Extra Credit: Generic Movie, Play, or Whatever

Write a tasty paragraph

5_______Your topic sentence states whether or not the play/film was entertaining or effective in getting its points or themes across. Your topic sentence should state the name of the play/movie/whatever.

15_______Three reasons (yellows) stating specifically how the play was or was not effective or entertaining.

15_______At least two specific, vivid, descriptive examples (reds) per each yellow explaining why the play/film was or was not effective or entertaining. Describe sets, direction, acting, costumes, or plot. Explain why you feel the way you do.

5_______Conclude. Restate your main idea and provide closure.

As always, properly format, color code, avoid errors in punctuation and grammar, use LP, and turn in with this rubric stapled to the top

Free Reading/Writing Assignment

Free Reading and Writing for Six Weeks

English

OReilly

Writing:

60__________Ten pages handwritten or five pages a week typed

This can be poetry

Songs

Diary

or a combination

10 extra credit______________Please feel free to illustrate or embellish (one point per illustration up to ten illustrations), but I do need to see sixty full pages of writing, so if you interrupt your writing with an illustration, you need to add more writing.

10_______________Please keep all your writing in an 8.5 by 11 journal specifically dedicated to your writing.

You will be given at least forty minutes a week of class time to write.

At the end of six weeks, I will ask that you turn your journal in. Please mark any pages you don't want me to read with a clear sign not to trespass.

No more than than 2 pages can be off limits.

Please be aware that I am a mandated reporter; this means I must report the following:

financial, physical, sexual or other types of abuse, evidence of neglect, or an imminent risk of serious harm.

20_________At the end of the six weeks, please select an excerpt from your writing to be published on our class blog, which I will create.

5 points_________ Attach this rubric to the final product

20 points__________beauty, legibility, literary elegance, profundity, honesty, soul

Reading

You will go to the library/bookstore/Amazon and select a text to read. You must select your text by _____________.

The text can be fiction, poetry, biography, autobiography, memoir, historical fiction; sorry, no graphic novels; science fiction; anything else? ask me. The text must be at least 300 pages long, or you may read two shorter books that equal at least 300 pages. I suggest you seek books on a subject that interests you; if you love sports, find a book on sports. If you love music, find a book on music.

5 points per Monday___________Mondays will be reading day. Always bring your book on Mondays. Every Monday I will check that your reading logs are up-to-date. You must read fifty pages a week minimum.

For every approximately 50 pages you must complete the following activity:

60 _____________Select an excerpt that catches your attention for any reason: emotional impact, humor, excellent plot turn, beautiful language or imagery, or even poor writing. Copy that excerpt into your reading response notes, include page number. Be aware of all the literary devices we have studied: metaphor, simile, personification, symbols. But also be aware of humor, believable characters, exciting plot, suspense; or any insightful knowledge of history, culture, or science.

60_____________ Comment on the excerpt. At the least, comment on why the excerpt impacted you. Keep you commentary in LP. Please do not use 1PV. In other words, do not say, "I like this excerpt because...." rather comment directly on the style: "The imagery in this excerpt is vivid. When the author describes the character drowning, the reader empathizes, and the moment is tragic. The drowning is also dramatic because the character is a sympathetic character whom the reader has grown to like."

The Final Project:

At the end of the six weeks, I will ask that you write a response to the text

10 ___________ Select some aspect of the author's style that you have encountered in the book and excerpt a sample of the style. In one or two sentences, briefly analyze that style:

In The Sound of Waves, by Yokio Mishima, vivid imagery, simile, and personification create a dream-like tone. The phrase "the ocean bestows" is personification, and "she gazed at me like a persimmon in a bucket" is a simile that creates a vivid image. Personification of the ocean makes the ocean seem alive, like a sentient God. The vivid imagery of a bright orange persimmon in a bucket is like the surprising and unexpected image in a dream.

When I say analyze, I mean specifically comment on how the writer's style creates theme, tone, suspense, meaning, interest, surprise, beauty, emotion, or insight.

50 ___________ After your brief analysis, write your own passage of at least one page using the author's style as analyzed in your response.

10 ___________ At the end of your writing sample, briefly defend, using specific examples, the way in which you have mimicked the author's style.

15 ___________ Correct formatting, punctuation, mechanics, this rubric

My Literary Devices are the Nicest

My Literary Devices are the Nicest

English 12

OReilly

You will create a book, play, DVD, podcast, set of songs, website, blog, piece of art, or any other communication medium that includes each of the literary devices we will be learning on a daily basis in class. You may do this assignment alone or in groups of two to five. The literary devices can be found on my blog at: http://oreillyenglish122010.blogspot.com/

You must use each of the literary devices in the following ways:

5 points each You must define each literary device.

