Classwork/Homework 5/31/06

During class today, you need to be working on one of two things:

1. Your senior presentation
2. Reading "The Miracle of Purun Bhagat," by Rudyard Kipling and writing an essay based on the following prompt:

• Write an essay in which you analyze the lifestyle and values chosen byPurun Dass when he becomes Purun Bhagat. What does he give up? What does he gain?

The essay is due tomorrow, June 1

Classwork for Tuesday, 5/30

Continue presenting your senior projects to your classmates...

Journal #22 5/24/06

Read the following quote and respond by either analyzing what is being said or reflecting personally through your own experience. Please use the SAT Word of the Day in your answer.

Word of the Day:
Curtailed (ker TAYLD)--cut short; abbreviated
Examples:

• After gaining 40 pounds in one week, Albert curtailed his consumption of peanut butter cups.
• I curtailed my intense jogging regimen after I sprained my ankle.

Quote:
No flies fly into a closed mouth.

Julia Alvarez

Classwork/Homework for 5/23/06-5/24-06

Complete work on SENIOR PRESENTATIONS!

5/22/06 Classwork/Homework

Classwork:

1. Read Nadine Gordimer's "Once Upon a Time."
2. Answer:
   

• In your opinion, are the husband and wife in the story innocent homeowners who are merely trying to feel secure, or are they racists who cause their own tragedy? Explain your reasoning, using specific evidence from the text.
• Some may find this story to be overly brutal or violent. What do you think of this story's combination of ironic humor and a shocking ending? Why do you think Gordimer wrote her story this way?

Homework:

Both Gordimer's story and Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant" carry messages about cultural clashes. Write a short (3 paragraph) essay comparing and contrasting the two works in terms of their themes, styles, genres, and tones.

Journal #21 5/22/06

Read the following quote and respond by either analyzing what is being said or reflecting personally through your own experience. Please use the SAT Word of the Day in your answer.

Word of the Day:
Insightful (in SIGHT ful)--perceptive
Examples:

• Gloria’s insightful review of the film eloquently described its theme in terms no one had considered before.
• Your essay has to be more than just factually accurate--it should be insightful as well.

Quote:
Peace is not the product of terror or fear.
Peace is not the silence of cemeteries.
Peace is not the silent result of violent repression.
Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all.
Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity.
It is right and it is duty.

Archbishop Oscar Romero

Journal #20 5/19/06

Read the following quote and respond by either analyzing what is being said or reflecting personally through your own experience. Please use the SAT Word of the Day in your answer.

Word of the Day:
Purist (PYER ist)--one who is particularly concerned with maintaining traditional practices
Examples:

• As a purist, Leslie criticized the recent film version of Romeo and Juliet for taking place in modern-day Los Angeles.
• I’m a purist; I’d rather eat authentic Thai food than some Americanized version of it.

Quote:
Brothers and sisters, our democracy has been hi-jacked. Brothers and sisters, all of our total freedom in this country is over, so long as it is controlled by corporations. Brothers and sisters, we are not going to allow these streets to be taken over by the Democrats or the Republicans!

Zack de la Rocha

Journal #19 5/18/06

Read the following quote and respond by either analyzing what is being said or reflecting personally through your own experience. Please use the SAT Word of the Day in your answer.

Word of the Day:
Pragmatic (prag MAT ik)--practical
Examples:

• Never one for wild and unrealistic schemes, the scientist took a very pragmatic approach to solving her problem.
• Keith and Corinne work well together because Keith is a dreamer, but Corinne is more pragmatic.

Quote:
Only by living absurdly is it possible to break out of this infinite absurdity.

Julio Cortazar

Classwork 5/17/06

Classwork:

1. Read the information about British Rule in India.
2. Take Cornell Notes on the information.

Homework:

• Discuss the examples of the information in the reading that you have observed in the two Orwell essays.

Journal #18 5/17/06

Read the following quote and respond by either analyzing what is being said or reflecting personally through your own experience. Please use the SAT Word of the Day in your answer.

Word of the Day:
Frank (FRANK)--open and sincere in expression; straightforward
Examples:

• When speaking to the school board, the principal was very frank about her school’s need for more funding.
• I have to be frank--that haircut is simply not flattering!

Quote:
The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.

