Today, I just gave you time to write your obituaries!
Monthly Archives: October 2015
10/28/2015
The Big Grade: our first major writing grade!
Today, we started out by talking about obituaries in general. They are the written notices of death that usually include a brief biography of the person. Then we read the poem The Dash by Linda Ellis and talked about that poem supports this quote from the Blog of Death:
Some people view obituaries as morbid stories, but in truth only one line of an obit deals with death. The rest of the story focuses on the amazing lives people lead.
We also read the obituary that I wrote that I’ve been writing for the past ten years. Honestly, it has inspired me. Every time I read it, it’s a reminder of what I want to do. While you guys are finishing writing this tomorrow, I’ll be editing my own – I need to add my children! <3
We are going to write our OWN obituary in class. You need to focus on CARPE DIEM – how did you make your life extraordinary? You will need to be at least 75 years old (or older) – it’s hard to carpe diem a life when it’s short. Think about the Bucket List pre-writing and the Bucket List that we did this week – use those to find your focus. Is it family? Is it being successful? Is it helping other people? Use that focus to help you figure out details and events to your life.
Under Carpe Diem: Obituary, you can find instructions and examples, one of which being my own. Yes, I do every assignment that I ask you to do. The reason that I do this is so that I can share things that helped me when I did the assignment. The thing that helped ME the most when I wrote my obit was the Blog of Death. Seriously. I used it not for ideas, but for sentence structures and modeling. Use your Sentence Models that we did on Tuesday for help and inspiration!
For example, here is the first sentence of Demetius Newton’s obituary:
Rep. Demetrius C. Newton dedicated his life to improving the human condition, first as a civil rights attorney and later as a politician and public servant.
It’s a great sentence, but obviously, I’m not a civil rights attorney, politician, or a public servant. But it’s a great sentence.
So what I would do is this: I’d take out the specific information and leave blanks.
_____ dedicated her life to improving ____________, first as a ________ and later as a __________.
Now that it’s not specific, I can add in my own information.
Vanessa Riley dedicated her life to educating others, first as a teacher and later as the director of the at-risk high school that she founded.
If you look in BB, you can see the rubric that will be used to grade the obituary. You need to have a minimum of 500 words.
10/27/2015
Eeek! My babies are six month old today! Time went by so quickly!
I gave you the rest of today to work on your mentor sentences. If you notice, I gave you this much time because I want you to actually READ the obituaries!
I don’t expect you to read all of them, but practice skimming. Read the first line or two and if it doesn’t interest you, SKIP it!
We will be using these mentor sentences for the next day or two, so don’t just fall asleep!
10/26/2015
We started today talking about Death and the Devil Surprising Two Maidens. If you weren’t here today, there is a drop box assignment for this in the Carpe Diem folder in Obituary.
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.
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.
10/23/2015
We have read and TPCASTT’ed a few carpe diem poems together as a class, so today, I am giving you a buddy (if you want one) and you are going to TPCASTT a poem on your own!
I sent everyone an e-mail with links to what we did in class yesterday, literary terms, and other completed TPCASTTs to use as examples.
10/22/2015
I always get worried when I teach this poem because it really and truly is one of the raciest things that you’ll read in high school, maybe even college. Even with my first block, you guys handled everything appropriately. I felt like we had a real discussion yesterday rather than me just lecturing at you. Remember, sometimes talking abut relevant issues might cause some emotional triggers for you, so it’s okay if you need to get a drink of water during any discussions or activities.
First, we printed the lyrics to Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get in On”, listened to the song, and highlighted persuasive language in BLUE, references to love in PINK, 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).
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!
Kelsey in 2nd block also brought up something that I never thought about before: I had always interpreted that lyric to insinuate physical violence, but she said he could be threatening the woman with other consequences, such as infidelity or breaking up.
We talked about consent, and how the audience in the song has obviously NOT given consent. I also mentioned the Stuebenville High School rape case during that discussion.
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.
I showed you eagles twirling and how that fit into the poem.
We talked a lot about consent in my classes, and I found these two images that you might enjoy after the discussion:
And lastly, my three classes worked on a TPCASTT of the poem. I e-mailed it to everyone, so check your gmail for the final copy.
10/21/2015
We started today out by reading and talking about what the best age in life is. We didn’t really come to a consensus, but it was fun.
We read To The Virgins, To Make Much of Time.
While I “chopped and screwed” this poem, I explained why I found this so offensive and shared some personal stuff from my life. Remember – English is supposed to be about sharing life experiences and thoughts, not an EOC test or a grade. I want you to find connections in the literature to real life!
We also talked about peaking in high school. If you peak in high school, then the rest of your life will be pretty depressing.
After talking about the poem, we did TPCASTT as a group. You can either get me to e-mail those notes to you if you weren’t here or get them from a classmate.
Lastly, we worked on the group PowerPoint in Google drive. You should have received an e-mail with an invitation to edit the slide. Just work on your own slide! Don’t sabotage someone else’s slide. Look for my comments to see what I’d add to it. Remember, if you are stuck taking the final exam, you can use this – as long as you contributed!
When you got done, I gave time to work on your Bucket List. It’s due on Friday.
10/20/2015
We totally ran out of time for all of the super awesome cool things we were supposed to do yesterday! In case you didn’t do it yet, here is the link for YESTERDAY’S exit ticket!
Firstly, if you needed your gmail password reset, I had those for you so you could send me the 48 Hours e-mail.
I also gave out my password for Remind.
We read through Carpe Diem Translation PowerPoint and talked about carpe diem, memento mori, eat, drink, and be merry, and YOLO.
The next assignment we did was the Tower Translation. You will read the four sentences, and then translate each sentence in your own thought. Add some clip art. I explained what it mean to strain the wine by showing a snippet from a video about pruno. I also serenaded the class to Doris Day’s song Que Sera Sera. Supposedly there are videos out there. If you have them, post a link below in the comment section!
MAKE SURE YOU ONLY PRINT THE VERY LAST SLIDE!
Make sure you have clip art! You may need to resize the font. Then cut thusly:
And then fold/glue.
We then answered the following Exit Ticket question and worked on our Bucket Lists.
10/19/2015
Welcome to Term 2! I am only teaching IVB now, so I’ll be a little more aggressive with my blogging.
We are going to be using Google docs a lot this term, so please make sure that you have your account ready to go. If you need help making Chrome your default browser, let me know. It’s an easy fix.
The very first thing that we did today was the 48 Hours e-mail.
You can just e-mail me a list with what you want to do. 🙂
Then, we read The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. We talked about hospice care and regret. We then cubed regret by answering these 6 questions:
Afterwards, we created an account on Bucket List. I won’t be able to access your account information, so remember your username and password, please!
Here is my account that you can look at. You can see that I have goals that I want to do, and things that I have done.
I want you to create a bucket list of things that YOU want to do before you die. Focus on meaningful things that you want to do, not just cool things. I know, it’s hard NOT to put those cool things on your list when you see them, but just think about things that you’d regret if you didn’t do them.
I’m wanting 10-15 things items on your list with pictures and a short explanation of why you want to do that. Again, use my list as an example.
Lastly, we ended with this question about the song Cats in the Cradle. We won’t always have an Exit Ticket, but I’m doing this to get practice with Google Docs. Thanks for being my guinea pigs. 😉
