SCHOLA BREVIS AUGUST 9
Welcome, young men. Who am I? Who are you?
PLEASE COMPLETE BEFORE OUR FIRST CLASS:
(1) Register on Turnitin. The Class ID is 35267928. 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) 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.
roger ackroyd 1 august 11
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) Read the essay, “Murder Most Foul” by PD James, 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.
roger ackroyd 2 august 15
(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 August 18.
(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.
roger ackroyd 3 august 16
(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.
roger ackroyd 4 august 18
(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. Below are five attempts at a topic sentence. Why are the first few incomplete?
Trust is a major idea in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
Dr. Sheppard lies to those who put their trust in him.
Dr. Sheppard’s incessant lying to those who put their trust in him shows that his need to protect himself from the truth limits his ability to be a moral man and suggests…
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd contrasts Inspectors Raglan and Poirot in order to build the idea that mere evidence-based reasoning falls flat and needs intuition and imagination to actually work.
While the minor characters in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd each, one by one, give in to the pressure of guilt, Dr. Sheppard stays true to his lie right up to the end; this contrast suggests…
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.
roger ackroyd 5 august 19
Artistic Interpretation 101: Day 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.
roger ackroyd 6 AUGUST 23
Artistic Interpretation 101: Day 2
(1) How did you do with your chosen work of art? I’d like for a number of you to put your topic sentence up on the wall. Before we move on, let’s go through our notes from last class one final time.
(2) We’ll finish with two more “images” below!
(3) Today we’ll also consider quote integration. Why do we need quotes in our writing? Why should those quotes be short? How do we actually embed those quotes into our own sentences?
TO DO:
(1) Go back to your paragraph on The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It’s time to add evidence to your paragraph. Find 3 or 4 direct quotations from the book you think would do a good job to help explain or show the main idea of your body paragraph. Make an attempt at integrating your 3 or 4 quotations in the manner we did today during class. You may continue to do this on your original brainstorming document, which by now should have a topic sentence and more concrete evidence to build the idea.
roger ackroyd 7 AUGUST 25
(1) Today we’ll look at 3 body paragraphs from former students. These body paragraphs have a strong topic sentence, helpful direct quotation, and clear elaboration on the evidence.
TO DO:
(1) Your body paragraph on The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is due on August 31. You will have our next two class to work on the paragraph with me in the room to help. I will come around to see what you have and to take any questions, so make sure you have whatever you’d like to show me and to receive feedback on. Setting up your final document. Open this template with MLA formatting.
roger ackroyd 9 AUGUST 30
(1) Setting up your final document. Open this template with MLA formatting. We’ll transfer what you have written already to this doc. Whenever you submit a written assignment in this class, you’ll use this template with proper formatting. We’ll also practice submitting a document to turnitin.com.
(2) You’ll have the remainder of the period to work on your paragraph with me in the room in case you have questions. You should have questions!
TO DO:
(1) Your paragraph on The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is due to turnitin.com by 3:30 PM on the day of our next class. This is your first major grade of the semester. Make sure it is submitted on time to avoid the 20% deduction.
short fiction 1 august 31
(1) Today is the first day of our first unit of the year: ELEMENTS OF FICTION. Our first element of fiction is PLOT. We’ll define PLOT in a few different ways, but particularly by using two similar stories about family picnics. One has a plot; the other doesn’t.
(2) We’ll read in class and begin a plot diagram for Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour.”
TO DO:
(1) Finish the plot diagram for “The Story of an Hour.” Bring it completed to our next class.
(2) Also by the next class, you will read Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," a short story with a very different type of plot structure when compared to “The Story of an Hour.” Make sure you have your hard copy of the story in our next class.
You will have a reading quiz on the story during our next class. The quiz will also assess your knowledge of these vocabulary words from the story.
what's due?
August 16 - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Quiz / Annotation Check
August 18 - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Vocabulary Quiz
August 31 - Final Body Paragraphs
September 6 - “A Rose for Emily” Reading and Vocabulary Quiz
DOCS TO HAVE HANDY
text to have daily
TEXT TO BUY NOW
SHORT STORIES STUDY LINKS
General questions for most short stories
"A Rose for Emily" Study Guide
What is a story of initiation? See Updike, "A&P"
Questions for Pushkin's "The Queen of Spades"
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
Chopin, “The Story of an Hour”
Chopin, “A Pair of Silk Stockings”
Updike, “A&P”
Bierce, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”
Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily”
O’Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”
Jackson, “The Lottery”
Vonnegut, “Harrison Bergeron”
Jacobs, “The Monkey’s Paw”
Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues”
McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
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.”
