May 31 H Imitation of Life 1934

Aim: Do you think audiences are surprised by how comfortable Delilah and Bea are with each other?
Do Now: Do you feel self-conscious or awkward around the topic of race?

May 30 H Croak

Aim: Why have these deaths of unknown cause suddenly begun to appear?
Do Now: What happens to feelings of anger?  Where do they go?  Do they agree to go away, but with the plan to return with more force?

May 31 A MA VIE EN ROSE

Aim: What is the first impression that Ludovic wishes to make on the new neighborhood?
Do Now: Where does a person's self-image come from?  

May 30 D and E Band THE PAPER CHASE

Aim: What does the film maker try to get the viewer to think about during the silence and the camera shot of the lecture hall ?

Do Now: 
Fast forward to September 2017:  What assumptions or expectations are you making about your first day of class in college?

Questions on the film:
1. What is the professor's name?
2. What subject are the students there to learn?
3. What do the students learn on the first day of class?
4. What evidence is there that the students really care about succeeding in Kingfield's class?
5. What shows that there is emotional and intellectual pressure in college?
6. Class Discussion: How would you react if your professor addressed you the way Kingsfield addressed Hart in the first day?

May 30 D Band Sweeney Todd

Aim: What does Sweeney Todd plan to do now that he's back in town?
Do Now: Do you feel more or less clearheaded when you are angry?

E band - Sweeney Todd 1

Aim: Why did Benjamin Barker return to London?  Why did he change his name to Sweeney Todd?
Do Now: Why is it important to recycle? 
Are there things that should not be recycled?
Would you wear a wig get a weave made of real human hair?
Would you have an organ transplant or a blood transfusion if it would save your life?
Do you believe in cannibalism, under certain conditions?

May 26 H Croak

Aim: What does Lex do that nearly gets her expelled from Croak?
Do Now: 
Is there Student Government at Murrow?
Is there a way to enforce the rules or laws passed by the Student Government?
List three school rules (relating to students) that school officials aren't allowed to make or enforce but that the Student Government could make and enforce.
For example, 9th graders may not talk in the halls or the lunchroom.  

May 26 J Croak

Aim: What does Lex learn about underage drinking and Corpps?
Do Now: Why is it best not to trust older teenagers as much as you would the teens who are younger than you are?

D May 26 "Where are you going..."

Aim: Listen, read, annotate with the test questions in mind.

Directions: Respond to each question in a TEAL paragraph.  Use the smaller questions within each numbered questions as guides.

A May 26 Imitation of Life

Aim: Does Pecola, in The Bluest Eye  feel she is like an alien to society and nature the way Peola does in Imitation of Life?  
Does Pecola find peace at the end of The Bluest Eye? (Peace = resolution to the conflict)

Does Peola find peace at the end of Imitation of Life? Do Now: Can a lesson that is learned ever be a lesson learned too late?

May 25 J CROAK

Aim: How does Driggs get Lex to drop an uncomfortable topic of conversation?
Do Now: How do you get off the phone, or end a text volley when you don't want to seem impolite?

May 25 D "Where Are You Going - Listening and test prep

Aim: How to study while reading and listening.

Do Now: Have pencil or highlighter ready.  Listen and follow the story.  Short one minute pauses will be made so you can go back and annotate.

The test begins tomorrow.

May 25 A -Band Imitation of Life

Aim: What makes Peola's emotional pain and social loneliness so complex?  Why is it so terrible?
Do Now: Which would be worse: to be born without the ability to empathize with others or to be someone so different, so freakish, that no one could know how empathize with you?

E May 24 Croak

Aim: How does Lex find the Afterlife and who does she encounter there?
Do Now: Why is the lesson, "Life isn't fair," a difficult lesson to learn?  
(Chapters 9 -12)

May 24 J Croak

Aim: How does Zara blackmail Lex?
Do Now: How would you react if you discovered that grades had supernatural influences over your future and everybody's opinion of you for the rest of your life?

Croak H May 24

Aim: Lex is great at Killing-- why does she have a hard time adapting to the "Terms of Execution"?

Do Now: 
1. Make a list of school rules at Murrow that if you broke, you'd get expelled and maybe sent to the most awful school.  
2. Describe what the most awful school would be like.

E - Band May 24

Aim: How do the Grims transport Gammas to the Afterlife?
Do Now: Is school a place or a vessel?

May 23 D -Test "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates

"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates

Test and Presentation

Directions: 

1. Read the story.
2. Discuss each question with a partner or with in a small group.  Take notes on the conversations you have with your partner or group.  (Notes will be collected at the end)
3. You with your partner or group will be called on to present your analysis to the rest of the class.  
4. Your presentation must include a selection from the story that service as evidence for your analysis.

1. Why does Oates use religious imagery in the story?  In what sense does this girl, whose family doesn't go to church anymore, use the drive-in as a kind of church?

2. Arnold Friend works well in this story because he's more than a bully, a tough guy.  Ellie is in the story to act as his foil, that is, Ellie seems to be just a sick, ugly, hostile man.  But Arnold is really spooky; he seems almost a super-natural being.  What makes him strange and powerful in the story?  What makes Arnold and the story terrifying?

3. What is Connie hungry for?  Look carefully at images of eating.  Her parents and sister to to a barbecue.  She does not.  The drive-in restaurant is a temple.  Arnold seems to know what she is hungry for.  Is it sex?  Why is she so hostile and dissatisfied?

