Books NOT to read this summer:  The Great Gatsby, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, A Separate Peace, Macbeth, Ordinary People, Glass Castles, Huckleberry Finn, Catch-22, All the King's Men, The Sun Also Rises, The CRucible, Death of a Salesman, Slaughterhouse-five, A Lesson Before Dying, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, The Bean Trees. 

 

 

PLEASE READ THIS!  If any person has visited the summer reading link on the library's webpage, please disregard the assignment listed.  For some reason they have posted last year's work.  Again, do not follow that assignment.  Stick to the four tasks listed on the sheet I provided for you at the meeting.

 NEW! THE ORAL PRESENTATION ASSIGNMENT AND RUBRIC.  WE WILL ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS REGARDING THE ASSIGNMENT IN SCHOOL.  THERE EXISTS NO NEED TO WORRY ABOUT THIS NOW, FOR IT IS NOT DUE ON THE FIRST DAY.  I JUST WANTED YOU TO BE AWARE OF WHAT IS AHEAD.

Honors English III

Oral Presentation

Summer Assessment

 

You will select a character from the book who seems to intrigue you in some way.  Take time to make your decision because, as you will see in the details that follow, you will become the character.

 

Presentation Overview: You will physically become one of the characters from the book.  Over a period of four minutes you must provide the class with a high-interest book talk that compels us to read the book.  Energy, wit, and intelligence will certainly assist you in presenting the material in such a way that makes the class curious and leaves us wanting more.

 

Suggested Strategies:

1. After selecting the character, consider how and why he/she impacts the book.  Make sure you intimately understand the book and how this one character influences its path.
2. Devise a costume that will visually bring the character to life.  Consider including a prop or visual as an additional aid to your presentation.
3. Draft a brief statement regarding the book’s content.  Do this in a way that generates interest; however, do not give away the ending. 
4. Find an excerpt from the book to include in your presentation.  The piece must have relevance and clear significance in relationship to the route your presentation takes.
5. Brainstorm a list of your character’s opinions and beliefs.  Since you will speak in this character’s voice—you will complete the entire presentation in first person—the need to avoid simple summarization is critical.  Under no circumstances is this a verbal book report; instead, it must contain an edge that reveals the character’s life and how he/she would wish for us to see the book.
6. Create a series of note cards that serve as general talking points for the presentation.  You may not read from a sheet of paper.  As you review the assessment rubric below, you will see the importance of eye contact and physical presentation quality.

 

Assessment Rubric: 

*High-interest opening (10 points)

*Expression of detailed, relevant content (15 points)

*Inclusion and analysis of excerpt (15 points)

*Use of time; not exceeding the four minute limit (10 points)

*Presentation Organization: flow and sequence (15 points)

*Audience Engagement: eye contact, clarity, voice tone and volume, body posture (15 points)

*Use of visual aid; costume quality (20 points)

 

Notes: Further explanation will occur in class.  These presentations will not happen until the third week of school.  You must have the book with you on the day of the presentation; failure to do so will result in a ten-point penalty. 

 

 

If any of you have questions or concerns about anything, please email me.  I'll return the email as fast as possible.  Do not be shy.

 

Ballad Assignment for the Honors English III task:

A ballad is a form of narrative poetry that presents a dramatic episode, which is often tragic or violent. Composed anonymously and transmitted orally from generation to generation, ballads were originally sung or recited. Many traveling bards or minstrels earned their livings by singing their stories to people in the town or marketplace, as well as to nobles in manor houses and castles. Listeners would sometimes join in the refrain or dance to the music of the ballad.

Ballads, while written in various forms, normally contain many of the following characteristics:

*they deal with plight of the common people

*the storyline develops through a dialogue tone

*action, rather than characterization or description, is emphasized

*a refrain (a chorus) is included

*the language is simple and relatable

*the rhythm is pronounced

A ballad stanza commonly has the following structure:

*a quatrain with a b c b rhyme scheme (the rhyme pattern does not need to repeat in successive stanzas)

*the quatrain has an 8, 6, 8, and 6 syllable pattern

*occasionally you may slur sounds to make syllables run together

Task: Create a ballad of at least six stanzas (not including the consistent use of a refrain) that sings in the voice of one character from the book you select. Capture the language and culture your book communicates, and you must generate a tone that reflects the character's plight, concerns, and/or motivations. Be clear and precise; waste no words. Make sure that what you put down is revealing and important. You should employ a refrain in the same fashion a music artist integrates a chorus. It should appear consistently and add to the overall impact. The refrain should remind the listeners of something important. The refrain does NOT count as one of your six stanzas.

Rubric for Evaluation

5 = below average

7 = average

10 = above average

5 7 10

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Storyline develops through a dialogue tone

Action drives the storyline

Use of a refrain (poignancy of placement)

Significance of refrain (relevance to the poem's interpretation)

Six Quatrains - rhyme scheme

Six Quatrains - syllable pattern

Communication of language and culture

Communication of character's concerns

Expression of content in detail

Presentation (word choice and grammar)

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Notable extras:

*you must type all work in Times New Roman and 12 font

*create a basic cover page with the poem's title, the book used, the due date (first day of school), the teacher's name (Simonsen or Kopple), and your name

* no plastic cover pages or report bindings. Simply staple in the upper lefthand corner.