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Saturday, June 28, 2008

Welcome Students!

Welcome to English IV and Multicultural Lit!

I'm so glad you are enrolled in these classes and look forward to meeting and working with each and every one of you.
My office is located next to the Special Education office and I am available to help you navigate your way through this class and others, everyday for the first few weeks of school. I will come around to your homeroom classes and introduce myself, and hopefully get a chance to sit with you and walk each of you through the course for as long as time allows. My office hours are posted outside of ny cubicle, in your course Syllabus and in eCollege.

If you have any questions or would just like to chat, my contact information is below. I am available via IM, phone, e-mail and in person.

If this is your first year at the school or your first High School English course, I hope you have a great time this year. Please don't hesitate to ask for help at anytime.

"It is never to late to be what you might have been."~ George Eliot
Ms. S:-)

On Campus Office Hours:
Monday: 11:00am to 1:00pm
Tuesday: 11:30am to 2:00pm
Wednesday/Thursday: 11:00am to 1:00pm
Friday: 10:00am - 12:00pm

You are also welcome to come and see me when I am in class. All I ask is that you be respectful when interrupting me if I am in conversation with another student:)

PHONE: 257.0578
E-MAIL & IM: Bshillingburg@odysseyk12.org
IM: britlitlover@yahoo.com
OFFICE: By the SPecial Education office - look for the pennants!

P.S. Yes, I expect you to post your comments here. They can be about the "Welcome," the Blog itself, or just a "Get Acquainted" post about you. Please remember to adhere to the Acceptable Use Policy for Blogging.

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Learning through Technology

What could you create using technology?

Instead of a Word doc, poster board, shoebox diorama or power point presentation, could you turn in an assignment via a YouTube video? A podcast? An MP3 file?

MySpace changed society's ability to communicate and gave billions of people a way to socialize wherever and whenever they want - in any time zone, in any location across the globe.

There are over 900,000,000 Ipods in use in the world today.

A 19 year old created a new way for college kids to communicate and that creation, Facebook was the cover story in Newsweek magazine last week.

After Wikipedia, came other forms of “Wikiness” (my word for it;) and now anyone can create their own wiki.

Could you create a MySpace, Facebook or Wiki page devoted to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or Frankenstein? Could you “Turn that in” to me as a legitimate assignment?

In your own voice, could you record your analysis and evaluation of the relationship between Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby by way of an MP3 file and post it on the classroom blog via an RSS feed?

Could you write a song about the murder of Julius Caesar (PS orchestrated by his best friend ;) play it in your backyard with your hardcore band and upload the YouTube video for a grade?

In this class you can.

I love technology. I have to make a conscious effort everyday to step away from the computer. I’m glad I can handle sitting in a meeting without a Blackberry. Do I really want to? No. I still shake my leg for as long as I have to sit still and listen and do nothing else… but listen, for however long, because that’s part of life, and an element of my job that may never change. So as much as technology is as essential to my life as driving to work – I don’t want to become a slave to it. What I do want is to keep living in the same world my students live in. A world where we communicate as far beyond pen and paper as anyone ever has in history.

So – having said all that, which would have taken me way too long to text BTW, I will ask you to turn in assignments in technology-based formats this year. If I don’t ask first and that’s what you would rather do, I am all for it.

As long as you’re not singing anything to me from “High School Musical II.”

:)

Facebook Story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20227872/site/newsweek/

Using Audacity to Create MP3 Files: http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=0176ef0d24ef6d2dcde3

Broadcast Yourself via YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/signup?next=/my_account

Create a Wiki:
http://www.wikispaces.com/

Blog Writing II

Ode to Autumn by John Keats

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease;

For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river-sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Directions:

Using 6 of the 12 Power Words, write out your thoughts on the poem in the Extra Credit Journal folder in eCollege. You can use the words in any order you wish. They are:

1. Describe
2. Explain
3. Compare
4. Trace
5. Evaluate
6. Analyze

* Check the 12 Power Words Handout for hints on how to use these 6 words to define your essay answers.
* Minimum 8 sentences: 1 for introduction, 6 for the Power Words analysis and 1 as a conclusion.
* You may write more than this, but not less.
* Please remember to use appropriate academic language, spelling and punctuation.
* If you need help constructing your essay or evaluating the poem, please ask.
* 100 points possible.

Blog Writing I

Read:

She walks in beauty

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
~George Gordon, Lord Byron

ABOUT THE POEM:
Meaning:
Of course it's obvious that this poem is somewhat of a love poem, expressing how beautiful this woman is that Lord Byron is looking at. She combines opposites (or extremes) in perfect proportions in her looks and in her personality. Whether it is a true declaration of love or a statement of admiration (of her beauty) is left to the reader, since it's known that this poem was about his cousin, Mrs. Wilmot, whom he met at a party in a mourning dress of spangled black.

