11-09-09:
This is now how the new week shapes up in terms of classroom activities. For deadlines and other stuff look at yesterday's NewsFlash.

TUE: Discussion of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's letter. Then discussion of Lord Chesterfield's Letter

WED: Lit quiz: Both Letters and also RC "War Prayer,"

THU: Discussion of rhetorical strategies and style analysis

FRI: AP essay for a grade (Do not miss this essay. The alternative makeup essay is more difficult and not nearly as good.)

All we do for a grade this week counts to the next six weeks. I have deliberated for days whether we should postpone the AP essay to the next six weeks, but the start of Frankenstein would be severely hampered if we lost a full day.

11-08-09:

The grades are updated. They are not final for several reasons:

1. Friday's vocab quiz (aviary) is not added. As soon as I have access to the scan-tron machine, I will update on the wall only. Since the vocab grade counts only 2% of your total grade, however, I feel that this update will give you a pretty good picture of your situation.

2. Those who had an excused absence on Friday can turn in the vocab sheet (aviary) for a full 100 and make up the quiz. Those who were present Friday but did not have the vocab sheet on time, can get a 70(but only until THU).

3. Everybody can turn in a missing vocab sheet ascendancy for a 70 by 4:00 pm on TUE.

4. Everybody can make up or retake a 40 or lower on the "On the Road" RC from last WED by this THU.

5. Everybody can make up a missing grade or retake a 40 or lower grade on
1. voc "assiduous,
2. Lit Quiz Macbeth I and II,
3. RC "Brotherhood Funeral,"
4. voc "ascendancy," and
5. the voc sheet(70 only) by 4 pm TUE. Take this seriously.

6. On TUE and WED you can turn in each in-class writing assignment and EC essay for 4 pts each to an RC grade. I have graded all "Sociolect" EC essays and will return them on TUE. Those who have shown effort and have written the extra credit essays win again.
Everybody has written 3 essays in class and should be able to earn 12 points, but I need the actual essays I have graded in the folder. After all, this action serves to fill my writing folders, which have been prepared. Those who wrote all six extra credit essays can earn a total of 36 points to an RC grade. Early Merry X-mas!

7. And, as every time, I cannot add EC points to the grades I post. Integrade is simply not set up for that. I will tell you how many points you have earned in class when we have time, likely on THU or FRI.

Remember that the Frankenstein study guides come due in a week. Don't make the mistake some have made on the Grendel study guides. Plan ahead. Learn that skill now, because you will need that in college. I don't think your college professors will send out Newsflashes that your parents have access to in order to remind you to get off your behind and get started.

Meanwhile back at the ranch …

The play credit counts to the next six weeks. You might want to turn in the playbills you have picked up this weekend ASAP. Once the points are in my grade book, you can afford to lose the booklets, unless another teacher gives extra credit. Your playbill must have your name and period # in ink at the top of the front page.(If you are in the play and are credited in the booklet, you don't need to do anything. I will give you the points automatically.)

We are flipping TUE and WED as far as the in-class activities are concerned. Due dates are not affected. We will take the RC(which counts to the next six weeks) on TUE and the lit quiz over the letters(which will also counts to the next six weeks) on WED. I will post study questions TUE evening after school.

11-05-09:
The play credit for "As You Like It"(35 pts to an RC) will be applied to your third six-week grades. Remember that you must produce a playbill signed BY MR MULLER. If you are in the play and in the program booklet, you get the credit automatically.
Go see the play. It'll be just As You Like It.

11-04-09:
The college fair was more disruptive to orderly teaching than I had exepcted, and now per. 2 and 3 are comfortably behind. The fitness test tomorrow and my AP conference absence on Friday, a well as the waiver day on Monday aren't much help either. Some classes will be faster than others tomorrow, but we have no influence on that. For all practical purposes the day is a loss. We may end up having to postpone next week's essay to the third six weeks. We will have to write the essay before Thanksgiving to give me time enough to grade it.

Also: Some of the incredulous stares in several classes prompt me to reiterate

Tuesday and Wednesday next week you can bring in your essays(class essays and EC essays) for extra credit ; not much, but a few points never hurt. You get 4 pts for every essay you turn in. If you have kept all three in-class essays, you can get 12 points to an RC grade. If you have done and kept all extra credit essays also you can get another 24 points. The current extra credit essays ("Sociolect") will be returned on Tuesday. As you can see, there are many reasons to write the EC essays.

11-03-09:(later that evening)

Tomorrow, WED, we will go according to schedule. We will start but not finish "Lady Mary Wortley Montague's Letter to Her Daughter." (p. 559) as listed on the syllabus. On THU (for whatever time is left over from the fitness testing) and for Friday after the vocab quiz you will finish that text and start reading "Letter from Lord Chesterfield to His Son."(p. 555) There is a chance that I will add the Lord Chesterfield letter to the lit quiz next week. You need to know both pieces equally well for a comparison of rhetorical strategies after we have taken the quiz on WED.

read on .......

The in-house college fair, primarily intended for those who missed College Night, runs from 10:00 to 10:50 for juniors. The deal is the same as for pep rallies and other activities that we don't go to as a class. You are welcome to go, but you must make up what you are missing at lunch or after school. If you decide to go, or in the case of per 3, to stay, don't forget the most important issue:
Get pencils. The bucketeers will thank you.

The RC for a grade will take 17 minutes, the Lady Mary Wortley Montague essay excerpt will take a good 25 minutes, not just the reading but also the discussion, which is more helpful than usual because the excerpt will be on next week's lit quiz, along with the "Modest Proposal," by Swift.

I am considering switching the material for TUE and WED next week. We can take the RC for a grade ("War Prayer") on Tuesday since it needs no preparation. Monday is a waiver day, and I will likely post study questions for the Lady Mary Wortley Montague quiz and the Swift quiz on Tuesday, the day before the actual quiz.

You have one more day to retake or make up the RC Falstaff and the lit quiz "Canterbury Tales."

The following three grades(voc "assiduous, Macbeth ACTS I and II, and RC "Brotherhood Funeral ") will expire on TUE, 11-10-09 at 4:00pm.

11-02-09:
I need to resort to using the Lang Newsflash for UIL stuff once more because it is more conspicuous:
I just found out that we have the opportunity to enter 3 ready writing and 6 lit crit competitors for Saturday's invitational:
These are the ones who are eligible to go to the meet, but I have also been given today as a deadline.
Let me know ASAP if you can go. Mr Johnson will give me (or you directly) the details.

Ready Writing:

Martina Brozynski per 4

James Martinez

Daniel Romero per 3

Jake Hood per 5

Kaitlyn Sitton per 5

Sarah Hoffschwelle per 4

Anika Payne per 5

Kirby Campbell

Rebisi Owanda per 8

Lit Crit:

Sarah Hoffschwelle per 4

Kaitlyn Sitton per 5

Sai Gourisankar(if there is no conflict) per 8

Aaron Kellerhals per 5

Treasure Tinsley per 8

Juan Marqueez per 8

Parker Berg per 8

Max Ritter

I may enter on a tentative commitment, but once we enter, we have to pay for every entry, whether a student competes or doesn't.

If you have a conflict that day, your parents will need to write the circumstances of the conflict at the bottom of the permission slip and specify drop-ff and pick-up times.

We have two more regular grades this six weeks, the RC on WED and the vocab quiz on FRI. The Macbeth quiz over ACTS III-V counts to the third six weeks.

Tuesday and Wednesday next week you can bring in your essays(class essays and EC essays) for extra credit ; not much, but a few points never hurt. You get 4 pts for every essay you turn in. If you have kept all three in-class essays, you can get 12 points to an RC grade. If you have done and kept all extra credit essays also you can get another 24 points. The current extra credit essays ("Sociolect") will be returned on Tuesday. As you can see, there are many reasons to write the EC essays.

Here are the questions for ACTS III-V. The quiz is tomorrow!

23. When is there an example of dramatic irony with the audience ACTIII?

24. What is Macbeth’s desire to eliminate Banquo based on?

25. Why does Macbeth suddenly look terrified at the banquet?

26. What does the fact that Macbeth keeps a spy in each lord’s home suggest about him?

27. What is the purpose of scene 5, which involves Hecate and the three witches?

28. When the prophecies for Macbeth come true, how does Banquo react?

29. What is Macbeth’s real reason for asking Banquo about his plans for the day?

30. How does Macbeth begin to behave as this act progresses?

31. What does the appearance of the third murderer suggest?

32. How does Lady Macbeth save her husband from saying too much at the banquet?

33. What even in ACT IV was foreshadowed by Fleance’s escape in ACT III?

34. What is the second witch referring to when she announces, “Something wicked this way comes”?

35.Why has Macduff fled from his castle?

36. Why is Macduff filled with pain and guilt at the end of Act IV?

37. Why does the last king hold a mirror in the last apparition that Macbeth sees?

38. Why does Macduff leave his home quickly and quietly?

39. Why is Ross reluctant to tell Macduff the news from Scotland?

40. What country is Malcolm the rightful king of?

41. How is King Edward portrayed in this play?

42. Lady Macbeth is tormented by thoughts of what?

43. Why does Lady Macbeth keep a candle burning all night?

44. What does Macbeth begin to realize when he is told that Birnam Wood is coming to Dunsinane?

45. What is the reason Macbeth will die?

46. What is the central theme in Macbeth?

47. What is Macbeth's tragic flaw?

48. How does Macbeth feel when he hears of Lady Macbeth's death?

49. In how does Burnam Wood really come to Dunsinane

50.What comforts Old Siward about the death of his son?

And again for your comfort and convenience:

Here are the Frankenstein study guide deadlines:

11-16- 2009: study guide set 1 due(letters and chapters 1-4)
11-18- 2009: study guide set 2 due(chapters 5-8)
11-30- 2009: study guide set 3 due(chapters 9-12)
12-02- 2009: study guide set 4 due(chapters 13-16)
12-07- 2009: study guide set 5 due(chapters 17-20)
12-09- 2009: study guide set 6 due(chapters 21-24)

11-1-09:
The words I will check are ascendancy, firebrand, jaunty, latent, exude, and inimitable. If a student has fewer than 4 points from the first two readings there is no need to read the sentences.

10-31-09:
Grades are posted. Grades 1-6 are firm. Grades 7+8 will be firm Wed, 11-04-09 at 4:00 pm.

10-30-09:
I will try to read the vocab sheets for all six classes this weekend and next week by Thursday and put off the extra credit essays. Most of you will be happy that all will be over. Some of you don't have to write sentences anymore, and others can go back to writing short, pedestrian sentences again, for the rest of the school year.

I will post study questions for ACTS III-V on Monday afternoon. On Tuesday, right after the quiz, we will start looking at rhetorical strategies prompts, which is a fancy term for style analysis.

