Macbeth Test Review

You will be tested over the first three acts of Macbeth this week; therefore, the review will be this weeks blog.
Enjoy!

Macbeth Act I and II test review

Be familiar with the following for your test

• The witches predictions, Macbeth and Banquo’s responses to them
• The battle between Norway and Scotland
• All paradoxes
• The events of Act I
• Macbeth’s battle of man vs. self throughout the two acts
• Bellona’s Bridegroom
• Macbeth’s tragic flaw and the cause of his downfall
• How other characters view Macbeth
• Know what each character of the following characters did in Act I
• Macbeth
• Thane of Cawdor
• Lady Macbeth
• Three Witches
• The King
• Malcolm
• The Captain
• Banquo
• Be familiar with Macbeth’s soliloquy in Act I
• The Murder of Duncan
• Macbeth’s soliloquy in Act II
• Banquo and Macbeth’s conversation at the beginning of Act II Scene i
• Everyone’s reactions to Duncan’s murder
• Theme of Natural Disturbances connected to the murder of Duncan

 Know the unnatural events that occur.

·              Lady Macbeths response to her husband after the murder

• The porter’s scene
• Macduff’s response to Macbeth at the end of Act II
• Match the character’s to their fears
• Themes and how they are applied to the play so far
• Irony in Act I and II
• Match the characters to their fears in Act II
• Lady Macbeth
• Lennox
• Donalbain
• Macbeth
• Banquo

• Study all study guide questions as well.
• Study the parts of the globe theater.

Act III

ü  Events

ü  Turning point for Macbeth

ü  Hecates anger

ü  Symbolism of the Barren Scepter

ü  Character’s suspicions

o    Banquo

o    Lennox

o    Nobles

o    Macbeth,

o    Hecate

ü  Character’s revelations

o    Seyton

o    Lady Macbeth

o    Doctor

o    Malcolm

o    Messenger

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's that time of year where we celebrate family and being thankful for the wonderful gifts life has given us. You have all worked really hard so far this year, and there are only a couple of weeks left until the semester is over. We are smack dab in the middle of Macbeth, an awesome play. I hope you are enjoying it as much as I am. Shakespeare wrote such great plays that function on so many different levels. We have focused a lot on the theme of the Chain of Being. The way that humanity has viewed the universe during different time periods has always intrigued me. It is a universal truth that we all seek balance, and interesting to see how the different time periods dealt with the philosophy. We will continue to study this idea not only with the rest of Macbeth, but also with the rest of the pieces we will read this year. Keep in mind that you should continue to work on the study guide to keep from having to do it all in one night.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving break. Eat lots of food, laugh often with your family, shop till you drop snagging those good deals, and watch lots of college football. Gig 'em Aggies! Saw Varsity's Horns Off!!!!!!!

D-Day is Here!

Your Research paper is due this Wednesday, November 9th. Please make sure that you have completely looked at the instruction sheet for the assignment. You will need to have the following pieces in your class folder. You must turn the final product in the folder in the following order. Remember that you do not need a MLA heading on each essay, but that you do need a header with your last name, and page number in the upper right corner of each page. Each essay begins a new page in the assignment.
1. Final copy
      1.       Cover page

2.       Table of Contents

3.       1 page biographical essay on the author with personal and professional information.

4.       Analysis of 3 literary devices within the novel. One page per device/technique.

5.       Two page analysis of novel  using the literary theory of your choice.

6.   Works Cited Page.

2. Turnitin.com receipt
3. Second rough draft with the completed peer evaluation sheet.
4. First rough draft with ratiocinations.
5. Copies of all of your secondary sources.

Time to Prove Your Knowledge! :)

Next week is going to be a busy week. You have a test on Wednesday, and the second rough draft of your research paper  is due on Thursday; therefore, this weeks blog is going to be the test review. Enjoy and soon we'll be starting Macbeth. Yea!

Canterbury Tales Test Review

Characters: be able to identify the character by the quote

ü  Nun (Prioress)

ü  Monk

ü  Pardoner

ü  Parson

ü  Friar

ü  Guildsman

ü  Merchant

ü  Miller

ü  Cook

ü  Doctor

ü  Manciple

ü  Reeve

ü  Serjeant at Law

ü  Summoner

ü  Franklin

Be familiar with the following aspects of each story. Reread them.

