Friday, December 17

Students were reminded of the Outside Reading Essay due January 7 (the week we return from the break).

Students were given the option of reading in their outside reading books or competing in the Transcendental Drawing Contest, the subject of thir artworks to be one of the following:

The Transparent Eyeball
Occult Relations Between Man and the Vegetable
Double Rainbow

HW due Friday, January 7:
Outside Reading paper (see Documents page).

Thursday, December 15

Students turned in the vocabulary assignment with words from Walden.

We reviewed and extended our understanding of Transcendentalist beliefs in the active (even creative) nature of perception, looking at Emerson's explanation of Transcendental forms in the mind as asserted by Immanuel Kant. We also looked at analogs to Transcendentalism today, and watched HungryBear9562's viral "Double Rainbow" video, and at his answer to his own question: "Oh my God, what does this mean?" ("The rainbow was the Universe or Spirit flowing through me . . ." -- echoing Emerson's "The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me.")

Wednesday, December 15

We resumed our reading from Emerson's Nature, focusing on The Transparent Eyeball and Occult Relations Between Man and the Vegetable.

Tuesday, December 14

Before resuming our reading from Emerson's essay "Nature," we explored what we mean by that word by breaking into small groups, brainstorming, writing definitions, and then reporting back to the class as a whole. After that we read further in the essay, trying to reach the notorious "transparent eyeball" -- succeeding in some sections, failing in others.

HW due Thursday:
Vocabulary assignment with "Words to Own" from Thoreau's Walden (pp. 234-44 in the textbook). For each of the ten words you are to supply
(1) the original sentence containing the word;
(2) a definition;
(3) a real-world example of the word in use in the relevant meaning; and
(4) a sentence of your own composition using the word in such a way as to demonstrate its meaning.

Monday, December 13

Students took a ten-question quiz over the weekend's reading assignment, "The American Renaissance," pp.206-14 in the textbook.

Afterwards we looked briefly at the roots of Transcendentalism, then began our reading of the excerpts in the textbook from Emerson's essay "Nature."

Friday, December 10

From the SAT question of the day, concerned in part with parallel construction, we went on to correcting examples of faulty parallelism from the essays returned yesterday.

HW due Monday:
Quiz over pp. 206-14 in the textbook ("The American Renaissance").

Thursday, December 9

Students received back their slavery essays, and we critiqued in detail some sample introductory paragraphs, some better than others.

Mr. P postponed the reading and quiz originally slated for tomorrow to Monday, and assigned for tomorrow corrections to the returned essays.

HW due Friday:
Follow the instructions at the bottom of the sheet of Proofreading and Editing Marks, numbering on the essay passages to be corrected and rewriting on a separate sheet only as much as necessary to address the problems, keying the corrections by number to the essay.

HW due Monday:
"The American Renaissance," pp. 206-214 in the textbook. Quiz over it in class.

Wednesday, December 8

We looked at students imitations of Hiawatha addressing what makes Hiawatha a Romantic poem and discussed the question. Next we read "Hiawatha's Childhood" aloud, then proceeded to another famous trochaic-meter American poem of the mid-19th century, Poe's "The Raven."

HW due Friday:
Read "The American Renaissance" on pp. 206-214 of the textbook and prepare for a quiz over it.

Monday, December 6/Tuesday, December 7

Students turned in their Hiawatha imitations defining what is Romantic (capital R) about the poem.

Students then wrote for ten minutes on what they thought Longfellow's attitude toward Indians was, in compasrison to European-Americans. We then discussed their answers, reading parts of the poem, including a passage from a section which they had not previously read.

Friday, December 3

We looked at students' homework assignments -- at least ten lines of verse in imitation of Hiawatha answering the question "What makes Hiawatha a Romantic poem?" Many students had struggled with the assignment, so Mr. P stamped the homework and allowed students to redo (or do) the assignment and turn it in Monday (Tuesday, for 4th period). Students whose HW is stamped will receive 5 points extra credit.

We explored farther what the Hiawatha meter which students are asked to imitate comes down to, and looked at an example of a successful imitation, Lewis Carroll's "Hiawatha's Photographing."

Students also received a further handout, with the ending of Hiawatha and a sheet from the National Endowment for the Arts which discusses the poem as a whole.

HW due Monday/Tuesday:
Redo today's assignment if you wish.
Read the new handout and come prepared to answer questions about it.

Thursday, December 2

Students received a handout of terminology used in analysing and discussing poetry and another handout with excerpts from Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha. We read the very beginning of Hiawatha and after reviewing how to scan a poem's meter, and practicing by scanning our own names, we set about determining the meter of the Hiawatha.

HW due Friday:
Read the Hiawatha handout and write an answer to the following question: What makes Hiawatha a Romantic (capital R) poem. Your answer must be in the style of Hiawatha -- you are to write at least ten lines of verse with the same meter and other poetic characteristics.

Wednesday, December 1

Preparatory to reading part of Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha, we reviewed certain basics of poetic rhythm and meter, then tested students' sensitivity to rhythm in poetry with a competition to see who could identify the most nursery rhymes from their rhythms alone.