4. What is the story's attitude toward Connie's notions of romantic love?

5. Arnold gets beneath the surface, takes Connie into the unspeakable, literally, "People don't talk that way."  How does the story concern the border between what spoken and what is done, what is not spoken, and what is not done?

6. What do you will expect will happen?  Why doesn't Oates tell us?

May 24 Bluest Eye A band

Aim: What is Peola's crisis?

Do Now: Where does "self-esteem" come from?

Does it come from receiving approval from others or does it come from the disapproval we receive of others?

“The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?”

― Henry David Thoreau,

July 12, 1817 - May 06, 1862

1. What does Delilah Johnson say to Bea Pullman that changes her destiny?
2. What gives Mrs. Pullman (Bea) the idea of opening a restaurant on the Atlantic City boardwalk?
3. How do Delilah and Bea get along?  Why?
4. How do Jessie and Peola get along?  Why?
5. What causes the break in Jessie's and Peola's friendship?
6. What causes the break in Peola's relationship with her mother, Delilah?
7. Why does everybody in the audience get nervous when Delilah goes to get Peola from school during the rain?
8. Why does Peola's mother ask the teacher if her daughter has been passing?
9. What does Peola have in common with her father?
10. What does the unemployed man (Elmer Smith)  say to Bea that changes her destiny?
11. Why is Peola angry?
12. How does the story Elmer tells Bea about Coca-Cola and the character's name, Peola, get mixed and produce Pecola in Toni Morrision's The Bluest Eye?
13. Both Delilah and Bea are close friends.  How do they see things differently?
14. What does Delilah say about the band that shows she is proud to be Black?
15. What does Peola say that shows she values money more than pride?
16. How does Peola's one wish resonate with the theme of The Bluest Eye?
17. Why is it significant that Jessie would fall in love with her mother's boyfriend?

May 22 Croak H

Aim: What makes Lex angry?
Do Now: What classes at Murrow teach you about how to solve what is wrong or unfair with the world?

J band May 22 Croak

Aim: What do Zara and Lex find they have in common?
Do Now: Write about a time when someone set you up so you got into trouble instead of them.  (Or when you set someone else up, and they got into trouble instead of you).
 Try to convince the reader that you were entirely blameless.

D -Band May 23 "Where are you going

Aim: What was the scandal about the Pettinger girl?
Do Now: Does music that teens listen to act as a form of advertising for certain kinds of ideas, such as underaged sex and that there is a war between sexes?

May 22 E Croak Quiz Packet 1

Aim: Answer the questions in your best written English.

You may email your responses to  dhedges@schools.nyc.gov
Do Now: Read the questions and talk about how you and your classmates would answer them.  Then, get ready!!!!! Silent Writing for 30 minutes!!!!!

1. What happens on the bus in Chapter 2 that provides clues for the reader about what will happen on pages 49, 36, and 38-39.

2. What does Lex discover about her uncle, Croak, and the reason for her being there?

(End Chapter 4 through Chapter 5)

3. How does Lex feel about the way her room had been prepared and decorated for her?  What does this tell us about her character? (Pages 30-31)

4.  How does Lex react when she discovers why Driggs had chosen the décor for her room? (pages 78-79)

5. Was Driggs justified in responding to Lex's use of nonverbal communication with some nonverbal communication of his own?  (page 79)

May 24 A "The Bluest Eye" - Imitation of Life

Aim: Why does Peola turn against her mother?
Do Now: Imagine your parents (real or imaginary) just told you that your real grandfather was Donald J. Trump and that you have to write him a letter.  What would you say to him?

1. What does Delilah Johnson say to Bea Pullman that changes her destiny?
2. What gives Mrs. Pullman (Bea) the idea of opening a restaurant on the Atlantic City boardwalk?
3. How do Delilah and Bea get along?  Why?
4. How do Jessie and Peola get along?  Why?
5. What causes the break in Jessie's and Peola's friendship?
6. What causes the break in Peola's relationship with her mother, Delilah?
7. Why does everybody in the audience get nervous when Delilah goes to get Peola from school during the rain?
8. Why does Peola's mother ask the teacher if her daughter has been passing?
9. What does Peola have in common with her father?
10. What does the unemployed man (Elmer Smith)  say to Bea that changes her destiny?
11. Why is Peola angry?
12. How does the story Elmer tells Bea about Coca-Cola and the character's name, Peola, get mixed and produce Pecola in Toni Morrision's The Bluest Eye?
13. Both Delilah and Bea are close friends.  How do they see things differently?
14. What does Delilah say about the band that shows she is proud to be Black?
15. What does Peola say that shows she values money more than pride?
16. How does Peola's one wish resonate with the theme of The Bluest Eye?
17. Why is it significant that Jessie would fall in love with her mother's boyfriend?

Aim: Why is going to the movies important to Pauline? 
Shirley Temple, Bojangles, Page 67, 77, 107, 122, 123, 126, 
(Note the word Cinema is never used in the novel, only "movies" and "picture show"

Why does Toni Morrison mention this movie (Imitation of Life) in The Bluest Eye? (Page 67)

Do Now: Explain the differences and similarities between going to the movies and going to the park to read a book?

enough of a doom sound in it to be true of Bay Boy. While Frieda and I clucked on about the near fight, Maureen, suddenly animated, put her velvet-sleeved arm through Pecola’s and began to behave as though they were the closest of friends. “I just moved here. My name is Maureen Peal. What’s yours?” “Pecola.” “Pecola? Wasn’t that the name of the girl in Imitation of Life?” “I don’t know. What is that?” “The picture show, you know. Where this mulatto girl hates her mother cause she is black and ugly but then cries at the funeral. It was real sad. Everybody cries in it. Claudette Colbert too.” “Oh.” Pecola’s voice was no more than a sigh.

