Pre-AP English II: Free Julius Caesar E-Book

Project Gutenberg has free no-frills Julius Caesar e-texts available for Kindle and iBooks/Kobo reader apps. Click the appropriate link below to get the file, then sync it to your reader.

• Kindle
• iBooks/Kobo (epub format)

Enjoy!

Pre-AP English II: Othello Act V Test Preview

In addition to reviewing today's notes on analyzing author's purpose, you should know the characteristics of these literary devices:

• Alliteration
• Allusion
• Anaphora
• Metaphor
• Onomatopoeia
• Paradox
• Personification
• Simile
• Verbal Irony

English I (Pre-AP): Fahrenheit 451 Test Preview

Here's what you need to know for tomorrow's test:

• Alliteration
• Allusion
• Flashback
• Foreshadowing
• Hyperbole
• Irony
• Metaphor
• Onomatopoeia
• Paradox
• Personification
• Simile
• Tone

Knowing the "Burning Bright" section of the novel and reviewing today's in-class notes probably wouldn't hurt, either.

English Classes: Weekend Reading Joy

Sophomores: You need to read up to the end of Othello, Act 4.

Freshmen: You need to read Fahrenheit 451 up to the break in the middle of page 154 (which is 451 backwards, as someone mentioned as we left the library this morning).

Feel free to finish reading either text, though. The sections above are the minumum you should read. You don't want to be known as someone who only does the bare minimum, do you?

Get reading!

Pre-AP English II: Psychological Manipulation

In class we read an article about psychological manipulation and compared it to the techniques Iago uses in Othello. If you missed it, please read the article and answer the following question:

The article discusses ways to use psychological manipulation to harm others. Please identify and describe one way you could use the ideas contained in the article in a CONSTRUCTIVE way.

English I (Pre-AP): Fahrenheit 451 Vocabulary Set #2

Write the definition of each vocabulary word in the space following the part of speech. Make sure the definition you choose matches the way the vocabulary word is used in the sentence from the text, below.

Use a dictionary or dictionary.com!

• Bewildered (adj.):
• Cite (v.):
• Disperse/-ing (v.):
• Draught (n.):
• Filigree (adj.):
• Fold (n.):
• Hone/-d (v.):
• Latrine (n.):
• Murmur (n.):
• Mush (n.):
• Needle/-ing (v.):

They sat, not touching her, bewildered with her display. (100)

“I’ve always said poetry and tears, poetry and suicide and crying and awful feelings, poetry and sickness; all that mush!” (101)

…she had started on her own slow process of dispersing the dynamite in her house, stick by stick. (102)

It was good listening to the beetle hum, the sleepy mosquito buzz and delicate filigree murmur of the old man’s voice…. (103)

By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. (104)

Montag had to rice from the game and go to the latrine to wash his hands. (105)

“The crisis is past and all is well, the sheep returns to the fold.” (105)

“There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain.…” (106)

“Stop blushing. I’m not needling, really I’m not.” (106)

“‘The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.’” (106)

When you are confident you have the correct definitions, see me and you can complete the post-project quiz.

Pre-AP English II: Othello Vocabulary Set #2

Write the definition of each vocabulary word in the space following the part of speech. Make sure the definition you choose matches the way the vocabulary word is used in the sentence from the text, below. Use a dictionary or dictionary.com!

• Bounteous (adj.)
• Cunning (n.)
• Discretion (n.)
• Err (v.)
• Hence (adv.)
• Languish (v.)
• Politic (adj.)
• Solicitor (n.)
• Suitor (n.)
• ’Twas (cont.)
• Warrant (v)

Emilia: Good madam, do, I warrant it grieves my husband / As if the cause were his (3.3.3-4)

Cassio: Bounteous madam, / Whatever shall come of Michael Cassio,/ He’s never anything but your true servant (3.3.7-8)

Desdemona: He shall in strangeness stand no farther off / Than in a politic distance. (3.3.12-13)

Desdemona: Therefore be merry, Cassio, / For thy solicitor shall rather die /Than give thy cause away (3.3.26-28)

Desdemona: Well, do your discretion. (3.3.34)

Othello: I do believe ’twas he. (3.3.40)

Desdemona: I have been talking with a suitor here, / A man that languishes in your displeasure (3.3.42-43)

Desdemona: For if he be not one that truly loves you / That errs in ignorance and not in cunning, / I have no judgment in an honest face. (3.3. 48-50)

Othello: Went he hence now? (3.3.51)

When you are confident you have the correct definitions, see me and you can complete the post-project quiz.

