Due to the unreliability of Apple TV, I am asking all students to acquire or locate a set of headphones to have with you any time you are in English class (10H and 12) for the purpose of watching/listening to material if I am not able to play it for the class as a whole.  I recognize that this is just "one more thing" but it is a reality that we must deal with.  Thanks.

English 12: Watch the following TED talk in class: Are we in control of our own decisions?  Grendel Reading Guide for Ch. 8-9.  Update: Apple TV didn't work...again, so we will try to watch the video next week.  Feel free to watch on your own.

English 10H: Hand out The Glass Castle to begin reading for next week.  More discussion on memoir. Truth and purpose in memoir.  Little Halloween lesson: Dia de los Muertos

English 12: Vocabulary test 5.  Full discussion of Nihilism and how Grendel's meeting with the dragon changes his perspective on the idea of "finding a place" in the world.  Ch. 5 study questions.

English 10H: Art submissions were due yesterday (Wednesday) and I will be going through them today/tomorrow.  Please make sure that you start planning/scheduling with your group as soon as possible.  Don't waste weekends, starting now!  Vocabulary test 5 and walkthrough of old projects.  This will pretty much be it for in-class work on the project, other than a couple of progress checks that I will do at various times.  I will announce a final project due date early next week.

English 10H: Submissions of your group's art is due by midnight.  Make sure you include all necessary information.

English 12: Graded and discussed strategies on ACT/Wordwright practice cold read and quiz.  Discussion of "Pretending" connection to Grendel.  Introduced the philosophy of Nihilism.  Tomorrow's vocabulary sentences will be over Grendel's meeting with the dragon in Ch. 5.  You can use a half sheet of notes over Ch. 5.  I will check your notes during the test, make sure there is absolutely nothing vocabulary specific on them or you get a 0.

English 10: How to Write Your Own Memoir.  This will be your source material for vocabulary test sentences this week.  You will write about the critical elements needed to successfully write about yourself and your own experiences.  We also discussed "Typhoid Fever" using the dialectical journal categories given in class yesterday.

English 12: ACT practice.  For tomorrow, annotate "Pretending" using the following guidelines in comparison to Grendel: How do both approach the concept of Nature vs. Nurture?  How are the "homes" of Roxanne, the narrator, and Grendel instrumental in who they are as characters?  How does the "pretending" theme function?  We will also start talking about Ch. 5 & 6 tomorrow and Wednesday.  Finish Evil collages.

English 10H: In class enrichment.  Group project discussion.  Final choice of original art must be submitted by the end of the day (11:59 pm) on Wednesday with all corresponding required information.  Read "Typhoid Fever" on pg. 485 in textbook.  Dialectical journal style notes over the following: Paradox involving Frank and Patricia meeting.  Irony in F and P discussing their ages.  Juxtaposition of the nuns' attitudes compared to the kids.  Seamus as a foil to both the nuns and the children.  Symbolic attributes of literature and poetry to Frank's life experience.  Why does Frank continue the story past Patricia's death?  How do the seemingly contradictory mood and tone work in conjunction with each other?

English 12: Vocabulary List 5.  Full discussion of  Ch. 4 Grendel using the reading guide questions.  Work on the Evil Wall to complement the Hero Wall.

English 10H: Vocabulary List 5.  Discussed additions/changes to the Details Replication Project.  Continued group work: work on deciding on your original piece choice.

English 12: Discussed Ch. 3 Reading Questions for Grendel.  Initial discussions on the Klosterman preface with corresponding questions.

English 10H: Details: Art Replication Project. Changes have been made to the assignment sheet, please note and re-save these changes if you saved this already.

English 12: Went over 1-3 questions.  Read the Klosterman preface and annotate.  We will discuss in class tomorrow.

English 10H: Comparison of American Gothic painting and AG photo.  Work into discussion of Choice of Weapons dialectical journals.

Conference Schedule Change- Wednesday night conferences will now be from 4-7 pm rather than 5-8.  Wednesday October 22nd: Conferences from 4-7 pm.

English 12: Grendel Ch. 1-3 Quiz. Ch. 4-7 Reading Guide

English 10H: Read "A Choice of Weapons" in textbook.  Response assignment on GC.  Be impressive.

Skyward and Q1 Grades Note:

First quarter grades are currently locked by Skyward.  This is supposed to be changed shortly, which will allow me to continue to update grades that are changed due to makeup work, revisions, and grade entry for Q1 assignments that had not been entered yet. Thanks for the patience as this issue is fixed.