Mechanisms:The poem opens with a line that doesn’t have punctuation (enjambment): it runs over to the next. Not only that, but the next line has a different kind of meter. Poets use this mechanism together with enjambment to attract attention to certain words. For example in the fourth line, the word "meet" is emphasized. It is an important word in the poem because it is the premise of the entire poem. Opposites "meet" in this woman. Just as enjambment and a change in meter are joined as mechanisms in this poem, the unlikely pair of darkness and light meet in this woman. Also, this poem makes use of alliteration, the repeating of the first letter of a word to get an easy-reading effect. Look at the second line: "Of cloudless climes and starry skies."

Imagery:
Lord Byron describes a night (associated with darkness) with bright stars (light) and compares this woman to that night. She brings together these opposites in her beauty and creates a "tender light." Not a light like the daytime, since he describes that as gaudy (showy in a vulgar way), but a light that "heaven" doesn't even honor the daytime with.Byron describes light and dark coming together in her appearance (or "aspect"), as in her dark hair ("tress") and the light complexion of her face. But she also says they meet in her eyes. The eyes are often associated with a person's soul, and reveal the heart. So he is suggesting that opposites meet in her soul as well. Note also, that Byron says that if this darkness and lightness wouldn't be in the right proportions ("One shade the more, one ray the less"), her beauty wouldn't be completely ruined as you might expect. He says that she would only be "half impaired," and thus still half magnificent.

http://poetrypages.lemon8.nl/romance/shewalks/shewalks.htm

Assignment:
Complete a Dialectical Journal entry. Choose 4 quotes (lines) from the poem and wrte your response to each one. For example:

"The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!"

Journal Entry: This line reminds me of Mother Theresa and the news stories when she died. Even though I had only heard her name before she died, and didn't really know what she did for a living, I learned that she had spent her whole adult life in the slums of one of the poorest cities in the world, Calcutta, India, taking care of the poor and the lepers - the people who were considered by that society to be worthless; not even human beings.

Post your answer in the "Extra Credit" basket in eCollege.
~bjs

Things to Keep in Mind When Reading

Here are some Literary Terms that will be helpful to you when it comes to reading fiction:

Irony: A mode of expression, through words (verbal irony) or events (irony of situation), conveying a reality different from and usually opposite to appearance or expectation.

Motifs: Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Plot: An author’s selection and arrangement of incidents in a story to shape the action and give the story a particular focus.

Satire: A literary mode based on criticism of people and society through ridicule.

Setting: The total environment for the action of a fictional work.

Symbols: Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

Themes: Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

Tone: The writer's attitude toward his readers and his subject; his mood or moral view.

Acceptable Use Policy: Blogging

Safe and Responsible Blogging
The most basic guideline to remember when blogging is that the blog is an extension of our classroom. You should not write anything on a blog that you would not say or write in a classroom. Use common sense, but if you are ever in doubt ask a teacher or parent whether or not what you are considering posting is appropriate. If you are going to err, err on the safe side. Here are some specific items to consider:
The use of blogs is considered an extension of your classroom. Therefore, any speech that is considered inappropriate in the classroom is inappropriate on a blog. This includes, but is not limited to, profanity; racist, sexist or discriminatory remarks; personal attacks.
Blogs are used primarily as learning tools, either as extensions of conversations and thinking outside of regular class time, or as the basis for beginning new classroom discussions. Either way, be sure to follow all rules and suggestions that are offered by your teacher regarding appropriate posting in your class.
Blogs are about ideas – therefore, agree or disagree with the idea, not the person. Freedom of speech does not give you the right to be uncivil. Use constructive criticism and use evidence to support your position. Read others’ posts carefully – often in the heat of the moment you may think that a person is saying one thing, when really they are not.
Try not to generalize. Sentences that start with words like “All” (e.g., “All teachers,” “All students,” “All liberals,” “All conservatives”) are typically going to be too general.
Blogs are public. Whatever you post on a blog can be read by anyone and everyone on the Internet. Even if you delete a post or comment, it has often already been archived elsewhere on the web. Do not post anything that you wouldn’t want your parents, your best friend, your worst enemy, or a future employer to read.
Blog safely. NEVER post personal information on the web (including, but not limited to, last names, personal details including address or phone numbers, or photographs). Do not, under any circumstances, agree to meet someone you have met over the Internet.
When submitting Posts on the classroom blog – identify yourself by your first name and last initial only: Belinda S. Do not post your full name or a username. Using a username will prevent me from being able to give you credit for the post.
Linking to web sites from your blog or blog comments in support of your argument is an excellent idea. But never link to something without reading the entire article to make sure it is appropriate for a school setting.
Use of quotations in a blog is acceptable. Make sure that you follow the proper formatting and cite the source of the quote.
Source: (http://ahsblogpolicy.pbwiki.com/~Ed