The prompt we will write on next will be a style analysis prompt. On it you will be asked to describe not only what a writer says but how he or she says it and why he or she says it.
If you remember these three elements and keep in mind the intended audience, the persona of the speaker, and the circumstances surrounding the essay or speech, you should be in pretty good shape.

Remember that on WED 4:00 another two grades (lit quiz "Canterbury Tales" , RC "Falstaff")will turn into pumpkins.

The pep ralliers need to get on it and make up the vocab quiz. The ralliers missed an alternate version of Macbeth, slightly abridged. Go to LINKS and click on the bottom link. You will find the link to the PHC website. Your parents will likely be able to relate to some of the characters. If you are ready for more, put (one at a time) ILIAD, ELECTRA and OEDIPUS into the search box. Hardcore fans should just search for CELEBRITY CLASSICS and get it all.

Expect the grade update sometime this Saturday since I have quite a few make-up quizzes to grade first.

10-29-09:

Write the essay!
Be kind and pick something interesting. I don't know how many more text messaging or teenspeak essays I can take, but I will dutifully read what you write. Write about a variety I don't know yet. Or at least try.

In the unlikely event that you cannot open the file here is the prompt:

Just as every individual has an idiolect‑a language that varies in minute ways from the language of every other person‑so every group has a sociolect or language of its own. That language may differ from other varieties of the same language in its pronunciation, inflections, syntax, vocabulary, or the manner and conditions in which it is used.

Write an essay describing some major features of the language used in one specific group that you know well‑an occupational, ethnic, social, or age group, for example. Your essay should indicate what purposes these features serve or what influences they reflect. You should assume that your reader is not familiar with the language you describe.

Try to learn to print front and back. Add a word count unless your paper is clearly over 600 words.

If you plan to email, (assuming you still have your email privileges intact) use Arial Narrow, take out the margins (.3 inches),and double space. I will fix the font size if necessary.

10-28-9:
The fitness test is THU, Nov 5. No shorts, but comfortable clothing. There will be a call from the automated system, but tell your folks anyway.

The book will close on all grades up to "archaic" on Friday, 4:00 pm. You also need to have the vocab sheets for "arable" and "archaic" in by Friday and all SAT stuff. Extenuating circumstances must be serious(long illness). Be prepared to lose opportunity to make up another two or three grades next Wednesday, 4:00pm.
You will always have a full week to make up grades, but I can't wait forever to have you take care of your business.

Tomorrow, after per 1, go to HR for progress reports.
If you have made up grades recently and want to have your progress reports look better, show me your progress report sheets tomorrow. I can change and initial the grade. I can also apply the extra credit points you have earned so far. On the progress reports I gave all those between 65 and 69 a 70, because I assume that their flawless HW record will raise their averages to a passing level. Of course, in some cases that's wishful thinking on my part.

Plan to write the RC essay for Friday. The prompt is on the web site.

Write your best sentences this week(except for those of you , who are finished already)! Each class has been read twice and I have two more weeks(i.e. two opportunities) to read the last sheets.

The play credit for "As You Like It"(35 pts to an RC) will be applied to your third six-week grades. Remember that you must produce a playbill signed BY MR MULLER. If you are in the play and in the program booklet, you get the credit automatically.

Tomorrow, we will have a very short discussion of a few of the vocab words for this Friday. Then we will read as far a we can possibly get to finish the play. On Friday, right after the vocab quiz, we'll finish whatever needs to be done. I have a short (15 min.) encore presentation to the play. If there is enough time, we'll listen to it. The Macbeth ACTS III-V quiz will be on TUE, but it will most likely count to the 3rd six weeks. I have three literature grades already, which will allow me to make a valid lit average.

Mark your calendars: Nov 9 is a Waiver Day. No school for you, terminal boredom for the teachers.

My advice: start the Frankenstein study guides that day: Here are the deadlines.

11-16- 2009: study guide set 1 due(letters and chapters 1-4)
11-18- 2009: study guide set 2 due(chapters 5-8)
11-30- 2009: study guide set 3 due(chapters 9-12)
12-02- 2009: study guide set 4 due(chapters 13-16)
12-07- 2009: study guide set 5 due(chapters 17-20)
12-09- 2009: study guide set 6 due(chapters 21-24)

As you can tell, there are six sets of study guides. With the five vocab sheets, we will have eleven total HW assignments, one of them a buffer.

10-27-09:
Here we go again: barely recovered from losing time to pictures, we lose another day to physical fitness testing. Next week Paschal will be involved in the testing, and, guess what, it will be done through the English classes.
Details will follow.

On the original version of the syllabus an essay was scheduled for this Friday, which would have forced us to move up the vocab quiz to Thursday. Since we are losing another day next week, we will do with one essay for this six week cycle. We should be able to finish Macebth easily by the end of Friday. The Macbeth quiz next Tuesday will go forward as planned. I'll post questions Monday night.

I have two weeks to read one more set of sentences from each class and I have one more set of extra credit essays to read(the ones due Friday). I will spread out the workload over two weekends. I could read sentences for all classes this weekend or I could read the EC essays this weekend or split the job. By 11-09 all the work will be done.

10-26-09:
The words I am checking are diction, frailty, jingoistic, miscarry, supersede, and malaise. I hope those are your best sentences. I am checking per 3,4,and 5, for sure; others as I have time. All sheets will be back by Thursday.

I am closing the book on Maggie. Grades not made up by tomorrow 4:00 pm will stay what they are. Other grades are going to firm up very shortly. Grendel study guides also need to be in by Tuesday 4:00 also.

If you missed the picture taking today, go tomorrow on your own time. Do not take any class time from me or from other teachers.

If you are close to a higher grade level (79 or 80, or 89 or 90) and have written extra credit essays you can have me add those points to the progress report grades on Thursday to make your parents not disown you.
here are th study questions for Macbeth, ACTS I and II:
The quiz has 22 questions. 20 correct = 100

1. What is the overall purpose of the first scene of the play?
2. What do the witches foretell in ACT I, scene 3?
3. Who is the "peerless kinsman, according to Duncan?"
4. How can one best describe Lady Macbeth (not a physical description)?
5. What does Lady Macebth persuade her husband to do in the last scene of ACT I?
6. What is Macebth like at the beginning of the play?
7. Why is Macbeth surprised to be addressed Thane of Cawdor by Ross and Angus?
8. When does Macbeth begin to hope for Duncan's death?
9. What does Duncan do to honor Macbeth?
10. What can be deduced by the fact that Duncan was deceived by the old Thane of Cawdor?
11. How might one describe Lady Macbeth's welcome to Duncan?
12. What does Macbeth hear as he murders Duncan?
13. What does the porter, awakened by the knocking, imagine?
14. Who discovers the dead Duncan?
15. Why od Malcolm and Donalbain leave Scotland?
16. Why is Banquo reluctant to go to sleep?
17. What are the candles stand for in "the candles are all out"?
18. Why does Macbeth see a dagger before him?
19. What is Macbeth's immediate and greatest concern after the murder of Duncan?
20. What does Macbeth realize will follow the murder of Duncan?
21. Why does Lady Macbeth faint right after the murder is discovered?
22. What is Macbeth doing at the end of ACT II?

There are no vocabulary questions. Don't ask me any questions. Consult your friends if you please.

10-23-09:
Grades are posted. These are your progess report grades.

Next set of Spirit Days

November 10

November 20

December 8

December 18

January 8

January 12

January 26

January 29

February 2

February 9

February12

February 16

February 23

On Monday we will meet in my classroom and then I will pick a time to take the pictures.
Look presentable on Monday.

Check for a grade update late tonight.
As I said before, the two books Frankenstein and Pride and Prejudice will go on open sale on Monday

10-22-09:

Since I have not added all names to the UIL Newsflash list, I will post the schedule for UIL here.
If you are not interested in UIL, skip the following paragraph.

Birdville Meet, November 7th,

Mansfield Meet, November 14th, or Aledo, December 5th, (we will not do both)

Flower Mound, January 9th

Glenrose, January 30th

Flower Mound, February 13th (Math and Science only)

Aledo, March 6th

District Meet, North Crowley H.S. March 26 (afternoon Friday and all day Saturday, March 27th

Regional Meet, Texas Tech, Lubbock TX, April 22-24th. (Thursday-Saturday)

State Meet, University of Texas, Austin Tx, May 6-8, (Thursday-Saturday)

Right after the vocab quiz we will go on in Macbeth. We should be able to finish ACT II very easily. How far we get in ACT III depends on how fast we get through the vocab quiz.

The two books Frankenstein and Pride and Prejudice will go on open sale on Monday. Then Ms. Eaton's classes have the same shot at the books.

I will pick up but not read the vocab sheets for all six classes tomorrow. I need to catch up on grading my extra credit essays(Supreme Court) and will thus read two or three classes only.

BTW: I have posted AP Scholar designations on the website under HANDOUTS/GRADES.

And: Don't forget the EC essay (Cripple). Focus on two things:

What does she want to look like (to the reader?

How does she do that? What techniques does she use? (comparison, allusion, rhetorical questions, figurative language, and another dozen or so.)

Use your own words. You don't need to burden yourself with the old Ethos, Pathos, Logos triad.

10-21-09:

barely 30 minutes ago I found out that on Nov 7, the day I am in Dallas for an AP conference, there is a UIL invitational meet at Birdville. I don't have details, but those of you who expressed interest should check their calendars to see if they might have time.
Here again the details of the competitions:

UIL Spelling and Vocabulary is a contest in which you have to be able to spell 60 words correctly from dictation, 15 words from a list of misspelled written words, and you have to identify the meaning of 15 words. These words come from a list of 1500 spelling words, from which you have to know the definition of 300 words.

At contests any given test will consist of 80% of words from the 1500-word list and 20% outside words, generally from TIME, Newsweek, and The New Yorker. The benefit of UIL is a greatly increased vocabulary and more general knowledge. The contest is best for students who can retain information easily and who have good short to mid-term memory. What I like about the contest is that the scoring is objective, especially at tournaments that use computer tests. The district meet is at the end of March, but we will try to go to two or three invitational tournaments. I will prepare CD’s with the word files and with a test engine. You can practice at home on the test engine and occasionally come in at lunch to do a few tests to show me how you are doing. There can be teamwork involved in preparation for meets.

The UIL Ready Writing contest is for students who don’t like to sit down and study but can think on their feet. The topics on this test are about the same difficulty as AP prompts, but one of the two offered is always a literary prompt. Having read a few books generally does help a bit. Sophia Nguyen (c/o 2009) won 2^nd place in state in her junior year without really ever preparing. She maintained that writing the AP essays in my class were enough preparation. I am not sure I can fully endorse that, but we have had better than expected success in Ready Writing. If you are a good writer, but have little time to prepare or practice, this is for you. This contest is an individual contest. There is no team score.

