Day Eight GE

"...destined never to be on the rampage again while she was the wife of Joe."

Do Now: As Pip leaves Satis House, he observes, "What could I become with these surroundings? How could my character fail to be influenced by them? Is it to be wondered at if my thoughts were dazed, as my eyes were, when I came out into the natural sunlight from the misty yellow rooms?" (Dickens 94) 

Later, Pip's annual visits to Satis House and Miss Havisham seem to cast a spell on him. He admits that the place "bewildered me, and under its influence I continued at heart to hate my trade and to be ashamed of home." (Dickens 125)

Some situations overwhelm us and threaten to change who we truly are. Consider the above examples, an example from another literary work, or an example from your own life (perhaps something you described in your Adobe Spark video). How can we stand up to such powerful influences?

Today's Learning Target: 
I will be able to distinguish between effective and ineffective motif quotations.
I will know that I have hit the learning target when...
-I can explain the difference between an effective and ineffective motif quotation.
-I can work with my group to locate at least three effective quotations for our assigned motif.

Agenda:

1. Pip's influences
2. Motif Work in Groups
3. Nicholas Nickleby comparisons
4. Exit Ticket: What is an important way that Pip has changed over the first hundred pages of the novel?

HW: read chapters 18-19 and make at least three annotations (n.b., an annotation = a highlighted line/passage + a question/inference/prediction), one of which involves a motif. Catch up on any readings you have missed!

Coming up...

-test on Book I (Chapters 1-19) Friday, 6 December

-blogging on Great Expectations 

Day Seven GE

Do Now: Thinking symbolically, what do ghosts or hands or chains represent?

Today's Learning Target: 
I will be able to define what a motif is and identify examples of motifs in Great Expectations.
I will know that I have hit the learning target when...
-I can explain what a motif is and why authors use them.
-I can point to at least two examples of motifs in the novel and big ideas they might emphasize.

Agenda:

1. Questions on 11-13
2. The Wonderful World of Motifs!
3. Look back over your notes on chapters 1-13. Do any of these chapters contain examples of a hands, ghosts, or chains motif? Locate a passage that you think does include one of the motifs and take note of the page number and the context.
4. Exit Ticket: what big idea addressed in the novel most resonates with you?

HW: read chapters 14-17 and make at least three annotations (n.b., an annotation = a highlighted line/passage + a question / inference / prediction).

Day Six GE

Satis House = Haunted House

Do Now: We meet some new characters in chapters 8-10. Select an annotation you made about one of these characters to share with your group. How is this character similar to or different from other characters we've met?

Today's Learning Target: 
I will be able to generate a list of big ideas that are introduced in the novel's early chapters.
I will know that I have hit the learning target when...
-I can connect specific events to big ideas.
-I can make an inference about the author's attitudes towards the big ideas by thinking about the tone in the passages I've found.

Agenda:

1. Unit Overview / Big Ideas
2. Challenges
3. Finishing the Victorian Era webquest
4. Exit Ticket: what big idea addressed in the novel most resonates with you?

HW: For Thursday, please make sure you have filed your Adobe Spark video in your English folder. For Friday, read chapters 11-13 and make at least three annotations (n.b., an annotation = a highlighted line/passage + a question / inference / prediction).

Please complete this form with your preferences for topics and motifs: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeMmI_xaTd_tMzG7YiMhSRFdKyTNu7r9kfPRGxyfeL9cDBwNw/viewform?usp=sf_link 

Day Five GE

Do Now: Make connections to the Victorian Era research you have done. Talk to your group about how the novel includes hulks and dame schools. What is an area of Victorian Era research that most puzzles or intrigues you?

Today's Learning Target: 
I will be able to make a debatable claim about a character and support it with evidence from somewhere in the chapters we have read.
I will know that I have hit the learning target when...
-I can make an assertion about one of the characters so far that demonstrates inferential thinking.
-I can support my assertion with an appropriate example from the chapters we have read.

Agenda:

1. Characterization and Inference
2. Setting up the next issue
3. Chapter 8 / Adobe Spark work time
4. Exit Ticket: what have you found enjoyable/frustrating about the novel so far?

HW: read chapters 8-10 and make at least three annotations (n.b., an annotation = a highlighted line/passage + a question / inference / prediction). Continue working on your Adobe Spark project.

Day Four GE

Do Now: Please share one of your annotations with the group. As a group, select one annotation (or idea you discussed based on a group member's annotation) to report to the class.

Today's Learning Target: 
I will be able to make a debatable claim about a character and support it with evidence from somewhere in the chapters we have read.
I will know that I have hit the learning target when...
-I can make an assertion about one of the characters so far that demonstrates inferential thinking.
-I can support my assertion with an appropriate example from the chapters we have read.

Agenda:

1. Getting to Know the Characters
2. Characterization and Inference
3. Beginning the next chapter
4. Exit Ticket: what have you found enjoyable/frustrating about the novel so far?

HW: Read chapters 5-7 and make at least three annotations (n.b., an annotation = a highlighted line/passage + a question / inference / prediction). Begin creating your Adobe Spark video (due Thursday).

Day Three GE

A great resource for better understanding the context of Great Expectations is http://dickens.stanford.edu/dickens/archive/great/expectations.html.

