Extra Credit Period 3 College Writing

Print out and read two short stories by American Feminist writer, Kate Chopin: "Desirees Baby" and "The Story of an Hour"
Click the links to find a copy of the stories

Write a personal response to each story.

Present your personal responses to the class on Tuesday, June 14.

Tuesday is your last day of your high school college writing course- treat it as your first day of college.

"The Story of an Hour"

"Desiree's Baby"

June 13 - 14

Commencement Speeches

Le Courage n'est pas de risquer sa vie, .........c'est de voir les autres risquer la leur!!

UN PLAN DE VIE
Marche deux heures tous les jours, dors sept heures toutes les nuits; couche-toi dès tu as envie de dormir; lève-toi dès que tu t’éveilles; travaille dès que tu es levé.
Ne manger qu’à ta faim, ne bois qu’à soif et toujours lentement. Ne parle que lorsqu’il le faut; n’écris que ce que tu peux signer; ne fais que ce que tu peux dire.
N’oublie jamais que les autres comptent sur toi te que tu as dois pas compter sur eux. N’estime par l’argent ni plus ni moins qu’il ne vaut; c’est un bon serviteur et un mauvais maitre.
Pardonne d’avance à tout le monde pour plus de sûreté; ne méprise pas les hommes, ne les hais pas sûreté et n’en ris pas outre mesure, plains les. Songe à la mort tous les matins en voyant la lumière et tous les soirs en rentrant dans l’ombre. Quand tu souffriras beaucoup, regarde la douleur en face; elle te consolera d’elle-même et t’apprendra quelque chose.
Alexandre Dumas fils

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. -- Will Rogers

If you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right. -- Henry Ford

Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first and the instruction afterward.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. -- Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

I prefer thieves to idiots, because they sometimes take a rest. -- Alexandre Dumas, fils

The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past. -- William Faulkner

Creative Writing June10-14 Final Portfolio

A Little Fable by Franz Kafka

“Alas,” said the mouse, “the whole world is growing smaller every day.  At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when at last I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into.”  You only need to change your direction,” said the cat, and ate it up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2ErdpxVcqQ

 

Give it up!

It was very early in the morning, the streets clean and deserted, I was on my way to the station. As I compared the tower clock with my watch I realized it was much later than I had thought and that I had to hurry; the shock of this discovery made me feel uncertain of the way, I wasn't very well acquainted with the town as yet; fortunately, there was a policeman at hand, I ran to him and breathlessly asked him the way. He smiled and said: "You asking me the way?" "Yes," I said, "since I can't find it myself." "Give it up! Give it up!" said he, and turned with a sudden jerk, like someone who wants to be alone with his laughter.

Using the short poems by Edgar Lee Masters, write a short story for each character.

The poems are about the people who lived in the town called Spoon River and what they were able to say once they were dead and in their graves.

Oscar Hummel

  I STAGGERED on through darkness,
  There was a hazy sky, a few stars
  Which I followed as best I could.
  It was nine o'clock, I was trying to get home.
  But somehow I was lost,
  Though really keeping the road.
  Then I reeled through a gate and into a yard,
  And called at the top of my voice:
  "Oh, Fiddler! Oh, Mr. Jones!"
  (I thought it was his house and he would show me the way home. )
  But who should step out but A. D. Blood,
  In his night shirt, waving a stick of wood,
  And roaring about the cursed saloons,
  And the criminals they made?
  "You drunken Oscar Hummel", he said,
  As I stood there weaving to and fro,
  Taking the blows from the stick in his hand
  Till I dropped down dead at his feet.
William Goode
  To all in the village I seemed, no doubt,
  To go this way and that way, aimlessly. .
  But here by the river you can see at twilight
  The soft—winged bats fly zig-zag here and there—
  They must fly so to catch their food.
  And if you have ever lost your way at night,
  In the deep wood near Miller's Ford,
  And dodged this way and now that,
  Wherever the light of the Milky Way shone through,
  Trying to find the path,
  You should understand I sought the way
  With earnest zeal, and all my wanderings
  Were wanderings in the quest.
Mrs. Sibley
  THE secret of the stars—gravitation.
  The secret of the earth—layers of rock.
  The secret of the soil—to receive seed.
  The secret of the seed—the germ.
  The secret of man—the sower.
  The secret of woman—the soil.
  My secret: Under a mound that you shall never find.

