Daily Archives: September 3, 2015

9/3/15 – B

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Then, we read Grandma Betty’s Obituary from the Blog of Death. What an amazing woman! Seriously, this is the legacy that I’d like to leave when I die! I love Grandma Betty!

Then, we looked at the Blog of Death in a little more detail. I skimmed through and showed you a few people that were of interest to me, and I showed you how to use the categories, even though I wish there was a place to actually see all of the categories!

The point of that was that we are searching for really good sentences that we can use as models or mentors when we start writing our major grade next week.

Mentor Sentences

You have to find FIVE great opening lines. That is the opening line(s) of an obituary, not the paragraph. You have to find five great endings for an obit, and you’ll need to find five good general lines from anywhere in an obituary.

DO NOT JUST CHOOSE THE FIRST FIVE OBITS THAT YOU FIND AND CHOOSE THREE LINES FROM EACH. That is not the point of this, and it won’t help you write your paper next week. Seriously. This is NOT busy work, so if you get done in five minutes, that’s a sign to me that you just chose random sentences without thought.

If you want extra credit, if you find a really interesting Obit, put the person’s name in the last column so I can share it with other students. :)

I also have a list of the people that I find fascinating if you are getting stuck stuck looking people. As of right now, it’s not in Blackboard, so let me know if you need it. :)

9/2/15 – B

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Today was a pretty interesting day that showed a great amount of maturity in my students. I honestly was really impressed with the comments that people made.

First, we printed the lyrics to Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get in On”, listened to the song, and highlighted persuasive language in BLUE and highlighted references to TIME in yellow. Answer the three questions and drop off your highlighted lyrics (if you were absent so I can give you credit for highlighting along with the three questions).

Let's Get It On

We talked about the speaker and his audience (a girl) and analyzed that relationship. We highlighted evidence of carpe diem (time) in the poem, highlighted IRONY in the song, and highlighted references to LOVE in the song. We also specifically talked about how the song was contradictory and how it related to TIME (“stop beating ’round the bush”, and “this minute”).

We were really puzzled about the lyrics, especially the phrase “threatin’ you, baby”, so I did a little research. First, I wanted to make sure that I got the lyrics right, and it seems I did. So then, I went to Wikipedia and read this little tidbit. It seems Mr. Gaye had a troubled childhood and used his music to work through some of his issues. The power of poetry!

We talked about consent, and how the audience in the song has obviously NOT given consent.

Students then sat there puzzled as to why we listened to that song, so we read “To His Coy Mistress” to explain. It’s the original “Let’s Get It On”, just much creepier.

You can download my notes in a Word document so you don’t have to copy notes. Just save it wherever you save my stuff.

Coy MistressCoy Mistress2I showed you eagles twirling and how that fit into the poem.

Lastly, we did the Syllogism Pyramid foldable. You can find the template in LMS.

For each triangle, create a text box and write the following:

  • If… (1st stanza – lines 1-20) + image
  • But… (2nd stanza – lines 21-32) + image
  • So… (3rd stanza – lines 33-46) + image

You will need to ROTATE the text box. Grab the little green ball and turn it. Make sure that the text box faces the hypotenuse. Don’t worry about the text that is already on the pyramid – that will be hidden when you fold it up.

9/3/15 – A

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We started out making a foldable – just making it. We will add little bits to it each day after we read. We’ve changed a few topics from the foldable to the left – just check with me and we can get you the right titles.

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Today we started reading Beowulf. We will read just one section a day, so that means if you find the poem boring (I didn’t write it – it doesn’t hurt my feelings!), I won’t commit readicide on you by making you read for all 80 minutes of class. You can thank me later.

Today, we skimmed the background notes and read The Wrath of Grendel.

We spent some time talking about mead, the mead hall, and Bass Shandy soda.

If you weren’t here, you missed watching me jump on desk growling and you missed me harassing students with “Grendel”. Read this on your own and be familiar with it.

For first block, I explained the Metaphorical Response! A metaphor is a comparison between two UNLIKE things.

From Metaphor Examples:

A metaphor is a comparison between two unlike things not using the word “like” or “as” to make the comparison.  The greater the difference between the two things being compared, the better the metaphor. For example, if one were to say that “Football is baseball,” that would not be a good metaphor, because football and baseball are both sports.  However, if one were to say that “football is chess,” that would generally be considered a better metaphor because there is a greater difference between football and chess than football and baseball.

That webpage has fifty good examples of metaphors, like this: The typical teenage boy’s room is a disaster area.

So, you’ll be finding a metaphor for the ten elements on the worksheet and explaining it. If you need help, check out the example in BB.

You only need to have ONE quote – not two or three like the example shows.

Just make sure that you use good metaphors.

For example (and don’t use this one), Grendel is nasty. No one likes him. No one wants him around, but no one can stop him.

Column 1:  Grendel is like a SBD (silent but deadly fart).

Column 2: SBD farts are silent and sneak up on you. They are very powerful, and take down everyone within sniffing zone. The only way you can survive a SBD is if you run away! Not only are they silent, but you can’t see them.

Column 3: Grendel is very strong, and no one can defeat him. No one likes him, no one wants him around, but no one can figure out how to deal with him or get rid of him. Anyone who goes up against him, is destroyed. Just like a SBD, the only way you can survive an attack with Grendel is if you run away. Because Grendel hunts at night and the only survivors are those who flee, no one has ever seen Grendel, either!

Column 4: One quote that proves your comparison. Since we used a PDF file for Beowulf, you can’t copy and paste, so you’ll need to type it manually.

We ran out of time in second block because we talked about ticks so much, so I’ll go over that with you guys (and play the game!) tomorrow!