Tag Archives: alliteration

Final Day Before Winter Break 2011

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First and sixth periods completed yesterday’s work with Schaffer paragraphs about alliteration in “Silver.” We’ll be continuing the poetry unit after the break.

Second and fourth periods completed the poetry unit. All that’s lacking is the final project: the sonnet.

Seventh period worked on their own poetry.

Homework

Unfortunately, I’m not kidding — not for second and fourth periods, which have three things to complete over the break, maybe four, conceivably five:

  1. Go over “The Ballad of Birmingham” assignment.
  2. Complete the sonnet. The rubric is here. Make sure you download and use this template for your sonnet (it is in Word and Open Document formats in this zip file).
  3. Complete the “Works Cited” page for the Mockingbird unit.
  4. Begin preparing for the midterm exam, using the study guide.
  5. Work on the assignment to raise your tone vocabulary quiz grade.

Pictures students took during recess are available here.

Schaffer Writing, a Ballad, and a Test

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First Period at Work

First and sixth periods worked on using the Schaffer model to help organize and plan our writing about alliteration in the poem “Silver.”

First Period Partner Work

Sixth period, not having read it before, had to spend a bit of time going through the steps we’ve been using to understand poems, but by the end of the respective class periods, the two groups came up with something rather similar.

First Period's Work

Sixth Period's Work

We’ll complete the work tomorrow.

Second and fourth periods worked on ballads, doing inductive reasoning from the ballad “Boots of Spanish Leather.”

Seventh period had a test on the poetry unit.

Homework

Figurative Language, Sound Devices, and Paraphrasing

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First period worked on sound devices in “Cat!”, noting in particular the use of rhythm (the definition we included: a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in writing), onomatopoeia, and alliteration, all added to our revised graphic organizer. I’ve simplified it from what I used last year, and students created their own based on my model:

TermDefinitionExamples
onomatopoeia
(sound device)		words that imitate the sound of the thing they’re describing“psfts” in “Cat!”
alliteration
(sound device)		repetition of initial consonant sounds sleeky spitfire spatter
rhythm
(sound device)		a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in writing Catch her! Get her! (stressed-unstressed)

We also worked on paraphrasing the poem “Silver.”

Second and fourth period continued the poetry unit, looking at figurative language after our detour into sonnet-ville and a day learning some tricks on how to write a sonnet. We focused on metaphors with their tenors and vehicles.

Sixth period also worked on sound devices and paraphrasing, though they worked with “Ring Out, Wild Bells.”

Seventh period worked on paraphrasing with the poem “Annabelle Lee.”

Homework
  • First period: paraphrase lines three and four of “Silver”
  • Second and fourth periods:
    • read “Mending Wall”;
    • complete step two for “MW” (determine the meaning of unknown words);
    • study for tone words quiz tomorrow.
  • Sixth periods: paraphrase one stanza of “Ring Out, Wild Bells” according to your row:
    RowStanza
    1Stanza two
    2Stanza three
    3Stanza four
    4Stanza five
    5Stanza six
    6Stanza seven
  • Seventh period: paraphrase one stanza of “Annabelle Lee” according to your row:
    RowStanza
    1Stanza one
    2Stanza two
    3Stanza three
    4Stanza four
    5Stanza five
    6Stanza six

 

Sound Devices, Theme, and Narrative Poetry

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First and sixth periods worked with theme. Second and fourth periods completed their look at consonance, assonance, and rhyme. Seventh period began a long narrative poem that we all remember from middle school, “The Highwayman.”

Homework
  • First and sixth periods: make a list of the stories we read in the unit. For each story, make a sub-point list that includes:
    • characters,
    • setting, and
    • conflict.
  • Second and fourth period: determine the rhyme scheme of Shakespeare’s “Sonnet XVIII.”
  • Seventh period: none.

Alliteration and Presentations

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Second and sixth periods looked at Walter de la Mare’s poem “Silver” to continue learning about sound devices, specifically alliteration.

Fourth period had their first poetry presentations, working on direct and implied metaphors. Student-presenters led the class through two poems, “Fog” by Carl Sandburg and Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice.”

As part of the starter, the group used a smoke machine to create fog for the journal writing that begins every class. It was quite clever, I must say.