UIL Literary Criticism is the heavyweight among all UIL contests. It requires the most complete and consummate skill. The test is composed of a general literary knowledge section, a specified knowledge section on three works, one novel, one play and a set of poems, and then a short essay as possible tiebreaker. I have a few example test to show you if you are interested. The book this year is a utopian novel Erewhon, by Samuel Butler, Antigone, By Sophocles, and 20 selected poems by Thomas Hardy. Without a doubt this is the very best preparation for the AP Lit class and exam and a pretty god preparation for our class. The text book for the literary terminology is much better than any short list I can post on my website because it goes into detail and provides real examples. There is a good measure of memorization involved(memorizing names and year of Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winners) but the payoff is immediate. There is some teamwork involved, especially when we do extra preparatory research.

read on .............

Starting tomorrow, the new phone number for Paschal HS is

817-814-5000

Period 2 students, remember the race code sheets.

Tell your folks.
As always , prepare the definitions for the vocab ("assiduous") for tomorrow. We'll go over a few words before we go back to Macbeth.
Also, make up missing grades before the progress report weekend.
I don't know how much time the class pictures will cost us and when the pictures will be taken. But I assume we will go on Monday, considering that my last name is in the first part of the alphabet. The schedule is not out yet at this very moment.

The Macbeth quiz over Acts I and II is on Tuesday. here is the syllabus for the next three weeks as updated.

WED: 10‑21-09: Graded AP Reading Comp: "Falstaff"

In class: Macbeth

THU: 10‑22-09: In class: Macbeth

FRI: 10‑23-09: Vocabulary quiz: "assiduous"

In class: Macbeth

WEEK 10

MON: 10‑26-09: Diagnostic RC: "On Death and Dying"

TUE: 10-27-09: Lit Quiz: Macbeth (Acts I + II)

In class: Macbeth

Note that one of the two days will be affected by the picture taking.

WED: 10‑28-09: Graded AP Reading Comp: "Brotherhood Funeral"

In class: Macbeth

THU: 10‑29-09: In class: Macbeth

FRI: 10‑30-09: Graded AP Writing Prompt

Vocabulary quiz: "ascendancy"

WEEK 11

MON: 11‑02-09: Diagnostic AP Reading Comp: "Rabbit, Run"

TUE: 11‑03-09: Lit Quiz: Macbeth (Acts III – V)

In class: “Macbeth - What Really Happened"

WED: 11-04-09: Graded AP Reading Comp: "On the Road"

Lady Mary Wortley Montague: A Letter to Her Daughter

THU: 11-05-09: Swift: "A Modest Proposal"

FRI: 11-06-09: Vocabulary quiz: "aviary"

WEEK 12

MON: 11-09-09: Waiver Day

TUE: 11-10-09 : Lit Quiz: Swift: "A Modest Proposal"

and Lady Mary Wortley Montague: A Letter to Her Daughter(counts to next six weeks)

In class: Introduction to Rhetorical Analysis

WED: 11‑113-09: Graded AP Reading Comp: "A War Prayer" (counts to next six weeks)

Rhetorical Analysis

THU: 11‑12-09: Graded AP Writing Prompt : Rhetorical Analysis (counts to next six weeks)

FRI: 11‑13-09: In class: Letter from Lord Chesterfield to his Son

Be prepared for the first Frankenstein study guide to be due on Monday, 11-16-09: As alsways the study guides will become due fast and furiously. Some of you were overwhelmed by the Grendel study guides. Don't procrastinate and make the same mistake again. I reserve the right to spoil the suspense if I see fit.

10-19-09:
The example sentences I read this weekend were mostly rather mundane; very few of them could classify as witty. Sentences with real information and details fared better. If you can, however, get a double meaning of a word into the same example sentence, go ahead:e.g. William's overtures to the loan arranger at the no-tell motel got him arrested for trespassing and solicitation. (Don't ask me to explain.)
Another example:
"The politician was a populist." gets you a weak, pitying smile.
"The politician prevailed in the primary because he was pandering to the public by primarily paying attention to the polls, then preparing his platform," gets you half a point, notwithstanding the clever alliteration.
"Eugene Debs became the leader of an essentially populist movement when he helped found the IWW, " or a similar sentence involving Ralph Nader gets you a full point.
The smart ones among you will from now on go to Wikipedia to read up on these terms and put some real information into their example sentences.

We are starting Macbeth tomorrow. In large classes, especially per 5, some of you might want to bring their own copies of the purple books. Right before the start of Macbeth I will return the Ehrenreich essays.

10-16-09:
The grades are posted.

I will definitely read the vocab sentences for per 3,4,5, but I may also read the other classes' sentences to get ahead in the game. I have five weeks to read six classes, each at least twice, most likely three times. I will not lower my standards simply because the first set of sentences was less than inspiring. I will do one thing, though. I will lower the magic number to 10, down from 12. If 10 of your 18 sentences that I will check in one of three readings are good enough, you will receive dispensation. Be advised that since I have lowered the number, I will not listen to whinings of students who made 9 out of 18 and got "oh so close." Not having to write sentences is clearly a privilege you have to earn.
I received questions from two students on whether the terms from The list to end all lists would be on the quiz(zes). The answer there is: HECK NO! That would be terminally cruel. Later in the year, in our quest for knowledge, we will have a unit on logical fallacies and rhetorical devices, and then some of those terms will reappear.

The books are in. Get them during the passing periods. Frank $2.00, Pride $2.50. The study guides for Frankenstein are posted.

10-15-09:
Actually, "nomenclatural" is an established word, often used in biology.
For the benefit of those who do not have a purple book at home, for whatever reason, I have posted "The Pardoner's Prologue" and "The Pardoner's Tale" and "The Wife of Bath's Tale" all in one file under HANDOUTS/ GRADES. Our purple book's versions are a bit shorter than what I have posted, but you should be fine either way. I did not post the rather long "The Wife of Bath's Prologue," as there are no questions from it on the test. The test will be, as I wrote yesterday, 50 questions long, 38 correct out of 50 =100. (24% break).

Here are the study questions. There are no questions for "The Wife of Bath's Tale" or the vocab questions.
Those vocab questions come from the marginal and foot notes in the book. The two tales I posted don't have those notes. As always, don't ask me any questions, but I encourage you to discuss the questions among yourselves.

When only does the friar give absolution to sinners?
What does the Summoner look like?
What is the reward for telling the best tale on the journey?
Who determines the winner of the contest?
What attitude do the pilgrims have towards their journey?
What is the response of the pilgrims to the narrator?
Why are the pilgrims going to Canterbury?
Who has the highest social status among the pilgrims in “The Prologue”?
What do all of the pilgrims represent collectively?
What does the Miller look like?
What does the narrator think of the Parson?
What is the physical description of the pardoner?
To which group does the Summoner belong?
Why does the Host decide to hold this contest?
What does the Pardoner say is the purpose of his sermons?
What does “The Pardoner’s Tale” warn against?
What reason does the Pardoner give for telling his tale?
What is the theme of all the Pardoner’s sermons?
What is the intention of the “Pardoner’s Tale”?
What is the old man’s attitude towards Death in the “Pardoner’s Tale”?
What do the three rioters in the “Pardoner’s Tale” think of the old man?
How does Death conquer the three rioters?
What does the Pardoner admit in his prologue?
What has the old man been looking for?
What does the Pardoner attempt to do at the end of his tale?

I may actually give you the CT test first, then the vocab quiz. We'll see.
Here's the thinking: Slower test takers will take quite long to get the first quiz done, then may be pressed for time on the second. Thus the less weighty quiz (vocab )should go second.

However: On the vocab quiz students rely more on short-term memory. Those that cram at the very last moment will have forgotten most material by the time the CT test is over. Thus the vocab quiz should go first.

My advice is: prepare well so you don't have to cram.

10-14-09:
The world is safe!

Here is the long anticipated cureall for all semantic, terminological and nomenclatural(that migt be a neologism) ills.

The list to end all lists:
BTW: paying close attention on Mondays might be just as helpful.

absolute	Unqualified in extent or degree; total (The only escape; no way out; everybody has one)
ad hominem	Appealing to personal considerations rather than logic or reason "to the man"
allegory	Symbolic representation of another event (Animal Farm = Russian Revolution)
anachronism	Something out of time or place (clocks in Julius Caesar)
analepsis	Flashback; depiction of earlier story points after later events have been revealed
anaphora	Repetition of word or phrase at the beginning of verses, clauses, or paragraphs
anecdote	Short, humorous story
antithesis	Direct contrast; opposition; juxtaposition of opposite thoughts or images (It was the best of times…)
aphorisms	Brief statement of truth or principle (Ben Franklin's early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy…)
aposiopesis	Speaker stops in the middle of a sentence - usually denotes strong emotion
apostrophe	Addressing an absent person or object (Oh, Romeo, Romeo wherefore art thou Romeo?)
aside	Dialogue not heard by other characters onstage
asyndeton	Omission of conjunctions where they would normally occur (I came, I saw, I conquered)
atmosphere	Mood
catharsis	Purifying or cleansing of emotions at the end of tragic drama
chiasmus	Inversion of 2nd of 2 parallel structures (What trade, thou knave? Thou naughty knave, what trade?)
colloquial language	Conversational writing
conceit	Extended metaphor
connotation	Meanings or feelings associated with a word - beyond literal meaning
denotation	Direct or specific meaning of a word
denouement	Final resolution of the plot
Deus ex machina	"God in the machine" Unexpected, improbable character introduced into a work to influence outcome
dialect	Regional language
double entendre	Word or expression designed to have two meanings
elevated diction	Formal or lofty speech
ellipsis	Omission of a word or phrase necessary for grammatical construction (…)
ennui	Feeling of world weariness
epigram	Short, witty poem expressing a single observation
epilogue	Short section at end of work spoken to audience to outline characters' future
ethos	Persuasive appeal based on the speaker's ethics (trust me, I'm a doctor... I'm the President; I wouldn't lie)
euphemism	Substituting a mild term for a harsh term (grandma passed away; she's pleasantly plump)
fable	Short story involving animals used to teach a lesson
farce	Humorous play having highly improbable plot and exaggerated characters
framework story	A story in which one or more other stories are told (Frankenstein; The Princess Bride; The Canterbury Tales)
foil	A secondary character whose personality contrasts with and highlights the main character's: Tom is a foil for Huck
hamartia	Character flaw leading to tragedy (Brutus' honor in Julius Caesar)
hubris	Excessive pride or arrogance (King Creon in Antigone)
hyperbole	Exaggeration
litotes	Understatement with negative balanced by positive (not that bad; no small problem)
logos	Persuasive appeal to logic (common sense approach; facts and figures, etc.)
metaphor	Comparison without the words like or as
metonymy	Word or phrase substituted for another closely associated word or phrase
non-sequitur	Logic does not follow
onomatopoeia	Words which imitate the sound with which they are associated (buzz, flick, beep)
parable	Short story teaching a moral or religious lesson
paradox	Seemingly contradictory statement which in nonetheless true (F451 - The more you drink, the thirstier you are)
pathos	Persuasive appeal to sympathy and emotion (Feed the Children ads, MDA telathon, etc.)
periodic sentence	Meaning suspended until the end of the sentence
personification	Inanimate objects are given human qualities
polysyndeton	Repetition of conjunctions for rhetorical effect ( Last night I ate pizza, and ice cream, and chips, and broccoli!)
pun	Play on words with different meanings (soul/sole in Julius Caesar)
sarcasm	Cutting, ironic remark intended to wound
satire	Attacks human vice or folly through wit (Animal Farm)
simile	Comparison using like or as
soliloquy	Character reveals thoughts while alone onstage
syllogism	Three point logical deduction (Major premis, minor premis, deduction)
synecdoche	Part stands for the whole (Lend me a hand)
synesthesia	Description of one sense by words generally used to describe another (hungry eyes)

Don't wait till the last moment to write the extra credit essay. This week you have another easy topic:

the Supreme Court decision on a school newspaper, the famous Hazelwood case. Do background research if you want.

