Quarter Three eval.

Contrary to previous evals, the Quarter Three eval is not mandatory. Additionally, it is anonymous. That said, I encourage you to complete it and to own up to your feedback. As I've said before, your feedback is invaluable and regardless of what you say, so long as it is said respectfully, I won’t think differently of you.

The eval is four short answer questions. You are not required to answer every question. You can answer only those that you wish to address with respect to your performance, my teaching, and the class as a whole. That said, the more of the eval you complete, the more helpful it will be to me.

Please complete before coming to class this next Monday, April 7.

24-hour countdown to Spring Break.

But before that...

1. Complete your Catcher essay final draft. Submit it via Turn It In by 4pm Friday. Our class ID is 2220665 (not the previously posted 220665!) and the password, for obvious reasons, is phony. See Sherf if you do not have a turnitin account and need help setting one up. If you had difficulty with Turn It In last night, please resubmit your essay (even if you've since emailed me your final draft), as the issue is now resolved. For your convenience, I'll have a few laptops available in class today so that you can do this.
   
2. Catcher quiz #2 is Friday. See Study guide.
3. Turn in your Catcher book for an annotations check before you leave for Spring Break.

Thesis statements and passages.

Post here. You do not need to include full passages; a page numbers will do just fine.

Stop studying.

Quiz postponed. Details forthcoming. Spread the word in the lounge and halls. Today we'll discuss the end. (Of Catcher.) Specifically, chapters 22-26. See you then.

—Maurice

Friday's announcements.

1. Finish Catcher.
2. Review Catcher essay assignment and complete prewriting (thesis draft and list of passages).
3. Quiz Monday. Mostly multiple choice; perhaps a few fill in the blanks.

Thursday's board work.

(Click images to enlarge.)

Found.

This newspaper clipping was found in the pages of a used copy of Catcher in the Rye that I bought at a bookstore a few years back. I've forgotten what page I found it in, but it will remain in the book so long as it's in my possession. I can be superstitious like that.

(Click image to enlarge.)

Countdown to Spring Break.

• Thursday, 3.6: Board work on ducks on the pond, Museum of Natural History, red hunting hat, kings in the back row, “catcher in the rye,” etc.
• Friday, 3.7: Continuation of Thursday's board work; a look at chapters 21-24.
  
• Monday, 3.10: Quiz #2; brief thoughts on Catcher's conclusion; Paul Kivel's article.
  
• Wednesday, 3.12: In-class work on Catcher essay; begin The Graduate.
• Thursday, 3.13: In-class work on essay; The Graduate continued.
  
• Friday, 3.14: Essay due; finish The Graduate.
• Spring Break: No homework; optional Catcher bonus and short story supplements.
• after break: Q3 eval; begin Their Eyes Were Watching God.

"Piano Lesson" bonus opps.

After having seen the Penumbra’s staging of The Piano Lesson on Tuesday, you may do one of the following three bonus opportunities.

Write a…

1. Snapshot.
2. Thematic analysis of The Piano Lesson and Fences. (Go beyond a simple compare/contrast; analyze a particular—and specific—element that occurs in each.)
3. Analysis of how staging or other aspects of performance impacted, affected, and worked for or against the content and themes of the play.
   

All options must be one typed page and adhere to MLA formatting. Due before you leave school for Spring Break. Let me know if you need clarification or have any other questions.

So what's the deal with J.D. Salinger, anyway?

- Biography.
- New York Times archives: news and reviews.
- BBC News: "A Glimpse Inside the Life of a Recluse."
- New York Review of Books: "Justice to J.D. Salinger."
- Time Magazine: "All-Time 100 Novels."

FirstClass? Not so much...

More like Second Rate. (Anyone else having problems with it today?)

When it's back up, I'll email you your monologue analysis with marginal comments; however, I won't include a scoring rubric or a formal assessment of any kind. As mentioned in class on Thursday, you are to use the self-assessment I handed out to evaluate yourself. Use my comments, then, to help you determine the answer to each of the five questions on the self-assessment.

