May 1 Croak J

CROAK  by Gina Damico

May 1 - End Chapter 7

How does Lex react after Driggs juggles with the objects she had just thrown at him? -70

What does Mort mean when he threatens to send Lex back home if she continues to act like a troglodyte? - 70

What does Lex claim she would rather do than be friend Driggs?

The names, Lex, Cordy, Mort, Zara, and Bartleby have meaning.  What does Driggs mean?

Where do Driggs and Lex share their first meal? -71-72

Who was better at catching projectiles, Lex or Driggs?  Give an example. -72

Predict: will Lex be able to get along with Driggs, even if he has the "audacity to ignore her belligerence? - 72

____________________________________

What does "venti caramel macchiato" refer to? - p73  (Extra credit: which is more: Grande, Venti or Trenta? )  Extra Extra credit: What is the design atop both the Iced and Hot Caramel Macciato?

What does Lex learn about herself from Driggs? - p73

Lex used to feel that she had nothing in common with the rest of the human race, even her twin sister, Cordy.  What is she starting to understand about life?

How does Lex's and Drigg's first dinner date conclude? 

APRIL 27 25-26 CROAK

Aim: Why is it important for us to realize that was Lex not just a bully, but an "Equal Opportunity Bully" back a school?  
How does she react when she sees the woman with the gun?
Do Now: Why are people impatient when they choose to waste time and to feel bored?
Is wasting time a form of suffering?
Is Feeling bored a form of suffering?
Is suffering more like pain (like getting hit in the face with a basketball) or is suffering more of a decision?



Aim: Why is it important not to overlook the detail that Driggs is associated with The Who while Lex is associated with Leonardo Di Caprio?  (What conflict is there between The Who and Leonardo DiCaprio?)

(What is the major conflict Lex discovers she has with the human race and what do you think will resolve that conflict?)

Do Now: How do you react when you see something unjust and unfair going on?  Do all people feel as strongly as you do that justice is important?
The Who

CROAK by Gina Damico

Chapters 3-7

1. In life, as in literature, analyzing our first impressions of a character and a character's first impressions of another character can be very important.

(a) What are some of your first impressions of Lex?  

(1) At school? 

(2) At home? 

(3) On the bus? 

(4) When she first meets Uncle Mort?

(b) What are Lex's first impressions of 

(1) Uncle Mort?

(2) The town of Croak?

(3) Driggs

(4) The way her room in Uncle Mort's house was decorated for her?

(5) What Uncle Mort really does for a living? (and it's not farming!)

(6) Kilda?

(7) Norwood

(8) Zara

(9) The Ether

(10) Her Scythe

2. What is the big and important difference between learning the skills you need to do a job before you are hired for the job and learning the skills you need to do a job while "on the job?"

(a) Are life skills something we learn beforehand or on-the-job?

(b) What is Lex's job?

(c) What is Mort's job?

(d) What is Zara's job?

(e) Where did they learn the skills they need to do their jobs?

(f) Aside from the physical skills they need, what mental and emotional skills do you think they had to develop on-the-job in order to be skilled at their jobs?

3. In life, as in literature, sometimes people and characters have resistance to learning the skills they need to do their jobs.  Why is it important (maybe funny, maybe ironic, maybe coincidental) that Lex finds it hard not to punish the guilty?

4. If Lex allows her emotions to get in the way of doing her job, what are the consequences for those she is supposed to be helping?

5. Lex makes some important discoveries about herself and the other Juniors at Croak.  What are they?

March 20 D, E, H, J Spoon River Anthology - Edgar Lee Masters

Name __________________________ Date ____________________ Band

From http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1280/pg1280-images.html

https://librivox.org/spoon-river-anthology-by-edgar-lee-masters/

Spoon River Anthology, by Edgar Lee Masters

Directions: Read and listen and figure out the details of the story.  

http://www.archive.org/download/spoon_river_librivox/spoon_river_181_masters_64kb.mp3

Tom Merritt

  AT first I suspected something—

  She acted so calm and absent-minded.

  And one day I heard the back door shut

  As I entered the front, and I saw him slink

  Back of the smokehouse into the lot

  And run across the field.

  And I meant to kill him on sight.

  But that day, walking near Fourth Bridge

  Without a stick or a stone at hand,

  All of a sudden I saw him standing

  Scared to death, holding his rabbits,

  And all I could say was, "Don't, Don't, Don't,"

  As he aimed and fired at my heart.

[http://gutenberg.us/wplbn0002929481-spoon-river-anthology--chapter-182-mrs-merritt-by-masters-edgar-lee.aspx?]

Mrs. Merritt

  SILENT before the jury

  Returning no word to the judge when he asked me

  If I had aught to say against the sentence,

  Only shaking my head.

