Block Day, Week 21

* Pray

* Poetry ch. 1: What is Poetry?

Notes:
-Poetry's chief concern, according to Perrine, is, perhaps ironically, experience.
-We read poetry because it brings enjoyment (not because we should eat our vegetables).
-Poetry is something central to existence, central to being human ("This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh...").
-We are spiritually impoverished without poetry.
-Poetry is condensed prose. It says more and says it more intensely, according to Perrine.
-A poem may have a moral but does not need a moral.

Read "The Eagle" (pg. 729) and discuss what distinguishes the poem from a wikipedia article (on the same subject of the eagle). What can we say poetry delivers that prose often does not?

Next read "Sign for My Father, Who Stressed the Bunt." (pg. 1031)
- The son finally learned a lesson from his father. How does the poem affect the reader in ways that a prose summary of the lesson would not?

* Dickens Video (29 min.)

* J21: Answer whilst you watch

HW: Read ch. 3-4

Dickens Video Questions (J21)

Dickens Video

1.  T/F  Dickens was born in Ireland.

2.  What is the house that Dickens always wanted to own:

a.  Bleak House         
b.  Fort House                    
c. Gad's Hill                     
d.  Underhill

e.  none of the above

3.  What is one way the video tells that Dickens got ideas for his characters?

a.  he walked around and visited local pubs         
b.  he learned from others' novels
c.  he simply invented them as he wrote            

d.  he imagined himself in different circumstances

4. T/F The Pickwick Papers, being his first novel, did not actually sell any copies.

5.  Dickens' writings were meant to elicit  a greater ________________________________ in his readership.

a.  Hatred of the Aristocracy          
b.  Social Conscience                     
c.  Orthodox Religion

d.  Unorthodox Religion         
e.  belief in one's self                     
f.  none of the above

6.  The Cutty Sark was named after a character from _________________'s writing:

a.  Charles Dickens                     
b.  Walter Scott
c.  Robert Burns           
d.  William Shakespeare

7.  T/F  More than 20,000 plantations were opened abroad to support Britain's tea-drinking habit.

8.  T/F  Queen Victoria attempted to have Dickens assassinated near the end of this life.

9.  Which was not a product of the Victorian Era?

a.  The railroad         
b.  leisure travel for the middle class         
c.  street lighting

d. picnics          
e.  car phones   
f. a police force  
g.  zoo    
h.  underground subways

10.   T/F The Victorian period was one of unbridled greed and inhumanity leaving the modern world nothing but overcrowded cities as its heritage. 

11.  Dickens wished a simple, private funeral with no monuments to his fame.  

Wednesday, Jan. 4: Dickens

* Pray

* Read in Class

* Discussion

HW: Continue Reading (finish ch. 2)

Tuesday, 1/3: Opening Salvo of Semester II (Week 21)

* Pray

* Tell us how your Christmas legend gift went (if you chose to do one).

* Overview of Semester II (Course plan label).

* Essays returned.

The ICE Grading Scale
6 = 100 (A, 100, fantastic writing!)
5 = 95 (A, excellent writing, 90-99 range)
4 = 85 (B, good writing, 80-89 range)
3 = 75 (C, satisfactory writing, 70-79 range)
2 = 65 (D, poor writing, 60-69 range)
1 = 55 (F, failed writing)

* A + or - means that your essay was near the top or bottom of your ICE number scale.

Underline titles of plays, books, and anything big, my friends.

What was a good choice for comparison? Thorin and Demetrius.

What could become a most painful misapplication? Puck and Bilbo.

What was a choice that often led astray? Oberon.

Oh, Oberon.

So, say you chose Oberon. Did you treat the chaos in nature and in the world at large (weather, crops, animals, mud...perhaps you applied this distemper to our lovers' quarrel). If not, how did you prove that Oberon's covetousness was destructive?

If you said that Oberon's covetousness made Puck put the juice on Lysander, you've made a cause and effect error.

What if you said that Bottom might have remained an ass forever if Oberon failed to take pity? Ok, that could work.

The lovers could have killed each other in the forest? That goes back more directly to Demetrius. It would work if you first established that the fairy world and the moral world were reflections.

If you didn't choose a single character from each, why?

You should be sure you can spell the title, author, and characters of the works you've read for class...certainly those we essay (that's a pun).

J20 (sorry, changed the number to make it even for a new semester)

Write down your best sentence from your essay. Find the ten most choice and nicely employed vocabulary words and copy them in. Count up your punctuators that aren't periods, commas, question marks, or exclamations. Now, how will you improve for the next ICE? Make a plan.

Get Great Expectations.
For a free, digital edition, go to iBooks, search for "Great Expectations," download the first, free, olive-green version.  If you are not using iBooks, you may read or download this free edition.


HW: Read ch. 1