 13, 16, 17
(1) Policy review.
(2) How did you do with the PD James essay? Let’s begin today’s class with a discussion.
(3) Here are your first vocabulary words for the year. The quiz will be either August 19 or 20, depending on when you have me.
(4) We’ll finish the class by jumping into a discussion about some of the big ideas raised in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd:
IDENTITY
OUR NEED TO PROTECT OURSELVES FROM THE TRUTH
THE POWER OF LOGIC
THE LIMITATIONS OF LOGIC
TRUST AND BETRAYAL
THE WEAKNESS OF THE WILL
RELYING ON EVIDENCE OR INTUITION
TO DO:
(1) Choose one of the big ideas above you feel the most comfortable exploring in greater detail.
(2) Type a short brainstorming ¶ (about half a page, double-spaced) that explores where and how you see that idea coming up in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Print it and bring it to our next class.
(3) Prepare for your summer reading quiz. The quiz will take you approximately 20 minutes.
cycle 1, class 3 august 17, 18
(1) Let’s get quizzical.
(2) While you’re taking the summer reading quiz, I’ll come around to look through your copy of the novel, checking your annotations. I’ll hand you my annotation doc and talk about what I think effective annotations will be in this class.
(3) After the quiz, we’ll return to your paragraphs from the other day. We’ll begin to learn how to take your idea and turn it into a more complete one. Here’s my body paragraph primer for freshmen. Keep your copy handy because we’ll turn to it throughout the year. Today we’ll cover the PARTS OF A BODY ¶.
TO DO:
(1) Study for the vocabulary quiz.
cycle 1, class 4 august 19, 20
(1) Today we’ll begin with the vocabulary quiz.
(2) Last time, we discussed the PARTS OF A BODY ¶. Today we’ll turn to part one of my body paragraph primer to learn about the TOPIC SENTENCE.
TO DO:
(1) Reread your brainstorming paragraph. Are you still happy with the idea? Do you want to change your subject? Either way, it’s fine. Change or keep what you have. But, by our next class, I’d like you to write a topic sentence like the ones we went through today that states the purpose of your paragraph. What is it you want to show in a revised version of that paragraph? Bring that topic sentence to our next class.
cycle 1, class 5 august 20, 23
Artistic Interpretation 101: Day 1
(1) Today, before we look at your topic sentences, we’ll begin a two-day process of learning how to be more critical readers of works of art. Our goal today is to come up with a series of topic sentences about some of the still images below. You’ll see that we can write about visual art in the same way that we write about literature.
TO DO:
(1) Select one of the works of art in the gallery below. This will be one you work with for a couple more weeks, so choose one that resonates with you.
(2) Work through the same process we did today in class with your chosen work. Write a topic sentence that defines the interpretation you have about your chosen work. Bring this to class next time. By now, you should have a topic sentence for your paragraph on The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and a topic sentence for your paragraph on your chosen work of art.
what's due?
August 17 / 18 - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Quiz / Annotation Check
August 19 / 20 - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Vocabulary Quiz
September 7 - Final Body Paragraphs
DOCS TO HAVE HANDY
current text to have daily
texts to buy now
fall final essay questions
“The Appointment in Samarra”: To what extent do the characters in the stories we read have personal determination, that is, control their fate?
“The Scorpion and the Frog”: If characters have personal determination, to what extent are their choices a result of their nature?
fall reading list
Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Boyle, “The Hit Man”
Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily”
Updike, “A&P”
Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado”
Jackson, “The Lottery”
O’Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”
Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues”
Satrapi, Persepolis
Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Achebe, Things Fall Apart
enjoying literature
“In the realm of narrative psychology, a person’s life story is not a Wikipedia biography of the facts and events of a life, but rather the way a person integrates those facts and events internally—picks them apart and weaves them back together to make meaning. This narrative becomes a form of identity, in which the things someone chooses to include in the story, and the way she tells it, can both reflect and shape who she is. A life story doesn’t just say what happened, it says why it was important, what it means for who the person is, for who they’ll become, and for what happens next.”
