English I

Students in English I finished looking at Billy Collins’s poem “The Lanyard” and the shift in tone that occurs in the poem. After watching Collins reading the poem,

we made notes of when the audience laughed.

This led the students to realize in discussion that the audience was laughing at the speaker for his childish thoughts about having repaid his mother with a silly lanyard. This in turn led students to see that in making the audience laugh like that, Collins was in fact laughing at himself, leading us to the conclusion that self-deprecation is a major element in the poem’s initial tone. Toward the end of the poem, though, the laughter stops:

This shows an element of regret and even perhaps shame, and it’s reflected in the audience’s reaction.

Afterward, we did a little review for tomorrow’s parts of speech test.

English 8

Sixth- and seventh-period students continued with the It Says/I Say for chapter 3 of Nightjohn.

Students who did not complete the chapter need to do so for homework or during advisory tomorrow.

Homework

• English 8: complete chapter 3 and the accompanying It Says/I Say engagement
• English I Honors: prepare for the parts of speech test tomorrow (practice below; answers here)