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