  What could I say to people who thought

  That a woman of thirty-five was at fault

  When her lover of nineteen killed her husband?

  Even though she had said to him over and over,

  "Go away, Elmer, go far away,

  I have maddened your brain with the gift of my body:

  You will do some terrible thing."

  And just as I feared, he killed my husband;

  With which I had nothing to do, before

  God Silent for thirty years in prison

  And the iron gates of Joliet

  Swung as the gray and silent trusties

  Carried me out in a coffin.

http://www.archive.org/download/spoon_river_librivox/spoon_river_183_masters_64kb.mp3

Elmer Karr

  WHAT but the love of God could have softened

  And made forgiving the people of Spoon River

  Toward me who wronged the bed of Thomas Merritt

  And murdered him beside?

  Oh, loving hearts that took me in again

  When I returned from fourteen years in prison!

  Oh, helping hands that in the church received me

  And heard with tears my penitent confession,

  Who took the sacrament of bread and wine!

  Repent, ye living ones, and rest with Jesus.

http://www.archive.org/download/spoon_river_librivox/spoon_river_183_masters_64kb.mp3

Elmer Karr

  WHAT but the love of God could have softened

  And made forgiving the people of Spoon River

  Toward me who wronged the bed of Thomas Merritt

  And murdered him beside?

  Oh, loving hearts that took me in again

  When I returned from fourteen years in prison!

  Oh, helping hands that in the church received me

  And heard with tears my penitent confession,

  Who took the sacrament of bread and wine!

  Repent, ye living ones, and rest with Jesus.

http://www.archive.org/download/spoon_river_librivox/spoon_river_021_masters_64kb.mp3

Minerva Jones

  I AM Minerva, the village poetess,

  Hooted at, jeered at by the Yahoos of the street

  For my heavy body, cock-eye, and rolling walk,

  And all the more when "Butch" Weldy

  Captured me after a brutal hunt.

  He left me to my fate with Doctor Meyers;

  And I sank into death, growing numb from the feet up,

  Like one stepping deeper and deeper into a stream of ice.

  Will some one go to the village newspaper,

  And gather into a book the verses I wrote?—

  I thirsted so for love

  I hungered so for life!

http://www.archive.org/download/spoon_river_librivox/spoon_river_023_masters_64kb.mp3

Doctor Meyers

  No other man, unless it was Doc Hill,

  Did more for people in this town than I.

  And all the weak, the halt, the improvident

  And those who could not pay flocked to me.

  I was good-hearted, easy Doctor Meyers.

  I was healthy, happy, in comfortable fortune,

  Blest with a congenial mate, my children raised,

  All wedded, doing well in the world.

  And then one night, Minerva, the poetess,

  Came to me in her trouble, crying.

  I tried to help her out—she died—

  They indicted me, the newspapers disgraced me,

  My wife perished of a broken heart.

  And pneumonia finished me.

Creative Writing April 21 - 23

A to Z Creative Writing.  Respond to each prompt in three or more sentences.  Write your responses on loose-leaf or email them to hedgesd@schools.nyc.gov

• How many?   Each prompt requires 10 to 15 minutes, minimum.  
• You receive class work credit for every three you complete.  
• You receive an additional point for sharing out to your group or the class if the class wishes to hear your work.  (We'll vote).  
• The class could receive and additional point for listening.  
• Silent pauses must be made for each passing train.  
• Using train time appropriately counts toward your final grade.  (E, H, and J Bands understand what that means)

1. Write yesterday’s horoscope.  (Don't read it, make it up based on today's events)
2. Write a thank-you note for a weekend visit where everything went wrong.
3. Describe an electronic device in the future that you won’t know how to operate.
4. What can happen in a second?
5. A houseplant is dying.  Tell it why it needs to live.
6. Do you think about travel?  Would you like to see other parts of the world?  What are some of the obstacles that keep you from traveling?
7. Something you had that was stolen
8. What a character holding a blue object is thinking right now
9. Your college roommate
10. Tell your kidnapper about a beloved family tradition.
11. Pick a small object to be given one day to your great-grandchild.  Write a letter to that child explaining why you have chosen this object.
12. A storm destroys your favorite uncle’s car.  Describe the color of the sky right before the storm hit.
13. Name the trees you pass on your way to school and home everyday.
14. You are a woman who is fired after only a week on the job.  A week earlier, the person who is firing you was very persuasive in convincing you to take the job.  What did she say to convince you to take the job.
15. What could have happened to you in high school that would have altered the course of your life?
16. Put two people who hate each other in an elevator for 12 hours.  What happens?
17. You receive a mysterious message from outer space.  What does it say?
18. Outline four points of the platform for your "third party" candidate.
19. What would you do if you weren't afraid?
20. You are twelve and you just saw aliens break your big sister's bike.  Your parents are going to think you did it.  Convince them that it was the aliens.
21. Write the dialogue between two neighbors chatting over the fence about the weather.  One is modest and the other is pompous.  They despise each other, but are too polite to let on.
22. Continue this story:   After the rioting seemed to have ended, our hunger got the best of us, and we ventured out for some pizza…..
23. Write a story that has the title: "They Slept On The Kitchen Floor"
24. This is the last line of a story.  "She read the note, folded, and nudged it with her foot into the gutter."  Write the beginning of the story.  "
25. Write ten ways to fill in the blank on this sentence: He didn't realize ______________________________________  until it was too late.
26. Write tomorrow's horoscope.  (Don't read it, make it up.  Use your imagination.