Get the vocab ("archaic") done for tomorrow, at least the definitions.

Remember to read "The Wife of Bath's Tale". If you left your book at school, download the story from gutenberg.org.

13-10-09:
This just in from the data office:

Homeroom Teachers,

You will meet in homeroom on Thursday, Oct. 15, at 9:19 a.m. (2^nd period). Remain in homeroom until the bell rings to hear pledge and announcements, then go to your 2^nd period class.

This will be our usual schedule to hand out Progress Reports and Report Cards. We will no longer meet in homeroom at 8:25 a.m.

This might help.

With all the interruptions this week(waiver day, PSAT) we have to resort to accelerated teaching and dropping material. We will do the diagnostic RC(Shooting an Elephant)" next week and push the following RC ahead, thus getting caught up by Monday 10-26. We can take the Macbeth quiz (Acts I and II) on Tuesday, 10-27. I don't like to give quizzes on Mondays anyway.

The RC for a grade, "Sparrow Hawk", is canceled. We will do one fewer RC for a grade this six weeks. The good news is that we avoid the most difficult RC I have to offer; the bad news is that I will again not be able to drop the lowest RC. Those periods not affected by the PSAT administration will read more of the CT in class, whereas those affected will listen to recordings of the prologue, the Pardoner's Tale and the start of the Wife of Bath's Tale. We will talk about the vocab("archaic") on Thursday the last 5 minutes of class. The quiz is Friday, at the beginning of class. The Canterbury Tales quiz follows.
I will post a few study questions on Thursday afternoon. The test will be 50 questions, with 12 of them constituting the break, making 38 of 50 the grade of 100.

Remember to write good sentences again. This week the periods I am reading are 1,2 and 8. That does not necessarily mean that I will read periods 3,4 and 5 next week.

The books are in. I will start selling them very soon($ 4.50 for both books).

For the benefit of those interested but ignorant in our cultural evolution read at your own risk: historybloopers.doc in the HANDOUTS/GRADES section.

As if I hadn't written enough already, here are the SAT week 7 answers:

Section 3

26. A

27. E

28. C

29. A

30. C

31. A

32. B

33. D

34. C

35. A

36. C

37. C

38. B

39. D

40. A

41. B

42. C

43. D

44. A

45. B

46. B

47. A

48. C

49. E

50. A

51. B

52. C

Section 5

About the essay we wrote last Thursday:

When you compare this prompt with the Americans & TV extra credit prompt from 1985, you will see similarities and differences. The similarities are obvious. Both prompts assert that TV does not provide a realistic picture of the world we live in. But whereas the Americans & TV prompt focuses on who is on TV, Ehrenreich’s prompt focuses on what is on TV. Ehrenreich says “If you watch TV for a very long time, day in, day out, you will begin to notice something eerie and unnatural about the world portrayed therein.” She goes on to explain that we live in a world of couch potatoes, but that we don’t want to see those couch potatoes “at work,” (well, short of Married With Children, maybe). Ehrenreich says we would rather watch people “chasing fast cars, drinking lite beer, shooting each other at close range, etc.,” and she goes on to tell us what our population really does: ”But modern people, i.e., couch potatoes, do nothing that is ever shown on television” and adds facetiously “because it is either dangerous or would involve getting up from the couch.” Her mocking modern man’s lassitude is the essence of the prompt.

So, what now?

You can answer the prompt by either focusing on the assertion that TV is unrealistic (which is tantamount to forcing open doors or knocking down nonexistent walls) or by focusing on the idea that most of us have turned into passive bystanders and couch potatoes, while the real world – the active world of excitement, the world we want to be a part of, not apart from – is passing right in front of our sleepy eyes and our bags of potato chips.

The free response question is always a strange animal. If you see yourself forced into agreeing with the prompt’s assertions, you will have to piggyback on the writer’s ideas and examples. If you disagree with the writer you have to play devil’s advocate, but at least you get to adduce your own reasons and examples. Very few writers ever disagree with Lapham in his assertion that Americans are in love with money and its ostentatious display (economics has actually a term for just that – “conspicuous consumption”), but that limits them in their possible scope of the argument. (Of course Lapham’s real issue is a different one, but many writers don’t even get that far.)

As quite a few of you have argued on the Americans & TV prompt, namely that TV was never intended to be a mirror of reality but an escape hatch from that reality, you can do the same thing on this prompt, but you will have to come up with heavier artillery scattering her claim that we have turned into a country of watchers. Shows such as THE BIGGE$T LO$ER come to mind. Of course, you could simply say “guilty as charged, so what?” but that’s hardly a satisfactory answer. You could argue that this all is a matter of numbers. Although 80% of all Americans are guilty of doing nothing, those other 20% must be doing what the rest watches. If nobody did anything, we couldn’t watch anything*, but that’s just putting a semantic spin on a national problem.

*Of course there is always the world of digital imagery. Not too many extras were killed or maimed or even broke a sweat in the making of 300, and maybe in the near future THE BIGGE$T LO$ER will be a cartoon: weight loss by animated proxy, as it were. Move over, Weight Watchers.

10-09-09:
Grades are posted.
If you missed per 8 and the vocab quiz, do not panic. I will put a 0 into the grade update for now, but that will disappear as soon as you make up the work. We did not go much further in the Canterbury Tales, just far enough to catch up with other classes. Now that you have your own purple English books at home, just read to the end of the monk, line 211, and you are caught up.
As I pointed out for other pep rallies, even if we don't go as a class, you are still allowed to go as an individual if you fit the description, either as an upper level floor class student or as a junior. That band members, cheerleaders and other pep rally participants are free to go is clear. They know that they have to make up stuff they miss. Quite a few of you would probably have chosen to stay in class if you had had the option. If you value your delicate little cilia inside your cochlea, I will not accuse you of lacking school spirit. Hearing loss is irreversible.

You will have all of next week to make up work you missed today, namely the not-so-imposing vocab quiz and 50-60 lines of CT. I will take your vocab sheets and the week 7 SAT packets for a full 100 on Tuesday. I have also decided that I will give the per 8 students who were in class but didn't have their SAT packets an extension till Tuesday.

I will not read the absent per 8 students' vocab sentences this weekend because I can't read what I don't have, but you have four more possible weeks to impress me.
The essay grades are not included this weekend. A full set of 130+ essays takes longer than one weekend.

10-08-09:
I will pick up all vocab sheets but will read only 2 or 3 periods' sheets. With as many essays as I have to do I will limit myself to reading 2 or 3 sets if I want to return the vocab sheets by THU.

Since some students this morning were still confused about the ground rules of AP writing in general and our class in particular, here once more with feeling:

1. Write in ink. On the real exam in May 2010 the proctors will not be very nice about that issue.

2. You can get +5 for a well-written outline. What is a "well-written outline," you may ask.
A well-written outline is one from which an intelligent writer who is not an expert on the subject could write a decent essay. That means, the outline has to contain real information!

3. AP essays are not graded by length. You should plan to spend up to 15 minutes on reading the prompt, thinking about your position, and writing an outline. 25 minutes is plenty of time to write a good essay. Don't dawdle in the prompt to bump up the word count. AP is like guerrilla warfare. Go in, kill, get out. Of course you must develop your argument and illustrate what you are saying with examples, but you should not simply pile on sentences and more examples to beat a dead horse. Sometimes more is not better, it's simply more.

When you look at a rubric, any rubric, but especially the one that goes with our prompt, you will see how vague rubrics are. They are pretty much generic, with a few words modified on each rubric. If you expected more from an AP rubric than from an SAT rubric, you will be sorely disappointed.

AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION

2009 SCORING GUIDELINES (Form B)

Visit the College Board on the Web: www.collegeboard.com.

Question 3

The score should reflect a judgment of the essay’s quality as a whole. Remember that students had only

40 minutes to read and write; the essay, therefore, is not a finished product and should not be judged by

standards appropriate for an out-of-class assignment. Evaluate the essay as a draft, making certain to

reward students for what they do well.

All essays, even those scored 8 or 9, may contain occasional lapses in analysis, prose style, or mechanics.

Such features should enter into the holistic evaluation of an essay’s overall quality. In no case may an

essay with many distracting errors in grammar and mechanics be scored higher than a 2.

______________________________________________________________________________________

9 Essays earning a score of 9 meet the criteria for a score of 8 and, in addition, are especially

sophisticated in their argument, thorough in their development, or particularly impressive in

their control of language.

8 Effective

Essays earning a score of 8 effectively defend, challenge, or qualify Ehrenreich’s assertions about

television. The evidence and explanations used are appropriate and convincing. The prose demonstrates a

consistent ability to control a wide range of the elements of effective writing but is not necessarily

flawless.

7 Essays earning a score of 7 meet the criteria for a score of 6 but provide a more complete

explanation, more thorough development, or a more mature prose style.

6 Adequate

Essays earning a score of 6 adequately defend, challenge, or qualify Ehrenreich’s assertions about

television. The evidence and explanations used are appropriate and sufficient. The writing may contain

lapses in diction or syntax, but generally the prose is clear.

5 Essays earning a score of 5 defend, challenge, or qualify Ehrenreich’s assertions about

television. The evidence or explanations used may be uneven, inconsistent, or limited. The

writing may contain lapses in diction or syntax, but it usually conveys the student’s ideas.

4 Inadequate

Essays earning a score of 4 inadequately defend, challenge, or qualify Ehrenreich’s assertions about

television. The evidence or explanations used may be inappropriate, insufficient, or less convincing. The

prose generally conveys the student’s ideas but may be less consistent in controlling the elements of

effective writing.

