What You Need to Know For Your POL

Satire

* SOAPSTONE "A Modest Proposal"
(Subject, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Speaker, Tone)
*What is Satire? Significance?
* How is satire different from comedy?
* Horatian vs Juvenalian Satire
* Unintended vs intended/real targets
* Hyperbole? Grotesque? How are these elements used in "A Modest Proposal?"
* Irony: situational, verbal, and dramatic?
* What is parody?
* Incongruence?
* Juxtaposition?
* Logos, pathos, ethos

Swift's agenda

Part I: The problem--what was it?
Part II: Swift's outrageous and absurd solution--what was it?
Part III: Swift rejects valid solutions--why?
"Let no man talk to me of other expedients..."
Part IV: Why does Swift deny self-advantage at the end of the piece?

Writing a Book Review

Students,

You will all be writing an original book review that will be posted online at a later date. First, here are a few things that you will need to consider before getting started.

Word count: 500-750
Due Date: Draft 1--10/7; draft 2--10/8
Must be typed.

Heading:

Book Title
Author
Reviewed by: Your Name Here

Here a are a few cool sites to get you started:

Write a Book Review
How to Write a Book Review
How to Write a Book Review

NOTE: I will collect draft 1 on Wednesday 10/7.

Tao Lin Speaks

Tao Lin speaks! Take a gander here.

Please comment here or at the Poetry Foundation if you wish.

P

Read the following article and respond to the questions below:

1. What is the issue highlighted by this article?
2. What are the ethical implications? What was compromised?
3. Do you agree with the student--Wikipedia is not to blame, but the journalists who ran with the story are. Explain.
4. List anything else that may have struck you.

Due: 5/12, 3:40pm

It's Grammar Time!

The Deal:

Groups of three will develop and write a lesson based on one of the following grammar topics:

1. Parts of Speech/Direct and Indirect Objects
2. Prepositional phrases
3. Appositives
4. Active vs. Passive voice
5. Subject/Verb Agreement
6. Sentence fragments and run-ons
7. Comma rules
8. Common homonym mistakes: There, their, they're,
etc. Be sure to choose at least three cases

This lesson must include the following

* a clearly stated title and objective
* a minimum of 5 slides
* a handout that will be submitted to your teacher (I will make copies for everyone)
Please note: This handout should be thorough, yet user-friendly.
* an activity that allows students to demonstrate understanding
* Duration: 10 minutes
* Presentation: Friday

Useful Sites:

The Owl at Purdue
University of Illinois Grammar Handbook
Big Dog's Grammar

Schindler's List: A Response

Each student will be responsible for posting a response to Schindler's List on her/his blog. In addition, students will need to comment on this blog, stating simply: "I posted." This will allow me to visit your blog and evaluate its contents.

Requirements:

1. 1 image minimum
2. A 1 paragraph plot summary with a minimum of 3 hyper links that may be related to characters, geographical areas, etc.
3. A response to the following questions:

a. What does the word power mean to you? What does it mean to Goethe? What does it mean to Schindler? Do these people misuse power?

b. Schindler went from being an "antihero" to a hero. What specific events did he experience and realizations did he have to create this transformation.

c. Did you think this film was effective? Why? Why not?


Your post is Due: Friday 3/27/09

Poets Against the War

Here's an online chapbook at the Poets Against the War organization. Read a few poems and then choose one in which to react.

Here are a few questions to get you started:

What is the poem's subject? How does the author handle this subject? How would you describe the tone of the poem? Do you have a clear image of the speaker? What is your personal reaction to the poem?

Leave a comment on this blog to receive full credit.

The Slow Food Manifesto

Check out this manifesto.

Leave a comment about what you think about it. Does it make sense? Do you think it will create change? Explain.

More Ideas for the Manifesto

For some time NPR has produced a series called "This I believe." Inspired by the 1950s show of the same name, NPR provides an outlet for Americans to share their personal philosophies and stories with others. Take a look at the following link so that you can gather some more ideas about how to organize your personal manifestos.

Tao Lin shows his blog and art at the Whitney.

The (Hu)manifest Project

1. Just as the artists whose work you have seen responded to their world, you will create your own ideas, or manifesto, that represent your personal response to some aspect of the contemporary world.

2. You may choose to comment on any aspect of the world today, including war, violence, technology, industry, politics, human relations, family, education, or government.

3. Your manifesto's tone may be hopeful, admiring, critical, ambivalent, or simply observational.


In addition to the manifestos we will be reading and discussing in class, you may find a helpful and practical guide to writing a manifesto here.

Also, be sure to look at the links section on this blog and open "manifestos" to see even more.

New Announcement

1) Several of you need to visit The Owl at Purdue to review MLA formatting. If you have any further questions, please see me.

PREP

Topics to Know:

• Causes of WWI—proximate and distant cause(s)
• Why the “Powder Keg” metaphor?
• Allied (Entente) forces?
• Central Powers?
• Can you identify the western and eastern fronts on a map?
• Woodrow Wilson: “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”
• Why did the U.S. sympathize with England?
• Lusitania?
• The Zimmerman telegram (note)
• How were troops mobilized
• Life in the trenches
• Battles: Verdun, Somme, etc. Note: Only those discussed in class
• The War at Home: women and the war, the 19^th amendment, the Espionage and Sedition Acts
• Why “Total War?”
• Schlieffen Plan?
• The Paris Peace Treaty and “The Big Four”
• The Treaty of Versailles

READINGS

• Article “Aftermath of the War”
• Wilson’s 14 Points
• Chapter 44: World War I and its Disputed Settlements
• “War is the Health of the State”

"IF YOU WALKED A MILE IN MY SHOES"

"If You Walked A Mile in My Shoes..."

The next poem you will write will be a personal poem in which you reveal something about yourself. Thematically, this poem can include family, personal triumphs and/or challenges, dreams, etc.

We will be looking at several models in class from which to bridge our own work.

Here are the requirements:

1) 8-10 stanzas
2) 4 lines min. per stanza
3) Each stanza should begin with the anaphoric "If you walked a mile in my shoes..." or something comparable. Please see me if you are planning on using something different.
4) Use of literary devices, such as metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, irony, etc.
5) Poem should be typed.

NOTE: Remember, this poem will accompany your shoe art. In other words, it will be showcased to the public, so you really want to consider this as you're composing this ambitious work.

Anaphora poem

New Poem Requirements:

So far, most of the poems that we have studied and discussed have been playful, and at times, whimsical. As we prepare ourselves for this next poem, think about tone. How can you explore various themes by approaching tone differently. For example, "I Remember" was nostalgic. How can you express indifference? Anger? Melancholy? Joy? Exuberance?

Take a look at Gregory Orr's poem below called "A Litany." Seems different than Brainard's, no?

Draft 1 Due: Friday, Jan 30

A Litany

I remember him falling beside me,
the dark stain already seeping across his parka hood.
I remember screaming and running the half mile to our house.
I remember hiding in my room.
I remember that it was hard to breathe
and that I kept the door shut in terror that someone would enter.
I remember pressing my knuckles into my eyes.
I remember looking out the window once
at where an ambulance had backed up
over the lawn to the front door.
I remember someone hung from a tree near the barn
the deer we'd killed just before I shot my brother.
I remember toward evening someone came with soup.
I slurped it down, unable to look up.
In the bowl, among the vegetable chunks,
pale shapes of the alphabet bobbed at random
or lay in the shallow spoon.

"I Remember"

"I Remember" poem requirements:

1. 25 lines minimum
2. Typed
3. Uses the anaphoric "I Remember"
4. At least 1 example of juxtaposition and/or synesthesia

Due Monday 1/26