George Santayana

Classwork and Homework 5/15/06

Classwork:

1. Download and read George Orwell's short essay, "A Hanging."
2. Answer the following questions:

• Why does Orwell describe the cells as animal cages? What does this indicate about the prisoners inside? The prison officials?
• What accounts for the careful grip with which the guards hold the prisoner? What does the prisoner's behavior indicate?
• Why does the dog's presence dismay the men? How is its behavior juxtaposed to that of the prisoners'? What social commentary does this add to the piece?
• On his way to the gallows, the prisoner sidesteps a puddle. Why does this action strike Orwell so powerfully?
• The prisoner cries out to Ram before he is hanged. What does this action indicate about the man's convictions? How do the witnesses respond? How does the dog's behavior differ from the men's?
• After the prisoner is dead, the dog retreats from the men. Why? Orwell says the dog is "conscious of having misbehaved itself." What does this suggest about the men's behavior?
• The superintendent is nonchalant in his inspection and dismissal of the body. What does this indicate?
• Why does relief and jollity follow the hanging? What does this suggest about the propensity to become accustomed to violence? Why do the men laugh at Francis's account of the reluctant prisoner? Is this a normal reaction? Explain.
• Why does the superintendent suggest they all have a drink? Why do people turn to alcohol in times of stress? Is this an appropriate reaction? Explain.
• All the men drink together. What should this suggest? How is it contrary to the events of the story?
• Why are we never told of the prisoner's offense? What might be learned from this story about following one's convictions?

Homework:
Voltaire wrote, "It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one." Consider this statement. Have you ever been punished unjustly? Have you ever blamed someone unjustly? Write an essay that explains whether you agree or disagree with Voltaire's assertion.

Journal #17 5/15/06

Read the following quote and respond by either analyzing what is being said or reflecting personally through your own experience. Please use the SAT Word of the Day in your answer.

Word of the Day:
Burgeoning (BER jun ing)--expanding or growing rapidly
Examples:

• The republic was in trouble due to a burgeoning discontent among the citizens.
• I bought him a book about wine to satisfy his burgeoning interest in the subject.

Quote:
Giving kids clothes and food is one thing but it's much more important to teach them that other people besides themselves are important, and that the best thing they can do with their lives is to use them in the service of other people.

Dolores Huerta

Journal #16 5/12/06

Read the following quote and respond by either analyzing what is being said or reflecting personally through your own experience. Please use the SAT Word of the Day in your answer.

Word of the Day:
Ambiguous (am BIG yoo us)--open to more than one interpretation
Examples:

• His eyes were an ambiguous color; some thought they were brown and some thought they were green.
• Her explanation was ambiguous at best; I still don’t know if her car ran out of gas, or if the battery died.

Quote:
To the people here, we are outsiders. Foreigners.

Roberto Clemente

Classwork & Homework 5/11/06

Orwell states "As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him." Later he says "…I did not want to shoot the elephant." Despite feeling that he ought not take this course of action, and feeling that he wished not to take this course, he also feels compelled to shoot the animal. In this activity you will be asked to discuss the reasons why Orwell felt he had to kill the elephant.

• Read the following excerpt and discuss the questions which follow.

  It was perfectly clear to me what I ought to do. I ought to walk up to within, say, twenty-five yards of the elephant and test his behavior. If he charged, I could shoot; if he took no notice of me, it would be safe to leave him until the mahout came back. But also I knew that I was going to do no such thing. I was a poor shot with a rifle and the ground was soft mud into which one would sink at every step. If the elephant charged and I missed him, I should have about as much chance as a toad under a steam-roller. But even then I was not thinking particularly of my own skin, only the watchful yellow faces behind. For at that moment, with the crowd watching me, I was not afraid in the ordinary sense, as I would have been if I had been alone…. The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced to a grinning corpse like that Indian up the hill. And if that happened it was quite probably that some of them would laugh. That would never do.

• Orwell repeatedly states in the text that he does not want to shoot the elephant. In addition, by the time that he has found the elephant, the animal has become calm and has ceased to be an immediate danger. Despite this, Orwell feels compelled to execute the creature. Why?
• Orwell makes it clear in this essay that he was not a particularly talented rifleman. In the excerpt above he explains that by attempting to shoot the elephant he was putting himself into grave danger. But it is not a fear for his "own skin" which compels him to go through with this course of action. Instead, it was a fear outside of "the ordinary sense." What did Orwell fear?
• In colonial Burma a small number of British civil servants, officers and military personnel were vastly outnumbered by their colonial subjects. They were able to maintain control, in part, because they possessed superior firepower- a point made clear when Orwell states that the "Burmese population had no weapons and were quite helpless against (the elephant)." Yet, Orwell's description of the relationship between the Burmese and Europeans indicates that the division of power was not necessarily that simple. How did the Burmese resist their colonial masters through non-violent means? Show examples from the text to support your ideas.
• Explain how you would feel and what you would do if you were in Orwell's position.

