Course Blog Index for 2014-2015

COURSE INDEX PAGE FOR 2014-2015
This blog operates as a portal page for the two courses I am teaching this year. Please consult the separate course blogs listed below to read and follow on-going information for each of the two courses.  Although I revise this page from time to time, there is usually little need for regular updates; however, I write new posts for each of the course blogs almost every day.

Contact Info
E-mail:  boazm@issaquah.wednet.edu 

Phone:  (425) 837-6094

Note to parents--It is usually best to initiate contact via email. Many questions or concerns can be easily handled in that way; however, I am happy to arrange a time for a phone call or a meeting if that seems more appropriate.

For British and Western Literature (Periods 1, 2, and 5)
The URL for the blog specific to this course: ihs2303BritLit.blogspot.com
Course Syllabus for 2014-2015

For AP English Literature and Composition (Periods 3 and 4) 
The URL for the AP Lit and Comp blog:  ihs2303APLit.blogspot.com
Course Syllabus for 2014-2015

Please make note of the blog address for your particular course. On these blogs I provide a brief overview of the day's activities, immediate homework and often reminders about upcoming assignments, links to necessary sites and/or Google Drive for selected hand-outs, and whatever else seems essential "for the good of the order." Although I don't use the blog to announce otherwise unexpected homework (except for one first-of-the-year "check the blog" activity), I often use it to provide more specific details and to clarify questions about homework assignments mentioned in class.

The blogs are invaluable for students who are absent, but I expect all students to routinely "check the blog" every day.

Special note to parents: You are encouraged to read the blog to stay current on what your student is/should be doing in our class. Sometimes parents have mentioned that they enjoy simply knowing what literature we're reading at the moment, because it can spark satisfying moments of  "book talk" across the generations.  Please be aware, however, that the tone of the blogs is somewhat informal because I'm writing primarily to and for the kids.

Note to AP Students, 2014-2015

Updated Information:
There will be an All the Pretty Horses reading test on Monday, Sept. 8, for all sections of AP Lit. So if you have still been procrastinating, now you have a deadline!!

Yes, it's much later than the first week of August or so that I vaguely remember promising in June!  I hope you've had a great summer but that you've also managed to acquire the summer reading text for AP Lit and Comp:  Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses.  In fact, I hope you've read it--or started it . . . But if you have not, there's still time--but those grains of summer sand are fast pouring through the hourglass.

I have not asked you to keep a journal or to show up in class with written responses to a specific set of questions.  However, here are a few ideas to consider as you read the text (or to refresh your thinking from earlier in the summer):

1) Do you think this book is "difficult"?  If so, try to organize/articulate the reasons as concretely as you can.  What have you done as you read to foster greater understanding?

I am going to make a wild guess here and venture that for some of you, McCarthy's liberal use of Spanish is one stumbling block.  Some of it is easily guessed, I think, but not all--and yet, there's important content conveyed by the Spanish text.  You shouldn't just skip it.  Here's a handy resource:
http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/resources/translations/

2) Apart from the use of Spanish, what other features mark McCarthy's style?  We'll look at this closely, of course, but you can jumpstart the process by starting to jot down some categories and representative examples (page numbers/marking in your book is fine for now--I am not expecting pages of sample text here!).

3) Have a really solid idea of the character whom you find most intriguing, and WHY.  And for that particular character, which relationship(s) seem most useful in drawing out the character's traits?

4) You've studied novels for quite a few years now, and know the "big picture" elements of fiction as well as various ways of dissecting style, diction, language use, tone, etc.  Where should we spend the most energy on this book?  As a "summer reading text," the assumption is, of course, that everyone has read it--all of it-- before we begin to discuss it.  That should give more perspective than we usually have when we begin discussing a book piecemeal and often have to backtrack a bit after completing the text.  And yet, because we're not going to revisit every chapter in detail, we want to focus our class time on what seems most important.  So where do YOU think our emphasis should be?

That's it for a "getting started" post.  Check back again soon.  I look forward to meeting you on Sept. 3!

AP Summer Reading!

Over the next few days, I will be developing this space as the portal page for my course blogs for the upcoming school year.  Students and parents will be re-directed to specific blogs pertaining either to British and Western Literature or to AP Literature and Composition.  Both are senior English courses.

If you enrolled in British and Western Lit, there is no specific reading preparation to complete prior to the start of school.  Come September 4, however, we will be off to a busy and productive year.  I look forward to meeting you!

If you are enrolled in AP Lit and Comp, you should have received a flyer from your junior English teacher concerning the required summer reading.  The novel is Tess of the D'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy.  I hope you've started it, but if you haven't, you don't need to panic just yet--but you DO need to get it ASAP and plunge into Hardy's fictional world of Wessex. You should plan to have this book completed by the time school starts.  There will be a few days' grace as we plow through the inevitable nuts-and-bolts of the first several class days, but on Thursday, Sept. 11, there will be an initial assessment on this text.

