Wednesday, December 19

Students turned in HW and we discussed their views on "Because I could not stop for Death."

Copies of Huckleberry Finn were distributed, along with the schedule of readings and quizzes. Mr. Potratz read Chapter 1 and part of Chapter 2 aloud to the class.

HW due Wednesday, January 2:
Read Chapters 1-9 of Huckleberry Finn.


Tuesday, December 18
We read and discussed poems by Emily Dickinson, including "Apparently, with no surprise" and "I heard a fly buzz when I died."

Handout on poetic form in Dickinson.

HW due Wednesday:
Read the handout and page 394 in the textbook (Dickinson's letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson); read also all poems pages 373-394, and write one paragraph in answer to the first Question #3 on page 395 (on the tone of the final paragraph of "Because I could not stop for Death").

Monday, December 17

Open-book quiz over Emily Dickinson biography and poem (30 pts.).
Lecture on ballad meter/ballad stanza using "The Gypsy Laddie" (Child 200) as sung by Jean Ritchie.

Friday, December 14

Rhythm and meter in poetry. Types of metrical feet. Metrical pattern versus actual rhythm.

HW due Monday:
Read pp. 272 & 273 and pp. 276 & 177 in Elements of Lit.
Quiz over it on Monday.

Thursday, December 13

Intro to Poetry
Students worked in small groups to come up with definitions of poetry.
We then put them under the document camera and discussed them.


Wednesday, December 12
Mr. Potratz was absent.
Students completed a dictionary exercise, using the American Heritage College Dictionary and answering questions on a worksheet.

Tuesday, December 11

Levels of Diction
In-class exercise employing vocabulary words from "The Cask of Amontillado."

HW due Wednesday:
Ten sentences using vocabulary words from "The Cask of Amontillado" (see Monday's entry).

Monday, December 10
Gothicism
Clip from Metropolis.
Illustration from textbook pp. 262-63.

Handout: "The Cask of Amontillado"
Handout: Vocab words from same

HW due Wednesday:
(1) Read the story.
(2) Underline the nineteen vocabulary words in the story.
(3) Look up any words you don't know.
(4) Use ten of the words in sentences which demonstrate the words' meaning.

Friday, December 7

We went over students' answers to the questions on yesterday's Gothicism worksheet,
and illustrated the answers with projected photos of Gothic-style buildings from different periods.

No HW.

Thursday, December 6

Goth Day
We went to the computer lab and researched Gothicism, both the original Gothic period of the middle Ages and the Gothic cultural revival of the nineteenth century.

Students either turned in their completed worksheets at the end of class or took them home to finish as homework due at the beginning of class Friday.

Wednesday, December 5

Students turned in HW (metaphor paraphrases, p. 246).

Discussion of excerpts from Walden.
Exploration of the word "deliberate" (adj. & v.), as in "I wished to live deliberately . . . "

Students will be in the computer lab tomorrow.

Tuesday, December 4

We finished discussing "Civil Disobedience" and began reading excerpts from Walden.

HW due Wednesday:
Finish reading the selections from Walden in Elements of Lit (pp. 234-244), then paraphrase in writing the three metaphors given under "Reading Skills and Strategies" on page 247 (bottom right corner of the page).

Monday, December 3

"Civil Disobedience" (aka "Resistance to Civil Government"), by Henry David Thoreau.

Students handed in their HW.

Mr. Potratz announced a change in policy, effective second semester. No late HW will be accepted.

Friday, November 30

Handout: "Digital History" of opposition to the Mexican War.

HW due Monday: Read pp. 249-254 in textbook and TYPE at least one two-chunk paragraph in answer to Question 3 on page 257.

Thursday, November 29

Open-book quiz over "The American Renaissance," ( pp. 206-14 in the textbook.)

Back to "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Wednesday, November 28

Dependent and independent clauses.
Starting from Mr. Clegg's Knowledge Bowl Question of the Week (What type of clause results if we precede the following sentence with the word 'after'?: 'The guys cleaned their fish?'), we proceeded to investigate the three types of dependent clauses (adverb, noun, and adjective), and then to focus on adverb clauses via two worksheets which were due at the end of class.