5 points each You must find and display an example of each literary device in someone else's writing.

5 point each You must explain how each device works to support theme or tone in any of your examples (yours or others'). Or describe how the device works to deepen meaning.

5 points each You must creatively use the literary device in your own story, poem, aphorism, rap, movie, play, or song. The use of your literary device can be in a continuing work, or in a separate and distinct piece created specifically to display each literary device.

20 points overall Your work is consistently perfected, polished, gorgeous, detailed; serious in intent, even if comic in tone. Please don't bore me. Don't carry on simply for the sake of the assignment's requirement. Bring yourself, your passions, your voice, and your interests to the piece. Make every element and detail resonate like an ancient church bell tolling, a dove cooing, or a baby laughing as you awaken from a long slumber.

If you create a book, you must have an illustration for every page unless you are working alone.

You may be wondering: how does one explain how a literary device deepens meaning?

Here's an example of an explanation of how homoioteleuton works to deepen meaning or support theme in the following song:

"That’s why, darling, it’s incredible
That someone so unforgettable
Thinks I’m unforgettable too."
("Unforgettable," sung by Nat King Cole

The homoioteleuton of "incredible" and "unforgettable" create a sense of magic, as if these two people are meant to be together. The words fit, jst as the people in the song fit each other .

Crispety, crunchety, peanut-buttery Butterfinger."
(advertising slogan for Butterfinger candy bar)

The homoioteleuton in this ditty sound like crunching, which reminds the reader to chew a yummy chocolate bar.

Discerning meaning is the hardest part of the assignment. If you don't know the answer guess, gasp at straws, but argue strongly for your reasoning, using examples if possible.

I have to correct these art pieces. How does one grade art? By using the rubric above. I don't care how you incorporate each of the elements of the rubric, but it must be clear to me that you have, indeed, incorporated all the elements: perhaps, if you produce a play or DVD, you can create a separate document that cites the examples out of the script and defines, shows an example, and explains how the device works to create meaning. Since you can have up to five people in your group, you can assign different jobs to different people: for instance, one member of the group can be in charge of defining and finding examples of the literary device, while another can be the analyst who creates an ongoing document that tracts how the literary device is use to support theme, tone, or meaning.

You will work on this in class as we go along. I will randomly to check to see if you are up to date. Whatever project you choose, make sure it is something you can work on in class. We will have some library time during the last two weeks of the project.

Hero's Journey: Research and Narrative

Research the Hero and Tell the Story

English 12

OReilly

The Hero's Journey: Not Quite a Research Paper, But Quite an Epic Journey

Your next assignment is something quite unusual, you will write elements of a research paper: the opening and topic sentences, but the bulk of the paper will be a narrative—your imagination at work within the structure of the hero's journey. You will write a the story of a hero passing through the three major acts of the hero's journey: Departure, Initiation, and Return. You may create this paper alone or with up to two other people. If you decide to work as a group, you must include three self-created illustrations in any medium including collage, or, keeping your cited topic sentences and opening, you may write this assignment as a play and perform it for the class.

10 points______ Your paper is three to eight pages long. You have a story of a hero going through Campbell's Acts and Stages. Your paper is divided into the following parts: (1) a one paragraph essay-like introduction as described below, (2) three chapter/acts describing the journey of a hero, and (3) chapter/act titles as described below.

Introduction Paragraph:

15 points______

Your opening paragraph will:

• introduce the concept of Joseph Campbell's model of the hero's journey (blue/background)
• introduce your hero and his three part journey (green/topic sentence and plan).

• Cite the source of your information about Campbell using one of the cites below.

• Keep your opening and introduction BRIEF, no more than six sentences.

In his online article "Classical Heroes in Modern Movies: Mythological Patterns of the Superhero," by William Indick, Ph.D, Indick describes the three act journey taken by heroes in American film: The Departure, The Initiation, and The Return. These three acts are broken down into "seventeen specific stages." He goes on to explain how such a hero in modern movies captures the imagination of the viewer because the hero expresses the viewer's individual dreams and aspirations while, simultaneously, expressing the values and hopes of the culture. The following story follows this mythic paradigm; the hero of this tale leaves home, a departure, experiences a variety of challenges culminating in a confrontation with a father figure; and, ultimately, returns home and settles down in a secret identity in which he can both have a quotidian existence and also fight crime.

Three (3) Chapter/ Act Titles

15 points______

• The body of your essay/story will have three act titles—one sentence—no more— which will introduce the act and the stages the hero is passing through and cite the source of your information on the hero's acts and stages.

