The video!

I know it says 2013. Deal with it.

http://youtu.be/KluEgxaVdIc

AP video coming!

Watch this blog tomorrow evening for an encouraging video!

The practice multiple choice answers

For those of you who won't make it to class due to an AP conflict, I've attached the link to the PDF of the practice exam from which the hand-out questions were taken. (NOTE that the PDF contains, first, a copy of a practice English Language and Composition exam; the Lit. exam follows it.) The answer key is on page 69.

http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/ap/ap-english-course-description.pdf

Lear follow-up

Some thoughts from a new book on Shakespeare. There's much about King Lear (especially on the second page).

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/04/shakespeare_and_atheism_what_his_works_tell_us_about_the_playwright_s_religious.html

BELOVED questions

Be complete in your answers, though you'll note that some of the answers require simple lists rather than a narrative. Be concise, but give these questions due consideration.

1. As every available character moves toward the climactic event, what is on the minds of the various participants, and why are the differences significant?

2. How many horror movie/story tropes (familiar images or actions) can you identify in the novel? (You can make this a list.)

3. What is/was the character of Beloved? Support your statement with details.

4. What are the various ways in which “naming” comes up in the novel? (You can make this a list.)

5. How many uses can you identify in the novel for the motif of the human mouth? That is, in what ways does the motif surface, and why might Morrison be saying in each use?

Plague assignment

At right, you'll see a link to the PDF of the sheet to be completed over break. Type it.

Poetry assignments (long-term)

For Friday, Feb. 7, you're to compose a 10-line piece in iambic pentameter. Tell a story, paraphrase a book, review a film, write a poem—just have fun with it.

For the end of the month, you're to—as described in class—find a poem you connect with. You're to then write a 2-3 page paper that, first, analyses the poem using the techniques we're discussing in class and then, second, explain what drew you to the poem and how you respond to it now that you've written about it analytically.

Assignments

For Friday, you're to read "A Good Man is Hard to Find" . . . which you'll find in Backpack Lit.

[UPDATE: To clarify: The entire Equus assignment should be about three pages.]

Eck! Eck! Eck! There's also a writing assignment! (cue sounds of stomping and ululating)

Typed, double-spaced, for Jan. 22:

1. Consider the opening monologue/soliloquy by Dysart; unpack what he says in terms of the themes, ideas, and motifs that will later surface in the play. 

2. What is your view of what the play calls “the normal”? I want to hear a personal response.

PS: HA HA!!