This Seat's Taken: AP Lit, November 30, 2012

Focus: Student-led discussion of Invisible Man, Chapters 15-18

1. DURING ANNOUNCEMENTS, PLEASE WRITE ON THE BACK OF YOUR READING TICKET WHAT BURNING QUESTIONS ABOUT INVISIBLE MAN YOU WOULD LIKE TO HAVE ANSWERED BY THE CLASS TODAY...WHICH SCENES ARE TRULY CONFUSING?  THESE CAN BE FROM ANY CHAPTER.

2. Reading ticket / burning question musical chairs

3. Socratic seminar: Invisible Man, Chapters 15-18

HW: Read Chapters 19 and 20 with a simple reading ticket of 10 one-liners; work on poetry project/paper (feel free to email me outlines, thesis statements, and/or drafts); essay revisions.

This Seat's Taken: AP Lit, November 29, 2012

Focus: Writing Workshop of "Eveline" Timed Writings

1. Announcements!

2. Warm-up: Section-by-section think-alouds of "Eveline" in small groups

3. Overview of the rubric for this essay; peer editing


HW: Complete your Invisible Man reading assignment for tomorrow's Socratic seminar; for your reading ticket, find one passage that serves as a variation of an earlier scene and type the following:

• The original scene
• The variation
• A one-paragraph analysis of how the second scene is a variation of the first and Ellison's possible purpose in offering this variation.  Feel free to ask questions, too.

This Seat's Taken: AP Lit, November 28, 2012

Focus: Close reading prose

1. Announcements!

2. Warm-up: Applause-worthy close readings (performed by you). Click here to see them.

3. Return essays and discuss revisions:

• Focus on one portion only (a single paragraph, or even a single close reading).
• Staple it to your original essay with my comments.
• Due Friday, Dec. 7.

4. Practicing prose analysis: Ellison's catalogs and returning to a multiple choice passage from ages hence

HW: Complete your Invisible Man reading assignment by Friday; for your reading ticket, find one passage that serves as a variation of an earlier scene and type the following:

• The original scene
• The variation
• A one-paragraph analysis of how the second scene is a variation of the first and Ellison's possible purpose in offering this variation.  Feel free to ask questions, too.

This Seat's Taken: AP Lit, November 27, 2012

Focus: Developing your close readings of prose and your timed writing skills

1. Announcements!  Turn in project proposals (and outlines, if you wish)

2. Tuesday writing (you will have the entire period)

HW: Complete your Invisible Man reading assignment by Friday; for your reading ticket, find one passage that serves as a variation of an earlier scene and type the following:

• The original scene
• The variation
• A one-paragraph analysis of how the second scene is a variation of the first and Ellison's possible purpose in offering this variation.  Feel free to ask questions, too.

This Seat's Taken: AP Lit, November 26, 2012

Focus: Student-led discussion of Invisible Man, Chapters 11-14

1.  Announcements!  Also, any news from you?

2. Warm-up: Variations of Booker T. Washington (click HERE for the slides)

3. Socratic seminar: Chapters 11-14

HW: Please finish your proposal and turn it in tomorrow (typed preferred but not mandatory); start on your Invisible Man reading assignment for Friday (Chapters 15-18).  We will have a prose-passage timed writing tomorrow. For Friday's reading ticket, find one passage that serves as a variation of an earlier scene and type the following:

• The original scene
• The variation
• A one-paragraph analysis of how the second scene is a variation of the first and Ellison's possible purpose in offering this variation.  Feel free to ask questions, too.

This Seat's Taken: AP Lit, November 16, 2012

Focus: Discussion of Invisible Man

1. Announcements!

2. Warm-up: Variations on a theme

• Take one part of the Battle Royal and find a scene in a later chapter that echoes it/offers a variation of it.
• Read the two scenes closely, finding as many specific parallels as possible. Write them down in your composition notebook.
• How do the two scenes serve a similar purpose?
• How and why do they differ?  In other words, how is one a variation of the other?
• Why might Ellison offer us this echoed version of the Battle Royal in this particular moment?

3. Socratic seminar: Chapters 8-10 of Invisible Man

HW: Read Chapters....of Invisible Man to prepare for our next Socratic seminar on Monday, Nov 26; outline your poetry paper or compose the proposal for your poetry project (proposals due Tue).

