Mrs. Kenyon's Blog

Honors American Literature

Week of 2/14

Students will read background information on Modernism and historical influences on the literature.  We will then (at last) begin reading The Great Gatsby.  Students have been given questions to answer for the first three chapters.  We will have a reading quiz on the first two chapters on Friday of this week. 

Students will also be given topics to research and present to the class [F. Scott Fitzgerald's life, the Jazz Age in America, the "lost generation," the music of the era (including jazz and blues), fashions of the times, including flappers, hats, headbands, chemises, and hair styles, the Stock Market crash and depression, dances and other entertainments of the 1920s, the Roaring Twenties].

Students will be given their third vocabulary unit, and we will continue our pronoun review.

Honors British Literature

Monday

Read background information on Frankenstein and take notes for quiz later in the week (Thursday). 

Tuesday

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner presentations. 

Wednesday

Finish presentations on Rime.  Students will then be able to work on completing notes on the background information on Frankenstein.

Thursday

Students will take a quiz on the background information for Frankenstein (open note quiz) and begin reading the novel.  Students will be given study questions to complete as they read.  Students will be asked to read the preface (letters 1-4) of the novel.

Friday

We will have a whole class discussion on the connections between Mary Shelley's life and her novel.  We will also discuss the first four letters (preface) of the novel.  Students will also be put into groups for an "envelope" activity.  Each group will be given a theme to track throughout the novel.

It is highly recommended that students continue reading the novel over break.  We will have a reading quiz on the letters and chapters 1-3 when they return from break on Friday.  Prior to the quiz, we will have a graded panel discussion on Thursday.

Honors American Literature

Monday  Review historical background for literature during the Civil War period, and read Stephen Crane's "An Episode of War." 

Tuesday  Discuss the meaning of realism, naturalism and regionalism, and the elements of realism and naturalism found in Crane's short story.  Begin reading the naturalist story "To Build a Fire" by Jack London.

Wednesday  Finish reading "To Build a Fire."  Time allowing, we will begin looking at Stephen Crane's poem "War is Kind."  Students will be asked to analyze the poem using the TPFASTT analysis format.

Thursday  We will take our Wordmaster's Challenge.  Students will then be asked to look at their answers on the practice test for GHSGT and compare them to the key.

Friday  We will take our vocabulary quiz on unit 2.  Students will be asked to complete their review of their GHSGT practice test.

Honors British Literature

Monday  Discuss "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and go over study questions.

Tuesday Distribute and go over project details for the project on this poem; work for the rest of class on project.  (Project and rubric are posted on this blog).

Wednesday  Work on project in class

Thursday  Wordmaster's Challenge; work on project.

Friday  Vocabulary Quiz, Unit 9; work on project.  The project is due on Tuesday, February 15th.  Students unable to be in class during presentations will be asked to do a make-up assignment.  The details about this are included in the information on the project posted to the left hand side of this page.