HW due Thursday: Read pp. 206-214 in Elements of Literature, and prepare for a quiz over the reading at the start of class.

Tuesday, November 27

Close reading of passages from Ralph Wado Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance" (pp. 294-295 in Elements of Lit).

Monday, November 26

We put various students' possible research topics and questions under the document camera and discussed them, with the aim of clarifying what makes a good topic and what Mr. Potratz in particular is looking for.

In periods 3, 4 and 6 Mr. Potratz also stressed Pacific Northwest Native art and culture as a rich vein to mine for topics and a field in which there are many resources in the Seattle area.
He told the class about his Thansgiving trip to the Anthropology Museum at UBC in Vancouver, and what he learned about Bill Reid, who Mr. Potratz thinks would be an excellent topic for a research paper.

Tuesday (Per. 3) and Wednesday (Pers. 4, 5 &6), November 20 & 21

Handout: Suggested topics for the 2nd-semester research paper

We discussed and briefly investigated sample topics for the research paper.

HW due Monday, Nov. 26:
TYPE three or four possible topics for your research paper, and for each topic provide at least one question you would seek to answer.
ALSO, bring your King County Library card to class with you.

Monday, November 19 (Periods 4, 5 & 6))

Students turned in the HW assignment, and we read from "Nature" together, focusing especially on the "transparent eyeball" image (question 4). We looked at one student's paragraph on said eyeball and its symbolism.

Friday, November 16
(Period 3)

Students turned in the HW assignment, and we read from "Nature" together, focusing especially on the "transparent eyeball" image (question 4). We looked at one student's paragraph on said eyeball and its symbolism.

Thursday, November 15

Lexicography exercise. Small group activity: Define "nature" with at least four different meanings, and an example of the word in use for all four.

Mini-lecture: Changing connotations of "nature" in American Literature. Puritans, founding fathers, romantics.

HW due Friday (period 3) or Monday (periods 4,5 & 6):
Read pp. 216 & 217 and pp. 219-221 in Elements of Lit.
Write two short paragraphs or one longer one answering either question 3 or question 4 on page 228, first column.

Wednesday, November 14

Quizlet over pp. 138-150, introduction to American Romanticism. 5 questions, 15 pts. total.

Word pairing activity in small groups. Classic/Romantic word pairs.

Tuesday, November 13

Dictionary exercise, using the American Heritage Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary, to explore the history of the words [romance,' 'romantic' and 'romanticism' as introduction to the new unit on the Romantic Movement in American literature.

HW due Wednesday:
Read pp. 138-150 in Elements of Lit. Quizlet over the reading to begin class.

Friday, November 9

Students submitted their slavery essays, including rough drafts, peer edit sheets, and any other earlier stages still in their possession.

We watched 30 minutes from Volume 3 of the documentary film Slavery and the Making of America.

Thursday, November 8

We went over MLA citation and Works Cited entries, then Mr. Potratz read aloud the classic oration, "What to the American Slave is the Fourth of July?" by Frederick Douglass.

HW due Friday: Final draft of the slavery essay, with any earlier stages still in your possession.

Wednesday, November 7

Peer editing of rough drafts, working in blocks of four, and evaluating for content and organization. (Those without rough drafts completed grammar worksheets.)

HW due Friday: Final draft of slavery essay with all its prior stages.

Tuesday, November 6

We divided ourselves on either side of the Mason-Dixon Line and conducted an informal debate on the resolution which is the focus of the essay: supporting or opposing the abolition of slavery.

HW due Wednesday: First draft of the slavery essay, for in-class peer editing.

Monday, November 5

Integration of quotations into text -- handout and worksheet, turned in at the end of class.

Friday, November 2

We reviewed sentence outline form, then looked at MLA citation procedure and the Works Cited page. Finally, we evaluated several more thesis statements.

HW due Monday: Typed sentence outline of the slavery essay, with revised thesis statement.

Thursday, November 1

Students turned in their typed thesis statements and we evaluated several of them using the document camera.

Wednesday, October 31 -- Halloween

Mr. Potratz read Poe's "The Raven" aloud, we listened to a recording of "The Masque of the Red Death," and we watched a little Frankenstein.