1. 
   

https://youtu.be/kTDvCLAT8hg

E Band May 19 - End Chapter 2 - Start 3

Aim: What is your impression of Uncle Mort?
Do Now: Is a person's name a powerful force that determines their destiny?

May 19 H Croak

Aim: What does Lex discover she likes and dislikes about Croak?
Do Now: Does where you are control how you feel or does how you feel determine where you are?

May 19 Croak J

Aim: Lex falls in love with ......
Do Now: Does it make you feel less or more secure knowing that you are being watched, tracked,  your thoughts are being read and your next moves are being anticipated, at all times?

May 19, D "Where are you going....

Aim: How does the writer show sharp contrasts between June and Connie?  
Can you make a prediction about which of the sisters will be better off in life?

Do Now: 
1. What kind of music do you and other teens listen to nowadays?  
2. How much influence does music have on your life?  
3. Does music help you make sense of your life?
4. Have you ever heard a song that seems to relate very closely to how you feel or what's going on at the time in your life?

The Bluest Eye May 22, 19

Aim Why is it important that  Maureen mentions the title and plot of the movie in Winter, page 67?
Do Now:

Character List

Pecola Breedlove.

Claudia MacTeer 

Cholly Breedlove 

Pauline (Polly) Breedlove 

Frieda MacTeer 

Mrs. MacTeer

Mr. MacTeer

Henry Washington 

Sammy Breedlove

China, Poland, Miss Marie

Mr. Yacobowski 

Rosemary Villanucci

Maureen Peal

Geraldine

Junior

Soaphead Church

Aunt Jimmy 

Samson Fuller 

Blue Jack

M’Dear

Darlene

It was a false spring day, which, like Maureen, had pierced the shell of a deadening winter. .....Long before seeds were stirring, Frieda and I were scruffing and poking at the earth, swallowing air, drinking rain.... As we emerged from the school with Maureen, we The Bluest Eye began to moult immediately. We put our head scarves in our coat pockets, and our coats on our heads. I was wondering how to maneuver Maureen’s fur muff into a gutter when a commotion in the playground distracted us. A group of boys was circling and holding at bay a victim, Pecola Breedlove. Bay Boy, Woodrow Cain, Buddy Wilson, Junie Bug— like a necklace of semiprecious stones they surrounded her. Heady with the smell of their own musk, thrilled by the easy power of a majority, they gaily harassed her. “Black e mo. Black e mo. Yadaddsleepsnekked. Black e mo black e mo ya dadd sleeps nekked. Black e mo ...” They had extemporized a verse made up of two insults about matters over which the victim had no control: the color of her skin and speculations on the sleeping habits of an adult, wildly fitting in its incoherence. That they themselves were black, or that their own father had similarly relaxed habits was irrelevant. It was their contempt for their own blackness that gave the first insult its teeth. They seemed to have taken all of their smoothly cultivated ignorance, their exquisitely learned self-hatred, their elaborately designed hopelessness and sucked it all up into a fiery cone of scorn that had burned for ages in the hollows of their minds—cooled—and spilled over lips of outrage, consuming whatever was in its path. They danced a macabre ballet around the victim, whom, for their own sake, they were prepared to sacrifice to the flaming pit. Black e mo Black e mo Ya daddy sleeps nekked. Stch ta ta stch ta ta stach ta ta ta ta ta

“I just moved here. My name is Maureen Peal. What’s yours?” “Pecola.” “Pecola? Wasn’t that the name of the girl in Imitation of Life?” “I don’t know. What is that?” “The picture show, you know. Where this mulatto girl hates her mother cause she is black and ugly but then cries at the funeral. It was real sad. Everybody cries in it. Claudette Colbert too.” “Oh.” Pecola’s voice was no more than a sigh.


Aim: Why is the title of this chapter written this way? - How does it reveal the central idea of the chapter?

HEREISTHEFAMILYMOTHERFATHER
DICKANDJANETHEYLIVEINTHEGREE 
NANDWHITEHOUSETHEYAREVERYH

Do Now: Write three sentences that uses the word "not"  or "no" and two or more of the five senses and describes the classroom.
Example: The students were not quietly doing their "Do Now."  The classroom did not smell of bacon today.  There were no roses on Teacher's desk this morning.

May 18 Croak J

Aim: What are the Terms of Execution and where did they come from?
Do Now: 
1. Make of list of things that are unjust and unfair in today's world.
2. Make a list of skills you learn in school that would help you to solve one or more of the injustices and the unfairness on your list.
3. Is school doing enough to help students solve the problems of the present and create a better world for themselves and future generations?

May 17 E band Croak

Aim: What happens to Lex on her way upstate to her uncle's farm?
Do Now: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/04/27/well/family/27well_phone.html?contentCollection=smarter-living

Which could be your least favorite means of transportation:
Walking
Bus
Subway
Train
Bicycle
Motorcycle
Plane
Hot air balloon
Skateboard
Snowboard
Boat
Rocket ship
Education

May 17 J Croak

Aim: What theory do the Juniors come up with to explain the target who seemed to have no cause of death and who had no eyes?  (page 92 and mentioned again on pages 114-115)

Do Now: What would you think if your final report card listed classes you hadn't been taking, grades you never would have expected, and your name was misspelled.  But, your student number was the only thing right?

May 18 D & E "Where are you going, where have you been" - Joyce Carol Oates

Aim: What is your impression of Connie?  How does the writer use characterization to convey the central idea of the story? 