Example: Title for Act 1: The Departure:

According to the Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction website article, "The Hero's Journey: A Summary of the Steps," the hero's journey begins with a "Departure," in which the hero passes through distinct stages including the "Refusal of the Call," Supernatural Aid," and "The Belly of the Whale."

Your hero story in three chapter/acts:

30 points (10 points a piece)______

• After each title, tell your story for that act: The Acts will be The Departure, The Initiation, and The Return

• For each chapter or act include at least three stages, i.e.: for Act One Departure, you might use The Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call, and The Belly of the Whale.

• Please! Now is your opportunity to use all the literary devices on your Nice Glossary and more. Be aware of comedy, action, pacing, plot turns, alliteration, literary or Biblical allusion, dialogue, simile, metaphor, imagery, personification, foils, and motifs—repeating images that tie your story together and give it coherency. All these literary devices make your writing a pleasure to read. These paper are long, so please make them fun for me to read! This may be written as a first person narrative from your point of view or a third person narrative from your hero's point of view.

Citing Sources, Works Cited, and Bibliography, Formatting, Style

10 points_____ You will cite your Works Cited at least four times, in the opening and in the three act/chapter titles. In the course of your paper, make sure you cite all three of the sources in your Works Cited.

• Since you have three sources in your Works Cited you will have to cite one source twice. The second time you use your source, you need not introduce it again, simply quote or paraphrase, and put the author's name in parenthesis after the quote or paraphrase.

• There might not be an author: whatever is the first word in your Works Cited entry, put that word or short title in the parenthesis after the quote or paraphrase.

Chapter/ Act title example:

In Act Three of the hero's journey, "The Return," the hero passes through the following stages: "The Refusal of the Return," "The Rescue from Without," and "The Freedom to Live" (Warren).

Here is your Works Cited entry for the citation above. See how the word in the parenthesis is the first word to appear in the Works Cited entry?

Sources for your Works Cited and Bibliography

Works Cited

10 points_______Create a properly formatted Works Cited with three (3) entries, the following, or if you like, other sources you uncover. Staple to the end of your story. You should already have this part done:

Summary of Campbell's Hero's Journey

http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/smc/journey/ref/summary.html

The original article we read in class outlining how the movie Spiderman follow's Campbell's pattern of the heroic journey:

http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/sfischo/ClassicalHeroes.html

Another website outlining the heroic journey:

http://www.cerritos.edu/fquaas/resources/english102/HeroNotes.htm

Bibliography

5 points _______ Construct a properly formatted Bibliography with two (2) entries:

• Use any book or website on mythology that you read but do not use in your paper.

• The Wikipedia summary, quite good, but Wikipedia should be used for background information only (Bibiliography, not Works Cited) as it is not a reliable source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth

Other points to consider

Negative Points

You will lose half a point for glaring punctuation, style, and formatting errors. Have a proper heading and header please. Play performers lose one point for forgotten lines or breaking character. Characters must be in costume. (-10 points)

If you turn this into a play, please make me a copy of your script and arrange a day to perform your piece for the class. (-10 points)

Time line:

Week 1: Opening paragraph/ act 1 outline completed/ act 1 completed

Week 2: Act 2 outline completed/Act 2 completed

Week 3: Act 3 outline completed/Act 3 title completed

Due December 14th

Avatar Extra Credit

Avatar Extra Credit

Write a tasty paragraph describing how the protagonist of the movie, Avatar, is passing through the stages of the heroic journey as described by Joseph Campbell.

_________ Greens: Opening sentence names the movie and its director, and makes the claim that the protagonist is completing the hero's journey. Closing restates your argument and provides closure

_________ Yellows: Name three events from the movie that depict acts or stages from the hero's journey

_________ Reds: For each yellow have at least two reds that provide evidence and examples supporting your claim

_________ Properly format. Avoid errors in mechanics and punctuation. Color Code

Literary devices: definitions and examples

Poetry devices (a major sampling):

homoeoteleuton

Similar sound endings to words, phrases, or sentences. "Near Rhyme."

• "That’s why, darling, it’s incredible

  That someone so unforgettable

  Thinks I’m unforgettable too."

  ("Unforgettable," sung by Nat King Cole)







• "Loose lips sink ships."

  (public service ad during World War II)

• 
  

• Incredibly, wonderfully, sensually delightful. Full of love, the sky above, can't get enough, of these. What is this thing of which I speak that fills my heart with ease? I'll tell you now. It's from the cow...this lovely creamy cheese. (OReilly)







• "Crispety, crunchety, peanut-buttery Butterfinger."

