Didion HW - due THURSDAY

1. Read Joan Didion’s “On Morality”
2. Soapstone
3. Terms: simile, metaphor, polemical argument, hyperbole, parallel structure, irony, qualification, anaphora, periodic sentence, (all are review)

Vocab: prominent, morality, abdicate, abstruse, esoteric, primitive, abstract reasoning, resolute, assumption, hysteria, perversion, elaborate, cogency, proffer, supposition, proposition, factitious, moral imperative, plausible, reiterates, indignant, didactic, speculative, bemused, earnest, querulous, maudlin, contemptuous, grave, condescending, mocking, insidious

Be sure to know all of the terms and vocab for the quiz.

4. Journal: One to two page response to any one of the four questions on page 111.

T-shirt order form

click here to order your shirt!! Also, don't worry.  We know that Eighner is on there twice.  It will be fixed on the shirt.

Pollan scientific partner presentation

These are the two documents you will need for the presentation. Presentations begin FRIDAY. You will have library time Wednesday and Thursday to work on this. Signups for Presentation will go up Tuesday.

Assignment

Rubric

Thoreau Argumentative Prep

Argumentative Prep discussion.

Mimicry piece - DUE Tuesday

Authors we’ve read, viewed, or listened to:

Will McAvoy (not the author, but the character), Maya Angelou, Frederick Douglas, Stephanie Ericsson, Lars Eighner, Shannon Cason (audio piece), Sherman Alexie, Plato, JFK (speech), Queen Elizabeth I (speech), Virginia Woolf, Annie Dillard, George Orwell, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jonathan Swift, The Onion article, Marie Winn, Sarah Vowell, Eric Schlosser, Steven Johnson, Steven Colbert, Nancy Mairs, E.B. White

1. Pick one whose style you found interesting.

Revisit the piece.   Identify what makes this piece unique.

Mimic the style in a two to three-paragraph piece.

   2.  When you are finished, polish the piece, and then identify which devices or stylistic

        flourishes you relied on in your mimicry.  

Thoreau HW - Due Monday

Thoreau Terms and Devices -- Due Monday

Review all devices, especially the following:  periodic sentence, compound sentence, cumulative sentence, antithesis, antecedent

Vocabulary:  fond, salutary, resignation, sublime, marrow, rout, frittered, heedless, German Confederacy

SOAPSTone

** Please also research and understand any other references to ideas, concepts, historical events, etc., that you need to understand in order to fully comprehend the piece.

Journal:  Choose one of the questions on page 409 to respond to in a one-page journal.

Spark words

click HERE for your Spark words document

Crash Questions due Monday

Crash Paul Haggis: Analysis Guide

“It’s the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.”

 

1. Some have criticized the film for reinforcing stereotypes instead of eliminating them.  What do you think this movie accomplishes?  Does it reinforce or challenge stereotypes?  Explain your answer.

2. In his review, Roger Ebert says, “One thing that happens, again and again [in the film], is that people’s assumptions prevent them from seeing the actual person standing before them” (rogerebert.com). Choose one scene and point out the specific assumptions that prevent one character from “seeing” another character as an “actual person standing before [him/her].”

3.  Which character resonates with you the most?  Why?  Use specific examples to explain.

4. What situation or scene affected you the most? Why?

5. What do you think exposure to violence and corruption does to a person? Does it change them? Justify their actions? What examples do you see to support your answer in the film?

6. Do you think that John’s heroic efforts to save Camille’s life redeem what he had done to her earlier?

7. Is there a character in this film with whom it is impossible for us to sympathize? Who? Why? Use specific examples from the film and keep in mind each character’s “arc” as you create your argument.

8. Jean, who appears to have everything, says to her friend Carol, “I’m still mad, and I wake up like this every morning and I don’t know why.” Why is this important?

9. Haggis makes sure that his film evidences various racial and ethnic stereotypes to which people ascribe. However, the script plays with these stereotypes, twisting them to show how they are patently false and, yet, how they can also be true. Choose one of these stereotypes presented in the film and discuss how the movie evidences this “twisting.”

10. In the last line of his review, Roger Ebert says, “You may have to look hard to see it, but Crash is a film about progress” (rogerebert.com). How is this film about progression and towards what does the film evidence its characters moving? Create an argument that answers this question, and support it with specific evidence from the film.

11. After watching the entire film, craft a short paragraph in which you define the author’s thesis.