Do Now: What do you know about Rock 'n Roll?

Are parents generally less patient with their teenaged children or are teenagers more or less patient with their parents?

When a child copies  the mistakes a parent makes after the parent has told them not to, is that rebellion or is that conformity?
https://youtu.be/RX_coYH0ml4?list=PL390141A638523E5F

https://youtu.be/UBtpX7BaUdY?list=PL390141A638523E5F

https://youtu.be/NHnxcxOhYw0?list=PL390141A638523E5F

https://youtu.be/UBtpX7BaUdY?list=PL390141A638523E5F

https://youtu.be/tn_0JNiqLio?list=PL390141A638523E5F

May 17 H-Band

May 17 H
Aim: How do the other Juniors feel about Lex?

Do Now: Back in high school, Lex was known as an equal opportunity predator, however, which hurt more, the beatings she gave or the gossip she heard about her?

May 15 Croak H-Band

Aim: Where are the Gammas taken?  
Who does Lex meet in the Atrium?  
Why are there so many American presidents in Croak?

Do Now: Imagine a holographic museum where people from history and literature could come alive.  Who would you want to talk with first?

Chapter 8 - 

May 12 CROAK - H

 H-Band Chapter 8 (page 84)

Aim: 

-----What makes Driggs freak out about the death of the guy in the baseball stadium? 

Do Now:  On "GO!" 
Name and describe the next sound you hear and what caused it.  

2. What makes jellyfish so sensitive, unlike other animals, and therefore so perfect for locating people who need to be moved, safely, to the Afterlife?

3. What are the Ether Traffic Controllers called? 

4. What do Killers do?  How are they similar to an umpire in baseball or a referee in basketball?

5. What do the Cullers do?  How are they similar to one who nets the basketball or carries the football and makes the touchdown?

6. What is the Gamma?

7. What is the Vessel?

8. Why are Killers and Cullers are also known as  Gamma Removal and Immigration Managers.  (Isn't there a shorter word for them?  Hint: an acronym is a word formed by the initials of other words.

9. What is the name of the computer that tracks and codes all incoming Gammas?  

May 15 D & E band

Aim: What are Peases's and Morrie's assumptions about race and intelligence?
Do Now: How would you react if the teacher, instead of teaching a lesson, told students to figure things out on their own.  (Individually or in groups).  The teacher would grade the students on the basis of how honestly they used the time.  Students who wasted time would fail.  Students who concentrated on learning would pass.

Part 2.

It was a long time before I came in close contact with white folks again. We moved from Arkansas to Mississippi. Here we had the good fortune not to live behind the railroad tracks, or close to white neighborhoods. We lived in the very heart of the local Black Belt. There were black churches and black preachers; there were black schools and black teachers; black groceries and black clerics. In fact, everything was so solidly black that for a long time I did not even think of white folks, save in remote and vague terms. But this could not last forever. As one grows older one eats more. One's clothing costs more. When I finished grammar school I had to go to work. My mother could no longer feed and clothe me on her cooking job.

There is but one place where a black boy who knows no trade can get a job. And that's where the houses and faces are white, where the trees, lawns, and hedges are green. My first job was with an optical company in Jackson, Mississippi. The morning I applied I stood straight and neat before the boss, answering all his questions with sharp yessirs and nosirs. I was very careful to pronounce my sirs distinctly, in order that he might know that I was polite, that I knew where I was, and that I knew he was a white man. I wanted that job badly.

He looked me over as though he were examining a prize poodle. He questioned me closely about my schooling, being particularly insistent about how much mathematics I had had. He seemed very pleased when I told him I had had two years of algebra.

"Boy, how would you like to try to learn something around here?" he asked me.

"I'd like it fine, sir," I said, happy. I had visions of "working my way up." Even Negroes have those visions.

"All right," he said. "Come on."

I followed him to the small factory.

"Pease," he said to a white man of about thirty-five, "this is Richard. He's going to work for us."

Pease looked at me and nodded.

I was then taken to a white boy of about seventeen.

"Morrie, this is Richard, who's going to work for us."

"Whut yuh sayin' there, boy!" Morrie boomed at me.

"Fine!" I answered.

The boss instructed these two to help me, teach me, give me jobs to do, and let me learn what I could in my spare time.

My wages were five dollars a week.

I worked hard, trying to please. For the first month I got along O.K. Both Pease and Morrie seemed to like me. But one thing was missing. And I kept thinking about it. I was not learning anything, and nobody was volunteering to help me. Thinking they had forgotten that I was to learn something about the mechanics of grinding lenses, I asked Morrie one day to tell me about the work. He grew red.

"Whut yuh tryin' t' do, nigger, git smart?" he asked.

"Naw; I ain' tryin' t' -it smart," I said.

"Well, don't, if yuh know whut's good for yuh!"

I was puzzled. Maybe he just doesn't want to help me, I thought. I went to Pease.

"Say, are you crazy, you black bastard?" Pease asked me, his gray eyes growing hard.

I spoke out, reminding him that the boss had said I was to be given a chance to learn something.

"Nigger, you think you're white, don't you?"

"Naw, sir!"

"Well, you're acting mighty like it!"

"But, Mr. Pease, the boss said . . ."

Pease shook his fist in my face.

"This is a white man's work around here, and you better watch yourself!"

From then on they changed toward me. They said good-morning no more. When I was just a bit slow in performing some duty, I was called a lazy black son-of-a-bitch.