  (advertising slogan for Butterfinger candy bar)

It is defined as "when several utterances (i.e., words) end in a similar fashion." The word, therefore, is larger than rhyme, but similar to it.

repetition of sound: alliteration repetition of a beginning consonant sound; assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds; consonance: the repetition of consonant sounds

Langston Hughes

Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

Cha Cha Cha Changes with cheese, please, give it a squeeze...

So, so, very slimy, not sweet, sensually complete

A lust a trust I must repeat

I'm not complete, I can't go a week

without it to eat, my treat

need I repeat?

choice, cheddar, actual cheese.

ORiRi

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/d/david+bowie/changes_20036790.html

lyrics to Changes David Bowie

Parts by Tedd Arnold.

"I just don't know what's going on

Or why it has to be.

But every day it's something worse.

What's happening to me?

I think it was three days ago

I first became aware--

That in my comb were caught a couple

Pieces of my hair.

I stared at them, amazed, and more

Than just a bit appalled

To think that I was only five

And starting to go bald!"

allusion:

a casual reference to someone or something in history or literature that creates a mental picture. An allusion is like a hyperlink. Embedded in the poem is a link to another entire literary work, with all its meaning and insight. Here are more literary allusions: http://www.worsleyschool.net/socialarts/allusion/page

illusion: something unreal that one thinks is real (don't confuse)

"Siren Song"

by Margaret Atwood

This is the one song everyone

would like to learn:

the song

that is irresistible:

the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons

even though they see the beached skulls

the song nobody knows

because anyone who has heard it

is dead, and the others can't remember

Shall I tell you the secret

and if I do, will you get me

out of this bird suit?

I don't enjoy it here

squatting on this island

looking picturesque and mythical

with these two feathery maniacs,

I don't enjoy singing

this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you ,to you, only to you.

Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!

Only you, only you can,

you are unique

At last. Alas

it is a boring song

but it works every time.

analogy or extended metaphor:

Both are comparisons. An analogy is more of an argument; in an analogy one is arguing that two things are the same, like comparing the Iraq War to the Vietnam War. An extended metaphor is a bit less argumentative, it just shows how things are related. The two terms are often casually used interchangeably.

FOG

Carl Sandburg

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Nothing Gold Can Stay
by
Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

caesura:

the pausing or stopping within a line of poetry caused by needed punctuation.

The punctuation within the lines (in this case, all commas) are the caesura, not the punctuation at the ends of the lines.

Miss Spider's Wedding by David Kirk

"They talked of all their dreams and hopes,

Of art and nature, love and fate.

They peered through toy kaleidoscopes

And murmured thoughts I shan't relate.

Then Holley held Miss Spider's hand...

I'll say no more, you understand.

For private moments between spiders

Should not be witnessed by outsiders."

I'M NOBODY! WHO ARE YOU?

Emily Dickenson

I'm nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd advertise -- you know!

How dreary to be somebody!

How public like a frog

To tell one's name the livelong day

To an admiring bog!

enjambement:

the continuation of thought from one line of poetry to the next without punctuation needed at the end of the previous line(s).

Trees by Joyce Kilmer I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the sweet earth's flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in summer wear A nest of robins in her hair; Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.

hyperbole:

extreme exaggeration for effect.

Hyperbole of My Dog
Little Girl is my dog. She sleeps like a log. She has a huge mouth, And eats like a hog In her excitement Her tail is a whip times ten. When she sees food Hers eyes start to spin.

metaphor:

the comparison of two unlike things by saying one is the other.

The Soul Selects Her Own Society

Emily Dickenson

The Soul selects her own Society —

Then — shuts the Door —

To her divine Majority —

Present no more —

Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing —

At her low Gate —

Unmoved — an Emperor be kneeling

Upon her Mat —

I've known her — from an ample nation —

Choose One —

Then — close the Valves of her attention —

Like Stone —

THE BLUES

By Sierra Ceballos, age 8.

When you fall off a cliff and you get hit by a buffalo,

that's the blues.

When your chicken gets hit by a car and you're not that smart,

that's the blues.

When you fall in your chair and you lose all your hair and you lose your underwear,

that's the blues.

When you hit your head and your mom sends you to bed,

that's the blues.

metonymy:

onomatopoeia

oxymoron:

personification:

the giving of human traits to non-human things incapable of having those traits.