English 12: Vocabulary Test 4.  Reminder of Grendel quiz over Ch. 1-3 on Friday.  All quizzes/tests over Grendel will be open note.  Quizzes and tests will focus heavily on the philosophical elements specific to each chapter.  So far, these have been in discussion: Ch. 1- General philosophy/Orphism.  Ch. 2- Solipsism and Plato's Cave (the Matrix)

English 10H: Vocabulary Test 4.  Discussion over My Two Lives as we transition to memoirs/biographical works.

Tuesday October 14

English 12: In class analysis of Chapter 1 of Grendel.  Further look at Solipsism and Plato's Cave.  Announced quiz over Ch. 1-3 will take place on Friday, October 17.  

English 10- Wordwright 1

English 12:  Begin Grendel.  Discuss the 5 Colors philosophy from last week's vocabulary test in conjunction with the philosophies of Grendel. Watch The Matrix/The Cave Allegory and discuss comparisons to the beginning of Grendel.  Grendel Reading and Philosophy Guide Ch. 1-3.

5 Colors: Discussing the philosophy of the Tao, Alan Watts explains what he believes Lao-tzu means by the line, "The five colours will blind a man's sight." "[T]he eye's sensitivity to color," Watts writes, "is impaired by the fixed idea that there are just five true colors. There is an infinite continuity of shading, and breaking it down into divisions with names distracts the attention from its subtlety." Similarly, the mind's sensitivity to the meaning of life is impaired by fixed notions or perspectives on what it means to be human. There is an infinite continuity of meaning that can be comprehended only by seeing again, for ourselves. We read stories -- and reading is a kind of re-telling -- not to learn what is known but to know what cannot be known, for it is ongoing and we are in the middle of it.

English 10H: In class work on GC.  Essays on 438 and 448 in textbook. (Writers on Writing: Nonfiction, My Two Lives)

Skyward note:  Skyward is not currently functioning, at least not accurately, due to a 30 hour window of time that the program needs in order to update/upload.  Also, I am still trying to figure out the best way to manage the notification system connected to "missing" grades.  Sorry for the inconvenience and any misunderstandings or confusion on missing assignments.

English 12: Vocabulary List 4.  Makeup vocabulary tests.  Senior paper brainstorming session #1 on GC.  Please view and contribute.  This is your opportunity to have a say in what you spend a large portion of your time and effort on when we start our research paper.

English 10H: Vocabulary List 4.  Wordwright #1 word list.  We will take Wordwright #1 on Tuesday next week.  Extra credit discussions.  Key reminder on extra credit.  IT HAS TO BE INTERACTIVE AND OUTSIDE OF YOUR NORMAL, EVERYDAY TYPE OF ACTIVITY. This means that going to a play, a movie, a museum, a restaurant, etc. alone is not enough.  Going to a curator led museum exhibition talk, a Day of the Dead festival, or attending a meet the author event does count because of the interaction factor.

Another possible extra credit opportunity courtesy of Olivia Mark.  See her for details and for a ticket discount code.  Code Day KC

English 12: Anglo-Saxon Poetry and Epic Hero Unit Test.

English 10H: Short Story/Poetry Unit Test.  Great extra credit opportunity coming up this Wednesday, Oct. 8 at the Johnson County Central Resource Library from 7-8:30 pm.  Meet the Author: Tanner Colby, author of "Some of My Best Friends are Black"

Friday 10/3

English 12: Finished "You Don't Know Bo" in class.  Anglo-Saxon Poetry/Epic Hero test on Monday.  The Seafarer, The Wife's Lament, The Wanderer, The Iliad, Gilgamesh, Bo.

English 10H: The poem "Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota" was our focus today.  It is the final addition to the material that will be covered on the unit test on Monday/Tuesday.  We analyzed it using the 4S strategy.

Thursday 10/2

English 12: Started "You Don't Know Bo" in class.

English 10H: Analysis/discussion of "Gic to Har"

English 12: Vocabulary Test 3.  Read the excerpt from Gilgamesh (pg. 90 in textbook) and answer the response questions on GC.  On Monday of next week, we will take our 2nd unit test.  It will test on the 3 Anglo Saxon poems, Iliad, Gilgamesh, and a third work that we will add in tomorrow and Friday.  If you are absent today, tomorrow, and/or Friday you will still take the test on Monday, so make sure you are keeping up or have communicated with me.

ROYALS!!!!!!!!!