Happy Christmas, Merry Holidays, and a Wicked Awesome New Year

from Mr. G

on a side note

details for assignment

over break are below

and I will email you

your averages when I grade

your Camus papers

click here for the gallagher's christmas card

Winter Break Assignment

So you will obviously need to finish your independent reading book over the break. You should know the book very well. I expect you to have post-it notes and be able to find moments in the book at will.

As you were well aware, the books that you were able to choose from also had movies that accompanied them. You will need to see the movie before January 4th. You will also need to take notes--look especially for moments that either differ from the book or that were dealt with in an interesting way on film. You will need to take notes during the movie to do this effectively. Don't depend on your recall abilities! If seeing the movie before the 4th is a major problem, I will give you a more traditional assignment--but I think this one is more interesting.

Anyway, we have computer lab time set up for the 4th, and your assignment, worth a major paper grade, will be due soon after this. The quarter closes a couple after the second week in January! Please be prepared for this.

Albert Camus’ The Stranger

due: December 20th, 2008

For this Essay on Albert Camus’ The Stranger, you need to combine two passage explications to create an original thesis.

• You need to title the paper.
• One passage needs to be from Part 1 and one passage needs to be from Part 2.
• This should be 4-6 pages, typed, double-spaced, Times New Roman.

A passage explication is an essay that takes apart the pieces of a prose passage to demonstrate how it creates meaning – its main question can be reduced to the simple idea of “What does the passage mean? What is its purpose? How does it create that meaning and achieve its purpose? How does it fit in with the rest of the text(if available)?” The creation of meaning comes through literary techniques, like simile and metaphor, through argument, through imagery, and through word choice.

Agenda Update

Hi all,

I look forward to reading / grading your blogs on Camus. . .as well as spending as much time as possible on those college essays. If you need it asap--please come and see me and I will pull your paper out of my pile and go over with you.

Agenda:

1. Reader's Notebook Entries (see handout) are due Monday, November 19th for Period 7 and Tuesday, November 20th for Periods 1 & 2.

2. A Self-Assessment Analysis is due November 19th for Period 7 and November 21st for Periods 1 & 2. You are to print out a copy of your first quarter grades, with all assignments included, and write me at least a paragraph analysis of your performance in the class based on the data. Include in the analysis what your goal is for 2nd quarter and what you will be doing to insure you meet your goal. This is an easy assignment to receive full credit on--so please take it seriously and put the appropriate effort in.

Other than that, make sure you are in a lit group before you leave for Thanksgiving break.
Here are the choices (feel free to do some research on these books before you choose):

John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

John Gardner, Grendel (with brief selections from Beowulf)

Jane Austin, Pride and Prejudice

Phillip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly

Alice Walker, The Color Purple

Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

Truman Capote, In Cold Blood

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

Anyone notice what all these choices have in common?

Camus Class Discussion Period 2

due date: Friday, November 16th, 2:30 p.m.

Grading Criteria: See Open Response

40 points: Quality of Response, Use of Evidence, Analysis of Evidence, & Conventions

Directions: 1. Directly respond to something someone said in class. It helps to start with something like "When Blank was speaking, he (or she) mentioned that (paraphrase or quote extensively from your notes). . ." and then continue the dialogue in writing. Again, I am looking for depth with these posts (and they should probably be 300-500 words). Make sure to include page numbers. SAY SOMETHING NEW!

Period 2 post here Period 2 post here Period 2 post here