The Prologue

ü  Purpose

ü  His views on the church

ü  Setting

ü  What the Host proposes for the trip

ü  His methods of characterization

The Pardoner’s Tale

ü  The characterization of the Pardoner within his prologue.

ü  The literary devices within the story.

ü  Type of tale.

The Wife of Bath’s Tale

ü  The literary devices used within the story.

ü  The theme of the piece.

ü  The old woman’s argument about gentility, age, and poverty.

ü  Examples of chivalry within the piece.

ü  Type of tale.

Literary devices. You will be asked to both define and pick out examples of all of the following.

ü  Bathos

ü  Mockery

ü  Satire

ü  Parody

ü  Mock heroic

ü  Personification

ü  Irony

ü  Theme

ü  Characterization

ü  Understatement

ü  Sarcasm

The Middle Ages: Review the power point notes you took in class.

The Next Stage in Literary History: The Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is such an interesting time in our history, and Geoffrey Chaucer managed to capture it with his fantastic writing style. This time period was full of turmoil and tension in England and Europe. Here's an interesting fact for you; once William the Conqueror invades England and defeats the Earl of Wessex, the ruling class of England becomes French not British. William takes all of the land away from the English Barrons that fought against him and gave it to his French Allies. Years later the Crusades begin, and the Plantagenet empire starts to loose it's foothold in France. During this whole time the church in England and the government are at odds. Henry II felt that everyone should be held to the same laws. The church disagreed. If you committed a crime as a church official you went to a court run by the church and the punishment was much less severe than that of the regular churches. Henry fought hard to change this, but with the murder of Thomas a Beckett this becomes impossible. The church just becomes more corrupt. This is where Chaucer steps in. He creates caricatures of the typical corrupt church officials for all to see. His stories by these characters further highlight their hypocrisy. I can't wait for you to start reading and see the message that Chaucer portrays for his audience, and how we could easily connect it to many people in our society today.

Research Paper Time

We have begun the paper dreaded by every student in the United States of America. the research paper. I know , I know. I've done it on purpose to torture you and make your life miserable. Well.......maybe. Just kidding. The research paper is an essential skill that every human being should know. You are learning to formulate your own idea, research both your idea and the ideas of others, and formulate them into a cohesive paper that shows your brilliance in literary analysis. You also get to a fun section on the author of your piece. While where they attended school is always important, find something off the wall. Have fun with this section of your paper. See what dirt you can dig up on your author. For instance: did you know that Geoffery Chaucer was ransomed after he was captured in the Hundreds Year War, and was granted a gallon pitcher of wine by Edward III, but the reason was kept a secret. Happy Hunting!

Tackling Poetry

We will dive right into poetry this week, and begin our great journey into analyzing it and loving every minute of it. ;) I know the class as a whole is divided on the idea of poetry. Some of you can't wait to discuss the nuances within each poem, and many of you are sighing and dreading these days in class. I promise that it will be fun. We are not only going to cover the basic poetry you see within textbooks, we are also going to cover contemporary poets and music artists. Music after all is poetry. If you go into it thinking about it that way (music is poetry), you'll probably enjoy it more and understand it more. Now I will say that we will not cover rap artists (sorry but I just can't get behind them), but we will cover some other genres of music. So now that I have you all a twitter with what we'll be covering, I'm going to throw another bombshell at you. Poetry is one of the best ways to learn about author's theme, purpose, and use of literary devices. It's short, sweet, and to the point. You don't have to cover massive amounts of text to get your answers. So see, there are benefits. It also keeps you in the mindset of looking for them as you read. It's all about making analysis second nature, and poetry is going to help us achieve that goal. Happy poetry all!

Anglo-Saxon's and Beowulf

This week we are going to start learning about the Anglo-Saxon era, and begin reading Beowulf. You can all thank J.R.R Tolkien for pushing through the importance of Beowulf in our literary history. One of the oldest known British stories that has survived history, it is believed that it may have been created between 650-800 AD. The oldest known manuscript is from 1000 AD, and the story still holds up strong today. There have been many movie adaptations of the book. Neil Gamain wrote the script for the movie that came out in 2007. He took the story, used actual passages from the text, and added his own twists. His twist being that the monsters in the story were a great example of the sins of the father are visited on the son. There was also a great adaptation in 2005 with Gerard Butler called Beowulf and Grendel. This version held more toward a semi-authentic view of the era it was written in. I can't wait to see what you all think of this poem as we read and discuss it in class.
 