Once I thought of reporting all this to the boss. But the mere idea of what would happen to me if Pease and Morrie should learn that I had "snitched" stopped me. And after all, the boss was a white man, too. What was the use?

The climax came at noon one summer day. Pease called me to his work-bench. To get to him I had to go between two narrow benches and stand with my back against a wall.

"Yes, sir," I said.

"Richard, I want to ask you something," Pease began pleasantly, not looking up from his work.

"Yes, sir," I said again.

Morrie came over, blocking the narrow passage between the benches. He folded his arms, staring at me solemnly.

I looked from one to the other, sensing that something was coming.

"Yes, sir," I said for the third time.

Pease looked up and spoke very slowly.

"Richard, Mr. Morrie here tells me you called me Pease."

I stiffened. A void seemed to open up in me. I knew this was the show-down.

He meant that I had failed to call him Mr. Pease. I looked at Morrie. He was gripping a steel bar in his hands. I opened my mouth to speak, to protest, to assure Pease that I had never called him simply Pease, and that I had never had any intentions of doing so, when Morrie grabbed me by the collar, ramming my head against the wall.

"Now, be careful, nigger!" snarled Morrie, baring his teeth. "1 heard yuh call 'im Pease! 'N' if yuh say yuh didn't, yuh're callin' me a lie, see?" He waved the steel bar threateningly.

If I had said: No, sir, Mr. Pease, I never called you Pease, I would have been automatically calling Morrie a liar. And if I had said: Yes, sir, Mr. Pease, I called you Pease, I would have been pleading guilty to having uttered the worst insult that a Negro can utter to a southern white man. I stood hesitating, trying to frame a neutral reply.

"Richard, I asked you a question!" said Pease. Anger was creeping into his voice.

"I don't remember calling you Pease, Mr. Pease," I said cautiously. "And if I did, I sure didn't mean . . ."

"You black son-of-a-bitch! You called me Pease, then!" he spat, slapping me till I bent sideways over a bench. Morrie was on top of me, demanding:

"Didn't yuh call 'im Pease? If yuh say yuh didn't, I'll rip yo' gut string loose with this f--kin' bar, yuh black granny dodger! Yuh can't call a white man a lie 'n' git erway with it, you black son-of-a-bitch!"

I wilted. I begged them not to bother me. I knew what they wanted. They wanted me to leave.

"I'll leave," I promised. "I'll leave right now."

They gave me a minute to get out of the factory. I was warned not to show up again, or tell the boss.

I went.

When I told the folks at home what had happened, they called me a fool. They told me that I must never again attempt to exceed my boundaries. When you are working for white folks, they said, you got to "stay in your place" if you want to keep working.

May 16 D & E - "A Soldier's Home - Ernest Hemingway

Aim: How does Krebs feel when he gets home after the war?

Do Now: What happens to a deferred emotion? (Refer to the Langston Hughes poem below and use it as a model to write your own about a deferred emotion)
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      Does it dry up

      like a raisin in the sun?

      Or fester like a sore—

      And then run?

      Does it stink like rotten meat?

      Or crust and sugar over—

      like a syrupy sweet?

      Maybe it  just sags

      like a heavy load.

      Or does it explode?

1. Why don't emotions come in simple packages instead of in a flood of mixed and often conflicting feelings?

2. Is there such a thing as 'happy' without some regret or disappointment without a little relief?

3. Focus on the statements and based on the emotions you feel for the character, describe something about the character's surroundings.  The surroundings should reflect the character's emotions.  

a. "I can't believe I just lost my job!  What will I tell my family?"

b. "Mrs Smith, I am happy to report that you have just given birth to a healthy baby."

c. "You were supposed to be here two hours ago!"

By concealing emotions, Hemingway hoped to expose them.  Can you feel what has been left out?

Reading and Discussion Questions for Hemingway's "Soldier's Home"

1. What kind of person was Krebs before the war? What does the description in the first paragraph tell you about him? Why does the narrator mention that the fraternity brothers were all "wearing exactly the same height and style collar"?

2. How does the vision of Germany and the Rhine in the second paragraph contrast with the description in the first paragraph? What does this tell you about his experience?

3. Why does the story mention the names of these battles: "Belleau Wood, Soissons, the Champagne, St. Mihiel . . . and the Argonne"? What experiences is Hemingway trying to evoke by using these names? In what ways was World War I different from previous wars?

4. Look closely at the language in this passage (or any other passage in the story): "Nothing was changed in the town except that the young girls had grown up. But they lived in such a complicated world of already defined alliances and shifting feuds that Krebs did not feel the energy or the courage to break into it. He liked to look at them, though. There were so many good-looking young girls. Most of them had their hair cut short. When he went away only little girls wore their hair like that or girls that were fast. They all wore sweaters and shirt waists with round Dutch collars. It was a pattern. He liked to look at them from the front porch as they walked on the other side of the street. He liked to watch them walking under the shade of the trees. He liked the round Dutch collars above their sweaters. He liked their silk stockings and flat shoes. He liked their bobbed hair and the way they walked" (349). What words or sentence patterns are repeated? What is conveyed by this repetition, and how does it help you to understand Krebs? What does he focus on as he watches the girls? Why does he find the "already defined alliances and shifting feuds" too "complicated" for him?

5. Krebs thinks a lot about "lies" in this story. What kinds of lies does he tell or refuse to tell? Why do they nauseate him? In what way might this be connected to his war experiences?

6. What is Krebs's relationship with his sister like? How does he respond differently to her than to the other girls or women in the story? What does she represent for him?

