Sonnets

· 14 lines of iambic pentameter
da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM

· Sonnets concerned with universal questions of time, death, beauty, love, moral integrity and poetry itself

English--Shakespearean
· Three quatrains (4-line stanza) and a heroic couplet (2 rhyming lines)
· Rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg

Italian—Petrachan
· Octave (8-line stanza) and sestet (6-line stanza)
· Volta—the shift from octave to sestet with a dramatic change in meaning and/or tone
· Rhyme scheme: abbaabba cdecde
· can change sestet’s rhyme scheme to create a concluding heroic couplet

Choice Book and Essay

The Choice Book Unit final multiple choice exam will be held Tuesday, Dec. 16 during the shortened late start day period. The 25-question test covers the characters, plot and setting of the book that you read.

The essay on your choice book is due Friday, Dec. 19. If you are absent from school that day and have not turned in the paper prior to Friday, please email it to me by 3:10 p.m.

Here are the essay prompts and checklist:

Essay Prompts:

1. How do political situations affect the personal relationships in the novel?

2. What does your choice novel teach the reader about the key components to a successful government?

3. What is the author saying about obsession in the novel?

4. Analyze the connection between hope and despair in your novel.

5. What does the novel say about the role of religion in people’s lives?

6. What is the author saying about mental health in the novel?

7. What is the author saying about nature’s healing power in the novel?

8. Compare and contrast the choice novel with either Brave New World or Things Fall Apart in terms of theme(s) developed.


Essay Checklist

____ The essay is at least two pages, double-spaced, 12-point font, with one inch margins.

____ The essay has a creative title.

____ The introduction has an attention-grabbing device like an anecdote or relevant quotation.

____ The book’s title and author is incorporated into the introduction.

____ The thesis statement includes specific cultural components and the connection to humanity.

____ The body paragraphs have clear topic sentences.

____ Analytical statements are supported with direct quotations from the novel.

____ MLA format is used to cite all direct quotations (e.g. Shelley 24) and other sources cited.

____ The essay is free of plagiarism.

____ The conclusion leaves the reader with a lasting impression by commenting on the relevance of the topic for the reader’s life. In other words, why do humans care about the issues discussed in the essay?

Common--I Have a Dream

Thanks Ariel for sharing Common's "I Have a Dream" during class today. Here's a link to a video of the song. I love it!

And for hour 5, Hannah's favorite pianist plays The Office theme song.

Roehl's Favorite Hip Hop Artists

One of my favorite Hip Hop artists is Bryonn Bain, Brooklyn's Famed Spoken Word Poet. Bain currently teaches at Columbia University and at Riker's Island Prison. The Utne Reader claims that Bryonn Bain is one of 30 visionaries under 30 who are changing the future.


Bain first came into the national spotlight when he was falsely imprisoned by the NYPD during his second year at Harvard Law School. Following his false imprisonment, Bain wrote the article "Walking While Black" for The Village Voice, and that article earned him a Mike Wallace interview on 60 Minutes.


I took a class from Bryonn last year about the importance of Hip Hop to youth culture. Here are some ideas from my notebook:

1. Many Hip Hop artists incorporate socially responsible themes into their music; however, the music industry capitalizes on stereotypes of gangs, guns, drugs, and misogyny.


2. 70% to 80% of Hip Hop consumers are white, suburbanites.


3. Rap is something you do. Hip Hop is something you live.


4. The components of Hip Hop are the DJ, the graffiti artist, the B-Boy or B-Girl breakdancer, and the emcee (also known as the spoken word poet or rap artist).

Bain's Hip Hop lesson ideas for schools have been greatly influenced by Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. For an excerpt of Freire's book, click here.


Click here to watch a five-minute clip about Bryonn Bain.

Listen to a few of Byronn's songs, like "Ancestor's Watching," by clicking here.


For more information about Bryonn, visit his website bryonnbain.com.


Another favorite Hip Hop artist of mine is Origin. Origin, aka Jeremy Dudley, is an elementary school teacher in Albany, New York. Jeremy, like me, is a teacher working with the National Urban Alliance (NUA).

Click here to check out Origin's website and some of his songs. There's even a news video about the rapping elementary teacher.

Here's a picture of Jeremy with Evelyn Rothstein (the woman responsible for the A to Z Taxonomy, defining format, and the metacognition frame) at a workshop that I attended in Albany last summer.