Literary Theory

              This week you will be researching and creating a presentation for your classmates over a literary theory. Literary theories date all the way back to Plato and Aristotle.  Two amazing philosophers who looked at the world and all art forms from a unique perspective.
              In Plato's Republic (C. 380 BC), he discusses the allegory of The Cave. Prisoners are chained to a wall in the cave, and they are shown shadows on a wall. For example; they are shown a chair. The prisoner does not actually see the chair, he only sees the shadow of the chair, yet he calls it a chair. Plato argues that he really isn't seeing a chair but only a shadow so his naming is wrong. His argument is that they are only seeing mirror images or copies. This is what he believed artists did. They held up a mirror image or copy of nature. He believed that if they did not teach moral or ethics than their work was useless and only harms the reader or audience. Therefore, a careful examination of art had to be made.
             In Aristotle's Poetics (C. 335 BC), he considers poetry and art to be a part of a productive science. Since it was productive, it had to serve a purpose for the audience. In his text he lays out some guidelines for artists. He believed in organization of ideas, literary devices, and structure within a piece of writing. All of this was to help the reader reach a kartharsis with the work.
            Now your groups won't be going back as far with literary theory, but it is the key stone to all literature.  These two minds managed to come up with something that is still discussed today, and they have influenced so many great writers and theorists. All of the theories that you are researching have a starting influence with Plato and Aristotle. I can't wait to see what you guys produce from your research. These will be theories that we will use all year long.

Week 1 is done!

You all survived week one. Congrats. You managed to turn in your summer reading assignments, write an in class essay, and begin to think about literature in a different way. I'm so excited about where these classes are headed. As I walked around the room and listened to what you guys had to say about Dune and How To Read Literature Like a Professor, I was very impressed. You guys really have a grasp on both books. I can't wait to see how our Socratic Seminar goes on Tuesday. Remember that the purpose of the seminar is to have a great discussion about both of our books, and a healthy debate over the themes and ideas. The rest of our week will be filled with more work on finding your analytical  voice and getting ready for your first group project of the year over literary criticism. 

Embrace Science Fiction! It's Awesome!

Your second book for your summer reading assignment is Dune by Frank Herbert, and I know that you are sighing and thinking I'm crazy for assigning this novel. You just have to trust me. It's a great novel, and to many lovers of Science Fiction it is the novel that took Science Fiction to the next level.  Did you know that George Lucas was influence by Dune when he was creating Star Wars, and I know that a lot of you love Star Wars (don't deny it). I dare you to Google Dune by Frank Herbert and see what's out there. First thing that pops up is http://www.dunenovels.com/, It's a great site with tons of fun stuff to browse over. There is even an interview with Frank Herbert, and interviews with some of the cast from the Syfy movie adaptation. I'm not going to lie to you, it was not my favorite movie. The version from 1984 (and yes, I know I'm dating myself here) is my favorite. It has Kyle MacLachlan (Desperate Housewives), Virginia Madsen, and Sting in major roles. You can never go wrong with Sting,. You guys should definitely watch one. One word of caution though, they are adaptations. This means that they are not going to follow the novel exactly. I Can't wait to see what you guys think of the novel.

Rice Summer AP Institute

I just finished the Rice Summer AP Institute and I can not wait to share some of the great things I learned with you. With the stuff I learned this last week, and the plans I already had in mind, we are going to have an awesome year. I have great new ways to approach the three essays, poetry analysis, and so much more. Make sure that when you get to class in August you are ready for a whole new way of looking at everything you do.

Reading Literature like a Pro

Hopefully by now you have started your summer reading assignment.Your first book is  How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster. Your assignment is to pick out ten chapters and apply the concepts to novels, or stories that you have read before. I can't wait to see what you guys come up with. One of your clever classmates asked if you could apply the concepts to movies and video games. I applaud her for thinking outside the box. Movies and video games are forms of literature that you can easily apply his theories to. After all movies start out as scripts first, and video games start out as story boards. Many are even based off of books or plays. For instance Bioshock is based off of Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged; therefore, you can easily apply any of Foster's theories to that video game. So go forth and analyze, think out side the box, and good luck!