Trainor, the Druggist

  Only the chemist can tell, and not always the chemist,
  What will result from compounding
  Fluids or solids.
  And who can tell
  How men and women will interact
  On each other, or what children will result?
  There were Benjamin Pantier and his wife,
  Good in themselves, but evil toward each other;
  He oxygen, she hydrogen,
  Their son, a devastating fire.
  I Trainor, the druggist, a miser of chemicals,
  Killed while making an experiment,
  Lived unwedded.
Tom Merritt
  AT first I suspected something—
  She acted so calm and absent-minded.
  And one day I heard the back door shut
  As I entered the front, and I saw him slink
  Back of the smokehouse into the lot
  And run across the field.
  And I meant to kill him on sight.
  But that day, walking near Fourth Bridge
  Without a stick or a stone at hand,
  All of a sudden I saw him standing
  Scared to death, holding his rabbits,
  And all I could say was, "Don't, Don't, Don't,"
  As he aimed and fired at my heart.
Sam Hookey
  I RAN away from home with the circus,
  Having fallen in love with Mademoiselle Estralada,
  The lion tamer.
  One time, having starved the lions
  For more than a day,
  I entered the cage and began to beat Brutus
  And Leo and Gypsy.
  Whereupon Brutus sprang upon me,
  And killed me.
  On entering these regions
  I met a shadow who cursed me,
  And said it served me right. . . .
  It was Robespierre!
Minerva Jones
  I AM Minerva, the village poetess,
  Hooted at, jeered at by the Yahoos of the street
  For my heavy body, cock-eye, and rolling walk,
  And all the more when "Butch" Weldy
  Captured me after a brutal hunt.
  He left me to my fate with Doctor Meyers;
  And I sank into death, growing numb from the feet up,
  Like one stepping deeper and deeper into a stream of ice.
  Will some one go to the village newspaper,
  And gather into a book the verses I wrote?—
  I thirsted so for love
  I hungered so for life!

Julia Miller

  WE quarreled that morning,
  For he was sixty—five, and I was thirty,
  And I was nervous and heavy with the child
  Whose birth I dreaded.
  I thought over the last letter written me
  By that estranged young soul
  Whose betrayal of me I had concealed
  By marrying the old man.
  Then I took morphine and sat down to read.
  Across the blackness that came over my eyes
  I see the flickering light of these words even now:
  "And Jesus said unto him, Verily
  I say unto thee, To-day thou shalt
  Be with me in paradise."
Editor Whedon
  To be able to see every side of every question;
  To be on every side, to be everything, to be nothing long;
  To pervert truth, to ride it for a purpose,
  To use great feelings and passions of the human family
  For base designs, for cunning ends,
  To wear a mask like the Greek actors—
  Your eight-page paper—behind which you huddle,
  Bawling through the megaphone of big type:
  "This is I, the giant."
  Thereby also living the life of a sneak-thief,
  Poisoned with the anonymous words
  Of your clandestine soul.
  To scratch dirt over scandal for money,
  And exhume it to the winds for revenge,
  Or to sell papers,
  Crushing reputations, or bodies, if need be,
  To win at any cost, save your own life.
  To glory in demoniac power, ditching civilization,
  As a paranoiac boy puts a log on the track
  And derails the express train.
  To be an editor, as I was.
  Then to lie here close by the river over the place
  Where the sewage flows from the village,
  And the empty cans and garbage are dumped,
  And abortions are hidden.

Yee Bow

  THEY got me into the Sunday-school
  In Spoon River And tried to get me to drop
  Confucius for Jesus. I could have been no worse off
  If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius.
  For, without any warning, as if it were a prank,
  And sneaking up behind me, Harry Wiley,
  The minister's son, caved my ribs into my lungs,
  With a blow of his fist.
  Now I shall never sleep with my ancestors in Pekin,
  And no children shall worship at my grave

"Ace" Shaw

  I NEVER saw any difference
  Between playing cards for money
  And selling real estate,
  Practicing law, banking, or anything else.
  For everything is chance.
  Nevertheless
  Seest thou a man diligent in business?
  He shall stand before Kings!

Margaret Fuller Slack

  I WOULD have been as great as George Eliot
  But for an untoward fate.
  For look at the photograph of me made by Penniwit,
  Chin resting on hand, and deep—set eyes—
  Gray, too, and far-searching.
  But there was the old, old problem:
  Should it be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity?
  Then John Slack, the rich druggist, wooed me,
  Luring me with the promise of leisure for my novel,
  And I married him, giving birth to eight children,
  And had no time to write.
  It was all over with me, anyway,
  When I ran the needle in my hand
  While washing the baby's things,
  And died from lock—jaw, an ironical death.
  Hear me, ambitious souls,
  Sex is the curse of life.
Mrs. Merritt
  SILENT before the jury
  Returning no word to the judge when he asked me
  If I had aught to say against the sentence,
  Only shaking my head.
  What could I say to people who thought
  That a woman of thirty-five was at fault
  When her lover of nineteen killed her husband?
  Even though she had said to him over and over,
  "Go away, Elmer, go far away,
  I have maddened your brain with the gift of my body:
  You will do some terrible thing."
  And just as I feared, he killed my husband;
  With which I had nothing to do, before
  God Silent for thirty years in prison
  And the iron gates of Joliet
  Swung as the gray and silent trusties
  Carried me out in a coffin.