CROAK pages 42-52 April 6 J Band

Aim: Why was it important that Lex's sister, Cordy, wanted to design rollercoasters?
How is Lex's first impressions of Driggs, Zara, and the ether like an emotional rollercoaster?

Do Now: Have you ever been on a rollercoaster or in a car or a bus that felt like you were on a rollercoaster?

How does Lex learn how to travel through the ether?
What does a Killer do?
What does a Culler do?
Why must they work in pairs?

Scythe 

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/scythe

1. An agricultural implement for mowing grass or other crops, having a long thin curving blade fastened at an angle with the handle and wielded with both hands with a long sweeping stroke

Cull

To gather, pick, pluck (flowers, fruits, etc.)

To subject to the process of selection; to select or gather the choice things or parts from.

A Culler is someone who culls.

April 7 D & E In Class Writing

"The Man Who Was Almost a Man" by Richard Wright 

Directions: Answer each question in your best written English with two or more sentences.  Cite evidence from the text.  Write your responses on loose-leaf or email them to me: dhedges@schools.nyc.gov

1. After reading the first paragraph, identify the narrator, the point of view, and the dialect.

2. How old is Dave? What does he want to buy?

3. List the subtle details Wright gives us, especially smells and reactions of his characters.

4. What is Dave's mother's reaction to his coming home?

5. What does the mother think of the catalogue?

6. What does Dave's father think about it?

7. What is Dave's mother's response when he asks her if he can buy a gun? How does he ask her?

8. What are Dave's reasons for wanting a gun?

9. What does the gun symbolize for Dave?

10. Provide several examples of symbols from everyday life that represent power?

11. What is the condition under which his mother will let him buy the gun? Does he keep his promise?

12. Why hadn't Dave fired the gun when he was out on the fields with it? How does he get around showing it to his mother at breakfast?

13. Describe Dave's firing of the gun. Describe Jenny's reaction. What had Dave accidentally done?

14. What does Dave try to do to help Jenny?

15. What is the explanation he offers for Jenny's death?

16. What is Dave's reaction when pressed to tell the truth? What is the crowd's reaction when he tells?

17. What must Dave do to make up for shooting the mule?

18. What is Dave's father going to do to him?

19. Why does Dave lie about what he did with the gun?

20. What are Dave's thought that evening when he can't sleep? What does he do?

21. What is the most important thing in the world to Dave?

22. Does Dave run away from the past or does Dave run toward a future?

23. What is the meaning of the ending of the story?

24. Think of the train as a symbol. What do you think it represents?

25. What does it mean to "accept responsibility for one's actions"? Is Dave accepting responsibility for his actions?

26. Provide several specific examples of how Dave is treated by his parents, Mr. Hawkins and by other man that make him feel inferior.

27. Provide examples of Dave's reaction to his society?

28. Focusing on aspects of Dave’s character, self-image, and experiences, how do you imagine Dave a few years later?  Does he return home?  Does he create a life for himself in a big city? Defend your answer.

29. To what extent do you think Dave's parents and his peers are responsible for his behavior?  How do they bully him?

30. List all of the bullying and insults he receives from his mother and father, Jo’ and from others.

31. List all of the incidents where he is treated like a mule.

32. Was Dave overly protected by his parents?  What were they protecting him from?   

33. With the use of technology such as the iPhone and Facebook, are young people nowadays overly protected?  Is it harder to be your own person today than it was when Dave was alive?  How does technology prevent you from becoming independently minded?

34. How do young boys and girls in our society try to escape the pressure that prevents them from growing up into a man or a woman?

35. How do you predict Dave’s family and community react to his departure?  Will they go looking for him or will they feel that they are better off with him gone and actually celebrate his departure?

36. Did Dave’s family and community aim to deprive him of his individuality?  Does technology such as Facebook and the iPhone deprive young people of the privacy they need in order to become individuals?