HW: Typed thesis statement due tomorrow.


Tuesday, October 30

Students took the 3rd and final Frederick Douglass quiz, 33 pts.

We discussed the Narrative's Appendix & Douglass's attitude towards Christianity.

Students took a "First Stab" at a thesis statement for their slavery essay.

Mr. Potratz announced intermediate deadlines for the slavery essay due Nov. 9:
HW: Slavery Essay Deadlines
Thursday, Nov.1 Typed thesis statement
Monday, Nov. 5 Typed sentence outline
Monday, Nov. 5 Typed sentence outline
Friday, Nov. 9 Final draft

Monday, October 29

Assignment: Final draft due Friday, Nov. 9
An assignment sheet was distributed with details for a persuasive essay supporting or opposing the abolition of slavery. The assignment sheet is available on the "Documents" page as "slavery essay assignment.pdf."

We discussed the pro-slavery arguments of George Fitzhugh (previous handout, "The Blessings of Slavery," 1857) and examined two contradictory quotations about the slaves by two white Southerners from 1822 and 1832.

Friday, October 26

We explored the etymology of "vandalism" and how to access the American Heritage Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary online (www.bartleby.com and www.kcls.org).

We looked at the words "than" and "then" and checked them off the list of commonly confused words on the back page of the planner.

We looked at some of the students' 97-word summaries of George Fitzhugh and tried to learn what a summary is and is not.

Quiz Tuesday over all of Frederick Douglass's Narrative, with emphasis on Chapter 11 and the Appendix.

Thursday, October 25

Students took the quiz over Chapters VII - X of Frederick Douglass's Narrative, and we corrected it together in class.

We listened to a story from last Saturday's NPR Weekend Edition about excavations at Wye House Farm in Maryland, featuring descendants of Frederick Douglass's fellow slaves and descendants of the masters, then discussed the story.

HW for Friday: a summary of exactly 97 words of excerpts from George Fitzhugh's The Blessings of Slavery (handout).

Wednesday, October 24

We reviewed the websearch worksheet on arguments for slavery and pooled information we had found and tips on how we found it. Students took notes.

Quiz tomorrow over Frederick Douglass's Narrative, Chapters VII-X.

Tuesday, October 23

We went into the computer lab to search the web for information about arguments in defense of slavery in the United States before the Civil War.

HW due Wednesday: complete the "Arguments in favor of slavery -- Websearch" worksheet begun in the lab.

Quiz postponed until Thursday
The second quiz over Frederick Douglass's Narrative will cover chapters VII through X.





Monday, October 22
School closed in honor of Vandals Day.

Friday, October 19

HW for the weekend: Read Chapter X of the Narrative of Frederick Douglass.
Quiz Tuesday over Chapters VII-X.

(Monday we will be in the computer lab researching pro-slavery arguments.)

Mr. Potratz read from his 1811 edition of The Columbian Orator, and we discussed the arguments -- both for and against slavery -- in the dialogue between a master and his slave.

Thursday, October 18

Students turned in their three sentences of HW, and we looked at selected examples as a class, and evaluated them.

The sentences answered the question "Why did Frederick Douglass so badly want to learn to read?" and we next turned to discussing that question. We examined the passages beginning on page 49 in which Douglass talks about the importance of The Columbian Orator to his growing awareness.

No HW.

Wednesday, October 17

Instruction in internet searches. "Advanced Search" features in Google; search strategies; evaluating websites.

HW due Thursday:

Read Chapters VII and VIII of Frederick Douglas (pp. 46-65), and
write three sentences (TS, CD, CM) answering the question "Why does Frederick Douglass so badly want to learn to read?"

Tuesday, October 16

Quiz over Frederick Douglass's Narrative, Chapters 1-6, 30 points.

The role of religion under slavery, both black Christianity and white.
The Curse of Ham and the Mark of Cain.

HW due Wednesday:
Read two handouts, "Implied Boolean and the Search for Truth," and "Why we need to evaluate what we find on the Internet," and prepare to put the information they contain to use in the computer lab on Wednesday.

