A Society of Poets, Dead and Living

To prepare for the writing reflection portion of the exam:

You MUST complete these steps NO LATER THAN THE END OF THE DAY SATURDAY:

1) Locate all the items on the Tables of Contents, Fall and Spring.
2) It may be helpful to put these in order, with the most current pieces on top.

3) Locate your journal.
4) You may wish to attach any loose journal entries.

5) Locate the sheet of grading criteria on which you discussed your strengths and writing goals at the beginning of the year. If you absolutely cannot find this sheet, you may print a new one from my website. If you can, you must.
6) On the back of the Spring Table of Contents, consider and reflect on these thoughts from August. What are your strengths and writing goals now? Did you improve in areas you hoped to? Find unrealized strengths? Wish for more practice with something?

 7) Put your journal INSIDE your writing portfolio.

NO LATER THAN THE END OF THE DAY SATURDAY, put your writing portfolio in the case for your section (in Ms. Connors’ room).

See the Euro English Spring 2012 Exam Instructions here.

Modernism Book Groups may hold their three required meetings anytime before Reading Day (Saturday, May 19). Bonus for a fourth meeting. Email Ms. Connors meeting minutes.

“Bringing It Home” synthesis project prompt/question and annotated bibliography due Friday, May 11 (Tuesday, May 15 for those taking the AP History exam). Artist statement of 200-300 words for the final exam. “Final product” optional.

Practice College Essay due Wednesday, May 16. See me if this is unreasonable/impossible.

There are two possible tracks for this assignment, which you should hand in when your full class meets on Wednesday/Thursday of this week.

1) If you receive a personal email from me about this assignment, revisit the question in the original prompt: What, does Achebe argue, is particularly harmful about the particular kind of racism in Heart of Darkness? I would like you to spend more time fleshing out an answer to this question before taking a position. Refer to the packet for samples.

2) If you do NOT receive a personal email from me about this assignment, simply read through the packet of student posts and write a response in which you note a response or two or three you found particularly compelling, either for the way the writer expressed something or for the way s/he made you see something differently than you had before.

You may use this packet and your insights from reading it as material for your “Personal Journey into Heart of Darkness” paper.

Visit our old friend europeanstudies.freeforums.org and post to the two new forums. The prompts appear as a post from me under the forum names.

“On Chinua Achebe”
(please note that this response requires supporting textual evidence)

AND

“On the Rainbow Connection”

Please post to both forums NO LATER than Sunday evening.

Heart of Darkness Project description and materials 

Montreat Creative Writing Festival - your ticket to entry is a three-page sample of fiction or poetry that you might like to workshop.

Artstor contest – Ok, you have to be 18 to collect on the big bucks…but still a fun writing challenge. While you’re on the site, check out their “Hunger Games”-themed exhibit.

The Review is looking for submissions! The theme this year is “Imitations.” Ideas: Montaigne imitation, Modest Proposal, Twenty Little Poetry Projects, “This is Just to Say,” …
Five extra credit points for submitting; just copy me on your email to The Review.

Ms. Connors’ assignment: Create an image group in Artstor and write a historical fiction piece of at least three pages that both incorporates the selected images and responds to Heart of Darkness in some way.

Gleaned from tussling with everything from maps to Monet to mysterious illnesses, our collected Insights elucidate our thinking on nationalism, impressionism, life and death.

Revisions due this Friday, 3/23. Let me know if you need more time or would like to meet with me again about your piece.

1) In your final draft, please remove your MLA-formatted header. Make sure you have a catchy, original title, and then simply center your name underneath it.

2) Email the document to me using this format: ThisIBelieve2012.lastname.doc or .docx. Taking care to name your document this way will aid greatly in organizing this project.

3) I encourage you to be proud of your work; these pieces display some of your strongest and most courageous writing to date. But if you feel strongly that you would like to be anonymous in the published form, do let me know.

Ivan Ilych Reading Assignments, Questions, and Letter Assignment

Happy Spring Break, everyone!

Thanks for forming your book groups and selecting your modernist book or set of books. You do not need to READ the book over break; simply take the chance to pick it up so you have it on hand when we start this activity in mid-April. Of course, if you are intrigued and would like to read it while you have some down time, who am I to stop you?

Speaking of reading, there will be an extra credit opportunity involving Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, also in April. If this opportunity is of interest to you, enjoy this Romantic and romantic novel over the break. Further details will follow.

Immediately upon our return from break, we will undertake the editing and finalizing of our “This I Believe” essays for publication. While you do not need to do any work on this over break, you are also welcome to refine this piece as you choose and/or consider any media (original artwork or photos, voice or video clips, etc.) you would like to have published alongside your essay.