There is no specific required edition, but you need to have a print copy of this book that you can keep for the whole year.  We will use it heavily during early September and we will turn to it again for intensive passage analysis during April.

Class Blog Index for 2012-2013

Here is the basic introductory information for the two courses I am teaching this year.

For British and Western Literature (Periods 1, 3, and 5)
The URL for the blog specific to this course:  http://BritLit2303.blogspot.com
British and Western Course Syllabus

For AP English Literature and Composition (Periods 4 and 6)
The URL for the AP Lit and Comp blog:  http://APLit2303.blogspot.com
Course Syllabus for AP English Literature and Composition

Please make note of the blog address for your particular course. On these blogs I provide a brief overview of the day's activities, immediate homework and often reminders about upcoming assignments, links to necessary sites and/or Google.docs for selected hand-outs, and whatever else seems essential "for the good of the order."  Although I don't use the blog to announce otherwise unexpected homework (except for one first-of-the-year "check the blog" activity), I often use it to provide more specific details and to clarify questions about homework assignments mentioned in class.

The blogs are invaluable for students who are absent, but I expect all students to routinely "check the blog" every day.

Special note to parents:  You are encouraged to read the blog to stay current on what your student is/should be doing in our class. Sometimes parents have mentioned that they enjoy simply knowing what literature we're reading at the moment, because it can spark some actual "book talk" across the generations.
Please be aware, however, that the tone of the blogs is somewhat informal because I'm writing primarily to and for the kids.  Also, be sure to check the additional information below.

CURRICULUM NIGHT-
If you were unable to attend our IHS Curriculum night on September 13, 2012, I invite you to read both the "hand-out" of parent-night highlights for your student's course as well as the complete syllabus handed out to students.  Links to these documents (separate for each course) can be found on the course posting for Sept. 13, 2012.

I am looking forward to the upcoming school year.

Melanie L. Boaz
Email

WELCOME BACK!

Very soon, I will be setting up new blogs for each of my courses this year:  British and Western English (periods 1, 3, and 5) and AP English Literature and Composition (Periods 4 and 6).  I am looking forward to meeting all of you.  However, today I'm using the site that is linked directly to the IHS teacher web pages to communicate with the AP Lit students concerning summer reading.  If you will be in one of my British and Western classes, the following information does not pertain to you.  I hope you've been reading something of your own choice, however, and I will see you next week!

In the meantime, this is just a short follow-up to the spring hand-out regarding the summer reading text for AP Lit, W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge.  If you have not finished the book yet, no need to panic.  However, if you haven't STARTED it, it's past time.  Start.  Now.  Book not bought, borrowed, or ordered yet? Okay, now you can panic . . .

Your job is simply to read the book--carefully, thoughtfully, and completely.  Good reading generally entails marking points of special interest or curiosity, passages worthy of more leisurely analysis, elements that resonate with other works that you've read, or other elements that will support later discussion. That said, you are not expected to annotate cover to cover, and no grade will be given for whatever you do or don't write in your book or on post-it notes.  After school begins, however, you will be asked to annotate several selected passages; more on that later.

As you read, however, or in reviewing what you might have read much earlier in the summer, DO consider several aspects of the book:

1) How does it remind you of The Great Gatsby? Consider a variety of parallels (no hints from me) and do at least a mental comparison/contrast for particular criteria.  (Maybe even write down a few prep notes--for this and each of the following, your personal preparation is the key, not doing something for a grade.)

2) One of these connections is surely the narrative voice--give special consideration to the characters who tell the story--again, I don't want to list out exactly what you should consider, but definitely aim for a fairly thorough evaluation here between Fitzgerald's and Maugham's fictional narrators.  

3) Find three or four passages that you consider especially "rich" and worthy of a close reading discussion.  You'll be asked later to prepare a written assignment on one or two of these, but for now, look for several possibilities and simply write the page numbers (1-3 pages each) on a fly leaf or bookmark.

4) Consider minor characters--who is most interesting/important/compellling or otherwise especially worthy of our attention?

5) Consider that Maugham is British, but his characters in this book are mostly American.  And he places these Americans not only in the U.S., but also in selected locales all over the world.  Why?  What does he think of them?  What do we learn/deduce abut his OWN values and cultural expectations?

6) I could go on . . . but YOU pick one more thing that you could offer right off the bat as an element we should pursue.

Although I will probably give some form of very short assessment as early as the third day of school (Sept. 6th),  I will wait until Monday of the second week (Sept. 10) for the first significant reading check.  There will be 2-3 written preparation assignments, at least one short typed passage analysis, and an in-class timed essay using a prior AP exam question.  The work WILL count as part of the first semester exam, and we will refer to it from time to time throughout the year.

