AP Language & Comp test prep, Day 2

Learning Target:  I can identify and reflect on AP question types designed to assess specific types of rhetorical awareness.

Bellringer: What did you find most challenging about yesterday's passages and questions?
Keep in mind that you had only 25-26 minutes to answer 25 questions, while on a normal AP exam you would have 60 minutes to answer 55 questions (i.e., you would have potentially had a few more seconds for each question if this were an actual AP exam). Time was probably a factor for most of you, so definitely reflect on that, but also try to reflect on at least one other challenge you experienced yesterday. (4 mins)

Pair and share with someone near you. (2 mins)

Activity 1: Read and annotate Analysis of the Directions and Test-Taking Strategies on pages 10-12 (top half). (5 mins)       Quick write (1 minute):  Which tips were most helpful or surprising?

Pair and share with someone near you (2 mins)

Activity 2: Music Break (5 minutes)...

Discuss one of your Mix Tapes songs with your partner.  What makes it a top-ten lifetrack for you?  

Whole class music sharing (5 mins)...If I call on you, tell the class a little about the song your partner shared with you.

Activity 3: Read the Question Categories on pp 12-14.  Then, take out the question packet from yesterday, and then, working with a partner, label each question (1-25) according to the question type. (15 minutes)

Activity 4 (10 mins):  Mr. Wesley returns your score sheet. Working independently, turn to page 20 to figure out which ones you missed and what the question category was for each missed question - label the question types next to the questions in the passage and question types or your grade/cam sheet. Also, on pages 21-22, read the answer explanations for the questions you missed.

Homework:  On the turnitin discussion board, write a paragraph reflection on the following: 1) The primary challenges you faced with the practice MC section and 2) what you might work (strategy-wise or skill/content-wise) to improve your reading passage scoring moving forward.  (2 points)

Day 1 AP Language & Composition Test Prep

Day 1 AP Language & Composition Test Prep

Materials:

25 question gradecam forms

Cliff’s AP Language & Comp pp 1-14

Cliff’s MC Practice Test (pp 17-19)

Hand out 25 question gradecam form

Guide students through highlights of pp. 1-14 about the test and strategies (25 minutes)

Hand out the Cliff’s MC Practice Test (pp 17-19) and have them take the test (25-27 mins)

Have students hand in the gradecam sheet at the end of class, but hold onto the actual MC practice test

Learning Target: Don't fight the funk. I can identify what moves me and why.

Desert Island Mix-Tape: Ten songs, one to three sentence comments on each choice (and maybe a visual decal for you creative types)

One of my top ten songs...
Papa Was A Rolling Stone 
by The Temptations

Other R&B fav's...
Ain't No Sunshine by Bill Withers
Everyday People by Sly and the Family Stone
Try a Little Tenderness by Otis Redding
Proud Mary by Ike and Tina Turner
Love Rollercoaster by The Ohio Players
Atomic Dog by Parliament

New School/Old School
Hey Ya by Outkast

Miscellaneous make-up work & activities

Homework:
Bring Cliff's AP Language and Composition book tomorrow

Choose one of the following prompts and write an insightful, coherent, and textually-supported essay in response. You may use your copy of Beloved to help you find pertinent quotes for your essay (each essay should contain three to four properly cited (pg #) quotes embedded into your sentences).  The essay is worth 70 possible points, and I will assess it holistically according to the rubric on the back of your essay prompt sheet (please staple that sheet to the back of your essay).  Also, submit a digital copy of your essay to turnitin.com.

1. Choose a character from Beloved who is pulled in conflicting directions. Identify the forces of conflict and explain how this illustrates the meaning of the novel as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

4. The quest for power is a strong human drive. Choose a character from Beloved who either seeks to gain power over another or seeks to free himself or herself from the power of another. Write an essay in which you illustrate how this power struggle is essential to the meaning of the novel. Avoid mere plot summary. 

1) Explain what you think Denver means when Paul D asks Denver, "You think she sure 'nough your sister?" and she replies, "At times. At times I think she was -- more."

2) Who is Paul D talking about and what do you think he means when he says, "There are too many things to feel about this woman" (272)? Do you agree with his assessment of her?  What do you think he means?

3) What is the significance of the line: "This is not a story to pass on."? Has Beloved left any trace? Why write a story that should not be passed on?

Slavery and The Making of America

Homework: Quiz tomorrow on chptrs 25 to end of book (20 points); 
Tomorrow we will prep for an in-class essay on Monday or Tuesday.

