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

Genre #3 (Your Choice): Reflection

Part One
For this reflection in addition to addressing the spirit of the questions below I'd like you to consider the importance of genre. Each genre has its own conventions, and these conventions affect how the writer creates the work and how the reader experiences and derives meaning from the work. I'd like for you to think about how the genre--especially its conventions--affected your process, affected your treatment of the topic, and affects the meaning of the work you have created. If that's too abstract answer these questions: how are the genre conventions different from the other genres (annotated bibliography and research essay)? And how did these difference affect the work you produced?

Part Two
What have you learned? what have you done well? what are you proud of? what do you hope I notice?; on the other hand, what bothers you about the paper?what would you do if you had more time? what do you still feel you haven't figured out or mastered? what would you like to learn more about or have more practice with?; and, finally, what was your process (the order and time in which you did things)? what worked? what didn't work? what have you learned about the research process? what will you do differently next time?

Write a thoughtful metacognitive, introspective reflection (200 words or so) addressing the two sections above. Label your reflections "part one" and "part two." Complete this by B-block on Monday. Don't forget to follow the poetry directions below.

Poetry Assignment

Creative Writing Genres (On Friday, May 30, you will pass in four annotated poems. Thanks Kathryn for that great phrase "annotated poems," which means that after each poem you should include a note that tells about the form--the rules, the ten words for the spontaneous poem, the work of art you're responding to, the sources of the five found lines...anything, including personal reflection on the form, you think might be helpful to your teacher. A field trip or absence is no excuse for not passing in your work.)

1. Spontaneous Poem (begin in class on Monday, May 19)

To activate your sub-conscious mind, do the following:

• free write about your topic for five minutes (stream of consciousness);
• pick the ten most vivid, interesting, revealing words from your stream of consciousness free-write;
• in just five minutes write a ten line poem in which each line contains at least one of the ten words and in which each of the ten words is used at least once;
• Make a title using a phrase from your stream of consciousness free-write;
• The point of this poem is to emphasize spontaneity, whimsy, seeming randomness, linguistic daring, absurdity, surreality, etc.

2. Visual-Found poem using your research (begin in class on Thursday, May 22)

• Take five sentences from your research.
• Make the sentences into a poem by using a title, arrangement, line breaks, spacing, and font size and type. The purpose of this activity is to emphasize the visual aspect of poetry.
• Create a title.

3. Ekphrastic-Formal Poem (begin in class on Friday, May 23)

• Choose a work of art (song, film, poem, story, painting, etc.) related to your topic.
• Choose a form (tanka, acrostic, sonnet, etc.) and revise the rules (at least three rules) or invent a form of your own (with at least three rules).
• Write a poem in response to this work of art. You might take a different point of view than the original art takes. You might attempt to describe sounds or sights in words. Your poem might attempt to capture your feelings or thoughts about the work of art.
• In the poem, in the title, or in a note, let the reader know to what work of art you are responding.
• In a note, write down the three rules which you have followed.

4. Someone Else’s Form (begin in class on Tuesday, May 27)

• See above. Check comments box below for forms invented by other students.

5. Extended Metaphor (begin in class on Wednesday, May 28)

• Start with your topic. Brainstorm aspects of the topic (Fitz Henry Lane = name change, schooners, house on Harbor Loop, paint, statue, sandals, apple-peru, etc.) as well as feelings and concepts associated with the topic (Fitz Henry Lane = disability, luminism, realism, embarrassment hidden beneath pompousness (of the scholars who got his name wrong), etc.)
• Then create metaphors for the aspects of your brainstorm. (Name change = The painter became a new person. Luminism = The paintings have a light bulb inside them. Embarrassment = A boy wearing the dunce cap proudly at the podium telling everyone who can hear him, “This dunce cap is not mine.”)
• String the metaphors together. Edit them. Revise them. Expand them. Contract them. Use your ear, your mind’s eye, and your sense of the language of images to guide your choices.

Genre #3 (Choose One)

Due Tuesday, May 27

Write a personal essay about an experience related to your topic. These will be evaluated for development (narration, description, reflection) and writing (style and use of standard English and personal essay conventions).
OR
Create and/or revise a Wikipedia page (or pages) related to your topic. Make a proposal and get approval from Mr. Cook first. Then using the Wikipedia conventions create and/or revise. These will be evaluated for information and use of conventions in comparison with model Wikipedia pages.
OR
Explicate a work of art (painting, poem, etc.) related to your topic. Explain what you notice, how it works, and what it seems to mean. You have done this sort of close reading of a passage before, most recently when studying the soliloquies in Hamlet. For guidance about explicating art check out Mr. Gallagher's step four here.
OR
Write a work of short fiction dramatizing some aspect of your topic. The short fiction will be evaluate for how well the narration, description (imagery), characterization, events (plot), and command of language add up to the development of insights (a theme or themes) related to your topic.

Thesis-Driven Research Paper: Reflection

Although I vary the metacognitive reflection questions from time to time, I'm sure you could predict the basic pattern: what have you learned? what have you done well? what are you proud of? what do you hope I notice?; on the other hand, what bothers you about the paper?what would you do if you had more time? what do you still feel you haven't figured out or mastered? what would you like to learn more about or have more practice with?; and, finally, what was your process (the order and time in which you did things)? what worked? what didn't work? what have you learned about the research process? what will you do differently next time?

Write a thoughtful metacognitive, introspective reflection (200 words or so) addressing the three groups of questions above.