Other texts:  It is so close to the start of school that I am going to wait until I see you to give you the list of works you will need to provide--I have some commentary and suggestions that would be easier to tell you about as we go over the selections.   The school will supply the main textbook, Perrine's Structure, Sound and Sense, which contains abundant short stories, poetry, and drama.  Our early work will be confined to that text, the summer reading book, the personal essay, and other hand-outs you will receive.  Students will be responsible for several other texts each semester, but you will not need any other text until at least October 1. 

Enjoy the last few days of vacation, read The Razor's Edge, and I look forward to meeting you soon.

I

Blog Index Page for 2011-2012

Here are the URL's for the two courses I am teaching this year:

For AP English Literature and Composition (Periods 1, 3, and 5)
http://www.2303ap.blogspot.com/

For British and Western Literature (Periods 2 and 6)
http://www.2303bw.blogspot.com/

On these blogs I provide a brief overview of the day's activities, immediate homework and often reminders about upcoming assignments, links to necessary sites and/or Google.docs for selected hand-outs, and whatever else seems essential "for the good of the order."  Although I don't use the blog to announce otherwise unexpected homework (except for one first-of-the-year "check the blog" activity), I often use it to provide more specific details and to clarify questions about homework assigments mentioned in class. 

The blogs are invaluable for students who are absent, but I expect all students to routinely "check the blog" every day.

Special note to parents:  You are encouraged to read the blog to stay current on what your student is/should be doing in our class. Sometimes parents have mentioned that they enjoy simply knowing what literature we're reading at the moment, because it can spark some actual "book talk" across the generations.
Please be aware, however, that the tone of the blogs is somewhat informal because I'm writing primarily to and for the kids.

Welcome to the Class of 2012!

Very soon, I will be setting up new blogs for each of my courses this year:  AP Literature and Composition, and British and Western English.  However, today I'm using the site that is linked directly to the IHS teacher web pages to communicate with the AP Lit students concerning summer reading.  If you will be in one of my British and Western classes, the following information does not pertain to you.  I hope you've been reading something of your own choice, however, and I look forward to meeting you soon!

Having reached RSVP week (check the district eNews if this does not resonate with you!), you may be realizing that there's very little time to complete your summer reading for AP Literature and Composition. Yes, you have a date with Charles Dickens' Great Expectations--preferably, the Barnes and Noble Classics edition. If you've read it already, terrific; if you have not, there's time enough to do so, but you will have to exert some self-discipline to be finished by the time school starts.

I'll be quite forthcoming in saying that GE is a departure for me; my summer reading choices have always been modern or contemporary works which have been popular with the general reading public [i.e., a "good read" that seniors should be able to handle without a teacher!] but which offer good writing (rich text suitable for AP "passage analysis"), a comprehensive range of literary devices (elements beyond plot which deepen understanding and enrich the reading experience), and multiple thematic strands (layers of meaning which happen to coincide--at least in part--with significant thematic ideas found in other books we study).  Great Expectations fits all of these parameters except the first; published serially in 1860-1861, it is hardly modern. 

Your job is to read the book--not summaries of the book, not ABOUT the book, but the book: Dickens' language, and Dickens' leisurely (and deliberately suspenseful) approach to specific plot revelations. If you read the whole plot first, you've spoiled the experience:  plain and simple.  Your loss, not mine, but you will find that not reading the book leads to some inevitable consequences in AP Lit that do affect you in ways other than the absence of reading pleasure that an author originally intended.

That said, I will agree that Dickens' language is not easy for some of you to follow; one of my first questions to you will be WHY?  (followed immediately, of course, by "Show us some examples"). But I will also say that this book is considered to be one of Charles Dickens' "easiest" books , and has historically been taught in grades 8-10.  So you can do this.

Mostly, I will want you to be thinking about the ways in which GE merits consideration as one of the respected literary masterpieces, using the rest of the second paragraph (beyond the "modern" part) as a guide.  Such questions could be a guide to annotations, though obviously you are free to question, comment, observe, connect, etc., in whatever ways you see fit.  I cannot speak for Ms. McGinnis, but I do not expect annotations for a book as long as Great Expectations to look like what I'd anticipate for a short story.  I will say that the more you have marked up your book in meaningful ways, the easier it will be to find sections/passages which will help you perform various tasks that will be asked of you once school starts.

Normally, we have provided you with a list of texts to be obtaining over the summer, starting with the main textbook that both Ms. McGinnis and I use from the very beginning of school.  But as of this year, the school district will supply the main textbook, which contains abundant short stories, poetry, and drama.  Students will be responsible for several other texts each semester (6-8 for the year); you will be given a list by each teacher during the first week of school. There will be some overlap, but to avoid confusion and/or wrong purchases, it will be simply better to wait until you know for sure which teacher you have. (Yes, I know--you have a schedule.  But the reality is that there are sometimes some first-week changes that affect which section of AP lit you have.)

Enjoy the rest of August, read Great Expectations, and I look forward to meeting you soon.