Monday, October 15

More discussion of race in the U.S. We watched Dave Chappelle's "Racial Draft" and/or rewatched 8 minutes of Jefferson's Blood and examined various dimensions and contradictions of racial identity.

Tomorrow:
Students are to have read the first 6 chapters (45 pages) of Frederick Douglass's Narrative. We will start class with a ten-question multiple choice quiz.

Friday, October 12

No school (for students).

Thursday, October 11

We examined the frequently confused words 'affect' and 'effect.'

Students turned in HW paragraphs and checked out Frederick Douglass's Narrative. HW due Tuesday: Read Chapters I-VI (pp. 1-45) of the Narrative and prepare for a quiz over it on Tuesday morning.

We discussed the perplexities of racial categorization in the U.S.

Wednesday, October 10

We finished watching Jefferson's Blood and students took a simple 15-question True/False quiz thereover. Mr. Potratz distributed a handout entitled "Ten Things Everyone Should Know about Race."

HW due Thursday: Read the handout and write a single two-chunk paragraph agreeing or disagreeing with it, using as CD's details from Jefferson's Blood.


Tuesday, October 9

Mr. Potratz was absent. The class watched the beginning of Jefferson's Blood, a documentary film about Jefferson, his children from Sally Hemmings and his descendants today, both black and white.

Monday, October 8

We swapped the HW and graded it (20 pts. total). Then we proceeded to analyze and discuss the changes made in Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence by the Congress before they adopted it, concentrating especially on the condemnation of slavery as one of King George III's crimes.

Mr. Potratz announced that there would be a substitute teacher on Wednesday, that Lit books were not necessary, and that the classes would be watching Jefferson's Blood, a film focusing on Thomas Jefferson, his slaves, his children, and especially on his descendants today, both black and white.

Friday, October 5

We reviewed the famous second sentence of the Declaration of Independence ("We hold these truths to be self-evident . . ..") and its masterful parallel construction. Then we proceeded to an exercise in paralellism (Parallel Structure, Worksheet 3) which was completed in class in all periods except period 3.

HW due Monday: Worksheet 4 on parallel structure (except for Period 3, whose HW is Worksheet 3, Exercise B).

Thursday, Oct. 4
Students turned in the HW (answers to the Reading Check questions on p. 125). Reading Check questions are the ones in the box, labeled a, b, c, d.

We examined the difference between summarizing – the activity required in answering question ‘a’ -- and paraphrasing, and the students wrote paraphrases of the first sentence (first paragraph) of the Declaration of Independence. We discussed these. They also tried (and mostly failed) to identify the simple subject and simple predicate of the sentence. We began to analyze the famous second sentence and its mastery of parallel structure.

Wednesday, Oct. 3

We finished our joint work on the essay comparing the captivity narratives by Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano.

HW due Thursday: Read the Declaration of Independence, pp. 117-124 in Elements of Literature, and answer in writing the four “Reading Check” questions on page 125.

Tuesday, Oct. 2
We continued work on the essay we began yesterday, brainstorming and sketching out two two-chunk paragraphs for the essay’s heart.

Monday, Oct. 1
Starting from the students’ outlines for an essay comparing Rowlandson’s and Equiano’s captivity narratives, we began writing such an essay together. The third period began the process, the fourth period fine-tuned the third period’s work and added more, and so on. Because of the need to take all periods through the whole process, the fifth and sixth periods were able to add less to the essay, and we got only as far as the end of the first paragraph.

Students turned in their outlines.

Friday, Sept. 28
Except for 3rd period, when we pretended the school was burning down, we looked at outline protocols in Writers Inc., then at the distinction between ‘less’ and ‘fewer,’ completing an exercise over that which was turned in at the end of class.

The HW (the an outline of an essay comparing Equiano’s Narrative with Rowlandson’s) was postponed to Monday, with the stipulation that it be a sentence outline, as per Writers Inc. page 108.

Thursday, Sept. 27
We looked at the class Sharepoint site.

We read the excerpt in Elements of Literature from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano.

HW due Friday: Write an outline, using traditional I,A,1 format, for a five-paragraph essay comparing Equiano’s Narrative with Rowlandson’s.