Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Monday, September 29, 2014

"The Old Man and the Sea" reading calendar

Listen to each section:
Audiobook Link

October 1
Part 1 (9-22)
“I wanted to take him fishing but I was too timid to ask him. Then I asked you to ask him and you were too timid.” 

October 2
Part 2 (22-36)
The iridescent bubbles were beautiful. But they were the falsest thing in the sea and the old man loved to see the big sea turtles eating them. 

October 3
Part 3 (36-50)
When once, through my treachery, it had been necessary to him to make a choice, the old man thought. His choice had been to stay in the deep dark water far out beyond all snares and traps and treacheries. 

October 7
Part 4 (50-62) Part 5 (62-75) Part 6 (75-89)
If the boy were here he could rub it for me and loosen it down from the forearm, he thought. But it will loosen up.

Then he was sorry for the great fish that had nothing to eat and his determination to kill him never relaxed in his sorrow for him.

The sea had risen considerably. But it was a fair-weather breeze and he had to have it to get home. “I’ll just steer south and west,” he said. “A man is never lost at sea and it is a long island.” 


October 8
Part 7 (89-101)
Sometimes he lost the scent. But he would pick it up again, or have just a trace of it, and he swam fast and hard on the course. 

October 9
Part 8 (101-114)
“Come on, galano,” the old man said. “Come in again.” The shark came in a rush and the old man hit him as he shut his jaws. 

October 10
Part 9 (114-end)
The end.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Culture Vulture Event! Beantown Jazz Festival (9/27)









The annual Berklee BeanTown Jazz Festival is set for Sept. 27, from noon to 6 p.m., taking place on different outdoor stages along Columbus Ave. between Massachusetts Ave. and Burke Steet in Boston’s Lower Roxbury. While there are also some ticketed events going on as part of the fest, these are free. Among the folks performing on that jazzy stretch are: the Berklee City Music All-Stars; the Marco Pignataro Jazztet, featuring Eddie Gomez; Marco Santos and Bloco AfroBrazil; Screaming Headless Torsos; Aubrey Logan; Bill Banfield’s the Jazz Urbane with guest Grace Kelly; Dionne Farris with the Russell Gunn Quartet; Sheila E.; and the Yoron Israel/Bill Pierce Quintet. For a complete schedule of artists, visit www.beantownjazz.org.



Monday, September 22, 2014

TFiOS Theme Paragraph (edit for formatting)

Welcome to draft #4 of your The Fault in Our Stars theme paragraph. Today we will edit with an eye to formatting.

Instructions
1) using Word or Google Docs, type your TFiOS theme paragraph
2) follow proper MLA formatting guidelines, including:
  • 12 point size
  • Times New Roman font
  • one inch top, bottom, left, and right margins
  • indent (tab) 1/2 inch for first line of paragraph
  • book titles (The Fault in Our Stars) are italicized
  • article/essay titles ("The Myth of Sisyphus") are placed in quotation marks
  • double space lines, with no additional spacing between paragraphs
  • one space after periods or other punctuation marks
  • in the upper left-hand corner of the first page, list your name, your instructor's name, the course, and the date (double spaced)
  • your essay title is centered, two lines below the heading, without any bold/quotation marks
  • in the upper right-hand corner, create a header that includes your last name, followed by a space with a page number; number all pages consecutively with Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.), one-half inch from the top and flush with the right margin (Times New Roman)
3) upload your file (DO NOT CUT AND PASTE AS THIS WILL NEGATE ALL YOUR FORMATTING) on Turnitin.com by 1:59pm Tuesday, September 23.

Further information: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/

Monday, September 15, 2014

TFiOS Theme Paragraph



In unpacking the allusions that riddle The Fault in Our Stars, we realize that John Green is building an existential theme. His characters and their development through the novel point to a way of living with clear recognition of our mortality and the necessity of making choices.

For your theme paragraph, explain the view of life presented in TFiOS and how Green uses allusions to build this theme.

Some more quotes from John Green:

Q. How do you put so much meaning into a book meant for young adults?
A. Teenagers are plenty smart. I don’t sit around and worry whether teenagers are smart. I mean, most of the people currently reading The Scarlet Letter and The Great Gatsby…are teenagers.

Q. It seems like there’s a symbolic reason behind most things in this book. Is that just the way you write or did you specifically choose to write TFiOS in this way? Why?
A. Well, I always want to write books that stand up to re-reading, but to be clear, there’s more than one good way to read a book. The great thing about figurative language and symbols and the like in novels is that you don’t have to be conscious of them for them to work.
Like, let’s say you read The Catcher in the Rye and somehow your English teacher doesn’t tell you about the red hunting cap, and so you read the whole damn novel without ever thinking much one way or the other about this hat Holden keeps putting on and taking off.
Even if you haven’t thought about any of this consciously at all, there’s still a pretty good chance that something inside you will break open when Phoebe puts the hat on Holden at the end of the book, because it’s such a small and kind and humane gesture. And maybe if you’re heavily invested in the red hunting cap, that moment will hit you harder, but it will hit you regardless.
But the red hunting cap isn’t what makes Catcher good, and if TFiOS is good, it isn’t because of any symbols or metaphors in isolation. Catcher is a great book because it lets you see the world out of someone else’s eyes; it gives you the rare opportunity to escape the prison of your consciousness and imagine in a big and complex and generous way what it would be like to be Holden Caulfield. All the language in the novel exists to make your experience of Holden’s life richer and more compelling and more real.

Friday, September 12, 2014

Online Predictive Test

Open link in new window/tab (right click)

https://www.assessmenttechnology.com/GalileoASP/ASPX/StudentCenter/StudentCenterlogin.aspx

Login: BPS+student ID# (ex. BPS154003)

Password: YEAR MONTH DAY (ex. 19970408)

ELA 10 test
password ELA100922


Monday, September 8, 2014

Active Reading

a quick reminder of the three steps for Active Reading

I. Preview
-title
-headings

II. Interaction
-annotations
-questions

III. Review
-main point (theme)

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Welcome to ELA 10

Welcome to our English class. This blog is a place for questions and connections outside of our hour together. I trust that you will enjoy our class, as much as I do!

Peace.