This Seat's Taken: AP Lit, November 15, 2012

Focus: Laying the groundwork for your poetry papers and projects

1. Announcements!

2. Viewing projects and papers in small groups (10 min):

• What do you immediately notice in each example?
• Upon closer examination, what subtleties do you notice in each example?
• What seems to be the larger purpose of each example?
• How is that purpose achieved in each example?

3. Off to the computer lab to develop outlines and rubrics!

HW: Start/continue outlining your poetry projects and papers; finish the reading assignment for Friday (if you haven't yet), which is Chapters 8, 9, and 10 in Invisible Man; for your reading tickets, you can continue with your 10 one-liners, you can rewrite a scene from a different point of view (as we did in class yesterday), or you can create a visual representation of your analysis of these chapters.

Poetry PROJECT Due Dates:
1. Proposal due Tuesday, Nov 27.
2. Rubric due Monday, Dec 3.
3. Projects due Monday, Dec. 10.

Poetry PAPER Due Dates:
1. You are not required to turn in a proposal or a rubric since these have already been laid out for you.  However, you are more than welcome to come in for a conference or to e-mail me for feedback at any stage of the writing process.
2. If you would like the chance to revise your essay, you must turn it in Friday, Dec. 7.
3. If you do not want the chance to revise your essay, you may turn it in as late as Wednesday, Dec.12.

This Seat's Taken: AP Lit, November 14, 2012

Focus: Laying the groundwork for your poetry papers and projects

1. Announcements!

2. Viewing projects and papers in small groups:

• What do you immediately notice in each example?
• Upon closer examination, what subtleties do you notice in each example?
• What seems to be the larger purpose of each example?
• How is that purpose achieved in each example?

3. Starting to brainstorm and outline your papers and projects.

HW: Start/continue outlining your poetry projects and papers; start on the reading assignment for Friday (if you haven't yet), which is Chapters 8, 9, and 10 in Invisible Man; for your reading tickets, you can continue with your 10 one-liners, you can rewrite a scene from a different point of view (as we did in class yesterday), or you can create a visual representation of your analysis of these chapters.

This Seat's Taken: AP Lit, November 13, 2012

Focus: The significance of point of view in prose passages

1. Announcements!

2. Warm-up: Switching points of view on pages 151 and 152 of Invisible Man

• Rows 1 and 2: Third person omniscient
• Rows 3 and 4: Third person limited
• Row 5: From the vet's 1st person point of view
• Row 6: From Crenshaw's 1st person point of view

How does your shift in point of view alter the intent and effect of the passage?

3. Perusing the point of view overview (handout) and applying it to the warm-up.

4. Prose multiple choice practice (handout)

HW: Meet in the library computer lab THURSDAY (not tomorrow); read Chapters 8, 9 and 10 in Invisible Man with 10 one-liners, or a rewrite of one two pages from a different point of view.

This Seat's Taken: AP Lit, November 12, 2012

Focus: Student-led discussion of Invisible Man

1. Announcements!

2. Warm-up: The Battle Royal

• Skim back through the "battle royal" scene (pages 17-33).
• For each page, jot down one short line or phrase whose imagery and diction capture something important about what's happening on that page.
• Read closely how these lines come together...are there shifts?  Motifs?  Dichotomies?
• How do these pages transform the narrator? What do you think is Ellison's larger purpose in this passage? 

3. Socratic seminar: Invisible Man, Chapters 6 and 7

HW: Start reading Chapters 8 through 10 for this Friday; meet in the library computer lab on Wednesday. 

This Seat's Taken: AP Lit, November 9, 2012

Focus: Understanding the narrator of Invisible Man in his college days

1. Announcements!

2. Warm-up: Reading ticket musical chairs

3. Socratic seminar: Chapters 1-5; assign our first scribe.

4. Counterclockwise wrap-up

HW: Read Chapters 6 and 7 in Invisible Man for Monday's Socratic seminar with 10 one-liners as your reading ticket (or something more poetic and creative if you choose).

This Seat's Taken: AP Lit, November 8, 2012

Focus: Understanding 19th and 20th century stereotypes of the black man and their role in Invisible Man

1. Announcements!

2. Warm-up: Close reading of early 20th century images

• What stereotypes do these images construct?
• How do these images achieve their purpose?
• Why might these images have been so popular after the Civil War?  Do they still permeate our civilization (or culture?) today?

