Tuesday December 18-Stave 3 Meeting

                                        Cant wait to be a part of your stave 3 meetings tomorrow! It is my favorite part of the book.

Best Sketches of 2012- Saturday Night Live

Thought you guys would enjoy!

http://www.vulture.com/2012/12/ten-best-snl-sketches-of-2012.html?mid=agenda--20121212

Surviving Charles Dickens' London- DUE FRIDAY

THIS IS DUE BY FRIDAY!!! 

Dare you take a tour of Dickensian London? You could meet Mr Micawber, Mr Pickwick or Fagin. Or you might catch smallpox and end up in jail. If you do well, you'll get to meet Charles Dickens

Dodge through Victorian London, avoiding the gangs and villains and trials and tribulations of Dickensian London in order to seek out Charles Dickens in his chalet hideaway in Rochester.

You'll face tasks and choices - you might have to pick pockets for Fagin, or rob bodies for Gaffer Hexham. Perform well and you'll be able to wend your way through dark alleyways and winding streets. Make the wrong choice and you could end up in jail, or worse...

You'll need to keep your health up and you'll need to keep your eyes open in order to make money for your fare to Rochester. Be warned; time is short and the streets of London are not for the faint hearted...

To play the game you will need to install Macromedia Flash( if you dont already have). Visit WebWise for more information if necessary.

Task:
1. Play “Surviving Charles Dickens London  http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/multimedia/dickens/

 2. After playing the game and successfully meeting Charles Dickens (you may have to play a few times), 

• Explain five facts you learned about what life was like for individuals living in Victorian London (the setting of A Christmas Carol ) 
• List five facts you learned about the life of Charles Dickens

Christmas Carol Anticipation Guide

Cant wait to hear your thoughts on all these controversial issues presented in the book! Please post them as a comment to this post!

Christmas Carol Literature Circles Protocol

1. Everyone will take  a role. It may stay the same entire time, or switch daily.

Discussion Director: Your job is to write down at least five questions for discussion. These questions should be open-ended (not "yes/no" questions) and designed to spark interesting discussion. You also must write a 3-5 sentence response to each of your questions to share with your circle after they have had a chance to answer.During the discussion, your job is to encourage all group members to participate     by involving them in the discussion, to ask follow-up questions when conversation lags, and to be sure that every participant has a chance to present his or her preparation.

Rhetorical Reader: your job is to identify the rhetorical devices the author is using. You can bring forward to the group examples of style such as syntax (tropes, schemes), and diction, or any other ways the author uses language artfully through literary devices (symbolism, theme, etc). For each rhetorical or literary device, write a paragraph discussing what it is and how it affects the reader. Identify at least 3-4 per reading.

Literary Luminary: Your job is to compile at least four quotations from the reading that you think are significant. Be sure to use MLA format for your citations. For each quote, write a paragraph discussing what the quote means and what role it plays in the story. (4 paragraphs total)During the Literature Circle, you will read each quotation to your group, then ask your group what they notice about the quotation, what they think it means, and what role the quotation plays in the story.

Character Connoisseur- you job is to collect examples of characterization. How does this character connect to the overall themes of the story? What do they think? How do they behave in that section? How do they change during the reading? What is their motivation (reason, intention)? How is a character important to the story? What does the author do to make the character come alive? Write a one paragraph character analysis for each character present in the selected reading.

Linguistic Luminary: You job is to shine light on language. You will find new and exciting vocabulary.  Ask yourself while reading, how does Dickens choose words? Do we use some of these words today? Or have some of these words become archaic? Please find ten new vocabulary words, along with the sentence and definition to share with your group during your meeting.

2. Groups will meet daily to discuss each stave

One person at the end of the meeting will email me a summary with:

1.    the ten words  you discussed

2.    the passages you discussed

3.    what was said about the characters

4.    rhetorical /literary devices identified

5.    the questions that were brought up in your group

3. Groups will be assigned  “group tasks” to explore other aspects of the text

4. Work will be placed into group folder

Synthesis Essay Requirements

Final Revision of Synthesis essays due Monday

. Published essays will be graded for evidence of:

·  Classical model essay structure 

·  Correct citing of sources – signal phrases, power verbs, various citation formats, parenthetical citing

·   An effective introduction and conclusion, using one of the modes discussed

·  transitional phrases

a separate grade will be given as well according to AP Synthesis Rubric.

Essay Lead Samples

Anecdote

You go out to buy a pair of shoes, but the Super Duper Store is the only one in town: all the smaller, family owned shops and specialty stores went out of business when the Super Duper Store moved in. Each small store couldn’t get enough varieties of shoes, and customers won’t pay more if they can buy something cheaper somewhere else, even though before, with all the small shops combined, consumers had a wider selection and, at certain times and places, cheaper prices.

But that’s all long gone now. You go into the Super Duper Store and check out the shoe selection. You need running shoes, and you have two choices: the fifty dollar pair, or the $120 pair. Neither seems that well made, or even what you’re looking for, but you don’t have a choice. There’s no other place to look, and you need shoes. So you buy the better pair, but not long after you’ve bought them, a sole falls off. Then you have to go back to the Super Duper Store and give them more money for more bad shoes you don’t want. This might seem to be a worse case scenario, but it’s a situation that’s worsening with the growth of huge, conglomerate corporations.

Quotation

Feminism?

“It makes me think of women who don’t shave their legs,” popular TV actress Sarah Michelle Gellar was recently quoted as saying in JUMP magazine. A figure in the media who influences a lot of adolescents, Gellar perpetuates a stereotype of feminism that makes a joke of the bold steps taken over the past century, stereotypes that in today’s society are much more widely recognized than feminism’s reality. As a third-wave feminist, I’d like to challenge people my age to look beyond these mistaken ideas and understand how feminist ideals make life richer and fairer, for both women and men.

News

Ninety percent of American smokers started as teenagers. There are lots of reasons for this scary statistic: peer pressure, parents who smoke, and, most significantly, because of the billions of dollars spent by the tobacco industry on ads that target kids.

Background

It was only this spring that I learned about the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945, near the end of World War Two. I was amazed that my country had done this. And I was shocked to discover the number of people killed by the bombs. On August 6th, 1945, the USA dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later another, more powerful, bomb of plutonium was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. I could not believe this happened just fifty-five years ago. I do not believe it was a necessary step to ending the war.

Announcement

Lethal Possibilities by Erin K. Witham

An elementary school principal dyes his hair green when students read 10,000 pages. Another school hosts a pizza party for students to celebrate a similar “achievement.” Give me a break. Readers don’t need prizes. Reading itself is the prize.