Barnaby Jones, The Real OG, says finish reading Beloved tonight.  Quiz on ch 19-26 tomorrow, buster! Now put your hands up, and step away from the car.

Hulk at MUN!!!  Hulk SMASH competition!!

Reading day: Finish reading chapter 26 (to the end of 309) and post a  chapter 26 question for discussion to turnitin.com.  We will have a reading quiz Wednesday or Thursday (40 points) on chapters 19-26. It will be quotes followed by questions about those quotes (e.g., who is speaking to whom).  In-class essay (60 points) will follow soon, probably Friday or Monday/Tuesday.

HW: Read to the break at the top of 288 for Tuesday. (Group Guidance on Monday)

Part 1: Summary... With your assigned partner, do your best to paraphrase/summarize your  assigned chapter as best as you are able in about one-page. embedding at least four quotes into the summary. 

Part 2: Analysis of Challenges... After your summary, feel free to acknowledge particular ambiguities and uncertainties surrounding particularly challenging lines, format, or organization.  Identify one or two particularly challenging lines/passages of the chapter, explaining why they are difficult and proposing possible interpretation. About a paragraph in length.

When all the groups are done, read your respective summaries and analyses of challenges to the other tandems within your group and then ask if they have any questions, corrections, comments.  After receiving feedback, the tandem which just presented can make edits to their summary and analysis sections if necessary.

Hand in to Mr. Wesley at the end of class.

Sketches/chalks of Chicago artist Charles White

Homework: Read chapters 22 and 23. If you did not post a link last night, you should write a 5-7 sentence reaction to one of the student posts from yesterday AND you should then also post a link of your own with an explanation of the link and its relevance to Beloved or its themes and topics. (8 points or zero).  Folks who posted last night only have to do the reading for tomorrow, no other work. 

Tennessee
Arrested-development-tennessee-lyrics

1) 5 minutes: Write a reflection on some of the connections (themes, images, attitudes/beliefs/symbols, common motifs, etc). which overlap with Beloved (especially chapter 19) and also feel free to comment on the different or unique ways that Arrested Development articulates these ideas.
2) 5 minutes: Stylistically, what did you notice about the song?  Address some lyrical and musical characteristics you found interesting/significant for the song.

Tennessee by Arrested Development

Lord I've really been real stressed

Down and out, losing ground

Although I am Black and proud

Problems got me pessimistic

Brothers and sisters keep messin up

Why does it have to be so damn tough

I don't know where I can go

To let these ghosts out of my skull

My grandma's passed, my brother's gone

I never at once felt so alone

I know you're supposed to be my steering wheel

Not just my spare tire (home)

But Lord I ask you (home)

To be my guiding force and truth (home)

For some strange reason it had to be (home)

He guided me to Tennessee (home)

Take me to another place

Take me to another land

Make me forget all that hurts me

Let me understand your plan

Lord it's obvious we got a relationship

Talking to each other every night and day

Although you're superior over me

We talk to each other in a friendship way

Then outta nowhere you tell me to break

Outta the country and into more country

Past Dyersburg into Ripley

Where the ghost of childhood haunts me

Walk the roads my forefathers walked

Climbed the trees my forefathers hung from

Ask those trees for all their wisdom

They tell me my ears are so young (home)

Go back to from whence you came (home)

My family tree my family name (home)

For some strange reason it had to be (home)

He guided me to Tennessee (home)

[Interlude: Aerle Taree]

Eshe, she went down to Holly Springs

Rasadon and Baba, they went down to Peachtree

Headliner, I challenge you to a game of horseshoes, a game of horseshoes

Now I see the importance of history

Why my people be in the mess that they be

Many journeys to freedom made in vain

By brothers on the corner playing ghetto games

I ask you Lord why you enlightened me

Without the enlightment of all my folks

He said cause I set myself on a quest for truth

And he was there to quench my thirst

But I am still thirsty

The Lord allowed me to drink some more

He said what I am searching for are

The answers to all which are in front of me

The ultimate truth started to get blurry

For some strange reason it had to be

It was all a dream about Tennessee

Headliner, I won the game of horseshoes

Now you owe me a watermelon

Let's go climb trees and skip over rocks

Do like they do below the border

Speech's hair

Don't it look like the roots of the tree that the ancestors were hung from

But that's okay, get it cause he's down to Earth

HW: Read chapters 20-21 (236-247) and post a link to one outside digital source (song, news event, poem, prayer, historical event, novel, etc) which you feel might provide meaningful lens or connection to chapter 19-21 events, themes, and symbols, or allude to modern-day echoes of the events, themes, symbols found throughout  19, 20 or 21) or the novel as a whole.   Along with embedding the link into your discussion post, explain what the link is about and why you feel it might add another dimension to our reading and connection with the novel. If possible, print a page of your digital text and bring it to class.   