3 Essays earning a score of 3 meet the criteria for a score of 4 but demonstrate less success in

defending, challenging, or qualifying Ehrenreich’s assertions about television. The essays may

show less maturity in control of writing

2 Little Success

Essays earning a score of 2 demonstrate little success in defending, challenging, or qualifying

Ehrenreich’s assertions about television. These essays may misunderstand the prompt or substitute a

simpler task by responding to the prompt tangentially with unrelated, inaccurate, or inappropriate

explanation. The prose often demonstrates consistent weaknesses in writing, such as grammatical

problems, a lack of development or organization, or a lack of control.

1 Essays earning a score of 1 meet the criteria for a score of 2 but are undeveloped, especially

simplistic in their explanation and argument, or weak in their control of language.

0 Indicates an on-topic response that receives no credit, such as one that merely repeats the prompt.

— Indicates a blank response or one that is completely off topic.

Any clearer?

10-06-09:
The "buffer" answers:

Week 6

1. D “for having begun”

2. B “argue”

3. D “they are”

4. D “nor”

5. C “was”

6. B “why”

7. B “previously unobserved”

8. B “to be aware”

9. A “a method”

10. E

11. A “had ruled”

12. C “of communicating”

13. E

14. D “critic of”

15. D “competitor’s cake”

16. B “run”

17. B “defensible”

18. E

19. B “than zoos in any other city”

20. E

21. E

22. E

23. B

24. D

25. A

26. D

27. C

28. D

29. A

30. D

31. E

32. A

33. E

34. B

35. C

36. E

37. A

38. D

39. E

Do the vocab (arable) for tomorrow, at least the definitions. I will not pick up the sheets until Friday. Thursday is essay day.

Look at the syllabus for the second six weeks, so you have an idea of what is going to happen this six weeks.

10-05-09:
Tomorrow,Tuesday, after school, there will be no after-school SAT class. I have a social obligation, namely the National Merit recognition. After that we have two more days of practice. Next Monday is a waiver day, and next Tuesday some of you can have a day of regret for not preparing better, others a day of anticipation and confidence.

10-04-09:
The two new grades("Maggie" and "Grendel") are posted. They count to the 2nd six weeks, as you know. The 1st six weeks grades will be posted again on the wall. For many of you those grades will be the same as last week's.

Later tonight(not before 8:00 pm) check for the new syllabus.

10-2-09:
When you check for grades on Sunday, you will find the two new grades. The six weeks grade will be posted in the room. Again, the extra points you have earned I will add when I turn in the grades.
Also, check the new syllabus and print it out so you have a clue to what's going to happen during the next six weeks. We will not get to Frankenstein during October, but I will get the book to you in October so you can work ahead.

10-1-09:
These are the philosophies that you must match with statements and facts about them.

Solipsism

Materialism

Empiricism

Sophistry

Nihilism

Old Testament Theology

New Testament Theology

Existentialism

Mysticism

Skepticism

Study Guide Questions –

What is the Shaper's Function?

Why does Grendel let Unferth Live?

Why does Grendel wage war against the humans?

What phrases does the dragon use to describe his belief that life is meaningless?

Why does Grendel believe that Hrothgar is trapped by the kingdom he built?

Why is Grendel uneasy about Beowulf?

Why does Grendel believe men are dangerous?

When is the “spell” of Grendels carefree childhood broken?

The Grendel portrayed in this book differs from the monster in Beowulf in what ways?

Why does Grendel believe the stranger is able to defeat him?

As always, don't try to squeeze me for answers.

In the words of Hogan's Heroes immortal Sergeant Schulz: "I know nussing."

9-30-09:
No vocab on the 6th week of a grading cycle. If you have academic withdrawal symptoms, do the next EC essay(Supreme Court). Tomorrow I will post the study questions for the Grendel test on Friday, which will count to the next six weeks. Bring the Grendel book tomorrow. IF there is time after the study guides we'lll read from Chapter 5, the dragon's confusing lecture.

9-29-09:
Remember the study guides(sheet 4). They are due tomorrow.

Not that you absolutely have to have this to do well on the Grendel test, but every bit helps, especially when you want to identify philosophies and don't want to read whole Wikipedia articles. The listing and concordance of zodiac signs adds a little meaning to some of the chapters.

The Twelve Chapters of Grendel

Chapter Focus Philosophy/Philospher Zodiac Sign

1	Ram	Theory of world as repetition and endless cycles, one oldest in the west	Aries
2	Bull; Grendel’s mother	Solipsism – claims of unique existence. “I alone exist”	Taurus
3	Shaper	Sophistry – to argue any side of question without regard to truth	Gemini
4	Hrothgar	Old Testament theology; Dualism	Cancer
5	Dragon	Nihilism; Materialism	Leo
6	Unferth	Skepticism	Virgo
7	Wealtheow	New Testament theology	Libra
8	Hrothulf; red horse	Machiavelli; Anarchism	Scorpio
9	Ork	Mysticism; Process Philosophy	Sagittarius
10	Death of Shaper	Nietzsche and his “God is dead” theory	Capricorn
11	Grendel	Sartre; Existentialism	Aquarius
12	Beowulf	Empiricism	Pisces

I would strongly suggest that you do a bit more than simply cram the info below. A little bit of reading up on the philosophies on the web (2-3 minutes each on Wikipedia, etc) might help. Opening a book (!) might give you a physical or intellectual hernia, so try that at your own risk.

Philosophies – Theologies

Existentialism – concrete, individual existence takes precedence over abstract conceptual essence; individuals are totally free and responsible for their acts and this responsibility is the source of their dread and anguish

Anarchism – theory that all forms of government interfere unjustly with individual liberty and should be replaced by voluntary association of cooperative groups

Dualism – the theory that mental and physical are two radically different kinds of things

Empiricism – theory that all knowledge comes from experience

Materialism – theory that everything that actually exists is material or physical

Mysticism – theory of the possibility of attaining an intuitive knowledge of spiritual truths through meditation

New Testament Theology – forgiveness, redemption, peace, etc.

Nihilism – theory that there is no meaning or purpose in existence

Old Testament Theology – vengeance, sacrifice, fear and judgment

Process Philosophy – the theory that what exists in nature is not just originated and sustained by processes but is in fact ongoingly and inexorably characterized by them

Skepticism – theory that neither truth nor sure and certain knowledge are humanly attainable, whether through reason, the senses or any other means

Solipsism – claims of unique existence; “I alone exist”

Sophistry – to argue any side of question without regard to truth

Theistic or godly existentialists – Soren Kierkegaard, Martin Buber, Paul Tillich

Writers – Philosophers

Machiavelli, Nicolo – his life and the rules for successful rulers from his major work The Prince

Nietzsche, Friedrich – his life and his “God is dead” theory

Sartre, Jean Paul – life and major works with existential themes

As you can guess, the info above is sketchy (in the original meaning of the word) at best, and incomplete at worst. Go snoop around for more.

I will post study questions, as I did for Beowulf, on THU afternoon.

In case you have any fancy ideas about going to SparkNotes and taking the multiple choice quiz, go ahead. That just means you are an extra effort student, doesn't it? The clientele of SparkNotes is made up of all the hard working overachievers, of those for whom not reading the book is not enough.

9-28-09:
A heads-up for the proactive crowd. During the second six weeks I will pick out random weeks when I take up your vocab sheets and look for brilliant sentences. Those of you who write thoughtful, informative(real information with names,specific facts,etc) and even witty sentences. Last year about 30% of my students received dispensation from writing sentences for the rest of the year. Strangely enough, nobody who made the cut complained about less work the rest of the way.
Since there is no vocab work due this Friday, work ahead. Of course, if you don't have the sentences done on the due date, I won't even pick up your sheets.
In other words: Write the best example sentences you have ever written if you are too lazy to write sentences for the rest of the year.
About my after-school SAT class:
On Thursday I have to be at the National Merit reception in the cafeteria not much after 4:00. To make up for time lost we will go till 5:00 in our Tuesday and Wednesday classes. We had a small group do speed drills till almost 5:00 today. And it wasn't even boring.

9-27-09:
Remember the Grendel study guides. They count to the next six weeks, but don't dig yourself a hole early. Some of you have already used up the buffer.

The grades are posted. If you have not missed any days recently, what you see on the update is pretty much what you will get. What I wrote on Friday about making up recently missed work still stands. Don't panic quite yet.

As I say every week, extra credit points are not listed because Integrade doesn't allow me to add points. I will tell you how many extra points you have earned in class tomorrow or Tuesday.

9-25-09:
It is 6:40p.m. and I guess no one else will come to make up work, so I might as well leave.

I have now at least four purple lit books WITHOUT NAMES sitting in my closet. Unless some of you are independently wealthy you won't like having to pay for the book at the end of the year. You need to find a way to figure out your accession number and thus identify your book. Unless you wrote down that number, you are going to have to bother Mr. Sparrow, and he won't be happy....
Get on it and do what you have to do. Eventually, I am going to turn in the books to Mr Sparrow, and you will have to, preferably with a sheepish look on your face, retrieve them from him.

Those of you who had a bona fide excused absence today can, of course make up the vocab quiz on Monday. I will make the grades this weekend and I will put a preliminary(don't panic) 0 in the book, but when you return, you can make up what you missed. If you were absent WED,THU and FRI, you can, of course, also make up last Wednesday's RC("Bloom").

Another issue: Now you can see the beauty of cutting the grades off early. If you made a 40 or lower on the "Bloom" RC, you can retake it. Since you don't know your grade until it is posted, life will be less stressful if you have another day to retake stuff. You can imagine the horror of messing up a test on the last day of the six weeks. With this system things like that can't happen. Still, those who don't move at all, you will not like their grade.
Of course, I am probably preaching to the choir. If you are reading the Newsflashes, you know what's going on.

9-24-09:
For those who still might be a bit confused about the SAT packet for week 6 which you got today:
If you have perfect homework so far and will have both the vocab sheet(apparel) and the SAT packet (week 5 ,"Tarantulas....), don't worry. By the end of day tomorrow you will have your perfect HW 100 in my book. If you are less than perfect in your homework, assuming you have a 70 or two in my book ... or worse, do the Week 6 packet (Martick....)for tomorrow. You can still make a HW 100 if you have three 70's and all other grades are 100's. If you habitually don't do homework, you have a problem.

For those classes that have progressed far enough in the Grendel study guides to all but assure finishing tomorrow after the quiz I will have a discussion prompt for after vocab quiz and study guides.
Here it is (The prompt is from 1983 but still as fresh as a daisy):

We live in an era of language inflation. Being a star is no longer significant because we have superstars, what is normal is tremendous, or fabulous(or excellent extraordinary, superterrrific, etc.)This wholesale distribution of highest ratings defeats its own purpose.Everything is presented as something unique,unheard-of, outstanding. Thus nothing is unique, unheard-of, outstanding. When everything is superlative, everrything is mediocre.

Write an essay in which you agree or disagree with the position taken in this passage by considering the ethical and social consequences of language inflation.

9-23-09:

Remind me at the beginning of class tomorrow to go over the vocab for Friday. Do your SAT packets tonight. Thursday nights are usually busy.

