4/8/11

We talked about the second 50 pages of The Handmaid's Tale. I hope you're all enjoying it! It's a favorite book of mine :D For Monday, remember your instructor's draft of you Macbeth paper is due. Also, type up your essay and email it to me so I can get them uploaded onto D2L and your classmates can all benefit from them. Please read the next 50 pages of the novel. Have a great weekend!

4/4/11

'Twas a peer review day. It was fun. :P Homework for Wednesday:

• Read The Handmaid's Tale, pages 1-49


• Blog your responses

And a list of all the important due dates coming up:

• April 11 - Instructor's Draft of drama paper due


• April 15 - Final draft of poetry paper due


• April 27 - Final draft of drama paper AND first draft of novel paper due


• May 5 - Final exam, 5:30-7:30, Location TBA


• May 6 - Final draft of novel paper due by 5PM in my office or mailbox

We're in the home stretch guys! Let's do this!

3/28/11

SCENE PRESENTATIONS!!!! We're doing scene presentations for the next two days. Groups presenting Acts I, III, and V will be going on Wednesday, and groups presenting Acts II and IV are going on Friday. Note: Props and costumes are welcomed, but not required. Don't forget to post a blog that paraphrases ONLY the lines you are speaking. Make sure to let me know which lines those are. All other information is on the handout I gave you. Please e-mail me if you have any other questions!

Macbeth prompts

If you're looking for something to write about in your blogs, here are a few prompts for you:

1. What kind of man is Macbeth? Look at the description of him in 1.2.15-23.

2. Do you think that, without the witches, Macbeth would have conspired with his wife to kill the king?

3. Analyze the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Notice how they always seem to finish each other's lines. What does the say about their relationship, do you think?

Feel free to write about anything else. These are just a few prompts in case you can't think of anything!

3/16/11

Fun review today! Hope you're all more confident about what's expected on the midterm.

If you didn't bring the draft of your short story paper with my comments on it, do so on Friday. Also, remember all papers must be submitted to Turnitin if you want credit. EVEN IF YOU GIVE ME A HARD COPY, YOU WILL GET A ZERO IF YOU DO NOT DO THIS!

Midterm on Friday.

Read Macbeth Acts I-III for Monday and blog a response. I'll have a few prompts up later this week.

Also, your grades are posted on D2L if you want to know where you stand in the class right now.

3/14/11

Welcome back! I hope you all had a wonderful Spring Break!!!

For those who weren't in class today, you missed out on the peer review. There seems to be a lot of confusion about the poetry paper, so if you want to give me what you currently have, please e-mail me your paper or leave a hard copy in my mailbox (Dakota Hall 212). I will get them back to you by Friday and let you know if you're on the right track or where you need to revise your writing. And if you ANY questions whatsoever, please let me know. I would much rather be bombarded with e-mails then have you guys confused as to what you should be writing on. :)

I forgot to create a slot on Turnitin for your poetry papers (shame on me). It's open now, so just get it in before Wednesday. Sorry about that.

The instructor's draft of your poetry paper is due on Wednesday, March 23. Your final draft will be Wednesday, April 6.

DO NOT READ MACBETH! Since we are doing a review for the midterm on Wednesday, we won't start Macbeth until then. Our reading schedule will be reading Acts I-III for Monday and Acts IV-V for Wednesday. Shakespeare reads fairly quickly, and the play as a whole is only a couple hours long, so I think this will be doable.

I will have a unit plan for you guys on Monday, as well as your essay prompts for the Macbeth paper. Remember, your final two papers are going to be longer, so plan that in to your schedule. I will provide you with several different options for your drama paper. Feel free to use one of my suggestions or write on something of your own choosing.

And don't forget, your final draft of your short story paper is due on Wednesday! Bring me a hard copy and submit a copy to Turnitin.

3/4/11

Hey guys! I hope you're all excited for Spring Break! I know I am :D

Remember, we have a tight schedule coming up.

On Monday, please bring in a completed first draft of you poetry paper and a copy of the poems so your peer review partner can them. This draft must also be submitted to Turnitin.com.

On Wednesday, the FINAL DRAFT of your short story paper is due. Don't forget to also submit your paper to Turnitin.com. We will review for the midterm exam on this day (yay, Jeopardy!)

On Friday, we will have the midterm exam. There will be a little bit of grammar, a little bit of short answer, and a lot of essay. You will all have a notecard cheat sheet like the last test, and you will get you essay prompts Wednesday night or Thursday morning.

Thank you all for participating in the SGIDs! You gave me some great ideas for ways to improve the class!

Have a great Spring Break and I will see you all in a little over a week :D

2/18/11

Today, we discussed two poems by William Blake and got our essay prompt for the unit. Your homework for Wednesday is:

Choose a theme and find three poems you will be using in your anthology. Make a copy of those poems to turn in on Wednesday.

2/16/11

We learned how to read poetry today!!!

March 18 will be your midterm exam.