English I (Pre-AP): What's in a Name Project

Authors often choose names based on what they symbolize (Grant is generous, Joy is happy) or what they may allude to (Adam or Eve to the Genesis account of mankind’s origin). Montag’s name in Fahrenheit 451 refers to a brand of paper; Faber refers to a brand of pencil (the relationship between pencil and paper can be seen in the relationship between the two men). As the protagonist of your own story, your life, what does your name say about you?

Collect the following information, then create a poster (8.5 x 11—regular paper size—or larger) displaying everything you know about your name.

What does your name mean (first, middle, last)—You may look it up in a baby-naming book at a bookstore or online at a site like babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com. Last names can be found at genealogy.familyeducation.com.

If possible, ask your parents why they chose the name(s) they gave you and write down their response(s).

How much is your name a part of your identity? What do you feel your name “says” about you? If you changed your name would you become a different person? Why or why not? Include this information in your poster, too.

Due: April 23rd—you may orally present your poster in class for extra credit.

Pre-AP English II: Iago's Web

Track the web of destruction Iago generates as he manipulates Othello toward his doom. (see partial example at bottom of post)

Step One:
Place the following character names in a circle extending to near the edges of your paper.

• Brabantio
• Cassio
• Desdemona
• The Duke
• Emilia
• Othello
• Montano
• Roderigo

Step Two:
Draw lines citing the relationship between the characters prior to Iago’s campaign of manipulation. (For instance, the line between Brabantio and Desdemona would be labeled “father/daughter.”)

Step Three:
Then place Iago somewhere within the web you’ve made and in a different color, connect the relationships he has with the characters and how his involvement has tainted the other characters’ relationships. (For instance, a red line between Brabantio and Desdemona labeled “Brabantio disowns Desdemona.”

Step Four:
Keep adding “Iago lines” until the end of the play. (The new line connecting The Duke to Othello will be one of the last added.)

Due Date: April 26, 2013


Your project will have more information than this on it.

English I (Pre-AP): Fahrenheit 451 Test Preview

Tomorrow's test will cover scenes from pages 60-68 in the novel and cover the following literary devices:

• alliteration
• flashback
• foreshadowing
• hyperbole
• irony
• metaphor
• onomatopoeia
• oxymoron
• personification
• paradox
• simile
• symbolism

Be very prepared.

Pre-AP English II: Othello Act One Test Preview

The following literary devices will be on tomorrow's test. Know them well.

• Alliteration
• Allusion
• Anaphora
• Hyperbole
• Metonymy
• Onomatopoeia
• Oxymoron
• Personification
• Simile
  
  as well as
  
  
• Dramatic Irony
• Situational Irony
• Verbal Irony

English I (Pre-AP): Fahrenheit 451 Vocabulary

Write the definition of each vocabulary word in the space following the part of speech. Make sure the definition you choose matches the way the vocabulary word is used in the sentence from the text, below.

Use a dictionary!

• Compressed (v.):
• Gesture (n.):
• Gorging (adj.):
• Hysterical (adj.):
• Igniter (n.):
• Illumination (n.):
• Luxuriously (adv.):
• Marionette (n.):
• Pedestrian (n.):
• Pulverized (v.):
• Tatters (n.):
• Venomous (adj.):

With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. (3)

[H]e flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. (3)

[H]e showered luxuriously, and then, whistling, hands in pockets, walked across the upper floor of the fire station and fell down the hole. (4)

Or was the atmosphere compressed merely by someone very quietly there, waiting? (5)

It was not the hysterical light of electricity but—what? But the strangely comfortable and rare and gently flattering light of the candle. (7)

[H]is mother had found and lit a last candle and there had been a brief hour of rediscovery, of such illumination that space lost its vast dimensions and drew comfortably around them. (7)

It’s like being a pedestrian, only rarer. (9)

[S]he was like the eager watcher of a marionette show, anticipating each flicker of an eyelid, each gesture of his hand, each flick of a finger, the moment before it began. (11)

He felt that the stars had been pulverized by the sound of the black jets and that in the morning the earth would be covered with their dust like a strange snow. (14)

When you are confident you have the correct definitions, see me and you can complete the post-project quiz.

Pre-AP English II: Othello Vocabulary

Write the definition of each vocabulary word in the space following the part of speech. Make sure the definition you choose matches the way the vocabulary word is used in the sentence from the text, below. Use a dictionary!