7. The scene with Krebs and his mother parallels the earlier scene with his sister, but his mother's demands provoke a very different reaction from him. What does she want from him? What is she afraid has happened to him? How does she seek to control him? Does she succeed?

8. Although Krebs's father and grandfather mentioned, all of the encounters shown in the story are those with women. Why might Hemingway shape the story in this way? What does Krebs think about the relationship between his father and his mother?

9. Why is this sentence in the story? "Krebs looked at the bacon fat hardening on his plate."

10. Why isn't Krebs grateful for the use of the car?

11. What do you think happens at the end of the story? Why does he decide to watch his sister play indoor baseball?

Hemingway, Ernest.  “Chapter VII” and “Soldier’s Home.”  From In Our Time. (1925)

Chapter VII

While the bombardment was knocking the trench to pieces at Fossalta, he lay very flat and sweated and prayed oh jesus christ get me out of here. Dear jesus please get me out. Christ please please please christ. If you'll only keep me from getting killed I'll do anything you say. I believe in you and I'll tell every one in the world that you are the only one that matters. Please please dear jesus. The shelling moved further up the line. We went to work on the trench and in the morning the sun came up and the day was hot and muggy and cheerful and quiet. The next night back at Mestre he did not tell the girl he went upstairs with at the Villa Rossa about Jesus. And he never told anybody. 

SOLDIER'S HOME (1925)

Krebs went to the war from a Methodist college in Kansas. There is a picture which shows him among his fraternity brothers, all of them wearing exactly the same height and style collar. He enlisted in the Marines in 1917 and did not return to the United States until the second division returned from the Rhine in the summer of 1919.

There is a picture which shows him on the Rhone with two German girls and another corporal. Krebs and the corporal look too big for their uniforms. The German girls are not beautiful. The Rhine does not show in the picture. 

By the time Krebs returned to his home town in Oklahoma the greeting of heroes was over. He came back much too late. The men from the town who had been drafted had all been welcomed elaborately on their return. There had been a great deal of hysteria. Now the reaction had set in. People seemed to think it was rather ridiculous for Krebs to be getting back so late, years after the war was over. 

At first Krebs, who had been at Belleau Wood, Soissons, the Champagne, St. Mihiel and in the Argonne did not want to talk about the war at all. Later he felt the need to talk but no one wanted to hear about it. His town had heard too many atrocity stories to be thrilled by actualities. Krebs found that to be listened to at all he had to lie and after he had done this twice he, too, had a reaction against the war and against talking about it. A distaste for everything that had happened to him in the war set in because of the lies he had told. All of the times that had been able to make him feel cool and clear inside himself when he thought of them; the times so long back when he had done the one thing, the only thing for a man to do, easily and naturally, when he might have done something else, now lost their cool, valuable quality and then were lost themselves. 

His lies were quite unimportant lies and consisted in attributing to himself things other men had seen, done or heard of, and stating as facts certain apocryphal incidents familiar to all soldiers. Even his lies were not sensational at the pool room. His acquaintances, who had heard detailed accounts of German women found chained to machine guns in the Argonne and who could not comprehend, or were barred by their patriotism from interest in, any German machine gunners who were not chained, were not thrilled by his stories. 

Krebs acquired the nausea in regard to experience that is the result of untruth or exaggeration, and when he occasionally met another man who had really been a soldier and the talked a few minutes in the dressing room at a dance he fell into the easy pose of the old soldier among other soldiers: that he had been badly, sickeningly frightened all the time. In this way he lost everything. 

During this time, it was late summer, he was sleeping late in bed, getting up to walk down town to the library to get a book, eating lunch at home, reading on the front porch until he became bored and then walking down through the town to spend the hottest hours of the day in the cool dark of the pool room. He loved to play pool. 

In the evening he practiced on his clarinet, strolled down town, read and went to bed. He was still a hero to his two young sisters. His mother would have given him breakfast in bed if he had wanted it. She often came in when he was in bed and asked him to tell her about the war, but her attention always wandered. His father was non-committal. 

Before Krebs went away to the war he had never been allowed to drive the family motor car. His father was in the real estate business and always wanted the car to be at his command when he required it to take clients out into the country to show them a piece of farm property. The car always stood outside the First National Bank building where his father had an office on the second floor. Now, after the war, it was still the same car. 

Nothing was changed in the town except that the young girls had grown up. But they lived in such a complicated world of already defined alliances and shifting feuds that Krebs did not feel the energy or the courage to break into it. He liked to look at them, though. There were so many good-looking young girls. Most of them had their hair cut short. When he went away only little girls wore their hair like that or girls that were fast. They all wore sweaters and shirt waists with round Dutch collars. It was a pattern. He liked to look at them from the front porch as they walked on the other side of the street. He liked to watch them walking under the shade of the trees. He liked the round Dutch collars above their sweaters. He liked their silk stockings and flat shoes. He liked their bobbed hair and the way they walked. 

When he was in town their appeal to him was not very strong. He did not like them when he saw them in the Greek's ice cream parlor. He did not want them themselves really. They were too complicated. There was something else. Vaguely he wanted a girl but he did not want to have to work to get her. He would have liked to have a girl but he did not want to have to spend a long time getting her. He did not want to get into the intrigue and the politics. He did not want to have to do any courting. He did not want to tell any more lies. It wasn't worth it. 

He did not want any consequences. He did not want any consequences ever again. He wanted to live along without consequences. Besides he did not really need a girl. The army had taught him that. It was all right to pose as though you had to have a girl. Nearly everybody did that. But it wasn't true. You did not need a girl. That was the funny thing. First a fellow boasted how girls mean nothing to him, that he never thought of them, that they could not touch him. Then a fellow boasted that he could not get along without girls, that he had to have them all the time, that he could not go to sleep without them. 

That was all a lie. It was all a lie both ways. You did not need a girl unless you thought about them. He learned that in the army. Then sooner or later you always got one. When you were really ripe for a girl you always got one. You did not have to think about it. Sooner or later it could come. He had learned that in the army. 

Now he would have liked a girl if she had come to him and not wanted to talk. But here at home it was all too complicated. He knew he could never get through it all again. It was not worth the trouble. That was the thing about French girls and German girls. There was not all this talking. You couldn't talk much and you did not need to talk. It was simple and you were friends. He thought about France and then he began to think about Germany. On the whole he had liked Germany better. He did not want to leave Germany. He did not want to come home. Still, he had come home. He sat on the front porch. 

He liked the girls that were walking along the other side of the street. He liked the look of them much better than the French girls or the German girls. But the world they were in was not the world he was in. He would like to have one of them. But it was not worth it. They were such a nice pattern. He liked the pattern. It wis exciting. But he would not go through all the talking. He did not want one badly enough. He liked to look at them all, though. It was not worth it. Not now when things were getting good again. 

He sat there on the porch reading a book on the war. It was a history and he was reading about all the engagements he had been in. It was the most interesting reading he had ever done. He wished there were more maps. He looked forward with a good feeling to reading all the really good histories when they would come out with good detail maps. Now he was really learning about the war. He had been a good soldier. That made a difference. 

One morning after he had been home about a month his mother came into his bedroom and sat on the bed. She smoothed her apron.

"I had a talk with your father last night, Harold," she said, "and he is willing for you to take the car out in the evenings."

"Yeah?" said Krebs, who was not fully awake. "Take the car out? Yeah?"

"Yes. Your father has felt for some time that you should be able to take the car out in the evenings whenever you wished but we only talked it over last night."

"I'll bet you made him," Krebs said.

"No. It was your father's suggestion that we talk the matter over."

"Yeah. I'll bet you made him," Krebs sat up in bed.

"Will you come down to breakfast, Harold?" his mother said."

"As soon as I get my clothes on," Krebs said.

His mother went out of the room and he could hear her frying something downstairs while he washed, shaved and dressed to go down into the dining-room for breakfast. While he was eating breakfast, his sister brought in the mail.

"Well, Hare," she said. "You old sleepy-head. What do you ever get up for?"
Krebs looked at her. He liked her. She was his best sister.

"Have you got the paper?" he asked.

She handed him The Kansas City Star and he shucked off its brown wrapper and opened it to the sporting page. He folded The Star open and propped it against the water pitcher with his cereal dish to steady it, so he could read while he ate.

"Harold," his mother stood in the kitchen doorway, "Harold, please don't muss up the paper. Your father can't read his Star if its been mussed."

"I won't muss it," Krebs said.

His sister sat down at the table and watched him while he read. 

"We're playing indoor over at school this afternoon," she said. "I'm going to pitch."

"Good," said Krebs. "How's the old wing?" 

"I can pitch better than lots of the boys. I tell them all you taught me. The other girls aren't much good." 

"Yeah?" said Krebs.

"I tell them all you're my beau. Aren't you my beau, Hare?"

"You bet."

"Couldn't your brother really be your beau just because he's your brother?" 

"I don't know."

"Sure you know. Couldn't you be my beau, Hare, if I was old enough and if you wanted to?"

"Sure. You're my girl now."

"Am I really your girl?" 

"Sure." 

"Do you love me?"

"Uh, huh." 

"Do you love me always?"

"Sure."

"Will you come over and watch me play indoor?"

"Maybe."

"Aw, Hare, you don't love me. If you loved me, you'd want to come over and watch me play indoor."

Krebs's mother came into the dining-room from the kitchen. She carried a plate with two fried eggs and some crisp bacon on it and a plate of buckwheat cakes.

"You run along, Helen," she said. "I want to talk to Harold."

She put the eggs and bacon down in front of him and brought in a jug of maple syrup for the buckwheat cakes. Then she sat down across the table from Krebs.

"I wish you'd put down the paper a minute, Harold," she said.

Krebs took down the paper and folded it.

"Have you decided what you are going to do yet, Harold?" his mother said, taking off her glasses.

"No," said Krebs.

"Don't you think it's about time?" His mother did not say this in a mean way. She seemed worried.

"I hadn't thought about it," Krebs said.

"God has some work for every one to do," his mother said. "There can be no idle hands in His Kingdom."

"I'm not in His Kingdom," Krebs said.

"We are all of us in His Kingdom."

Krebs felt embarrassed and resentful as always.

"I've worried about you too much, Harold," his mother went on. "I know the temptations you must have been exposed to. I know how weak men are. I know what your own dear grandfather, my own father, told us about the Civil War and I have prayed for you. I pray for you all day long, Harold."

Krebs looked at the bacon fat hardening on his plate. 

"Your father is worried, too," his mother went on. "He thinks you have lost your ambition, that you haven't got a definite aim in life. Charley Simmons, who is just your age, has a good job and is going to be married. The boys are all settling down; they're all determined to get somewhere; you can see that boys like Charley Simmons are on their way to being really a credit to the community."

Krebs said nothing.

"Don't look that way, Harold," his mother said. "You know we love you and I want to tell you for your own good how matters stand. Your father does not want to hamper your freedom. He thinks you should be allowed to drive the car. If you want to take some of the nice girls out riding with you, we are only too pleased. We want you to enjoy yourself. But you are going to have to settle down to work, Harold. Your father doesn't care what you start in at. All work is honorable as he says. But you've got to make a start at something. He asked me to speak to you this morning and then you can stop in and see him at his office."