Do Now: Dedicate a part of your English notebook to Great Expectations and record the following terms:

fancy the faculty of imagination. 


file a tool with a roughened surface or surfaces, typically of steel, used for smoothing or shaping a hard material.


battery a fortified emplacement for artillery.

Note how each term has a contemporary meaning that would get in the way of our understanding the definition from Dickens's time.

Today's Learning Target: 
I will be able to explain how Dickens develops his characters directly and indirectly.
I will know that I have hit the learning target when...
-I can distinguish between direct and indirect characterization and find at least one example of each from chapter one.
-I can make a claim about the different purposes of direct and indirect characterization.

Agenda:

1. Victorian Era Research
2. Unreliable Narrators
3. Close Reading
4. Exit Ticket: Sum up chapter 1 in one word. 

HW: read chapters 2-4 and make at least three annotations (n.b., an annotation = a highlighted line/passage + a question/inference/prediction) in your English notebook. Also, begin working on the Adobe Spark project. Download the free app (if you don't already have it) and work on steps one and two.

Day Two GE

Lyrics are here

Do Now: Please listen to the Kinks's "Victoria" and talk to your group about it.

Today's Learning Target: 
I will be able to explain how Dickens develops his characters directly and indirectly.
I will know that I have hit the learning target when...
-I can distinguish between direct and indirect characterization and find at least one example of each from chapter one.
-I can make a claim about the different purposes of direct and indirect characterization.

Agenda:

1. The Victorian Era
2. Top Five Misconceptions about Charles Dickens
3. Begin working on the Victorian Era research packet.
4. Matilda on Great Expectations

HW:  Finish the Victorian Era Webquest.

On the horizon: Read over the description of the Environmental Influence on Identity Development Project.

RESOURCES

-A great resource from Stanford University: 

http://dickens.stanford.edu/dickens/archive/great/expectations.html 

Use this site for chapter summaries, a glossary of unfamiliar terms, and maps of particular settings.

-An audio-book version of Great Expectations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA18xKvOK94  

Students have found it helpful to listen while reading along with the text. This practice can give you a reading pace that ensures you don't skim too quickly or get so mired in the sentences that a chapter takes forever to finish. It can also help you gauge the tone.

-Please avoid Sparknotes et al. If you rely on sites such as these, then you'll not only miss the nuances in the writing, but you'll also miss out on thinking for yourself. Sparknotes and other sites like it don't spark thought. They extinguish it. 

Day One GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Do Now: Share your journal entry on A Christmas Carol with your group. What are some first impressions of Dickens's writing?

Today's Learning Target: 
I will be able to make inferences from a challenging selection of 19th century literature.
I will know that I have hit the learning target when...
-I can explain what Dickens indirectly describes at the beginning of A Christmas Carol.
-I can make a claim about why Dickens does not use more direct description in this passage.

Agenda:

1. A Christmas Carol Questions
2. Making Inferences
3. Classic Novels: Finish your group's slide
4. Exit Ticket: What surprised you about Dickens's writing?

HW: No homework! Enjoy the long weekend!

Actor Simon Callow on his appreciation for Charles Dickens

Romance Test

Best wishes on today's test/trial!

HW: Read the first seven or eight pages of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol (at least up to the part when Scrooge's nephew departs). While you read, make at least one annotation (a question, observation, connection, prediction, etc.). In the form of a journal entry (i.e., five or six informal sentences), write about your first impressions of Dickens's writing.

Link to the full text of  A Christmas Carol (There's also a free iBook version of A Christmas Carol that you can download onto your iPad.)

Why Read the Classics?

"We do not read the classics out of duty or respect, but only out of love. Except at school. And school should enable you to know, either well or badly, a certain number of classics among which—or in reference to which—you can then choose your classics. School is obliged to give you the instruments needed to make a choice, but the choices that count are those that occur outside and after school."
-Italo Calvino, "Why Read the Classics?" (italics are mine)

Please add your slide about a classic to this document.

HW: Study for Thursday's Romance Archetypes class. Take a break to flip through a few pages of a classic novel!

Day Twelve RA

Do Now: Please read the attached document and take notes on the archetypes we have studied.

Today's Learning Target: 
I will be able to recall key concepts from the Romance Archetypes unit and identify strategies I can use to review for a test on the unit.
I will know that I have hit the learning target when...
-I can point to the key texts from the unit and connect them to the appropriate archetype.

-I can explain how specific texts reference archetypes in distinct ways. 

Agenda:

1. IN YOUR GROUPS, please read over this document: Review for the test. 
2. Pay close attention to the sample test questions. I will assign each group one of the texts we read during the unit. Group members will revisit the text and use their annotations to select what they think is a key passage (no more than four sentences!) that relates to the archetype. 1) Choose and write out the passage. 2) Be prepared to explain why you selected this passage, but don't write down the explanation!
3. ON YOUR OWN, please review the following documents: The Garden
4. The Hero's Quest
5. Utopia/Dystopia
6. The Serpent in the Garden (answer questions 1-6)

HW: Bring your sample questions to our next class. 

THE ROMANCE ARCHETYPES TEST WILL TAKE PLACE ON:

THURSDAY, 7 NOVEMBER