Creative Writing 6-10

Creative Writing: Period 2 – by the end of this lesson students will see that a logical set of prompts can cause very different results- but there must be a logical set of prompts

E.L Doctorow once said that “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night.  You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

1. “Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.”

2. What does Fern’s mother say to Fern?

3. “I don’t see why he needs and ax,” continued Fern who was only eight.

4. What does Fern’s mother say next?

5. Fern shrieks in disagreement with what her mother says.  What are her words?

6. What does Fern’s mother say to Fern next?

7. How does Fern react?

8. Where does Fern go next?

9. What does Fern do next?

10. What does Fern’s father do next?

11. How does Fern react to her father now?

12. Where is Fern going next?

13. What is Fern’s mother doing while Fern and her father are outside?

14. What causes Fern and her father to return to the kitchen?

15. What does Fern say to her father?

16. What does Fern’s mother say to Fern?

17. What does Fern say to her nosey little brother?

18. Who is Fern’s mother calling on the phone?

19. Why is Fern’s father driving away?

College Writing June 10, 13, 14

On August 10, 1787 Thomas Jefferson penned a letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, who was entering his alma mater, The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Jefferson advised him on several subjects but I am particularly interested in his counsel on how to approach the study of religion.   Annotate the sections where he gives his nephew Peter advice

Letter to Peter Carr

Jefferson's letter to his nephew, from Paris, August 10, 1787.

D ear Peter, — I have received your two letters of December 30 and April 18, and am very happy to find by them, as well as by letters from Mr. Wythe, that you have been so fortunate as to attract his notice & good will; I am sure you will find this to have been one of the most fortunate events of your life, as I have ever been sensible it was of mine. I enclose you a sketch of the sciences to which I would wish you to apply, in such order as Mr. Wythe shall advise; I mention, also, the books in them worth your reading, which submit to his correction. Many of these are among your father's books, which you should have brought to you. As I do not recollect those of them not in his library, you must write to me for them, making out a catalogue of such as you think you shall have occasion for, in 18 months from the date of your letter, & consulting Mr. Wythe on the subject. To this sketch, I will add a few particular observations.

Religion. Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object. In the first place, divest yourself of all bias in favor of novelty & singularity of opinion. Indulge them in any other subject rather than that of religion. It is too important, and the consequences of error may be too serious. On the other hand, shake off all the fears & servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. You will naturally examine first, the religion of your own country. Read the Bible, then as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature, you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy & Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor, in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature, does not weigh against them. But those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from God. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong, as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature, in the case he relates. For example, in the book of Joshua, we are told, the sun stood still several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus, we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues, beasts, &c. But it is said, that the writer of that book was inspired. Examine, therefore, candidly, what evidence there is of his having been inspired. The pretension is entitled to your inquiry, because millions believe it. On the other hand, you are astronomer enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body revolving on its axis, as the earth does, should have stopped, should not, by that sudden stoppage, have prostrated animals, trees, buildings, and should after a certain time gave resumed its revolution, & that without a second general prostration. Is this arrest of the earth's motion, or the evidence which affirms it, most within the law of probabilities? You will next read the New Testament. It is the history of a personage called Jesus. Keep in your eye the opposite pretensions: 1, of those who say he was begotten by God, born of a virgin, suspended & reversed the laws of nature at will, & ascended bodily into heaven; and 2, of those who say he was a man of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions to divinity, ended in believing them, and was punished capitally for sedition, by being gibbeted, according to the Roman law, which punished the first commission of that offence by whipping, & the second by exile, or death in fureâ. See this law in the Digest Lib. 48. tit. 19. §. 28. 3. & Lipsius Lib 2. de cruce. cap. 2. These questions are examined in the books I have mentioned under the head of religion, & several others. They will assist you in your inquiries, but keep your reason firmly on the watch in reading them all.
    Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you. If you find reason to believe there is a God, a consciousness that you are acting under his eye, & that he approves you, will be a vast additional incitement; if that there be a future state, the hope of a happy existence in that increases the appetite to deserve it; if that Jesus was also a God, you will be comforted by a belief of his aid and love. In fine, I repeat, you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything, because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are answerable, not for the rightness, but uprightness of the decision. I forgot to observe, when speaking of the New Testament, that you should read all the histories of Christ, as well of those whom a council of ecclesiastics have decided for us, to be Pseudo-evangelists, as those they named Evangelists. Because these Pseudo-evangelists pretended to inspiration, as much as the others, and you are to judge their pretensions by your own reason, and not by the reason of those ecclesiastics. Most of these are lost. There are some, however, still extant, collected by Fabricius, which I will endeavor to get & send you.