• Abhor (v)
• Bombast (adj)
• Epithet (n)
• Hold (v)
• Homage (n)
• Obsequious (adj)
• Peculiar (adj)
• Rouse (v)
• Suit (n)
• Vexation (n)

Iago: If ever I did dream of / such a matter, abhor me. (1.1.4-5)

Roderigo: Thou told’st me / Thou didst hold him in thy hate. (1.1.5-6)

Iago: (In personal suit to make me his lieutenant) (1.1.10)

Iago: But he (as loving his own pride and purposes) Evades them with a bombast circumstance Horribly stuffed with epithets of war (1.1.13-15)

Iago: (doting on his own obsequious bondage) (1.1.48)

Iago: And when they have lined their coats, / Do themselves homage. (1.1.56-57)

Iago: Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty, / But seeming so, for my peculiar end. (1.1.61-62)

Iago: Call up her father. / Rouse him. (1.1.69-70)

Iago: Though that his joy be joy / Yet throw such changes of vexation on’t, / As it may lose some color. (1.1.73-75)

When you are confident you have the correct definitions, see me and you can complete the post-project quiz.

Pre-AP English II: "Haircut" Ending

In class we discussed the "unreliable narrator" (a narrator who may intentionally or accidentally obscure the truth). The barber in Ring Lardner's short story falls into this category. (Iago, in Othello may be another.)

First, read the short story, then answer the following question:

What about Jim's death is the narrator unaware of?

English I (Pre-AP): Tone in Fahrenheit 451

Read the following passage, then write a short paragraph identifying the scene's tone. You must support your idea with embedded text evidence.

He opened the bedroom door.

It was like coming into the cold marbled room of a mausoleum after the moon had set. Complete darkness, not a hint of the silver world outside, the windows tightly shut, the chamber a tomb-world where no sound from the great city could penetrate. The room was not empty.

He listened.

The little mosquito-delicate dancing hum in the air, the electrical murmur of a hidden wasp snug in its special pink warm nest. The music was almost loud enough so he could follow the tune.

He felt his smile slide away, melt, fold over, and down on itself like a tallow skin, like the stuff of a fantastic candle burning too long and now collapsing and now blown out. Darkness. He was not happy. He was not happy. He said the words to himself. He recognized this as the true state of affairs. He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off across the lawn with the mask and there was no way of going to knock on her door and ask for it back.

Without turning on the light he imagined how this room would look. His wife stretched on the bed, uncovered and cold, like a body displayed on the lid of a tomb, her eyes fixed to the ceiling by invisible threads of steel, immovable. And in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talk coming in, coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind. The room was indeed empty. Every night the waves came in and bore her off on their great tides of sound, floating her, wide-eyed, toward morning. There had been no night in the last two years that Mildred had not swum that sea, had not gladly gone down in it for the third time.

The room was cold but nonetheless he felt he could not breathe. He did not wish to open the curtains and open the french windows, for he did not want the moon to come into the room. So, with the feeling of a man who will die in the next hour for lack of air,.he felt his way toward his open, separate, and therefore cold bed.

Remember, tone is how the author feels about his/her subject. It is separate from how the protagonist feels, as well as from how the reader feels (though it may be aligned with either or both). It is revealed primarily by the connotations inherent in the author's word choice (diction) as well as the author's selection of literary devices (metaphor, simile, hyperbole, irony, etc.). Consider using the following stem(s) in writing your paragraph:

The tone of the passage is [tone]. Bradbury makes this clear by choosing [quoted diction/literary devices], which make it clear [explanation].

Pre-AP English II: Open-Ended Questions

If you were absent today, please respond to the following Open-Ended Questions about Othello.

How does Roderigo help Iago? Why? Support answer with embedded text evidence.

Summarize the “conversation” Iago and Roderigo have with Brabantio. Support answer with embedded text evidence.

If you were in class today and would like another shot at earning a 70, re-try the questions above. If you would like to possibly earn an 85, answer the following question, as well:

In Act 1, Scene 2, line 58, why does Iago challenge Roderigo to a duel with the line "You, Roderigo! come sir, I am for you"? Support your answer with evidence from Act 1, Scene 1.

English I (Pre-AP): Open-Ended Questions

If you were absent today, please respond to the following Open-Ended Questions about Fahrenheit 451.

Summarize Montag’s relationship with Clarisse McClellan. Support your answer with embedded text evidence.

Describe what happens to the woman Montag tries to arrest when the firemen arrive at 11 North Elm St. Support your answer with embedded text evidence. (In other words, why doesn’t he arrest her?)

If you were in class today and would like another shot at earning a 70, re-try the questions above. If you would like to possibly earn an 85, answer the following question, as well:

Describe two pieces of household technology mentioned in the beginning of the novel. What are they similar to in our world.

English Classes: Midweek Reading Assignments

You will have a test on the text you are reading this Friday. Be prepared for the test by having read at least as far as...