"Is that all?" Krebs said.

"Yes. Don't you love your mother dear boy?"

"No," Krebs said.

His mother looked at him across the table. Her eyes were shiny. She started crying.

"I don't love anybody," Krebs said. 

It wasn't any good. He couldn't tell her, he couldn't make her see it. It was silly to have said it. He had only hurt her. He went over and took hold of her arm. She was crying with her head in her hands. 

"I didn't mean it," he said. "I was just angry at something. I didn't mean I didn't love you." 

His mother went on crying. Krebs put his arm on her shoulder. 

"Can't you believe me, mother?" 

His mother shook her head. 

"Please, please, mother. Please believe me." 

"All right," his mother said chokily. She looked up at him. "I believe you, Harold."

Krebs kissed her hair. She put her face up to him. 

"I'm your mother," she said. "I held you next to my heart when you were a tiny baby." 

Krebs felt sick and vaguely nauseated. 

"I know, Mummy," he said. "I'll try and be a good boy for you." 

"Would you kneel and pray with me, Harold?" his mother asked. 

They knelt down beside the dining-room table and Krebs's mother prayed. 

"Now, you pray, Harold," she said. 

"I can't," Krebs said. 

"Try, Harold."

"I can't." 

"Do you want me to pray for you?" 

"Yes." 

So his mother prayed for him and then they stood up and Krebs kissed his mother and went out of the house. He had tried so to keep his life from being complicated. Still, none of it had touched him. He had felt sorry for his mother and she had made him lie. He would go to Kansas City and get a job and she would feel all right about it. There would be one more scene maybe before he got away. He would not go down to his father's office. He would miss that one. He wanted his life to go smoothly. It had just gotten going that way. Well, that was all over now, anyway. He would go over to the schoolyard and watch Helen play indoor baseball.

May 10 - Croak - Chapter 9 - J-Band

Aim: What experience does Lex have in Croak that most impresses her, so far?
Do Now: What person or period of time in history most fascinates you?

The Jeaning Of America—and The World Carin C. Quinn

Name __________________________________  Date_________________ Band_______

The Jeaning Of America—and The World

Carin C. Quinn

1. Does Quinn explain clearly the steps by which Levi's invention became "the common pants of America?  Explain, making specific reference to the text.
2. To what extent does this essay increase your knowledge of how blue jeans came to be popular?
3. Does Quinn appear to know her subject well?  What is her major source of material?
4. Why, according to Quinn, is "a simple pair of pants called blue jeans" a symbol of America?  Why a symbol of equality?  Do you agree with her judgment?  Why or why not?
5. Write a paragraph explaining how to wash, repair, patch, or cut off the legs of blue jeans.

Croak May 10 Chapter 8 H-band

H Band
Aim: What purpose do the jellyfish have in Croak?  
How do the (Is it ironic for jellyfish to be so important?)
What are the Ether Traffic Controllers called? 
What are the Gamma Removal and Immigration Managers called?
What is the name of the computer that tracks and codes all incoming Gammas?  
(Why is it called "Smack?") 

Do Now:  https://youtu.be/BUDnj_rima4

What can you tell me about jellyfish? What do they look like?  
How do they move?
Have you ever touched or been touched by one?
Why are they called "Jelly"- fish?
Are jellyfish a normal form of life?  
What makes them a really weird life form?

A group of fish is called a school.
A group of birds is called a flock.
A group of ants is called an army.
A group of crows is called a murder.
A group of geese is called a gaggle.
A group of jellyfish is called a smack!

What are the Ether Traffic Controllers called?
What are the Gamma Removal and Immigration Managers called?
What kind of computer do they use in Croak to track and code all incoming Gammas?  
Where did they get the name "Smack" from?


Focus: How does Lex find out she is different but not unequal to the others in Croak?

Aim: How does Driggs make Lex feel like she wants to stay in Croak for the summer?  What does he do to make her feel welcome?
How Driggs get Lex learn how to be less angry with herself?

Do Now: How many times are people supposed to get punched on their birthdays?

What is the difference between being average and being normal?
Write a "Thank You" note

Chapter 8 (page 80 - 90
Aim: How do we learn about the hidden organization of Croak?
Who is in charge of the Etceteras? 
What the short name for the Gamma Removal and Immigration Managers?
What do the jelly fish have to do with Killing, Culling, and Smack?
What kind of jellyfish can life forever?  (Turritopsis dohrnii)
https://youtu.be/BUDnj_rima4

What happened to Driggs's first partner?

Where did Norwood get his name from?  Why is his wife's name Heloise?
(pay close attention to the bottom of page 83 - top of page 84)

Do Now: What's a good name for a dog?  Why might names that start with N, (especially No, such as Nelly, Noport, or Noah, not such good names for dogs?

What are the Ether Traffic Controllers called?
What are the Gamma Removal and Immigration Managers called?
What kind of computer do the use in Croak to track and code all incoming Gammas?  Why is it  called a Smack?  What is a smack of jellyfish? https://youtu.be/BUDnj_rima4

What happened to Driggs's first partner?


Concept:
Nepotism:
the practice among those with power or influence of favoring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs.mid 17th century: from French népotisme, from Italian nepotismo, from nipote  ‘nephew’ (with reference to privileges bestowed on the “nephews” of popes, who were in many cases their illegitimate sons).
Do Now: