There are FOUR (4) options from which to choose. The one marked #3 is supposed to be #4. I am certain that you can figure our where #3 begins and ends. Happy Hunting.
MPM
PS: Be sure to read the Mural Post so you arrived fully prepared to paint.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Murphy Alert: Your Final Exam (One change...)
Greetings: After serious thought, I've decided that this is how your final will work--
1. The vocabulary portion (28-30) is on Friday (5/14) as planned. we'll spend the rest of the class discussing/wrapping Six Degrees.
2. The writing portion is now a Take Home Essay. Allow exactly 50 minutes. You'll be responding to one of several options. In addition to showcasing your insights about the play, academic integrity is the main thrust here (I'll explain). The writing portion is due the day you take your final.
3. The mural aspect is unchanged. Read the message I posted yesterday so you can be fully prepared. We'll speak more about this on Friday.
1. The vocabulary portion (28-30) is on Friday (5/14) as planned. we'll spend the rest of the class discussing/wrapping Six Degrees.
2. The writing portion is now a Take Home Essay. Allow exactly 50 minutes. You'll be responding to one of several options. In addition to showcasing your insights about the play, academic integrity is the main thrust here (I'll explain). The writing portion is due the day you take your final.
3. The mural aspect is unchanged. Read the message I posted yesterday so you can be fully prepared. We'll speak more about this on Friday.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
The Third Theme for Friday's Final AND Next Week's Mural Project
Our third theme revolves around the notion that life is art. We are constantly creating (or being created), much like painters and their paintings...You'll be able to write about this on Friday; but what follows is what I want you to be thinking about for next week's mural project. You are being given a chance to respond to a written piece of art (a play) that you've seen dramatically performed (a screenplay to a film) by way of painting. Pretty revolutionary? Yes. Interesting? Yes. Fun? Yes.
English 4
Senior Final: Part B
7 points
This is what I dreamt. I didn’t dream so much as realize this. I felt so close to the paintings. I wasn’t just selling them like pieces of meat. I remembered why I loved paintings in the first place—what had got me into this—and I thought—dreamed—remembered—how easy it is for a painter to lose a painting. He can paint and paint—work on a canvas for months and one day he loses it—just loses the structure—loses the sense of it—you lose the painting…(46).
As graduating seniors, you are embarking on a journey into the most exciting time of your lives. You will be making choices that affect your future education, future careers, and future families. I hope you feel the enthusiasm for your choices as much as Flan felt the enthusiasm at the beginning of his life journey. It’s difficult not to be eager at the beginning of one’s life (and anxious at the end), but Paul reminds us, “What about the eighty years we have to live between those two inexorable bookends?” (45).
Flan admits that somewhere on his life journey, he lost his way. He states, “I remembered me as I was. A painter losing a painting” (46). We all have moments of doubt, where we aren’t sure we’ve made the right decisions. We all have moments of regret, moments of weakness, and even moments of paralysis. What we hope for ourselves is that we can move through these moments and learn from them. We hope that our lives will remain on track or at least regain it. Half way through our lives, we don’t want to be, in the words of Ouisa, “a collage of unaccounted-for brush strokes…all random” (118). Ouisa is feeling empty and alone.
So, what can you do to avoid the predicament of the Kittredges? How do you remain grounded and connected, especially in a culture that keeps assailing you with messages that conflict with the idea of being grounded and connected. I am asking you to answer the question that Flan poses, “How do we keep the experience?” When Flan and Ouisa talk of the meaning in their life experiences, they mention color. Ouisa says, “There is color in my life, but I’m not aware of any structure” (118). What is the color in your life? This “color” can be something found within or something found outside of your precious self. What is it that gives your life structure or meaning? What can you turn to today, tomorrow, and well into the future that will always provide comfort and direction? Does life have to be an either/or: “Chaos or Control”? Or can you deal with the both/and of life by negotiating the opposites: Chaos and Control—wild color and rigid structure that beget something of a different category?
What I am asking of you now, is to bottle the energy, enthusiasm, and hope that you feel at this stage of your life and pour it out on paper in the form of a mural. Using both color and structure, symbolically or literally depict on the blank white canvas (ok, butcher paper), what gives your life meaning.
English 4
Senior Final: Part B
7 points
This is what I dreamt. I didn’t dream so much as realize this. I felt so close to the paintings. I wasn’t just selling them like pieces of meat. I remembered why I loved paintings in the first place—what had got me into this—and I thought—dreamed—remembered—how easy it is for a painter to lose a painting. He can paint and paint—work on a canvas for months and one day he loses it—just loses the structure—loses the sense of it—you lose the painting…(46).
As graduating seniors, you are embarking on a journey into the most exciting time of your lives. You will be making choices that affect your future education, future careers, and future families. I hope you feel the enthusiasm for your choices as much as Flan felt the enthusiasm at the beginning of his life journey. It’s difficult not to be eager at the beginning of one’s life (and anxious at the end), but Paul reminds us, “What about the eighty years we have to live between those two inexorable bookends?” (45).
Flan admits that somewhere on his life journey, he lost his way. He states, “I remembered me as I was. A painter losing a painting” (46). We all have moments of doubt, where we aren’t sure we’ve made the right decisions. We all have moments of regret, moments of weakness, and even moments of paralysis. What we hope for ourselves is that we can move through these moments and learn from them. We hope that our lives will remain on track or at least regain it. Half way through our lives, we don’t want to be, in the words of Ouisa, “a collage of unaccounted-for brush strokes…all random” (118). Ouisa is feeling empty and alone.