Journal #15 5/11/06

Read the following quote and respond by either analyzing what is being said or reflecting personally through your own experience. Please use the SAT Word of the Day in your answer.

Word of the Day:
Florid (FLOR id)--describing flowery or elaborate speech
Examples:
The speech of the man who addressed the graduating class was so florid that it confused half of the class and bored the other half.
When you accept your award, keep it simple; you don’t have to be so florid.

Quote:
When the rich think about the poor, they have poor ideas.

Evita Peron

Classwork 5/10/06

• Read the following passages from the essay and use as a jumping off point for answering the following questions. You may wish to review the definitions of metaphor, irony, and connotation and denotation.
  
  Metaphor

  But at that moment I glanced round at the crowd that had followed me. It was an immense crowd… They were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick. They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching. And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd—seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the "natives," and so in every crisis he has got to do what the "natives" expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it...

1. In this passage Orwell uses a series of metaphors: "seemingly the lead actor," "an absurd puppet," "he wears a mask," "a conjurer about to perform a trick." as well as comparing the colonial official to a "posing dummy." Examine this series of metaphors individually as well as collectively in order to find the overarching metaphor for the entire incident.
2. If Orwell is "seemingly the lead actor," who is the audience? What is the 'part' he is playing?
3. If he is "an absurd puppet," then who is the puppeteer? Does Orwell as the puppet have only one person or group pulling his strings, or is there more than one puppet master?
4. How are the metaphors of the "absurd puppet" and the "posing dummy" similar?
5. How does his description of himself seemingly the lead actor make this metaphor similar to the "absurd puppet" of the next phrase?
6. How is Orwell's description of the colonial official as 'wearing a mask' similar to his own part in this situation as the "lead actor"?
7. Each of these metaphors has a theatrical basis. In the following paragraph he even states: "The crowd grew very still, and a deep, low, happy sigh, as of people who see the theatre curtain go up at last, breathed from innumerable throats." What is the 'theater' in which this 'scene' is being 'played'? What is the 'play'?

How does Orwell use metaphors in order to describe a people and a situation geographically and culturally unfamiliar understandable to his readers?

Irony

…The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced to a grinning corpse like that Indian up the hill. And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do.

1. When irony is employed by a writer the true intent of his or her words is covered up or even contradicted by the words that are used. Where is irony employed in this excerpt, and what is Orwell's true intent?
2. The use of irony often also presumes there being two audiences who will read or hear the delivery of the ironic phrase differently. One audience will hear only the literal meaning of the words, while another audience will hear the intent that lies beneath. Who are the two audiences to whom Orwell is speaking?

Connotation and Denotation

In this section a series of sentences and phrases will be supplied which should provide examples showing differences between the connotative and denotative meanings. Denotative meanings are generally the literal meaning of the word, while connotative meanings are the "coloring" attached to words beyond their literal meaning. For example, the "army of people" Orwell refers to in his essay bring to mind not only a large group of people, but also a military and oppositional force. Explain the connotative and denotative meanings of the following words or phrases using this organizational chart.

Journal #14 5/10/06

Read the following quote and respond by either analyzing what is being said or reflecting personally through your own experience. Please use the SAT Word of the Day in your answer.

Word of the Day:
integrity n.--uncompromising adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.
Examples:
The soldier fought to preserve the integrity of the empire.
After cheating on the test, John knew that he lacked integrity.


Quote:
It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Short Essay Response to "Shooting an Elephant" Due Wed. 5/10

2-3 paragraphs:

Review Orwell's essay, and find one passage that you think is especially important, controversial, or even upsetting. Write a brief essay in which you cite the passage and explain why you have chosen it. In your essay, be sure to describe your response to the passage, and state whether you think it relates to any situation in society today.

Journal #13 5/9/06

Read the following quote and respond by either analyzing what is being said or reflecting personally through your own experience. Please use the SAT Word of the Day in your answer.

Word of the Day:
Inconsequential (in kahn suh KWEN shul)--unimportant
Examples:
As it happened, the cost of the car was inconsequential to Mr. Fortas because he had more money than he knew what to do with.
Your excuse is inconsequential; all that matter is that you broke the law.

Quote:
I believe it.
I see it.
A day is coming
in which a soldier will be
decorated
for helping
instead of killing
his poor brother.

Lalo Delgado

Research Papers Due Tomorrow!

• Use the class period today to polish up and finish your senior research paper.
  
• Tomorrow your papers are due both to ME and your SENIOR ADVISOR.