I am putting an enormous amount of faith in you that you will be fair and honest. Do this not for my sake, but for your own. I trust that you will not cheat “the system,” but more importantly, I trust that you will not cheat yourself. At first I hesitated in doing this, but after further thought determined that is was a risk worth taking. Sounds dramatic, huh? It isn’t really, but in a way, it is. (This is my best attempt at a Tim ‘O Brien-like contradiction. Profound, I know.)

Thanks; see you tomorrow. Go Bears. Go Literature.

Found in an obscure file folder location:

Quarter 2 eval results.

A letter to you.

Class,

Apparently you have other classes. Weird. I'm mindful that your lives aren't (yet) spent engulfed in and embracing literature every waking moment of the day. I'd be lying if I said that this didn't disappoint me just a bit, but I've cried and I'm over it. Mostly.

I have been thinking about revising the reading skedj for a few days now. We're getting too far ahead in the reading and we need to catch up in class. (For the most part, that's my fault, not yours.) Because of the ease and flow of the narrative, I thought the reading would move along quickly and at a manageable pace. That said, annotating and reading closely certainly slow a reader down and as you might presume, I wouldn't want for any of us (myself included) to go light on the annotations.

So basically, in short, I'll revise the reading assignments and update the class accordingly on Wednesday.

And as if you didn't have enough to read, check out this Stop—Grammar Time! feature: Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location." It is a recent New York Times article that ought to get you on the grammar bandwagon. Thankfully, there's hope for the semicolon after all...

See you all in class,

—El Jefe.

"Piano Lesson" at the Penumbra.

A remdiner that Tuesday, March 4 we'll be going to the Penumbra Theatre to see The Piano Lesson, an August Wilson's play that, like Fences and many of his other works, offers audiences a unique opportunity to examine American history through the prism of the African American experience.

Check out the The Piano Lesson study guide.

Catcher notes.

Post your group notes from Monday's class here. Once each group has posted, fill in your individual handout accordingly.

Groups:

1. Becca, John, Scott, & Taylor: physical description & other characteristics | narrative language & tone.
2. Adam, Eric, Kelins, & Shaina: family, friends, acquaintances, & other characters | themes.
3. Christopher, Maddie, Nina, & Tyler: symbols, metaphors, & other literary devices.
4. Andi, Carly, Jack, & Nik: allusions.

Miscellany.

1. The Hennepin County Library has over a dozen copies of August Wilson's "Piano Lesson." If you do not have a library card and would like to check it out, please let me know and I will check it out for you.
2. "Good-by" is not a misspelling of "good-bye." Both are acceptable, as is "goodbye" and "goodby."
3. "Ironical" is a word. It is an adjective derivative of "ironic" (also an adjective).

Taking "In Rotation" requests.

What's getting heavy play in your rotation? Hard bop? Dub and rock steady? Alt-rock and rock-a-billy? Ambient? Swedish black metal? Show tunes? The Juno soundtrack?

Who's getting heavy play in your rotation? All the Usual Tropes? The Deadly Potholes? DoppleGangstas? Perpetuating Irony? Ryan Hogan & the Pillar of Bees? Trapdoor Survivalists? The Wounded Butterflies?

Post a group or artist, song, or genre that you'd like for me to add to the "In Rotation" section of the sidebar at right.

Supplements to "Twilight, Los Angeles."

• "Riot Act, April 29, 1992," a poem by Ai.
• "April 29, 1992 (Miami)," a song by Sublime.

MPR's "Talking Volumes" with Sherman Alexie.

Author Sherman Alexie recently ventured into young adult literature with two new books, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and Flight. His books are sharp observations of growing up Indian among whites.

Alexie joined Kerri Miller on the stage of the Fitzgerald Theater on Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2007.

Listen to the program: Talking Volumes with Sherman Alexie.

Homework for Monday, 2.11.

Read and annotate the Adrian C. Louis poems. (Download them under the "Quarter Three Class Documents" section located on the sidebar to the right.)

Then, in your notebook, compare and contrast one of the poems to Alexie's "What You Pawn..." short story from last week. Go beyond the typical "How are they similar?" and "In what ways are they different?" questions. Consider the following question instead: How do the poems "speak" to one another, thematically and otherwise?