Jane Eyre Blogging

Here are links to last year's Jane Eyre blog comments. I think you'll find it helpful to take a look. I invite you to respond explicitly to points made by last year's class. (Make sure you give credit where credit is due.)

Jane Eyre chapters 1-16
Jane Eyre chapters 17-26
Jane Eyre chapters 27-38

& here you'll find commentary by my friend Mr. Gallagher's Malden High AP students about the end of Jane Eyre. (You'll notice we talked about many of the same issues today in class. Notice how many of them have taken ideas and have developed them.)

The student-led and teacher-led in class discussions provide opportunities for you to display your knowledge of the particulars of the text (what is written and how it is written) and to speculate about what it means and why that meaning is significant. In other words, offer assertive, insightful interpretations of what you have read and support your interpretations with evidence from the text. That's what AP lit is all about.

I then evaluate whether you've met expectations by showing a reasonable, plausible understanding of the text, have exceeded expectations by showing a convincingly thorough and thoroughly convincing understanding of the text, have fallen short of expectations by offering a limited or partial understanding of the text, or have show little to no understanding of the text.

As I've started to look over my discussion notes many of you have offered limited understanding or no understanding during class discussion. Blog!

Beowulf (trans. Raffel) section 1-18

In class (Monday, September 28) we got a summary from Kevin Hurd. Then before we could add much to his summary we plunged deeply into a discussion of the relationship (as presented in the text) between the Christian God, Beowulf, and Grendel. Several of you did some excellent digging for direct quotations. This is the kind of conversation -- using our interpretive skills in response to the text -- that I hope we keep having.

We'll continue the discussion of this section of Beowulf on Tuesday. You should write comments for whatever you know, think, and feel but were unable to say during class.

Welcome!

E-block English with Mr. James Cook, this is your blog.

Below you will find posts and comments from previous honors 11 classes. Check 'em out if you're interested. They'll give you an idea of what's to come.

best wishes,
Mr. Cook