So, what can you do to avoid the predicament of the Kittredges? How do you remain grounded and connected, especially in a culture that keeps assailing you with messages that conflict with the idea of being grounded and connected. I am asking you to answer the question that Flan poses, “How do we keep the experience?” When Flan and Ouisa talk of the meaning in their life experiences, they mention color. Ouisa says, “There is color in my life, but I’m not aware of any structure” (118). What is the color in your life? This “color” can be something found within or something found outside of your precious self. What is it that gives your life structure or meaning? What can you turn to today, tomorrow, and well into the future that will always provide comfort and direction? Does life have to be an either/or: “Chaos or Control”? Or can you deal with the both/and of life by negotiating the opposites: Chaos and Control—wild color and rigid structure that beget something of a different category?
What I am asking of you now, is to bottle the energy, enthusiasm, and hope that you feel at this stage of your life and pour it out on paper in the form of a mural. Using both color and structure, symbolically or literally depict on the blank white canvas (ok, butcher paper), what gives your life meaning.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Your Homework for tonight: The Imagination
1. Please write a well-developed (and typed) paragraph of response to each each of the following.
A. Paul reflects in the play: "I believe that the imagination is the passport we create to take us into the real world." (33). Explain what he means by this. Feel free to consider this comment in light of the text that surrounds this passage (i.e. pp. 29-33)
B. What is the most imaginative "thing" you have experienced/viewed/witnessed? Is it an object? An artictic creation? A building? An invention? A place? An act or deed? A speech? Etc. Say what it is and why you think it's imaginative.
2. Check out the clip from the film. You'll see it again soon, but it may help you get a better sense of what Guare is after. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t9St3pTlKQ
3. For those who want to understand better why Paul's choice of "imaginary dads" and Sidney Poitier is so important to the play, read and view the following.
A. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001627/bio
B. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/sidney-poitier/about-sidney-poitier/682/
C. Mr. Poitier speaks about Civil Rights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeyrsGvrINo
D. From "In the Heat of the Night": The First 10 minutes...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kI_GkosWio
and, arguably, the most famous slap in film history (especially given the historical context of the slap): http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index.jsp?cid=18935
A. Paul reflects in the play: "I believe that the imagination is the passport we create to take us into the real world." (33). Explain what he means by this. Feel free to consider this comment in light of the text that surrounds this passage (i.e. pp. 29-33)
B. What is the most imaginative "thing" you have experienced/viewed/witnessed? Is it an object? An artictic creation? A building? An invention? A place? An act or deed? A speech? Etc. Say what it is and why you think it's imaginative.
2. Check out the clip from the film. You'll see it again soon, but it may help you get a better sense of what Guare is after. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t9St3pTlKQ
3. For those who want to understand better why Paul's choice of "imaginary dads" and Sidney Poitier is so important to the play, read and view the following.
A. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001627/bio
B. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/sidney-poitier/about-sidney-poitier/682/
C. Mr. Poitier speaks about Civil Rights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeyrsGvrINo
D. From "In the Heat of the Night": The First 10 minutes...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kI_GkosWio
and, arguably, the most famous slap in film history (especially given the historical context of the slap): http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index.jsp?cid=18935
Friday, May 7, 2010
6 Degrees of Separation: Human Web and Small World Theory
Yes...it's a Kandinsky.
Greetings, (soon to be) College Student:
Here are some links that further explore the notion of "Six Degrees of Separation" Students who want to get the most out of the play will read with delight.
1) Here's the Wikipedia page that we looked at today. It's decent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation
2) Check these two bits about the theater side of things. Our play was staged in England this Spring. The first notifies the public about the perormance; the second critiques the production. Ah, drama. Good, informative articles that will help you make sense of things:
A: http://www.playbill.com/news/article/136029-Guares-Six-Degrees-of-Separation-Opens-at-Londons-Old-Vic-Jan-19
B: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/jan/20/six-degrees-of-separation-review
3)This one is for the serious student. Grad school grade: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/swn.d/swn.html
Finally: Play the Six Degrees game with great American luminaries: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/six_degrees_game/index.html
MORE on Monday.
Greetings, (soon to be) College Student:
Here are some links that further explore the notion of "Six Degrees of Separation" Students who want to get the most out of the play will read with delight.
1) Here's the Wikipedia page that we looked at today. It's decent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation
2) Check these two bits about the theater side of things. Our play was staged in England this Spring. The first notifies the public about the perormance; the second critiques the production. Ah, drama. Good, informative articles that will help you make sense of things:
A: http://www.playbill.com/news/article/136029-Guares-Six-Degrees-of-Separation-Opens-at-Londons-Old-Vic-Jan-19
B: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/jan/20/six-degrees-of-separation-review
3)This one is for the serious student. Grad school grade: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/swn.d/swn.html
Finally: Play the Six Degrees game with great American luminaries: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/six_degrees_game/index.html
MORE on Monday.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Schedule: 5/3-5/7
Monday: Vocabulary Test (25-27); Vocab 29; Perspectives Series; H/W Read Six Degrees--cover to cover by tomorrow.
Tuesday: Receive graded PWB narratives; Begin Six Degrees; Perspectives Series
Wed/TR: Six Degrees Actors' Workshop; Perpectives Series
Friday: Six Degrees; Perspectives Series
Tuesday: Receive graded PWB narratives; Begin Six Degrees; Perspectives Series
Wed/TR: Six Degrees Actors' Workshop; Perpectives Series
Friday: Six Degrees; Perspectives Series
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Murphy Alert: Vocabulary Test (25-27) is now on 5/3
YES, Monday (5/3). Meanwhile: we'll be heavy into our Perspectives tomorrow. And, you'll be reading Six Degrees over the weekend. so locate your copy now.
EVA LUNA Challenge Test: In class (for those who want) TOMORROW. See me.
MPM
EVA LUNA Challenge Test: In class (for those who want) TOMORROW. See me.
MPM
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