• Pre-AP English II: Through the end of Othello, Act 1, Scene 3
  
  
• English I (Pre-AP): Through the end of the first section (The Hearth and the Salamander) of Fahrenheit 451

English I (Pre-AP): Ender's Game on Sale

Amazon is currently offering a Kindle version of Ender's Game for $3.49. Although we won't be reading it this year (due to picking up Fahrenheit 451 for The Big Read), it will be assigned either for your summer reading or in Pre-AP English II class next year.

Either way, this is a great opportunity to pick up the book for cheap.

Go get it!

English Classes: Reading Assignments for April 5-7

On Monday, April 8, there will be quizzes covering the following material.

Pre-AP English II: Othello, Act 1, scenes 1 and 2.

English I (Pre-AP): Fahrenheit 451, from the beginning through the *** at the top of Page 41 (The last line you'll read is "Damn!" said Beatty. "You've gone right by the corner where we turn for the firehouse.")

You, of course, may read more if you wish. I won't stop you.

English I (Pre-AP): Fahrenheit 451 Opening

If you missed class on Thursday, please print out and complete the following assignment.

The first line of the novel is: It was a pleasure to burn. In the opening passage, draw an oval around each word/phrase that deals with pleasure, joy, sensuality, etc. (eg., the word pleasure in the first sentence and the phrase special pleasure in the second). Mark each word/phrase that deals with burning, fire, destruction, etc., with an “explosive balloon”(eg., the word burn in the first sentence and blackened in the second; some, like eaten in the second sentence will have both). When you are done, complete the answer at the bottom of the page.

If you would like to annotate your copy of the novel, you may do that instead of marking up the worksheet, but you should still complete the short-answer question at the bottom.

English Students: Bonus Points Opportunity

Need some bonus points? Of course you do.

Follow these three easy steps:

1. Enjoy the Shakespeare Dallas presentation at NorthPark Center this Saturday at 1pm.
2. Take a picture of you and someone Shakespeare-y.
3. Show me the picture on Monday.

Ka-ching! (Bonus bonus points if you get the Shakespeare-y person to make "duck lips.")

English I (Pre-AP): Bradbury/Fahrenheit 451 Presentation

If you missed the presentation on Ray Bradbury and Fahrenheit 451, please view the Prezi below and take complete notes.

Pre-AP English II: Reading Test Tips

If the Reading Test materials are completely separate from the Writing Test, I'll be able to update this until 6:30am on April 4th. Otherwise, like the Writing Test Tips post, I won't be able to provide additional tips beyond 6:30am on the 3rd.

[6:15pm] The following are some tips for the Open-Ended Question. Make sure you understand key terms in the question, particularly literary elements like "symbolize," "compare," "contrast," or "figuratively"

• symbolize: likely a material object is representing a larger thing, possibly even an idea or concept
• compare: what are similarities
• contrast: what are differences
• figuratively: something metaphorical (not necessarily a metaphor, but definitely not literally true)

Answer all parts of the question.

• If the question asks about something "before and after," or "at the beginning and the end" your answer must address both. "Throughout the course of the story" also means "beginning and end." Sneaky.

Higher level vocabulary can boost your score if you use it correctly.

Your text evidence must relate to and support your idea/answer. Be very careful. Act as if your reader hasn't read the story and cannot fill in any gaps of logic you may have skipped over.

[4:15pm] Here's a page with tips for embedding quotations.

[3:40pm] Grammar Girl has "quick and dirty" tips covering:

• Grammar (duh),
• Punctuation, and
• Word Choice

[3:20pm] The Oatmeal has several web-comic/poster guides to better spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Some include vocabulary of questionable appropriateness. Fair warning.

Pre-AP English II: Writing Test Tips

Due to test security issues, I will be unable to update this post after 6:30am on April 3rd. New tips will be loaded directly below this paragraph and will be preceded by the time I added the tip. Enjoy!

[3:40pm] Grammar Girl has "quick and dirty" tips covering:

• Grammar (duh),
• Punctuation, and
• Word Choice

[3:20pm] The Oatmeal has several web-comic/poster guides to better spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Some include vocabulary of questionable appropriateness. Fair warning.

[3:00pm] Write your essay on the proper page. Remember that the prompts and the answer documents are symbol-coded. If the prompt has triangles at the top, be sure to write your response in the 26-line box with triangles at the top. Likewise circles, squares, diamonds, horseshoes, rainbows, four-leaf clovers, etc.

[2:55pm] Graphic organizers are powerful tool. Use them!

• Expository Graphic Organizer
• Persuasive Graphic Organizer

[2:50pm] Make sure you write the correct essay based on the prompt. Remember:

• Position = Persuasive
• Explain = Expository