MASK FLING your red scarf faster and faster, dancer. It is summer and the sun loves a million green leaves, masses of green. Your red scarf flashes across them calling and a-calling. The silk and flare of it is a great soprano leading a chorus Carried along in a rouse of voices reaching for the heart of the world. Your toes are singing to meet the song of your arms: Let the red scarf go swifter. Summer and the sun command you.

symbol:

Other terms (not included in project or test):

elegy: a poem of lament (extreme sorrow, such as caused by death)

free verse: a poem without either a rhyme or a rhythm scheme, although rhyme may be used, just without a pattern.

blank verse: un-rhymed lines of iambic pentameter (ten syllables with all even numbered syllables accented)

imagery: the use of words to create a mental picture

mood: the emotional effect of a poem or a story

Understanding and using these devices and terms can help improve and strengthen poetry. Imagery is essential for vivid poetry, and devices help develop imagery.

The speaker: The speaker provides structure and uniformity to a poem. In this case the speakers point of view is first person point of view:

AZTEC MASK

I WANTED a man's face looking into the jaws and throat
of life
With something proud on his face, so proud no smash
of the jaws,
No gulp of the throat leaves the face in the end
With anything else than the old proud look:
Even to the finish, dumped in the dust,
Lost among the used-up cinders,
This face, men would say, is a flash,
Is laid on bones taken from the ribs of the earth,
Ready for the hammers of changing, changing years,
Ready for the sleeping, sleeping years of silence.
Ready for the dust and fire and wind.
I wanted this face and I saw it today in an Aztec mask.
A cry out of storm and dark, a red yell and a purple prayer,
A beaten shape of ashes
waiting the sunrise or night,
something or nothing,
proud-mouthed,
proud-eyed gambler.

Structure: The structure of the poems, changes its meaning.

Hiding in the Mask

By Ellen Bauer

(Dear reader:
This is a poem for two voices.
It is meant to be read with one voice reading the left side,
the other voice reading the right.
Whenever two sentences or words are on the same horizontal  level,
they are meant to be read at the same time.
When there is a blank on one side, that reader is quiet while the
other side reads, until there are words again.)

The masks we wear Hiding Ritual flames Eyes, in masks Are the only part That lives. Masks of Death Life Rain Summer Joy Fear Weeping Beneath the mask. Hiding Of the worshipped Bringing out Our hidden one. Some wear them From shame. Some wear them During joy, Celebration. But our masks, Bringing up Ancient Are ours. The masks we wear.

The masks we wear What? Reflecting in our eyes. Eyes, in masks Of our faces That lives. Life Death Summer Rain Fear Joy Hiding tears. Weeping Love, Of the worshipped Being. Bringing out Our soul. From shame. An ancient vow. During joy, A wedding Deep with mystery, Ancient Rituals, Are ours. The masks we wear.

Hamlet Reaing Activities

Hamlet Reading Activities Worksheet

English 12

OReilly

name_________________

date_________ period_______

The following are due the class after the end of each act (one of these worksheets per act). Please keep up on these, and do them as we go along.

Act ________

Themes:

action verses inaction (intellectualizing and over thinking versus putting on your Nikes and doing it)

revenge

religion

sexuality and incest

stability of the state/corruption of the state

death, decay, corruption

death, fragility of life, the cycle of life and death

misogyny (woman hating)

human flaws and frailty

reality verusus illusion/uncertainty

family relationship

sesession of power

some other theme that you see

1)Theme Tracking

As we read, take note of any diction that reflects the themes above. Try to stick with the same themes if you can. For every act, write two in the spaces below. Please cite as shown. Using excerpts from the lines you chose, please explain how the diction in both the quotes above reveal the themes.

Example

Theme : Action versus inaction

Quote: HAMLET: "To be or not to be; that is the question/Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer..." (III.i.58-59).

Commentary:

Hamlet is contemplating whether he wishes to live or die, take action or remain inactive. He cannot decide if he wishes "to be or not to be" (III.1.58).

Now you do it....

a.Theme_____________

Quote:

Commentary:

b.Theme____________

Quote:

Commentary: :

2) Character analysis

Using the same quotation format as shown above, quote two lines that reveal a character's inner thoughts. Then write commentary using excerpts from your quotes to briefly explain and analyze the character's frame of mind or personality trait. If your character analysis explores the same theme and the same character as in question one, so much the better.

a. Character and quote:

Commentary:

b. Character and quote:

Commentary:

3) Literary Devices: Using the quotation format shown in question one, present examples of quotations with examples of literary devices. In your commentary, briefly analyze how the literary devices help support tone (the speaker's or author's attitude) or theme. The following are some literary devises you may find:

foils

comparisons: simile, metaphor

diction and imagery (word choice)

irony, sarcasm

dramatic irony

Biblical or literary allusion

other

a. Literary devise and quotation:

Commentary:

b. Literary devise and quotation:

Commentary: