If you noticed, our B days are now ahead of our A days. Thanks, snow.
We quizzed our class over chapters 13-15. This was not a graded quiz. Then we read chapters 16-18. Chapter 18 is particularly long, and we did not get through it in class. It is your job to get through it on your own. You may use loudlit.org to finish it, just like we use it in class. Or use your book. When you open loudlit, click on Huck Finn, then click "listen and read." Then go to the chapter and page. Our first two classes of American lit stopped on chapter 18, page 8 or 10, according to loudlit's numbering system. There very well might be a quiz over this.
Our grammar quiz will be coming up this finals week. It will happen the last class you of the semester. It is an open note test.
If you have not submitted your Crucible paper that was due over Christmas Break, you are running out of time.
If you have not turned in your half page over Mark Twain's mom, look on previous posts for the article and the directions.
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Third week of January, 2016
We started the week by reading chapters ten thru 12 and 13 thru fifteen.
We worked on finishing up the packet over grammar. Depending on the class, we should finish up all 17 lessons. We will be having an open-book test over it during the last week of the semester.
We watched the first ten minutes of "Mark Twain Tonight," a stage performance by Hal Holbrook.
see the previous blog to read the article about Twain's mother. Your job on the assignment is to write a half page paragraph. There is a minimum of four sentences. Explain in your paragraph how Twain's mother affected his attitude about racism and slavery. It might help for you to think like you are trying to explain the point of the article to a ninth grader.
We worked on finishing up the packet over grammar. Depending on the class, we should finish up all 17 lessons. We will be having an open-book test over it during the last week of the semester.
We watched the first ten minutes of "Mark Twain Tonight," a stage performance by Hal Holbrook.
see the previous blog to read the article about Twain's mother. Your job on the assignment is to write a half page paragraph. There is a minimum of four sentences. Explain in your paragraph how Twain's mother affected his attitude about racism and slavery. It might help for you to think like you are trying to explain the point of the article to a ninth grader.
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Second week of January 2016
We have continued reading three chapters a day. B day classes will be through chapter 12 this week. A day classes will be through 9. Yes, B day classes are ahead of the A day classes because of the snow day.
The article students are supposed to write a half a page about:
In today's encore excerpt -- from Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1 by Mark Twain. Samuel Clemens attempted to write his autobiography over several decades but never finished, and instructed that the draft not be made available for 100 years. In recently-released manuscripts, Clemens wrote of his early schoolboy friendships with black slaves, including characters that appeared later in his most famous fictional works:
"All the negroes were friends of ours, and with those of our own age we were in effect comrades. I say in effect, using the phrase as a modification. We were comrades, and yet not comrades; color and condition interposed a subtle line which both parties were conscious of, and which rendered complete fusion impossible. We had a faithful and affectionate good friend, ally and adviser in 'Uncle Dan'l,' a middle-aged slave whose head was the best one in the negro-quarter, whose sympathies were wide and warm, and whose heart was honest and simple and knew no guile. He has served me well, these many, many years. I have not seen him for more than half a century, and yet spiritually I have had his welcome company a good part of that time, and have staged him in books under his own name and as 'Jim,' and carted him all around -- to Hannibal, down the Mississippi on a raft, and even across the Desert of Sahara in a balloon -- and he has endured it all with the patience and friendliness and loyalty which were his birthright. It was on the farm that I got my strong liking for his race and my appreciation of certain of its fine qualities. This feeling and this estimate have stood the test of sixty years and more and have suffered no impairment. The black face is as welcome to me now as it was then.
"In my schoolboy days I had no aversion to slavery. I was not aware that there was anything wrong about it. No one arraigned it in my hearing; the local papers said nothing against it; the local pulpit taught us that God approved it, that it was a holy thing, and that the doubter need only look in the Bible if he wished to settle his mind --and then the texts were read aloud to us to make the matter sure; if the slaves themselves had an aversion to slavery they were wise and said nothing. In Hannibal we seldom saw a slave misused; on the farm, never.