Chapter 17: Paul D keeps repeating "'this ain't her mouth'" while Stamp Paid is trying to tell him about what Sethe has done (185). Why does Morrison have Paul keep repeating how the mouth in the drawing isn't Sethe's? Is it his way of saying it was not really Sethe who did this horrible thing? Is he just in denial?

Chapter 18: Sethe mentions how "there wasn't nobody" to talk to about how to take care of children (188). Is the lack of a mentor to help Sethe raise her children part of the reason why she felt she had to kill her children to protect them? If there would have been another mother around Sethe would it have changed the decision she made?


Homework:  Read a portion of Chapter 19( from 199 to the break near the top of 222). Please post one question for discussion on turnitin.com.

Bellringer:  

1) Why do you think Sethe did what she did? Given the horror of it, do you think such an action could be justified, even in such circumstances? How do you feel about Sethe now? 

2) How do you think she explained her actions to her surviving children? Do you think they forgave her or ever really trusted her again?

3) Schoolteacher purposefully left one of his nephews at home so he would "see what happened when you over beat creatures God had given you the responsibility of–the trouble it was, and the loss" (176). If he was so intent upon making sure his nephews knew how to behave why do you think he didn't stop them from raping Sethe, seeing as he was there when it happened? Why wasn't the other nephew punished in the same manner? What does this show about the superiority complex that whites had created for themselves during this time period?

Homework: Chapters 17-18 and post a discussion question for each chapter

Beloved Chapters 13-14

HW: Tonight, read chapters 15 and 16 in Beloved and respond to the turnitin discussion board question/prompt. I will post the prompt by 4pm.

south-carolina-officer-is-charged-with-murder-in-black-mans-death.html?emc=edit_th_20150408&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=70062985&_r=0

Bellringer:  Find one passage that struck you as especially powerful or interesting and then  and explain the potential symbolic significance of the passage while considering/referencing topics raised in one or more of the following chapters (chptrs 1, 2, 3, 10, 11, 15, 18, 20, 23).

How To Read Literature Like A Professor chapter titles

Chapter 1: Every Trip Is a Quest (Except When It’s Not)

Chapter 2: Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion

Chapter 3: Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires

Chapter 4: If It’s Square, It’s A Sonnet

Chapter 5: Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before?

Chapter 6: When In Doubt, It’s from Shakespeare . . .

Chapter 7: . . . Or the Bible

Chapter 8: Hanseldee and Greteldum

Chapter 9: It’s Greek to Me

Chapter 10: It’s More Than Just Rain or Snow

Chapter 11: More Than It’s Gonna Hurt You: Concerning Violence

Chapter 12: Is That a Symbol?

Chapter 13: It’s All Political

Chapter 14: Yes, She’s a Christ Figure, Too

Chapter 15: Flights of Fancy

Chapter 16: It’s All About Sex . . .

Chapter 17: . . . Except Sex

Chapter 18: If She Comes Up, It’s Baptism

Chapter 19: Geography Matters . . .

Chapter 20: . . . So Does Season

Chapter 21: Marked for Greatness

Chapter 22: He’s Blind for a Reason, You Know

Chapter 23: It’s Never Just Heart Disease . . .

Chapter 24: . . . And Rarely Just Illness

Chapter 25: Don’t Read with Your Eyes

Chapter 26: Is He Serious? And Other Ironies

Homework: Read chptrs 13-14 (148-158) and discuss/interpret one passage from these chapters (or chapter 11 or 12 from last night's reading) in terms of the presence of potential symbolic/literary archetypes and Morrison's possible purpose for including these element in this passage. Provide the beginning and ending line and the page and paragraph number for the passage, and then write a 1-page, 11 point, Times New Roman font, mini-analysis of the passage. Embed at least two quotes into your analysis of symbolism and meaning of the passage and connect your analysis at least partially to one or more chapters in How To Read Like a Professor. You may use the chapter summaries provided in the link below to help jog your memory or to give you the gist of the chapter if you have not read the book. 

Please print a copy for tomorrow's discussion and submit it to turnitin.com. (5 completion points)

Learning Target: I can read closely and critically and and generate meaningful connections and inquiries about the text. 

Annotate for archetypes and "How to Read Like a Professor" connections in chapters 10 through 12.

In-class: Read Chapters 10 through 12 and complete paraphrase and question sheets for tomorrow's discussion.