   

College Writing in class writing 6/6

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."

—    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

This final exam is based on the idea that while each student has been studying literature, he and she has been, simultaneously, involved in making a journey of  personal discovery toward graduation. 

For this part of the journey you will need you a pen and loose-leaf.   

In an essay of about 250 words, explain your thoughts about the above quote by Nietzsche.  Include specific examples from your own life, your knowledge of history, your plans for your post-secondary school life, and from the literature we have read and discussed in class. Present your essay as a Commencement Speech or a Memoir that you might like to share in celebration of your high school graduation.

Literature Studied— E7/E8

Mrs. Frontany	Mr. Hedges
·     William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and selected Sonnets ·     Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus ·     George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” ·     Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” ·     Barack Obama’s Commencement Speeches to Wesleyan [2008] and US Coast Guard Academy [2011]	William Shakespeare’s “Othello” and  “Twelfth Night” Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Pond Mark Twain’s “A Fable” Spensor Holst’s “The Zebra Storyteller” Barack Obama’s Commencement Speeches to Wesleyan [2008] and US Coast Guard Academy [2011] Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man

In your writing, be sure to address the Six Traits of Writing [Presentation not included]:

·       Ideas [Overall Purpose/Main Idea; Handling of the Prompt]

·       Organization [and Development]

·       Voice [Details, Imagery, Tone]

·       Word Choice [Use of Language]

·       Syntax [Sentence Structure]

·       Conventions [Grammar and Usage]

Twelfth Night In class writing assignment 6/6/11

 

Close Analysis – Act II scene II “Twelfth Night” by William Shakespeare

Write and essay of about 250 words or more to explain the speech.

1. I left no ring with her; what means this lady?
2. Fortune forbid my outside have not charm'd her!
3. She made good view of me; indeed, so much,
4. That methought her eyes had lost her tongue,
5. For she did speak in starts distractedly.
6. She loves me, sure: the cunning of her passion
7. Invites me in this churlish messenger.
8. None of my lord's ring! why, he sent her none.
9. I am the man; —if it be so,—as 'tis,—
10. Poor lady, she were better love a dream.
11. Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness
12. Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.
13. How easy is it for the proper-false
14. In women's waxen hearts to set their forms!
15. Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we;
16. For such as we are made of, such we be.
17. How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly,
18. And I, poor monster, fond as much on him;
19. And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me.
20. What will become of this? As I am man,
21. My state is desperate for my master's love;
22. As I am woman, now alas the day!
23. What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!
24. O time, thou must untangle this, not I;
25. It is too hard a knot for me to untie!

Guidelines: Your essay should include responses to each of these questions

1. Who is speaking?
2. Who is being addressed?
3. What ring is being referred to?
4. What does the statement, “her eyes had lost her tongue” mean?
5. Why is it interesting that Shakespeare would use the word ring in the first line and charme’d in the next line?
6. What does “She made good view of me” mean?
7. What does it mean to speak in starts?
8. What is Shakespeare saying about the difference between appearances and reality in line 11.
9. Who is the speaker referring in lines 15 and 16?
10. What is Shakespeare saying about the true power of womanhood?
11. What are thriftless sighs (line 23)?
12. Explain lines 24 – 25
13. How does this part of the play relate to the final outcome of the plot?
14. If beauty is only skin deep, is Shakespeare saying, through the play “Twelfth Night” that gender is a mask?
15. Some characters fall in love with the mask, some with the person behind the mask.  Which characters in the play fall in love with the disguise, which with the natural person?

In your writing, be sure to address the Six Traits of Writing [Presentation not included]:

·       Ideas [Overall Purpose/Main Idea; Handling of the Prompt]

·       Organization [and Development]

·       Voice [Details, Imagery, Tone]

·       Word Choice [Use of Language]

·       Syntax [Sentence Structure]

·       Conventions [Grammar and Usage]