No EC essay due this Friday. The next one, due 10-16-09, is about a Supreme Court decision on a school newspaper (easy!) .

There are 15+ copies of the Grendel book left in our very own Paschal library. There is no excuse not to have a book. I am getting ready to finalize the order for Frankenstein and Pride and Prejudice. To the best of my knowledge they are $1.99 and $2.49, respectively.

I have a list of 14 students who still need to pay for the Grendel book($9.75):

two in per 1; three in per 2; two in per 3; one in per 4; five in per 5; and one in per 8.

Since my children would like to eat again one of these days, it would be nice if you could pay soon. I am running out of quarters for the change.

This also saves me taking your first-born child.

Sincerely yours,

Rumpelstiltskin

9-22-09:
Grendel study guides chapters 4-6 are due tomorrow. After the RC for a grade we will go back to the chapter 1-3 study guides and finish them.
I will cut off the grades this Friday. Next week's RC for a grade will count to the second six weeks. The Grendel test will count to the next six weeks, whether we take it next week or in two weeks.

9-21-09:
Those of you who are still working on the study guides that were due today, remember that you need to show me the study guides without my asking. Do the best you can. We will start discussing the questions in class tomorrow.
If you foresee problems with Wednesday's study guides, talk to me tomorrow, not Wednesday when they are due. Plan ahead.
I you need to use my computer to type an essay, give me a heads-up.

read on ...

9-20-09:
The answers for the parent reading comp quiz are posted under HANDOUTS/GRADES. If you see your parents walking around with sagging shoulders and ashes on their heads, you know that they took the quiz. If they raise your allowance, you know they didn't do so well.

Those who sent or handed in typed extra credit essays of 500+ words will get their essays back tomorrow. The writers of handwritten or short essays will get a generous extension to bring their masterpieces up to snuff. I am pretty happy about how many people responded. Now we need to work on saying more in fewer words. If you can express ideas enough for 700 words in 500 words, you are on the way to good writing.

Tomorrow is College Night. Get some pencils if you go.

9-17-09: (comfortably after 11:20)

I just tried to update the Newsflash when my website went down for maintenance. What makes these people think teachers don't work 24/7? I lost all I had written.

So, in short: Grades are updated.

Over 80 EC essays to grade this wekend, less written feedback

Bass Hall, assembly, tennis, flu all didn't help. lots of grades missing, make them up quickly.

"Gabriel" was easy, good scores.

Brain fried, busy with school stuff since 8:30 this morning.

Good night.

Read on .....

9-17-09:
Here's a new wrinkle: Instead of wasting huge numbers of little paper snippets on the SAT packets,here are the answers in electrons:
Week Four SAT:

1. C (took) 2. D (are now seen) 3. C (who) 4. C ( had been made) 5. E 6. C (remember that) 7. B (was) 8. E 9.A (rapidly growing) 10. D (it) 11. A (abundantly)
12. A (is) 13. D (permission for trawling) 14. D (the price of beef) 15. B (we can) 16. D (its) 17. A (rises drastically) 18. B (implied) 19. D (to) 20. E 21. C 22. E 23. D 24. E 25. B 26. C 27. C 28. D 29. D 31. A 32. B 33. D 34. D 35. C 36. A 37. D 38. E 39. B

I am returning the SAT packets on Monday. Just pull them out of the outboxes, if you can get by the book boxes. Then check them against the answers above. Next time you work a section like this WRITE THE CORRECTED VERSION ABOVE THE MISTAKE. Then I can tell whether you simply guessed or could fix it. Only one graduate from my summer course remembered to do that. I guess I should have told you.

Over the weekend Job #1 is doing the study guides. Don't jump off any cliffs if you have problems with one or two questions, but do your best. Enjoy the book. It is pretty philosophical and fairly demanding but well worth your precious time.

9-16-09:
Tomorrow we will get progress reports in homeroom(8:20). I told my first period, but we are all creatures of habit. When you(the first-period students) get to class, be ready to sit down and start the vocab quiz immediately.

Remember that vocab sheets, SAT packets and extra credit essays are due also, unless you turn in EC essays by email..

I just went by the library and saw that there are still at least 15 copies of Grendel on the shelves. That means that either all of you have bought or borrowed their books long ago and the leftover books are the ones Ms Eaton's classes have not picked up yet, or it means that my classes are the slackers. Either way, your study guides for chapters 1-3, the first study guide sheet front and back, are due Monday without fail. Don't wait till Sunday night to start reading the book, especially since the Cowboys are playing. I am planning on grading all my EC essays before then.

Another heads up: I have a dollyload of purple lit books chillin' in my room. If all works out we will be issued books by Mr Sparrow tomorrow during class.We will take the vocab quiz as planned, but Mr Sparrow will call you up individually to check the books out to you. Since the books are heavy, bring a truck. If we had a decent class set, I could tell you to simply leave the books at home, but large classes, especially per 5, will require some of you to bring their own books to class. I can offer you to store them locked up in my room, but there is always an inherent danger, and, after all, sometimes you want the book at home. I cannnot constantly post parts of the book online. The Beowulf packets took longer to put together than I care to remember.

9-15-09:
Primarily to the newly added parents:
If this is the first time you receive this email, a consequence of your signing up last night at the Open House, you may want to read back a week or two to get an impression what this website can do for you. We now have 184 students and parents signed up.

Primarily to the students:
So far no one has told me that he or she will go to the Hispanic Heritage assembly on per. 8 tomorrow. If you want to go and have a ticket, come in at lunch and take the 17-minute RC quiz. You will miss the discussion of the Lapham essay, which will probably be an eye opener for many of you.
Let me know if you are up to SAT class on Thursday night.
Do me a favor and prepare the vocab words(antiquity) for Wednesday. We'll spend a few minutes on the words.
Again: You have been given another chance to get in the extra credit essays. Take it.
I'll attempt to grade them all over the weekend. This Friday's prompt is about the criticism a religious magazine launches against a church for presumably getting its priorities mixed up and putting a Super Bowl broadcast over the installation of a new minister.
Make sure you retake grades of 40 and lower. Don't wait too long. After a while I assume you are happy with your grade.
A look ahead: I generally cut off grades after the fifth week. The Grendel test might be an exception, but I can't tell yet how fast we will progress. It is possible that the Beowulf quiz will remain the only lit grade. The Wednesday RC quiz of the sixth week will count toward the 2nd six-week cycle. If we write an essay on the Thursday of that week it will definitely count toward the second six weeks.There is no way I could grade 130+ essays and finalize the six weeks grades in one weekend anyway.

Read on.....

9-14-09:(late night)
Open House went well. More parents are now aware of the benefits of the extra credit essays. Here is my deal for you, and it is a one-time deal: If you have not turned in the first two EC essays, you can do so by the same deadline as this week's essay, i.e. Thursday in class or Friday by 8:30 a.m. by email. Sounds like a deal you can't refuse.
I need to know if people will show up for after-school SAT on Thursday. Traditionally we don't have class on the last day of the week, but if you are willing and able, we'll have class just the same. Let me know.
I have bumped up temporarily all 66 and better progress report grades to a 70. I assume that your homework grades are good enough to help you a few points at the end of the six weeks. Keep up the work. If you can keep the homework and the vocab grade near 100, you can afford less than stellar grades on the RC. I told your parents how difficult RC is, but I also expect that you get better as time goes on, especially if you take the diagnostic work in class seriously.

9-13-09:
The grades are posted(as 00001, 00002, a. s.o.)I gave every essay a +5 as an advanced bonus for an outline. If you see an 85 for an essay grade, you actually made a [5] and got 80+ 5 = 85. From now on you will get +5 only for a GOOD outline. Most of you planned too little and wrote too much. Most of you could have made your case in 60-70% of the words you wrote. Think and plan and outline for 15 minutes, then write for 25 minutes and you can still wite a good essay. AP essays are not graded by length but by quality. We will discuss what Lapham really meant on Wednesday. That will give those who missed the essay 4 chances to make up the essay(2 per day).
The grades you see posted are the grades I will use as progress report grades, unless those of you who missd any grades hustle and make up those missing grades on Monday. I'll be at school till 4:40, even though there is an Open House at 6:30. I stayed at school till 6:30 on Friday, but not too many of you showed up to make up missing work. Some of the grades are lower than they should be. If you miss class(field trip, pep rally,you name it), you need to be quicker to make up missing grades especially in Week 3 and in Week 6. If your average is low because you have not made up missing grades or retaken low grades(40 or below), tell your parents that you will hustle to make up grades faster in the future.
And here it is again:
At Open House I will give your parents an accurate picture of the difficulty of the class. On the web site I have prepared an RC passage for your parents. If they want to see how difficult the work is, they can take the quiz and see how well they do. I will , however, also tell them that I expect you to do well on easy work(vocab, HW). You don't have a good excuse if your homework grades are low. You do have a much better excuse if your RC grades are low. I will praise the benefits of extra credit essays, so expect your parents to get on your back about those essays.

9-11-09:

I have earmarked four copies of Grendel for those who wanted a copy. If I told you that I would try to get you a copy even if you hadn't signed up originally, you can pick up your copy on Monday.

I am giving you a slightly larger break on the Beowulf quiz. If you get 20 of 24 correct, you make a 100.

I will try to grade all Lapham essays before late Sunday night and post the grades on the website. These grades will most likely be the ones I will use for the progress reports.

At Open House I will give your parents an accurate picture of the difficulty of the class. On the web site I have prepared an RC passage for your parents. If they want to see how difficult the work is, they can take the quiz and see how well they do. I will , however, also tell them that I expect you to do well on easy work(vocab, HW). You don't have a good excuse if your homework grades are low. You do have a much better excuse if your RC grades are low. I will praise the benefits of extra credit essays, so expect your parents to get on your back about those essays.

9-10-09:
Just to show you how important RC practice is, I have decided to add to the bribe to have you come in at lunch or after school to make up grades of 40 and below. You will get the average of the the old and the new grade and an additional 10 pts simply forcoming in and doing the extra work. The make-up work is almost always higher because there is no time pressure on it. So, come in as soon as possible if you made a 40 or below (which can happen on RC work) and retake the quiz.
Also, remember the second extra credit essay is due tomorrow. It deals with American TV viewing habits and the skewed picture that television presents. The topic allows some intelligent responses.

Don't forget about the SAT packet and the vocab sheets. I hope you didn't wait till the last minute. My suggestion is to do the EC essays way in advance. One student turned his essay in last weekend and got it back on TUE.

Since I didn't remind any of my classes specifically to write an outline, everybody will get the +5 outline bonus, but only this one time. from now on you must write the outline to get the bonus.

Here a few study questions for the Beowulf quiz? I will not give any answers but you are welcome to discuss them among you.

1. What does Beowulf attribute his fate to?
2. What does the epic poem Beowulf suggest about the nature of the conflict between good and evil?
3. What are the strongest qualities of Beowulf?
4. Which of the four natural elements is the most powerful in Beowulf?
5. What elements are associated with Grendel's lair?
6. How does Grendel react to Beowulf's challenge?
7. What awakens the dragon?
8. How does Beowulf prepare differently in the two battles against the dragon and Grendel, respectively?
9. How does Beowulf react when he sees he will have problems with the dragon?
10. Why does Beowulf want the loot after the fight with the dragon?
11. How does Beowulf confront his imminent death?
12. What is the poem's attitude towards materialism?
13. What mettle do Beowulf's actions require?

There will also be two questions about the effect of alliteration and one about a kenning used in Beowulf?

Not that you needed another reminder, but here it is:
Open House September 14, 2009

6:00 SBDM Meeting in library

6:30 Club & Activity Tables in Foyer

6:45 Paschal Band

6:50 Post the Colors & Pledge Allegiance National Anthem &Show Choir selection

PTA Meeting Mrs. Jayma Davis

7:20 Period One

7:35 Period Two

7:50 Period Three

8:05 Period Four

8:20 Period Five/Six

8:35 Period Seven

8:50 Period Eight

9:05 Lights Out! Drive Safely

Periods five and six have been lumped together since they are lunch periods.

Those of you who received a Grendel book but haven't paid, remember to bring $9.75 Friday or Monday.

9-09-09:(later)
This just in: The pep rally is on per 8(not 4!) this Friday. The rules remain. Read below...

9-09-09:
Make sure you have your Grendel books over the weekend and start doing the study guides. I will move Grendel in front of The Canterbury Tales. The study guides will be due starting 9-21-09. Get busy and read ahead.
I just received an email telling me that there will be a pep rally during per 4 on Friday, the day we are taking two quizzes. Those of you who have to be in the pep rally need to make arrangements to get those two quizzes in.(I can stay after school Friday). The progress reports are due Tuesday morning early, and I need to finalize my grades this weekend. We are not going to the pep rally as a class.
Also: I changed the due dates on the Grendel study guides. I have also taken off the A Tale of Two Cities study guides and have added Pride and Prejudice study guides.
The due dates for the Grendel study guides are:
1st sheet (f+b) due: 9-21-09
2nd sheet (f+b) due: 9-23-09
3rd sheet (f+b) due: 9-28-09
4th sheet (f+b) due: 9-30-09
If you want to be proactive complete the study guides before they are actually due, go ahead. Study guides are always due on Mondays and Wednesdays because those are days I have time to check the study guides while you are working on RC. I will adjust the syllabus on the web site to reflect the change.
The syllabus I will offer to your parents at Open House will also be new.

9-08-09:
I just found out that I seem to have a UIL meeting tomorrow at lunch. That means we will have to postpone lunch makeup quizzes to after school or to Friday. After school is the best time for me to give quizzes since I am here for tutoring MON-THU. Today at lunch I walked right into another meeting, the third meeting today. On THU I will have an AP teachers' meeting at lunch and a textbook committee meeting after school. That means that I will not have an after-school SAT tutorial.

The Grendel books are going into open sale on Friday. Until then you are protected by having signed up.
Our llibrary has 41 Grendel books left as of 8:30 this morning. Ms Eaton's classes are competing with you for the books.
Prepare the vocab words(allay) for THU, the day we will write our first essay for a grade. The "Ignorance is Bliss" essay was diagnostic only. I will spend a few minutes before the essay to talk about a few of the vocab words .
On Friday we will have to take both the vocab quiz and the Beowulf quiz. On THU afternoon I will post a few study questions for the Beowulf qiuz on a NewsFlash.

9-6-09:
The Grendel books are in. They are $ 9.71. (compared to $14.63, w/o discount and with sales tax).

I picked them up and will schlepp them to school TUE morning.

9-06-09:

Grades are updated. Remember that averages are weighted. Right now the RC grade weighs 75 % of your average, each vocab quiz only 13%. If you made a 100 on both vocab quizzes but a 30 on the RC, you have a grade of 48. As more grades are added that imbalance will correct itself. Don't panic quite yet. This is what happens every year without exception.

9-5-09:
The grades are done, but my regular home connection will be out for the weekend. I am connecting through a painfully slow connection at the public library. Until I am fully reconnected I cannot upload over 5 MB of graphics files. Check back on Monday night.

9-4-09:
This Tuesday at 11:00 a.m., we will watch the Obama speech on education, either in the auditorium or in the classrooms. I had this Tuesday earmarked for at least 400 lines of Beowulf, but those of you in per 3 + 4 may end up having to read some of those lines at home in exchange for being allowed to watch the speech during instructional time. Of course, not having personal purple English books yet does not help either. So,here is the plan: In per 3 we will work right up to the early bell at 10:45. At 10:45 Paschal will separate the "opt outs" from the rest .Those who opt out of the speech, will be taken to the auditorium at 10:45 and closely supervised. In per 4 we will work to 11:00, OR WHENEVER THE SPEECH REALLY STARTS. Rumor has it that the speech will be only 15-20 min. long. We will have the Obama address on the Promethean Board, but you can decide to read Beowulf ahead in class to lessen your homework. For those of you who are missing Beowulf time, one way or the other, I have already posted a copy of the epic poem on the website under HANDOUTS/GRADES. I am sure we will survive this Tuesday's tentative tempest in a teapot quite well.

1.

9-3-09: later that evening:

The Grendel books are still in transit. I'll get an email from the TCU bookstore when they come in.

For those who can't find the EC prompt (Under Extra Credit Lang) here it is:

Question 1

(Suggested writing time‑40 minutes)

(33 1/3 percent)

Any change for the better brings its own evil with it, and so one powerful consideration should always be in the back of our minds: if we release this good thing, what evil is likely to escape with it ?

Select a change for the better that has occurred or that you would like to see occur in society and, in a well-organized essay, analyze both its desirable and undesirable effects.

read on.........
9-3-09:
The usual reminders for tomorrow:
First: vocab quiz (antediluvian); 25 items (18 words new, 7 from last week); everybody writes example sentences. Use your own paper if you want.

Second: We will quickly go over a few of the questions of the Week Two P/SAT packet, then pickup the packet. This means you need to finish the RC part tonight at home

Third: The first extra credit essay is due tomorrow. Mail it to turnins@hotmail.com or bring it to class, double spaced, printed front and back, 500+ words.

Don't panic yet about the Beowulf quiz, originally scheduled for next Tuesday. We'll take the quiz on Friday, 9-11-09, imm.

I will go to the TCU bookstore after school today to check on the status of the Grendel books.

9-2-09:
This is for the parents who have signed up for the NewsFlashes:
Several of my students seem to have developed the sniffles, and we are in danger of running out of paper tissues. If you can spare a box or two, you will help the general welfare. Once our present box is empty, we'll have to think outside the box and be on a roll -- of toilet paper.

Today's RC scores(for a grade) are in, ranging from 2 of 15 correct to 12 of 15 correct.
The average is 7 of 15, as it is every year. Any grade of 40 or below can be made up. If reading comprehension is not your strong suit, bail yourself out by writing every single extra credit essay I offer. You will be surprised how much a +6 to your six-week grade helps. At this point, don't panic if you made a low grade. RC is not easy, but reliable work and dedication helps. If your 44-item diagnostic RC we took Monday was above 25, then you may still be just fine. That test was more reliable because it had more items. Who's to say that you don't get 8 of 15 on next Wednesday's quiz, even if you made a 20 or 30 this time?

9-1-09:(later that day...)
A message from the well-meant advice page:
Don't wait till the last minute to write your extra credit essay. You know it: At 10:00 pm on Thursday night(usually the busiest night of the week anyway) you run out of ink or your dog chews up your paper or the city of Fort Worth has the worst power outage in history or you feel a moral obligation to watch reruns of The Office. You name it!
Thus: Write your essay a day or two early and print it out. If you bring the essay on a flashdrive, you can use the printer in my room. Remember: learn how to print front and back and print double spaced. (size 11 font is ok; my font of choice is Arial Narrow, BTW)Take out the margins to the extent your printer allows and use draft quality(saves ink). If you want to email your essay, go ahead. I will format it properly and give you a word count. Make sure your essay is at least 500 words long. Over the long weekend write the other two essays for this six-week cycle and walk around with a smug grin on your face for the rest of the month.

read on....

9-1-09:
And for those who would like to read Beowulf in the original Old English:

Þâ se ellen-gæst earfoðlîce

þrage geþolode, se þe in þýstrum bâd,

þät he dôgora gehwâm dreám gehýrde

hlûdne in healle; þær wäs hearpan swêg,

swutol sang scôpes. Sägde se þe cûðe

frum-sceaft fira feorran reccan,

cwäð þät se älmihtiga eorðan worhte,

wlite-beorhtne wang, swâ wäter bebûgeð,

gesette sige-hrêðig sunnan and mônan

leóman tô leóhte land-bûendum,

and gefrätwade foldan sceátas

leomum and leáfum; lîf eác gesceôp

cynna gehwylcum, þâra þe cwice hwyrfað.

Swâ þâ driht-guman dreámum lifdon

eádiglîce, ôð þät ân ongan

fyrene fremman, feónd on helle:

wäs se grimma gäst Grendel hâten,

mære mearc-stapa, se þe môras heóld,

If you would like a more contemporary version, check the Beowulf link.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16328/16328-8.txt

The above text starts on line 85 (in case you care).

Prepare the vocab (antediluvian) for tomorrow(at least the definitions). You can do the sample sentenes for Friday.

Tomorrow will be our first RC for a grade.

8-31-09:

The P/SAT sheets (Week One) are due tomorrow. Make sure your name and period number are on the front. We will try to finish the analogies in class.

The Grendel books are on order. We may get by with less that $10.00. Not sure yet.

We might get textbooks tomorrow. We will make an attempt to get started with Beowulf.

My after-school P/SAT class is starting today. Classes are MON through THU, 3:40 to 4:40. They are free, and I supply all the materials.The focus is on writing(multiple choice), but if a large enough group wants to do critical reading or sentence completions, we can do that too. The class is open to all grades, and it is not necessary to come every single day. The more often you show up the more you learn. It is that simple.

On Wednesday, Sept. 16, we will have a Hispanic Heritage assembly during per 8. My policy was and is that if you choose to go, you are still responsible for what you miss. We will not go as a class. If you are planning on attending the assembly, make sure you take the graded reading comp("Gabriel") on TUE, at lunch or after school on WED, or on THU. There is no school for you on Friday.

8-28-08:
Especially, but not exclusively, the seniors need to sign up to take the SAT in October. The deadline to sign up (on the College Board website)is Sept. 9, but why wait? There is a link to the College Board website on my website under LINKS.

Paschal is offering three Saturday morning tutorials from 8:30 till noon on Sept. 12, Sept. 26, and Oct.3. The tutorials are open to all grades, but especially seniors should make every effort to attend. I have signup sheets in my room.

On Monday we will take a long diagnostic multiple-choice passage. Make sure you get to the classroom as soon as possible. We will need all 49 minutes of class time that the FWISD graciously gives us.
Also(especially for parents)"

Open House September 14, 2009

6:00 SBDM Meeting in library

6:30 Club & Activity Tables in Foyer

6:50 Post the Colors & Pledge Allegiance

6:55 Paschal Band

7:00 Welcome & SBDM info from Dr. Meng

PTA Meeting Mrs. Jayma Davis

7:20 Period One

7:35 Period Two

7:50 Period Three

8:05 Period Four

8:20 Period Five

8:35 Period Six

8:50 Period Seven

9:05 Period 8

9:20 Lights Out! Drive Safely

8-27-08: later
This just in :

Effective Friday, 28 August 2009: FWISD has amended the cell phone policy to state that if a cell phone is confiscated from a student, the parent is required to pay the $15 fee and the parent retrieves the phone. The student can no longer pick-up the phone from the AP office.

I do pick up phones. If your phone rings in class because you forgot to turn it off(an innocent mistake), I'll give you a dirty look and will tell you to turn it off. If that happens regularly, I will pick up your phone.

If I see you texting or reading messages, I'll pick up your phone without warning.

8-27-09:
The per 8 students who had to go to the pep rally will need to make up the 40-minute essay the others wrote in class. Best times are lunch tomorrow or after school tomorrow.
I can also make myself available lunch and after school on Monday, but you need to make sure you don't procrastinate.

Tomorrow's agenda in order of importance:

1. Vocab quiz(angularity): make sure you have definitions and sentences.

2. Finish the discussion of RC "The Informer"

3. Go over first and fourth page of the P/SAT handout. You do have an extension to do the

two middle pages(Critical Reading) over the weekend. (Aren't you glad you signed up for the NewsFlash?)

Looking at the stack of "Ignorance is Bliss" essays I have to grade, I can assure you that I won't be able to grade all those this weekend. I can grade about 100 AP essays per weekend before my brain fries. You will get the essays back after Labor Day at the latest.

Also remember that I cannot post grades (e.g. of the vocab quiz) until I have class lists from the office. That will likely take another week, at least. After that you can expect grade updates pretty reliably each weekend - late Sunday night, that is.

Tomorrow is the last chance to change the book order. Friday after school I will order the Grendel books.

Read on .....

This Monday my after-school P/SAT tutorial will start. Classes are MON through THU, 3:40 to 4:40. They are free, and I supply all the materials.The focus is on Writing(multiple choice), but if a large enough group wants to do critical reading or sentence completions, we can do that too. The class is open to all grades, and it is not necessary to come every single day. The more often you show up the more you learn. It is that simple.

and:

So far I have 63 orders for Grendel. Since my classes are still in flow, I may add or drop students daily. All those who have signed up are guaranteed a book, and the leftovers, if any, will go on open sale a few days later.

8-26-09:
Bring an ink pen to class tomorrow. All AP essays are written in ink.
We will write a diagnostic AP essay in class(40 min.). Since the first three periods are only 40 min. long we need to get started immediately. I will call roll while you are writing.

We will go over the P/SAT practice sheet (Week One) on Friday. You need to do the critical reading passages at home and we will do the other stuff in class together. Feel free to prepare the other stuff(sent. compl. and analogies) also if you want to make sure you don't get stumped on Friday.

The vocab sheet is due Friday. Everybody writes example sentences the first six weeks.

Tomorrow is a Spirit Day. Check yesterday's NewsFlash for dress code details.

The pep rally is at 2:48(8th period) for downstairs classes only. We should not be affected at all. It is the teacher's discretion to take his or her classes or not. I will decide whenever pep rallies come up if we have time to go. (If you are involved in pep rallies --cheerleaders, band, etc.-- you will have to miss class and make up the work you missed.)

If you want to add or drop books from the book order list, let me know by Friday.
If you decide you want to be frugal and check out the books from our library, make sure you tell me to drop you from the list. Once I buy the book you ordered, you are obligated to buy it.

For your viewing pleasure I have added the volleyball schedule under HANDOUTS. You need Word 2007 to view it (or get compatibility software from Microsoft).

We will have to bump the Friday video "What's in a Grade" in favor of finishing the diagnostic RC questions about "The Informer" and the P/SAT handouts. The video will be just as informative on some other day.

Make sure you bring in the slips from the parent info sheet. If you have lost the original, download a copy from the website under HANDOUTS/GRADES.

We are up to 78 students(and parents) signed up. Pretty good.

8-25-09:(10:20 pm)
We are up to 50 registrations. Quite a few parents have registered too.

8-25-09: after school
This from the office:

Spirit Calendar

Teachers and students may wear jeans with spirit shirts on these days and these days only. Students may wear spirit T shirts on Spirit days ONLY.

August 27 PM Pep Rally

September 4

September 8

September 11 AM Pep Rally

September 17

September 24 PM Pep Rally

October 2

October 6

October 9 AM Pep Rally HOMECOMING

October 16

October 20

October 22

October 27

October 30 PM Pep Rally

Do the vocab sheets for Wednesday, even though they are not officially due until Friday. When I discuss a few of the words on WED, you get more out of the discussion.
Tomorrow, you will take your first diagnostic AP Critical Reading passage. On THU we will write a 40-minute AP level essay in class. Students in per 1,2,3 need to get to class quickly since these classes are only 40 minutes long(homeroom schedule)

Also from the office:

Re: Credit by exam: Exams will be offered Oct 17 and Oct 24 Please advise students and send to counseling. Forms must be in no later than Sept 11.

You saw it here first.

8-24-09 midnight
22 students and parents have registerd so far. Not bad for a first day.

8-24-09: (later that day)
I just cleared all entries, mostly last year's students, from my mail box. If you subscribed to the NewsFlash before 4:00 pm, you need to subscribe again.

Tomorrow you can sign up for book class orders,and I will need a seating chart for each class. Volunteers are welcome.

Get started on the vocab (angularity)if you want. I'll talk about a few of the words on WED or THU.
Check out the syllabus.

8-24-09:

General Outlook on AP English 4 (Lang&Comp)

1. This class is a skills class. There is no last minute cramming for the AP exam in May, simply because there is nothing to cram. You can’t go on cruise control now, promising yourself you will pick up the pace in mid April, and be ready for the exam in May. There are two skills you need to master in May: answering multiple- choice critical reading questions and writing three different types of essays on topics and texts you have never seen before.

2. The focus in this class is on AP Lang, but the class is a hybrid of AP Lang and British literature.

10% of your grade will be homework. The other 90% are divided into two thirds AP and one third English 4 (British literature)and vocab work.

Here is the breakdown:

Homework 10%;

AP(60%) : 30% AP Writing(in class-prompts); 30% AP (multiple choice) Critical Reading.

English 4 (30%) : 20% Literature Quizzes; 10 % Weekly Vocabulary Quizzes

3. A major factor in this class is extra credit. You can earn up to 6 pts per six weeks to your grade by writing 3 good extra credit essays. All prompts for the whole year are on the website.

For example, if, at the end of the six weeks, you have an 85 avg. and have written 3 good extra credit AP essays, I will gladly give you a 91. At the end of the semester I will raise your grade from an 89 to a 91 or from a 79 to an 81 if you have written at least 5 of the 9 offered essays. (Students who write extra credit essays usually don’t get close to failing grades, but I would certainly raise a 68 to a 70 for a student who has written 5 or more essays.) I do not bump up grades at the six weeks level. If you earn six extra points, you probably don’t need even more help from me. A good essay is at least 500 words long and would get a [5] or better. A halfway decent essay [4] or below will get 1 pt extra credit. Very short (up to 300 words) or careless essays get nothing.

You can turn in your essays electronically at : turnins@hotmail.com . (The essays need to be in before 8:30 am on the due dates, always the second, third , and fourth Friday in each six-week period.) The hotmail address is also the address you use to contact me. Your parents contact me at the school e-mail : peter.glaser@fwisd.org .

4. I issue weekly grade updates, as soon as I get class lists from the office. I post the grades scrambled and by ID numbers only. If you don’t tell others your ID number, you will have a good degree of confidentiality. Integrade does not allow me to add linear points(e.g. extra credit), so you will need to add those points in your head. If you see an 87 on the grade update but you know you have received 5pts extra credit for writing essays, you can expect a 92 on your report card. I post the grades on my website, also scrambled and by ID numbers only.

5. On the issue of retakes: Retakes depend on the type of task. If you really bomb a vocab quiz (40 or below), you probably didn’t study enough. I am not inclined to let you make that grade up. If you bomb one of the Critical Reading quizzes (40 or below), I urge you to make this grade up within a week after the grade is posted. Critical Reading is much more difficult than a simple vocab quiz. If you make a 60 on an in-class 40-minute writing prompt, you can rewrite it on an alternate prompt. This is very rare, however.

6. I hope to have enough cut-corner copies of the purple literature book for a reasonably sized class. In classes over 25, you will have to share books or bring your own books to class. Generally I try to spare my students the carrying of these overweight Lit books. If you prefer to use your own book, you may lock it up in my closet.

7. Use the web site to your advantage. You have an easier life in this class if you read my NewsFlashes, usually reminders that something is due soon. All the vocab sheets for the whole year and all study guides for the novels are on the site. I usually post semester final schedules and the text for the final on the site also. You can use the library computers or my computer, but not during class time.

8. Description of a typical week:

Every Monday we will take a diagnostic AP-level critical reading passage. The timing will be exactly the same as on the real exam. After you have answered all questions(generally 12-18 questions), we will discuss the answers and clarify literary and rhetorical terminology. You will track your answers on a separate sheet.

Tuesdays are generally literature days. On Tuesdays we need the lit books or the class novels.

We will also take quizzes and tests over the literature on TUE or THU.

Wednesdays are AP critical reading days. We will take 15-20-min multiple choice quizzes for a grade. The rest of the time will be spent on AP issues (essay writing or rhetoric).

Thursdays are also literature days. On some Thursdays we will also need the lit books or the class novels. On other Thursdays we will write 40-min in-class AP essays.

Fridays are vocab quiz days. After the quiz we will catch up on what we have missed during the week because of circumstances beyond our control.

For those of you who like to plan ahead:

The four class novels are:

John Gardner, Grendel

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice; or Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

I can order inexpensive copies of the older novels, but the newer novels Grendel and Brave New World (both written after 1923) will cost a little over $10.00 each. You are encouraged to get the two expensive novels on your own. I will offer a class order for all books though. If you own one or more of the books already, use your copies.

If you like to save money:

Our library has limited quantities of all four books.

MR GLASER AP ENGLISH LANG/LIT

NewsFlash LANG

Section 3

Section 5

Study Guide Questions –

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