WEEK 10

Welcome to final exam week. 

Here's your work....

1. LOTF essay...
Choose one of the pre-write topics from last week and write a well-argued, thoroughly supported, carefully proofed essay. Here they are again:

• the motif of rock throwing as a means of tracking the descent of the boys into savagery [Most of you missed a key piece for this topic in your pre-writes from last week: Look carefully at the differences between the rock throwing in chapters 11 and 12. Was Roger's intention in c11 the same as Ralph's in c12?]
• Ralph's attempt to keep himself from savagery. Where is he successful? Where does he fail?
• Golding's use of symbolism (You'll need to do more than just catalog the uses. Propose something that ties the symbols together. What do they share?) 
• Simon as a Christ figure

2. ATTC / LOTF essay...
Write a concise, well-supported, carefully proofed essay on the following:

Both A Tale of Two Cities and Lord of the Flies depict the good and bad of human society as traceable to the individual heart. Dickens suggests that individuals can be either good or evil or have some mix of the two. Golding takes a more pessimistic view and proposes that selfishness is (practically) universal. Which view is closer to a biblical understanding of human nature? Though you'll need to propose one novel or the other, you will still need to handle both texts as you discuss them.



REQUIREMENTS...
1400-word MAXIMUM for both essays COMBINED. You may need to be strategic here and figure out which essay needs more word count to do the job and which can be shorter (this is a good time to practice cutting unnecessary phrasing!).

The essays will be joined into one 200-point final exam. 

Did you catch that the 1400 words is a maximum, not a minimum? And that's for the two essays COMBINED? 

You saw that then? 

Ok, just making sure.  

Due FRIDAY night. 


Have a great week!

WEEK 9

WELCOME!  

Here's your work...

1. Revise your ATTC essay. 

2. Finish reading LOTF. Explain each of the 12 chapter titles in a sentence or two (look for multiple meanings! "Cry of the Hunters", for example, means two different things.)

3.  LOTF essay pre-write... For each of the following, write a 50-word response.

a. Discuss the motif of rock throwing (throwing, rolling, kicking, etc.) as a means of tracking the descent of the boys into savagery (You'll want to consider sand as a kind of rock).

b. Discuss Ralph's attempt to keep himself from savagery. Where is he successful? Where does he fail?

c. Discuss Golding's use of symbolism.

d. Discuss Simon as a Christ figure (Did you notice that Simon comes down from the mountain with good news about freedom from the beast and is met with death? He then "ascends" into the stars when tide lifts his body. There's a lot of that kind of imagery with Simon).

This is due Friday.  


Have a great week!

WEEK 8

Good Morning! (or afternoon or whenever).   

Here's your work for week 8...

We're literally in the home stretch!

No, wait. That's wrong. We're not literally in the home stretch because we're not all on horses making the last turn before racing to the finish line. Literally doesn't work here. Some of you need to look back at your "Literally" sentences. If you lost points and want them back, you can revise them. Re-read the LBGB entry!

1. ATTC final essay. Choose one of the following options and write a well-argued, well-supported essay...

a. Discuss Dickens' use of dualities and pairs.  

b. Discuss the theme of resurrection. 

800 words minimum
It should meet the usual lit analysis expectations. 

2. Watch this very short intro to Lord of the Flies. It's pretty low budget—I think a teacher made it—but it gets at the basics. 

3.  Read chapter 1 of LOTF.

Some things to keep in mind as you read:

• The setting can be confusing. There's no particular year; think near future. 
• We can gather from some clues, from things the kids say, that a nuclear war has at least begun. 
• There's confusion about how they crashed. We're left in that confusion. In fact, the narrator keeps us focused on the kids so that we only ever know as much as they do.
• The kids don't seem to know each other, except for the boys in the choir. 
• Read it carefully and slowly. Golding loads his writing with imagery and close, precise (sometimes highly stylized) description. 
• Watch for three things as you read: 1) personification - the island and other non-living things will be given human or animal-like characteristics; and 2) zoomorphism - the humans will be given animal traits. Both of these are subtle. They tend to happen in the imagery. For example, you'll read about a fire begin described as a leaping squirrel or one of the boys will be described as walking dog-like on all fours. This is important stuff! Golding is building on a theme with these kinds of descriptions; 3) items — glasses, a conch, clothing — that will emerge as symbols.
• It's a pretty deep story to think about, but it's also just a great story to read, so enjoy it.

4.  Answer these questions for chapter 1:

1. What new reality are the boys beginning to face in c.1 so far?

2. What strange behavior (physical act) does Ralph keep doing? What might Golding be emphasizing by it?

3. At several points in c.1 we read about “green shadows.” Explain what Golding might be doing here.

4. How does Golding make the island seem like it’s alive? Quote the text.

5. What was “dark” and “fumbling along”? What might Golding be suggesting?

6. What does Jack say about his name? What do you think Golding might be suggesting by this?

7. How is the conch a symbol of authority?

8. Describe 3 things (details, ideas, your observations, etc.) about the 3 boys’ exploration of the island.

Have a great week!

WEEK 7

Hello! 

Sorry - I know it's not on the agenda, but I need to add in another two-week / catch-up post. I've decided last minute to do the men's retreat this weekend. So yes, we'll end up going a week longer.

Here's your work for the next two weeks...

1. LBGB...

A. Read chapter 4. 

B. Explain in your own words the five "AVOIDS" in the Style & Usage section.

C. Write a sentence using each term in the pair correctly:

    possible / plausible

    shall / will

    who / whom

D. Write three sentences, each using the word literally in a corret way.     

1. Let's shore up the frontier vocab we've (I mean you've) done over the last few weeks. Look back at your FV assignments -- go back as far as you want -- and choose five words that you think are at the distant end of your frontier (the least recognizable terms). Find two examples (google search?) of each word being used in context. Write your own sentence that mimics one of those uses. So that's 3 sentences for each of 5 words. I think that's 15 sentences total (have a parent check my math). 

2. ATTC Book the Third questions:

1 As Dr. Manette’s letter explaining how he was imprisoned is read to the court, Charles and Lucie are hearing the story for the first time. Record the thoughts of Dr. Manette, Charles, or Lucie by writing a letter from that character to another. (50-100 words)     

2 Choose a secondary character (Pross, Lorry, Little Lucie, Cruncher, etc.) and write a diary entry looking back on the events of “Book the 3^rd”. (50-100 words)     

3 What price does Mrs. Pross end up paying for her loyalty to Lucie? Quote the text.     

4 Read the “supposed” thoughts of Carton at the end of the book. What would be a “valid” reason for Defarge meeting the guillotine?

5 How does Carton’s actual name get redeemed?  Quote the text.    

6 How is Sydney Carton a Christ figure? (3 examples: think sacrifice, spilled blood, substitutionary atonement).

3. ATTC final essay pre-write. For each of the following essay options write a one-paragraph (50-100 words) response:

1. the motif of dualities / pairs (people mostly, but don't forget the title of the book)

2. the plot’s HEAVY reliance on coincidence  

3. the resurrection motif (it's everywhere in the book, but skip Sydney Carton; you just did him in the Bk3rd questions)

4. Character names. How do their names reflect who they are as characters? Discuss a few, but be sure one of them is Sydney Carton (Carton also means box or container...hmmm...)

Have a great two weeks!

WEEK 6

Welcome! 

This is another catch-up opportunity. You'll have TWO weeks to get this work done.

First, a couple of reminders: One, look at the spreadsheet every week. If anything's missing I'll add a margin note here. And two, even if you've earned full credit for something, scroll down and look it over for comments.

Here's your work...

1. Frontier Vocab (Five words from a book of your choice)

2. ATTC Essay #1...How is Lucie the "Golden Thread" of Book the 2nd? I'll let you decide how to interpret that phrase golden thread. Limit your discussion to the first two books of ATTC.

• 600 words MAXIMUM
• Lit Analysis formatting (title and author in the intro P, incorporate a few quotes)
• No revisions on this one, so proof it carefully.
• Did you see that the word count is a maximum, not a minimum? Just making sure you saw that.

3. Read "Book the Third." 

4. Continue the key event summaries that you did for "Book the Second." 

5. Did you see that the word count was a MAXIMUM, not a minimum? 600 max. Just making sure again.

Have a great two weeks!

WEEK 5

Welcome to week 5. 

Here's your work...

1. Frontier Vocab...Something different!  Compose a piece of original writing on any topic just long enough to include TEN of your previous frontier words. Highlight each word. Yes, this will probably be a terrible piece of writing, especially if you are able to cram ten words into one paragraph (which you're welcome to try). The writing needs to make sense though. We're not literary savages, after all. 

2. ATTC “Book the First” questions:

I. Discuss the personification of each: a.The woodman, Fate   b.The farmer, Death   c.Saint Antoine   d.Hunger

II. Discuss (a brief paragraph for each) the following symbols:  a.The mill   b.The cask of wine

III. Who is Jacques?

IV. Describe the wine shop keeper and his wife.

V. Develop this topic sentence into a full paragraph: “Chapter 6 of Book the First is good evidence that the Romantic influence was still strong in Dickens’ time.”  Include a direct quote in your paragraph.

3. Read "Book the Second" and continue the chapter summaries. Keep adding them to what you've done so far.

4. LBGB...

• Read the "Style and Usage" section of chapter 3. 
• Look at these usage pairs and write a correct sentence using each (You may use my examples as models, but write your own):

            a. affect / effect
            b. assure / ensure / insure
            c. compose / comprise
            d. farther / further
            e. i.e. / e.g.
            f. me / myself

5. Revise the Frankenstein essay if necessary (If I didn't change it in the spreadsheet to Frank essay FD, then you need to revise it again).

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!

WEEK 4

GOOD MORNING!

A refresher on title formatting: BIG items (books, plays, movies, etc.) get italicized. SMALLER items (chapters, short stories, poems, songs, etc.) get "quotes." And formatting is never mixed, so don't use both just because you forget which is which.

This week we'll be starting our next novel: Dicken's A Tale of Two Cities.
Here's your work for the week:

1. Frontier vocab (5 new words)

2. Revise your Frankenstein essay.

3. Read the Victorian Age introduction on p.485-489. Write a synopsis (a couple of sentences is fine) for each of these: Realism, Naturalism, the Victorian novel, historical fiction, horror, and short fiction. 

4. Read ATTC, Book the First. ATTC is divided up into three books, each with its own set of chapters. "Book the First" makes up the first six chapters of ATTC. "Book the Second" and "Book the Third" make up the rest, and each "book" starts the chapter numbering over. That can be a little confusing at first. 

The complaint I hear most often about this book is that it starts slowly. I tend to agree. If you find that to be true, just be patient. Once it gets going, it really gets going. The first time I read it I quit after the first few chapters. And I was an English teacher! Then I heard a story about a 7th grade girl who would jump off the bus in the afternoon and run home to read ATTC. So I thought, if she liked it that much I must have missed something, so I tried it again, and she was right. I loved it. But I had to get over that early hump before it picked up. 

5. Chapter summaries: Write out 4 key events or ideas from each chapter from "Book the First". Label it clearly.

6. No LBGB this week. You're welcome.


Have a lovely week.