Tuesday, January 31, 2006

EGYPTIAN WEBQUEST INSTRUCTIONS

You may work with partners on the webquest, but I expect all work to be your own. For example, don't complete one section and let your partner complete the other and then switch answers. Everyone should be reading and answering the questions together--the purpose of partners is to help you find an answer if you cannot find it on your own.

IMPORTANT: WHEN YOU ARE DONE WITH THE LAPTOPS, SHUT THEM DOWN ALL THE WAY. Also, wait until the laptop is shut down all the way before you shut the lid on the laptop, or it won't shut down.

Now it's time for the Webquest!

Go to this site: http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/menu.html

Note: If you finish early, then look around different Egyptian sites. Don't look up stuff other than things about Egypt. You should try these webpages:

The entire text of the Book of the Dead
Background information on the Book of the Dead
Information on the Rosetta Stone
Online hieroglyphics translatter (translate your name or a phrase into hieroglyphics)

Posted by Graham at 2:21 PM |

February 1 Agenda

  • Short Essay: What was the most interesting thing you learned about Egypt yesterday? Be specific, give examples, and add lots of detail.
  • Reminder: Turn in any work you've not yet turned in, including those essays!
  • Guided practice: Egyptian Webquest

Work Due: Webquest
Reading Due: Information on webpages

Posted by Graham at 2:18 PM |

Monday, January 30, 2006

Pictures of Egypt

For pictures of the Rosetta Stone, click here
For pictures of the pyramids, click here
For pictures of the Book of the Dead, click here

Posted by Graham at 3:58 PM |

January 31 Agenda

  • Short Essay: What do you know about Egypt? What would you like to know?
  • Grammar: Subjects and Predicate
  • Input and Modeling: Egypt
    • View Egyptian Slide show and go over info on Egypt
    • Focus especially on information about mummies and the Egyptian fascination with death

Work Due: none
Reading Due: pages 64-71 in Blue Book (intro to African Literature)

Posted by Graham at 3:51 PM |

Friday, January 27, 2006

January 30th Agenda

  • Short Essay: Why is it important to have good writing skills?
  • Review: writing exam grading and process
  • Modeling: Planning a writing exam essay--outlining as a class
  • Independent Practice: Complete a writing exam practice (Cause and Effect Essay)

Work due at end of class: Writing Exam Practice

Posted by Graham at 2:36 PM |

Parallel Mythology Resources

I highly recommend the following book, available on Amazon. It's called Parallel Mythology and was written by J.F. Beirlein. It gives a series of different myths and guides you in drawing the parallels between them.

Also, those of you interested in Jung and archetypes should check out the following sites:

Jung's Archetypal Theory Very detailed site with biography and list of archetypes and explanations
Jung's Archetypes A simpler site with good basic information


If you are up to a more scholarly work, check out this article that, among other things, cites the chicken hawk experiement I mentioned in class:
Those behavior-regulating patterns have also been called inborn releasing mechanisms (IRMs), because it is clear that they individual has no way of learning the very well-defined conditions that "release" rigid response patterns (cf. Eibl-Eibesfeld, 20-25). For example a newborn chick can "recognize" the shadow of a chicken hawk passing over the barnyard and "knows" enough to run under a wagon for protection. Experiments with artificial chicken hawks have shown that there are very definite limits within which the hawk shape can be varied in order to obtain the desired IRM behavior from the chicks. This blind kind of knowing, which snaps shut like a steel trap, is also the way our human psyche operates when our level of consciousness is lowered to that of the instinct/archetypes.

Posted by Graham at 2:25 PM |

Parallel Mythology


For those of you who would like a little refresher of parallel mythology, here's a copy of the chart we discussed in class. Go to this link for a larger scaled copy of the picture.

Posted by Graham at 2:21 PM |

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

January 26th Agenda

  • Short Essay: See worksheet
  • Grammar: Review of terms; Quiz tomorrow!
  • Review: Paralllelism
  • Input: Myth symbology
    • Water = life/rebirth
    • Egg = life/birth
    • Clay/dirt = original life/fertility
    • Serpents = fertility/evil?
    • Birds = freedom/hope
    • Wood/trees = life
    • Chaos/darkness = evil
    • Order/light = good
  • Modeling/Input: Flood myths
  • Guided Practice: Flood myth comparison chart

Class Reading: Flood myths
Work due: Flood myth comparison chart

Coming soon...Grammar Quiz and Writing Exam Practice!