"There was, however, one small incident of my boyhood days which touched this matter, and it must have meant a good deal to me or it would not have stayed in my memory, clear and sharp, vivid and shadowless, all these slow-drifting years. We had a little slave boy whom we had hired from some one, there in Hannibal. He was from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and had been brought away from his family and his friends, half way across the American continent, and sold. He was a cheery spirit, innocent and gentle, and the noisiest creature that ever was, perhaps. All day long he was singing, whistling, yelling, whooping, laughing -- it was maddening, devastating, unendurable. At last, one day, I lost all my temper, and went raging to my mother, and said Sandy had been singing for an hour without a single break, and I couldn't stand it, and wouldn't she please shut him up. The tears came into her eyes, and her lip trembled, and she said something like this --
'Poor thing, when he sings, it shows that he is not remembering, and that comforts me; but when he is still, I am afraid he is thinking, and I cannot bear it. He will never see his mother again; if he can sing, I must not hinder it, but be thankful for it. If you were older, you would understand me; then that friendless child's noise would make you glad.'
"It was a simple speech, and made up of small words, but it went home, and Sandy's noise was not a trouble to me any more. She never used large words, but she had a natural gift for making small ones do effective work. She lived to reach the neighborhood of ninety years, and was capable with her tongue to the last -- especially when a meanness or an injustice roused her spirit. She has come handy to me several times in my books, where she figures as Tom Sawyer's 'Aunt Polly.' I fitted her out with a dialect, and tried to think up other improvements for her, but did not find any. I used Sandy once, also; it was in 'Tom Sawyer;' I tried to get him to whitewash the fence, but it did not work. I do not remember what name I called him by in the book."
Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1, Reader's Edition (Mark Twain Papers)
Author: MarkTwain
Publisher: University of California Press
Copyright 2010, 2001 by theMarkTwain Foundation
Pages 211-212
The article students are supposed to write a half a page about:
In today's encore excerpt -- from Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1 by Mark Twain. Samuel Clemens attempted to write his autobiography over several decades but never finished, and instructed that the draft not be made available for 100 years. In recently-released manuscripts, Clemens wrote of his early schoolboy friendships with black slaves, including characters that appeared later in his most famous fictional works:
"All the negroes were friends of ours, and with those of our own age we were in effect comrades. I say in effect, using the phrase as a modification. We were comrades, and yet not comrades; color and condition interposed a subtle line which both parties were conscious of, and which rendered complete fusion impossible. We had a faithful and affectionate good friend, ally and adviser in 'Uncle Dan'l,' a middle-aged slave whose head was the best one in the negro-quarter, whose sympathies were wide and warm, and whose heart was honest and simple and knew no guile. He has served me well, these many, many years. I have not seen him for more than half a century, and yet spiritually I have had his welcome company a good part of that time, and have staged him in books under his own name and as 'Jim,' and carted him all around -- to Hannibal, down the Mississippi on a raft, and even across the Desert of Sahara in a balloon -- and he has endured it all with the patience and friendliness and loyalty which were his birthright. It was on the farm that I got my strong liking for his race and my appreciation of certain of its fine qualities. This feeling and this estimate have stood the test of sixty years and more and have suffered no impairment. The black face is as welcome to me now as it was then.
"In my schoolboy days I had no aversion to slavery. I was not aware that there was anything wrong about it. No one arraigned it in my hearing; the local papers said nothing against it; the local pulpit taught us that God approved it, that it was a holy thing, and that the doubter need only look in the Bible if he wished to settle his mind --and then the texts were read aloud to us to make the matter sure; if the slaves themselves had an aversion to slavery they were wise and said nothing. In Hannibal we seldom saw a slave misused; on the farm, never.
"There was, however, one small incident of my boyhood days which touched this matter, and it must have meant a good deal to me or it would not have stayed in my memory, clear and sharp, vivid and shadowless, all these slow-drifting years. We had a little slave boy whom we had hired from some one, there in Hannibal. He was from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and had been brought away from his family and his friends, half way across the American continent, and sold. He was a cheery spirit, innocent and gentle, and the noisiest creature that ever was, perhaps. All day long he was singing, whistling, yelling, whooping, laughing -- it was maddening, devastating, unendurable. At last, one day, I lost all my temper, and went raging to my mother, and said Sandy had been singing for an hour without a single break, and I couldn't stand it, and wouldn't she please shut him up. The tears came into her eyes, and her lip trembled, and she said something like this --
'Poor thing, when he sings, it shows that he is not remembering, and that comforts me; but when he is still, I am afraid he is thinking, and I cannot bear it. He will never see his mother again; if he can sing, I must not hinder it, but be thankful for it. If you were older, you would understand me; then that friendless child's noise would make you glad.'
"It was a simple speech, and made up of small words, but it went home, and Sandy's noise was not a trouble to me any more. She never used large words, but she had a natural gift for making small ones do effective work. She lived to reach the neighborhood of ninety years, and was capable with her tongue to the last -- especially when a meanness or an injustice roused her spirit. She has come handy to me several times in my books, where she figures as Tom Sawyer's 'Aunt Polly.' I fitted her out with a dialect, and tried to think up other improvements for her, but did not find any. I used Sandy once, also; it was in 'Tom Sawyer;' I tried to get him to whitewash the fence, but it did not work. I do not remember what name I called him by in the book."
Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1, Reader's Edition (Mark Twain Papers)
Author: MarkTwain
Publisher: University of California Press
Copyright 2010, 2001 by theMarkTwain Foundation
Pages 211-212
Sunday, January 10, 2016
First week of January, 2016
A little freezing rain changed our plans for this week. We did start our unit on Huckleberry Finn.
The following statements were agreed/ disagreed by students, and we discussed most of them in class.
Stongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
If something is wrong to everyone else, it should be wrong to you.
Anyone who believed slavery was an acceptable way of life was a bad person.
Society has little effect on your morality.
It is wrong to steal, even when you are starving.
People who are not formally educated are ignorant.
Society’s decisions on what is right and wrong are correct MOST OF THE TIME.
What is right and wrong in our time period should be right and wrong in all time periods.
Members of a society are morally obligated to follow what is socially right and wrong.
If a friend breaks the law, you have the obligation to turn him or her in.
People need to believe in hell because without it they would have no reason to do good and avoid evil.
You can tell when people come from a good family or the right neighborhood, or have gone to the right schools because they tend to behave with a lot of class.
Some lively discussion ensued.
We read an article about Mark Twain. Some material here will appear on our final test.
Click here to see video and read about Twain.
Some students checked books out; others decided to use their phones, kindles, or computers to follow the story. Loudlit.org will be used in class. We used loudlit.org to go through chapters one through three. Be prepared for quizzes over these chapters.
Students were given the following definition of satire: To ridicule a subject with the intention of inspiring reform. Learn this definition.
"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is notable for its use of the n-word. We discussed this in class. Students were made aware that this was not their word to use in class. When the text uses it, we will understand the context of the word. We watched one or more of the following:
See a review of all chapters of the book, click here
In class we use Loudlit.com to read and listen to the book. Click here
The following statements were agreed/ disagreed by students, and we discussed most of them in class.
Stongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree
If something is wrong to everyone else, it should be wrong to you.
Anyone who believed slavery was an acceptable way of life was a bad person.
Society has little effect on your morality.
It is wrong to steal, even when you are starving.
People who are not formally educated are ignorant.
Society’s decisions on what is right and wrong are correct MOST OF THE TIME.
What is right and wrong in our time period should be right and wrong in all time periods.
Members of a society are morally obligated to follow what is socially right and wrong.
If a friend breaks the law, you have the obligation to turn him or her in.
People need to believe in hell because without it they would have no reason to do good and avoid evil.
You can tell when people come from a good family or the right neighborhood, or have gone to the right schools because they tend to behave with a lot of class.
Some lively discussion ensued.
We read an article about Mark Twain. Some material here will appear on our final test.
Click here to see video and read about Twain.
Some students checked books out; others decided to use their phones, kindles, or computers to follow the story. Loudlit.org will be used in class. We used loudlit.org to go through chapters one through three. Be prepared for quizzes over these chapters.
Students were given the following definition of satire: To ridicule a subject with the intention of inspiring reform. Learn this definition.
"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is notable for its use of the n-word. We discussed this in class. Students were made aware that this was not their word to use in class. When the text uses it, we will understand the context of the word. We watched one or more of the following:
See a review of all chapters of the book, click here
In class we use Loudlit.com to read and listen to the book. Click here
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