Overview of first 9 weeks assignments

Fall Semester, Part One:

Genre Studies: Drama, Poetry, and the Essay

Literature as an Expression of the Human Condition

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Essential Questions

1. What is a genre and what sorts of expectations and conventions are associated with different genres? Why does this matter?

2. What can the study of literature teach us about human nature, the world, and ourselves?

3. How can and does this course relate to our other courses, and to our overall education?

4. What sorts of stylistic and philosophical choices do writers make and how do these choices contribute to meaning?

Learning Objectives

1. Learn to identify, appreciate, and explain a text’s complexity of meaning and form.

2. Improve your ability to engage in close, detailed analysis of individual texts and to make connections between texts.

3. To achieve the above, you will learn to make careful observations of textual detail, establish connections among those observations, and draw inferences leading to an interpretive conclusion about a text’s meaning and value.

4. Improve your writing skills, focusing on organization, coherence, varied diction and sentence structure, balancing generalizations with specific illustrative detail, and constructing an effective argument.

5. Perfect your ability to compose oral and written literary commentary according to the standards of the International Baccalaureate Program.

1^st 9 Weeks Assignments:

Ø In-class warm-ups and writing as announced (150 points)

Ø Reading Logs on Google classroom (250 points total)

Ø Hamlet DIRTs as needed (25 points each)

Ø Hamlet memorization assignments (100 points each)

Ø Hamlet test (300 points)

Ø Leading Analysis of Plath Poem (group project) (150 points)

Reading logs

Reading responses truly are for your benefit in two ways: first, they help you process and really think about what you’ve read (we often don’t do this unless forced to write about something) and, second, they are for your use as review for tests and for your IB exam.

Hamlet memorization assignments

Memorization may seem like torture but you’ll thank me later, I promise – for a host of reasons we can and will discuss in class. For each, you’ll need to select a passage from the ones given, or choose another of similar length and merit. On the day they are due, you may either recite your passage by memory or write it down.

Group Poetry Assignment

During our in-depth unit on the poetry of Sylvia Plath, you will divide into groups of 3 and be in charge of leading our exploration of one assigned Plath. More information on this project can be found on the Group Poetry Assignment sheet, but feel free to get creative with keeping us engaged and interested, while still communicating the salient points about the poem.