Homework for Friday:

• Remember, your Instructor's Draft of your short story paper must be turned into to Turnitin.com AND to me (in a hard copy). I expect to see revision from your first draft.
• Read William Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper" and "London"
• In a blog, paraphrase these two poems.

2/11/11

'Twas peer review day!

A reminder for future peer reviews. Here are some things you should look for in your partner's paper:

• Introduction
• Thesis
• Transitions
• Sources
• Topic Sentences
• Organization
• Conclusion
• Is there anything that shouldn't be there that is?
• Is there anything that should be there that isn't?
• Does the paper analyze something? Does it go beyond a summary?

Don't forget, our first exam is on Monday! I know you're all super excited ;-)

2/9/11

Today we had some exciting news! Extra credit opportunities and cheat sheets, oh my! If you were absent today, make sure you get your cheat sheet on Friday.

We also learned about MLA. Sorry that was so boring, but it had to be done. But it's over with! Yay! I will put the PPT up on D2L tomorrow, after I've gone through it to fix the changes. Note to self: don't make teaching materials at two o'clock in the morning.

Lastly, our first exam is on Monday. Friday, we will review grammar and have our peer review. Make sure to bring a print copy of your essay to class. You will need it for your peer review partner.

See you all on Friday!

2/7/11

Today, we talked about what is expected in a literary analysis and how to structure a formal paper. We also discussed the final two stories of this unit, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" and "Harrison Bergeron."

Homework for Wednesday:

• Keep working on your paper
• Bring in your scholarly source. Wed. is MLA day and we will cite them in class.
  

Remember, we are meeting in the library (room 323) on Wednesday.

Homework:

• Read "The Ones Who Walk Away form Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Read "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
• Blog your responses
• Read "Tone and Style"
  

1/28/11

D2L is active!!! All powerpoints have been uploaded to the content section, as has the practice outline we did Wednesday (Poe's devil eye). Please e-mail me ASAP if you still cannnot get on D2L!

Today we discussed "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gillman and also had our grammar lesson (clauses!).

Homework for Monday:

• Read "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Read "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson
• Blog your reactions to the story
• Also blog about your tentative paper topic
• Grammar Worksheet

See you all on Monday! Enjoy the warm weather!

1/26/11

I think I've figured out the D2L problem and it should be up and running in a couple days, so I'll upload our "Demon Eye Outline" on there when it's up. I think that would be easier than emailing it out to everyone, and we wouldn't run the chance of losing the outline because it would always be there.

Homework for Friday:

• If you haven't submitted the comparative analysis, do so now.
• Read "Setting". It's the opening bit of chapter 4.
• Read "The Yellow Wallpaper" and blog about the story.

Remember to keep thinking about your paper topics. By Wednesday, I'm expecting a tentative paper topic. You can write on any one or two of the stories we read in class and you can write about anything. Feel free to be creative! Writing should be fun!

1/24/11

We talked about "A Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allen Poe (and had an interesting discussion!) and learned about point of view!

I'm also working on getting the D2L issue taken care of.

The homework for Friday is:

· Read “Character” (pages 75-77)

· Write a comparative analysis (1-2 pages long) that examines the characters of Poe’s narrator and Emily from “A Rose for Emily.” Submit to Turnitin.com

· Read “Reader-Response Criticism” and “An Eskimo ‘A Rose for Emily’” (pages 1490-91)

This the first time we’ve read anything about criticism so think about the following questions: What did you understand from the articles we read? What do you think reader-response criticism is?

1/21/11

210ers,

Today we talked about "A Rose for Emily." I enjoyed our discussion of some of you even made me rethink what I had read!

We also covered elements of plot and subject/predicate. I will upload those PowerPoints onto D2L sometime this weekend.

Homework:

• Grammar Worksheet
• Read "A Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allen Poe
• Blog your response to Poe's story

Enjoy your weekend!

1/19/11

Finally, we're done with the syllabus and class can really begin!

Homework for Friday is as follows:

• Read the "Reading Actively" article I handed out in class
• Read "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner
• Blog about "A Rose for Emily"

Remember, you'll get the most out of the literature if you read actively!!! I cannot stress the importance of this enough. It's ESSENTIAL!!!

It's that time again!

Welcome 210ers! I'm looking forward to this semester and I hope you are too!

For our first day of class, we had a fun icebreaker and learned some interesting things about our fellow classmates. We also learned about the blogs we will be creating this semester (a project I'm very excited about!) and we covered a few things from the syllabus.

Your first assignment is as follows:

• Blog about what you covered in English 101. What concepts did you learn about? how to structure a paper? the rhetorical triangle? other things? What kind of papers did you write? Did you work a lot with grammar? The more I know about what you already know, the better I'll be able to structure this class and keep repetition of materials to a minimum.
• Tell me about yourself. Do you like to write in your free time? Do you like to read a lot? What are some of your hobbies? Are you involved in lots of extracurricular activities? What's your favorite subject? What's your least favorite? What are some things you hope to experience in this class? Feel free to answer some or all of these questions or, if you prefer, to tell me about completely different stuff!