Hey s’mores! Sorry for the late post. The NSPA/JEA national convention sucked up my entire weekend and I’ve been in the studio all evening. Ah, the life of a teacher…

Monday: We’ll spend Monday discussing the readings from last week. It is my goal to slightly problematize some of the (I think) natural reactions to reading White Man’s Burden. I know that there is something of a natural aversion to Kipling’s point of view, and while I won’t defend him, I hope to make you think about his proposal in a different way.

Homework: Read chapter 16 and make 3 entries into your dialectical journals.

Tuesday: I have a few brief words to say about chapter 16, but it isn’t anything particularly earth-shattering. I hope to give you a little bit of time to read chapter 17, but if that doesn’t happen, it becomes your homework, along with this series of questions.

Homework: See above.

Wednesday: We’ll take a little bit of time to discuss chapters 14-17, specifically focusing on Achebe’s argument. This will, of course, necessitate a short presentation on argument. I won’t post it until Wednesday, but if you’re gone make sure to check out the presentation, as you’ll need some of the information in it to help you in your seminar preparation.

Homework: Complete a 1 page, double-spaced, typed analysis of Achebe’s argument in section 2 of the novel.

Thursday: We’ll spend the first 10 minutes of class (or so) preparing a secondary response to the text, then launching into a modified seminar on Achebe’s argument to end the week.

Homework: Read chapters 18 + 19 and complete 3 entries in your dialectical journals for each chapter. I’ll be stamping them on Monday.

Hola, juniors! Happy Monday to each of you. I’m sorry for the later than usual post today; the weekend was entirely too busy. As a result, I haven’t finished grading your journals for Their Eyes Were Watching God just yet, and will have to return those to you Tuesday. That said, here’s the slightly shortened week:

Monday: We’ll kick the week off with a quick examination of Chapter 18 through a series of short questions. Just like every other novel that has ever been written (that’s a joke), Hurston makes use of weather in a powerfully symbolic way which I think we need to discuss.

Tuesday: During class we will be listening to part of chapter 19 together, completing a close reading, and then reading the rest of the chapter. You need to complete 3 additional entries in your dialectical journals as well.

Wednesday: Wednesday is much like Tuesday, as we’ll be listening to part of chapter 20, completing a close reading, then ending the day with a Free Write that I will post on Wednesday morning.

Homework: Prepare a 1 page, double-spaced, typed or neatly written in ink response to this prompt in preparation for Thursday’s seminar.

Thursday: Having finished the novel on Wednesday we’ll spend Thursday debriefing the novel through a short seminar. You need to have prepared the prompt above in order to participate. Lastly, I’ll introduce the prompts for the final essay.

Monday: We’ll be starting to talk about Things Fall Apart by reflecting on the first section of the text through a short writing piece detailing the novel’s tone thus far. (The smart kids are saying something like “tone in regard to what, pray tell?). I’ll post it ASAP.

Tuesday: We’ll continue our analysis of the first section of the text with a super, super fun activity that will take two days. I can’t really talk about it, otherwise it’ll ruin the fun. If you miss class, shoot me an email or talk to me in person (or just check the website on Tuesday) for information about our little activity.

Wednesday: And we’ll continue our activity on Wednesday with a written reflection (which I will post on Tuesday as well).

Homework: Read chapters 14+15 and complete 3 dialectical journal entries for each chapter.

Thursday: I have a short writing activity that will be comparing Ibo and Christian societies and exploring a particularly important quote from Uchendu in order to, in Atticus Finch’s words, see things differently.

Homework: Read Kipling’s poem White Man’s Burden and another piece with it.

Friday: We’ll write about the aforementioned stuff.

Welcome back! This week is awesome, but I can’t tell you why yet or it will ruin the surprise

Monday: We’ll start the week off with a little review of what we left off dealing with, specifically the last chapters of Janie’s relationship with Tea Cake. I have a series of discussion questions that will address chapters 7+8 that are designed to help you remember what we read before the break. Also, there is a short 5 minute free write that we’ll do in the last 15 minutes of class, which means we need to work quickly.

Homework: Read chapters 9+10 and complete 3 dialectical journal entries for each.

Tuesday: I’ll be indulging a few student email that I received over the break and letting you listen to chapter 11 from the audio book of Their Eyes Were Watching God before we launch into an exercise on close reading which I will upload on Tuesday.

Homework: Read chapters 11+12 (or don’t, if you can finish them during our reading day Wednesday).

Wednesday: I will be devoting the entire to reading. Bring a Snuggie. I expect that by the end of class you’ll be done with chapter 15.

Thursday: Is amazing.

Friday: We’ll begin with a rad Free Write which we’ll discuss at length. The rest of class will be given over to you reading chapters 16-18 and completing 3 dialectical journals per chapter and one close reading which I’ll check off on Monday.

Read chapters 16-18 for Monday and complete the aforementioned journals.

Hey 11’s! In case you were gone on Wednesday, or just sort of forgot what was going on, here’s a quick review:

First, I handed out the close reading guidelines that we’ll be using to craft our more detailed responses to Their Eyes Were Watching God. Then, together, we made our first close reading. You can check out one of the samples that I did during the day here. It isn’t perfect, but it goes step-by-step. First, I discuss my first impressions. Next, I examine some specific words that I found interesting. Third, I look at some patterns that I see, primarily centered around repetition. Fourth, I examine some characterization. Fifth… well, I actually skipped step five because I had discussed symbolism in great detail previously in my analysis. I hope this helps!

Hola, s’mores! This is a bit of a strange week, primarily because we have just wrapped up a novel, but don’t particularly have time to begin a new one. I, of course, find this mildly annoying, but have found a few ways to make up for it. I’ll explain more in class, but do me a favor a play along.

Monday: I’ll be handing out your essays on Monday. But not in the way that you expect; we’ll be reading each others’ final essays (without any names attached) and doing some peer grading. I’m planning on handing you the rubric that I will grade you based on, then have you look at the work that you’ve been given. The idea here is to help you act more as an editor than you already have. It will be fun (or horrible, I’m not really quite sure). The entire function of the day is to have the editor ask this question: what is the purpose?

Tuesday: I’ll have some computers in the room and will be handing your back your own graded essays so that you can take the opportunity to revise your work and resubmit based upon your peers’ essays.

Wednesday: I’ll be handing out our next novel, but we won’t begin reading it until Friday. Instead, we’ll be watching the beginning of the film The Gods Must Be Crazy. There’s a reason. I promise.

Thursday: We have a lovely Free Write activity based upon the portion of the film that we watched on Wednesday which we will spend the rest of the time discussing.

Friday: Friday is a day to begin reading Things Fall Apart. I need you to read through chapter… um… darn it. I don’t have the book here with me now, but the reading has to go through the end of part 1 by the return from Spring Break. I’ll fill in those blanks in a moment.

Well, this will be an interesting week, but not quite as bizarre as last week was. We’ll dive into Their Eyes Were Watching God in earnest, reading about 8 chapters by week’s end. If you feel like reading ahead during advisory or on the bus, I strongly recommend it. That said, here’s the schedule.

Monday: We’ll be starting a little project on Monday that will ask us to examine part of Hurston’s novel on a personal level. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of making regular connections between yourself and the text, and this little Tree Project is a great place to start. If you miss class, see me and I’ll explain it.

Tuesday: After we start the day off with a little Free Write focused on chapter two (and on building connections between ourselves and the text), I’ll be introducing our Dialectical Journal Project which we’ll be maintaining throughout the novel.

Homework: Read chapter 3 an craft your first three entries for your dialectical journals.

Wednesday: I will begin the class by checking off your journals. You will receive credit or no credit only; there are no partial grades given. Make sure to come to class prepared. Afterwards, I’ll be walking you through my expectations for the second portion of your journals, that of close reading. I’ll hand out a lovely list of close reading techniques and model several of them for you in class so that you can see how I expect you to use them.

Thursday: During class I will be giving you an opportunity to begin reading and responding to/dialoguing with chapters 4-6 in TEWWG. If you do not finish these three chapters in class, they will become homework.

Friday: I will begin class on Thursday by checking off your close readings and responses in your Dialectical Journals to chapters 4-6. Again, you’ll need three responses per chapter, and at least one must be a close reading of a passage you find interesting. This is a credit/no credit assignment, so make sure to set aside a bit of time if you don’t finish in class on Thursday. Afterwards, I’ll be giving you time to read and respond to chapters 5-8 in your Dialectical Journals. I’ll be checking these on Monday, after the break, when we’ll begin to have a serious conversation about the first two sections of the text, which are marked by Janie’s two different relationships.