Posted by Graham at 1:48 PM |

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

January 25th Agenda

  • Short essay: See worksheet
  • Grammar: Review nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs; go over articles, pronouns, conjunctions, and gerunds
  • Review: Parallelism and Myth vs. Folktale
  • Input: Creation Stories Information
  • Modeling: Flow map of Creation Story (Judeo-Christian)
  • Guided Practice: Flow map of Creation Stories


Class Reading: Creation story info, Creation stories
Work Due: Short essay, creation story flow map & worksheet

Posted by Graham at 2:47 PM |

Beauty and the Beast tales

For more information on the stories of "Beauty and the Beast" and the variations of them, check out these websites:

Origins of the Tales and Variations
Collections of Fairy Tales from Around the World

The second link provides an extensive collection of fairy tales, including all the ones we read in class, and many more. You'll be able to compare for yourself how the stories are similar and different. Make sure you check out the other Grimm tales--they are delightfully funny! And the version of the "Little Mermaid" that you should check out is the one by Hans Christian Anderson. While I couldn't find the complete text online, here's a good summary.

Posted by Graham at 1:33 PM |

Monday, January 23, 2006

World Perspective

Part of the purpose of this class is to put you in a perspective of the whole world. For that reason, consider this information:

If Earth's population was shrunk into a village of just 100 people
-- with all the human ratios existing in the world still remaining --
what would this tiny, diverse village look like?

60 would be Asian
12 would be European
14 would be from the Americas
13 would be African

15 would speak Mandarin (Chinese)
6 would speak Hindi (Indian)
6 would speak Spanish
6 would speak English
And nearly everyone else would each speak a different language

52 would be female
48 would be male

70 would be nonwhite
30 would be white

70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian

89 would be heterosexual
11 would be homosexual

6 would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth, and all 6 would be from the United States.
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition

1 would be near death
1 would be pregnant
1 would have a college education
1 would own a computer

Think of it this way.
If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people in the world. If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are fortunate; more than three billion people in the world can't. And if you can simply read this message, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.

Posted by Graham at 2:42 PM |

January 24th Agenda

Short Essay: Part of first week worksheet--fill in the continents on the map.

Grammar: Define parts of speech (quiz on Friday!)

Review: World Village (see information above); Myth vs. Folktale (Myths are religious, folktales are not--both teach--they are didactic--and both entertain)

Modeling: Listen to "Miss Otis Regrets" song and identify parallelism within the song

Input: Beauty and the Beast: Compare and contrast different versions of the "Beauty and the Beast" tales--try to come up with how the stories are similar and different, and why the stories are similar/different

CLASS READING: "Miss Otis Regrets," "Beauty and the Beast Summaries"
WORK: Beauty and the Beast worksheet


Review: Mythology of the World

Posted by Graham at 2:26 PM |

Friday, January 20, 2006

Day One: Introduction to English II



Marhaban! Chaire! Huan yin! Wäljkiimen! Whether in Arabic, Ancient Greek, Chinese, or German, welcome to this class! Today, we will be going over the basic guidelines and principles of this class.

Supplies for class: Please purchase a small three-prong portfolio. You can get these at Wal-Mart for less than 50 cents. Come to class every day with a pen/pencil and paper. That's all you need.

Daily Activities: Every day, you will have an assignment to complete at the beginning of class. The assignment will be posted on the side board, under the "short essay" column. You will complete these activities in your portfolio, which will be turned in periodically (every 2-4 weeks).

Syllabus: We will be covering a broad range of topics, starting with ancient mythology and archetypes. From there, we will move on to Africa and Egypt, then Ancient Greece, then China and Japan, then the Middle Ages of Europe, then the Holocaust, and we'll wrap up with Magic Realism/Surrealism and South America. Trust me, it will be a lot of fun, and a lot of information! And don't worry--if you don't like the culture/literature we're studying now, we switch it up about every 3 weeks or so.

Posted by Graham at 1:07 PM |

Welcome to English II

Welcome to my class! This website will act as a record of all class activities. Miss a day of school? Then check this website and find out what you missed. Not sure if you were supposed to turn that homework in? It's on this webpage, so do it. Interested in what we've been studying and want more info? I'll post links on here, too.

Parents, if you'd like to keep track of what your students are doing, then feel free to look around this webpage. I'll be posting information on class projects, progress report dates, etc., on this web page. You will also, hopefully, be able to use this page as a jumping off point to talk to your child about school.

We will be doing a lot of fun and interesting things in this class! Check back often--it is my goal to update this page every day!

Posted by Graham at 1:03 PM |