It is that time of year -- to make and eat mega mode leftover sandwhiches and to ceremoniously dump our decorative gourds. It is time to sound the Jingle Bells and to Deck the Halls. 

It is also time for school to start up and wind down one more time before another break. 

We do have a bit of business to take care of before you're dashing through the snow on a one horse open sleigh. 


​First off, please submit your TEWWG dialog journals. If you are not planning on submitting a hard copy in class, please do so HERE or on Engrade.

We will spend Monday writing a TEWWG graphic essay reflection (oh yeah, projects are due Monday, too, and I can't wait to see your thinking!), doing the gallery walk thing, and checking out the calendar for the next few weeks. It ought to be an easy enough way to pick up where we left off. 

So: I hope your break has been chock full of love and laughter. Looking forward to seeing you Monday! 

Before you do anything else, pretend that a literary analysis and a high-quality arty collage got married and had a baby. OK, that's a graphic essay. 

CLICK HERE to download the TEWWG graphic essay task sheet, and 
CLICK HERE to download the rubric

Here it is embedded: 

Now, A HUGE THANK YOU TO MS. JORDAN, AP LIT TEACHER IN COLORADO, for her emails and insights about TEWWG and graphic essays. 

And finally, here are a few images and models to help you along. These are for inspiration only. Obviously your project has a set of requirements, but aren't these lovely? 

Let's get to work these two days. This is your unofficial heads-up. You will have ALL of two-days' worth of class for self-directed work.

I'll pitch the TEWWG graphic essay project tomorrow (but will include copies in another post) and after that, it's all yours. Time for dialog journal progress and graphic essay mock up. Class should be useful time for you. Time that you get some thinking done, tie up loose ends, and accomplish what set out to. 

Oh, and might I mention canned goods again??? I love to see you guys working for (yes, an incentive), but the greater good. Go shopping! :)

Finally, when you return from break you will turn in your completed dialog journals, display your graphics essays, and be ready for reflection. You should also be ready to access to the deep recesses of your grammar mind. Heh heh heh.

Alright: enough of all that. Let's make it count this week. Hard work, guys.  

Alright, people. Here's what's been happening in AP Lit these days. 

This week, as is our style, we've been getting down to interpretation and analysis of Their Eyes Were Watching God. On Monday, you teamed up to create questions (so much yes, to the "Pear"allelograms), and Tuesday we had a Tea & Cakes party for our Socratic seminar. See below... :)

For our study of Their Eyes Were Watching God, you will be creating and maintaining a "dialog journal," which essentially, is a double entry note-taking system that requires you to tag important passages and respond to them through interpretation and analysis. 

This assignment encourages you to practice appropriate passage analysis strategies and continue to build critical AP Lit skillz. (<-- yep with a 'z')

Most importantly, practicing the commentary portion of literary analysis is necessary and it is currently the area of greatest need. This should yield lots of juice for the proverbial squeeze. 

So, here is the downloadable handout.

Keep in mind the work we did in class with the pear tree passage. Close reading. Attention to detail, diction, connotation, imagery, and metaphor.  

For the quickest update ever. Last week, here it is: 

Monday: English department Thank a Veteran letter writing day
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: Poetry Out Loud prep
Friday: Their Eyes Were Watching God Day 1

HERE is the TEWWG audio. 
HERE is the November calendar. 
HERE is this weekend's homework. 

All the best & hasta mañana! 

I'm incredibly excited to be embarking on Their Eyes Were Watching God with you. Language and stories amaze me on almost a daily basis, but this story is...well, it's remarkable. 

We do need to build a bit of context and get a primer on the historical backdrop and literary landscape of this novel. 

So, you guys know about "flipped learning" right? Instead of teacher lecturing and so forth IN class, you watch the lectures and so forth OUTSIDE of class? That's how we'll handle information on the Harlem Renaissance and Zora Neale Hurston. 

There are HOURS worth of documentaries and research you could explore. I've looked for the "least you need to know" for now. 

Your task: Watch both embedded videos plus one of your own choosing and take notes. 

Guidelines: 
- Watch the videos I've provided in their entirety. 

- Find one more Harlem Renaissance or Zora Neale Hurston video on your own and watch it. (You may not watch TEWWG analysis or summary videos.)

- Take meaningful and helpful notes. There's no need to write down every.single.thing, BUT you should aim to record relevant, interesting, or meaningful information to build your knowledge and create context for your reading. Notes are due on Monday. (*6th period -- You do not have class Monday due to guest speakers. Please drop them off some time Monday when you're down my way.)

Enjoy! This is interesting stuff. And the beauty of history and literature is learning about the different ways of being a person.