3. Watching a clip from Ethnic Notions: Understanding "the Sambo" and "the brute"

4. Explanation of Friday's reading ticket

5. 20 minute workshop of your Tuesday writing

HW: Finish reading through Chapter 5 of Invisible Man; complete reading ticket (see yesterday's blog for explanation of reading ticket).

This Seat's Taken: AP Lit, November 7, 2012

Focus: How do we enter the brightly lit world of an invisible man?

1. Announcements!

2. Warm-up: What does it mean to be invisible?  Opening questions for Invisible Man.

3. Socratic seminar: The Prologue of Invisible Man

HW: By Friday, finish reading Chapters 1-5.  Here is your reading ticket for Friday's Socratic seminar: Read the lyrics to Louis Armstrong's "Black and Blue" (copied below).  Pick one line from the song that intrigues you, and find around ten lines from the Prologue through Chapter 5 in Invisible Man that connect somehow to this line.  Draw the line from "Black and Blue" and the 10 lines from Invisible Man together by either forming them into a poem, writing a metacognitive on them, or any other way you can think of to synthesize them meaningfully.  Please type all writing.


“Black and Blue” by Louis Armstrong

Cold empty bead, springs hard as lead
Feels like ole Ned...wished I was dead
What did I do...to be so black and blue

Even the mouse...ran from my house
They laugh at you...and all that you do
What did I do...to be so black and blue

I'm white...inside...but, that don't help my case
That's life...can't hide...what is in my face
How would it end...ain't got a friend
My only sin...is in my skin
What did I do...to be so black and blue

(instrumental break)
How would it end...I ain't got a friend
My only sin...is in my skin
What did I do...to be so black and blue

This Seat's Taken: AP Lit, November 6, 2012

Focus: Improving your timed writing skills and synthesizing your ideas about Henry IV

1. Announcements!

2. Warm-up: Take out your cell phones and respond to the following two polls:

• At its deepest level, Henry IV is about...
• The most important moment in Henry IV is...

3. Tuesday writing: Henry IV (open response question)

4. Turn in your Henry IV books.

HW: Read the Prologue (don't worry about the introduction) to Invisible Man by tomorrow with ten one-liners as your Socratic seminar reading ticket.  Make sure you have completed your big question blog for Henry IV.

This Seat's Taken: AP Lit, November 5, 2012

Focus: Easing (not so gently) from the world of Henry IV to the world of Invisible Man

Announcements!

1. Warm-up: Recap our directorial decisions from Friday

2. The final performances: Act 5, scenes 2-5

3. Opening questions for Invisible Man

HW: Finish your big question blog for Henry IV, Part 1 (Tuesday writing tomorrow) and bring your book to turn in; read the Prologue of Invisible Man by Wednesday and Chapters 1-5 by Friday.  Please note that reading assignments are loooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggg and designed to be spread out through the week.  If you save it until Thursday night, you will feel like this: :(

This Seat's Taken: AP Lit, November 2, 2012

Focus: Understanding the grand finale of Henry IV, Part 1 through performance

During announcements, please write down the Invisible Man reading assignments, and take a book if you need one.

1. Warm-up: A reflection on yesterday and a clip of an award-winning Falstaff at the one and only Globe

• How does this portrayal of Falstaff support or alter your perception of him?

A few clips you may want to watch at home to inspire you as you compose your big question blog:

• The trailer for The Hollow Crown (the BBC production of the Henriad)
• Clip of King Henry and Prince Hal

2. Rehearsals of Act 5 and symbolic choices in small groups (15 min)

3. Rehearsals of Act 5, scenes 3 and 4 and symbolic choices as a large class (8 min)

4. The last big performance!

HW: Complete your big question blog entry by Tuesday; start reading Invisible Man.

This Seat's Taken: AP Lit, November 1, 2012

Focus: Analyzing Act 5 of Henry IV, Part 1

Announcements!

Warm-up: The legacy of Falstaff

• Why is he so popular?  
• Is he the most honest character in the play? 
• Let's take a walk down memory lane and revisit a few of his speeches.
• Click here for another blogger's view of Falstaff

Socratic seminar: Henry IV, Part 1,Act 5

HW: By Monday, complete your big question blog entry for Henry IV, Part 1.