Journal #12 5/8/06

Read the following quote and respond by either analyzing what is being said or reflecting personally through your own experience. Please use the SAT Word of the Day in your answer.

Word of the Day:
Remote (ruh MOAT)--located far away
Examples:
Farmer Brown lived in a remote village that lacked running water, telephones, and even electricity.
This broadcast will reach everyone, even those in the most remote areas of the country.

Quote:
stupid america, remember that chicanito
flunking math and english
he is the picasso
of your western states
but he will die
with one thousand masterpieces
hanging only from his mind.

Lalo Delgado

Thursday, 5/4

My gift to you...

Work on your senior presentations

Presentation Reheasals in three weeks!

Journal #11 5/4/06

Read the following quote and respond by either analyzing what is being said or reflecting personally through your own experience. Please use the SAT Word of the Day in your answer.

Word of the Day:
Portend (por TEND)--to serve as an omen or a warning of
Examples:
When a black cat crosses your path it portends bad luck in the future.
The darkening of the sky portends an oncoming storm.

Quote:
I learned to discipline myself to do things I didn't want to do.

Edward James Olmos

Classwork & Homework 5/3/06

Classwork:

1. With a partner, read "At the Pitt-Rivers" by Penelope Lively.
2. Create a chart like the one at the bottom of the cover page and draw conclusions based on the reading.
3. Complete the Literary Analysis paired activity on Setting on the last page.
   

Homework:

1. Answer questions 5, 6, & 7 on the last page.

Classwork 5/2/06

Yearbook Memories 2005-2006
Tell a story!
Be heard!

Write ONE short (100-150 words) stories for yearbook consideration(DUE AT THE END OF THE PERIOD) and ONE FOR HOMEWORK (DUE TOMORROW) Each is worth 20 points. For those students who want to earn extra credit, up to TWO additional stories may be submitted. Word Process all stories.

Possible Topics

I. People Who Make a Difference :
a. School Staff
b. Friend
c. House Parent
d. Office Staff
e. Family Member
f. SPAN volunteer
g. Coach
h. Tutor
i. Peer mentor
j. Kitchen staff
k. UROCK
l. YES Program

II. Standouts: People who…
a. Make others laugh
b. Have an artistic ability
c. Sing or play an instrument
d. Excels in sports
e. Excels academically
f. Leads positively by example

III. Student Life
a. What’s your favorite part of the school day? Why?
b. What do you do in your spare time? Describe
c. Describe something positively unique or unusual about SPA that you most likely won’t forget. (Think setting, location, life style, size etc…)
d. Things to do around campus (i.e. skate ramp by café’)
e. Dances
f. Spirit week memories
g. Off campus jobs
h. Best friends “What is a best friend?” “What kind of activities do best fiends do?” Interview a pair of friends and write a story about their friendship.

IV. Sports
a. If you were on a team, what was the most important thing you learned about teamwork this year? How did you learn it? Give an example.
b. Football – Most dramatic play? Memorable event? Embarrassing moment? Inspirational player? Etc…
c. Volleyball
d. Basketball
e. Softball
f. Spectator

V. Activities/Clubs (Describe the one thing you learned the most, accomplished, or won’t forget in …)
a. Outdoor Outreach
b. Interact
c. Woodshop
d. Agriculture
e. Comedy Improv
f. Peer Mentor/Insight

Journal #9 5/2/06

Read the following quote and respond by either analyzing what is being said or reflecting personally through your own experience. Please use the SAT Word of the Day in your answer.

Word of the Day:
Transitory (TRAN zih toh ree)--short-lived or temporary
Examples:
The sadness she felt was only transitory; tomorrow, she was certain, her mood would improve.
The attention that salesperson is paying toward me is only transitory-when a wealthier customer comes in, I’m sure he’ll move on to her.

Quote:
The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.

Ernesto 'Che' Guevara

Classwork & Homework 5/1/06

Classwork:

1. Read the post on "Why I Will Boycott on May 1"
2. Take Cornell Notes on what this student has to say and what at least 3 others have to say in response to his writing.

Homework

1. Write a 3-4 paragraph persuasive essay which agrees or disagrees with what you took notes on.

Journal # 8 5/1/06

Read the following quote and respond by either analyzing what is being said or reflecting personally through your own experience. Please use the SAT Word of the Day in your answer.

Word of the Day:
Unfettered (un FET erd)--set free from restrictions or bonds
Examples:
Having completed the last of her work for the semester, Carol was unfettered by scholastic responsibilities.
I can’t wait to get to college, where I’ll be unfettered by rules and curfews.

Quote:
Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. We have seen the future, and the future is ours.

Cesar Chavez