Foggy Starter

Foggy Starter

Students were able to anticipate the poems through their own writing: good thinking! (More pictures available here.)

Homework
  • Second period: complete vocabulary chart for “Your World” (605)
  • Fourth period: complete rubric for sonnet recitation.
  • Sixth period: read “Your World” (605) and complete vocabulary chart for the poem.

Sound Devices

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First and second period worked on sound devices, focusing on the use of rhythm and onomatopoeia in a poem titled “Cat.”

Second period finished up the ballad selection and poetry unit. We discussed a bit the portfolio (which will be turned in 2 December).

Seventh period finished up the test on The Diary of Anne Frank (we didn’t have class yesterday because of Career Day).

Homework
  • First period: none.
  • Second period:
    • re-read poems until mastered;
    • analyze “Drum” for onomatopoeia and meter;
    • analyze “Cat” and “Drum” for instances of  alliteration.
  • Fourth period:
    • parts of speech test Friday (November 13);
    • work on poetry portfolio.
  • Seventh period:
    • practice reading the poem until you’ve mastered it;
    • find the two passages that are most rap-like.

Questions, a Test, and Sound Devices

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First and seventh periods completed work on the Diary of Anne Frank. We went over homework and did some work to review the play individually and in small groups.

We will be having a test on Monday in first and seventh periods. It will be an open book essay test, and I have already shared the question with students.

Write a letter to a theater manager asking him or her to stage The Diary of Anne Frank for your community. To persuade the theater manager, follow these steps:

  • Connect the events in the play to current events and attitudes.
  • Explain why the theme is important and how you think the community will benefit from seeing the play.

Second period took their essay test for the Diary of Anne Frank as well. They had a choice of two essay questions

  1. You decide to make a recommendation to the school board that The Diary of Anne Frank be required reading for all eighth graders. You want to stress how it is a selection that all students can relate to and learn something from. Write a letter presenting your case. Use at least three episodes from the book that
    1. Can relate to students’ own experiences and
    2. Teach students something significant and important
  2. Read I.4 (which we didn’t read in class). Select three characters and discuss how I.4 further develops them. What type of people are they, and how do the actions of I.4 confirm or change our impressions of them?

Fourth period continued work on the poetry unit. The group covering alliteration and assonance completed their presentation today.

Homework
  • First and seventh periods: plan and prepare for test.
  • Second period: none.
  • Fourth period: revise second quatrain of sonnet to ensure it is in iambic pentameter.

Poetry, the Odyssey, and a Mistaken Allusion

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First things first: I made a blunder during second period. We were looking at Odysseus’s journey to the underworld and his meeting with Tiresias. I mentioned the two famous victims of the underworld, Tantalus and Sisyphus; I elaborated on Sisyphus and the 20th-century French philosopher who designated him an “absurd hero.” I attributed this to Jean Paul Sartre.

551px-punishment_sisyphSisifo, olio su tela di Tiziano Vecellio

Sartre?! What was I thinking? Sartre is the heavily analytic, dense existentialist; it’s the man that wrote L’Être et le Néant (Being and Nothingness) — not exactly the easiest read in the world.

It was Camus who was more literary in his presentation of existenialism.

412px-johann_heinrich_fussli_063Johann Heinrich Füssli
Theresias erscheint dem Ulysseus während der Opferung

Naturally this is an oversimplification. Sartre wrote plays — No Exit and Nausea come to mind — as well as philosophical monographs. He wrote literature, but he wasn’t quite as literary as Camus.

All that aside, I wanted to make the correction. I’m sure Sartre would be flattered, but my philosophy professor from college would be horrified.

First period continued with sound devices; fourth and sixth periods began working with sound devices. All three periods working with sound devices are doing group work, and quite successfully, I might add.

Homework
  • First period: vocabulary handout.
  • Second period: five-panel storyboard of your vision of the meeting with Tiresias.
  • Fourth and sixth periods: write poem about your favorite animal.

Describing Someone and the Cyclops

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First, fourth, and sixth periods worked on poetry, specifically Jacqueline Woodson’s “Describe Someone.” We practiced as a class revising lines to add alliteration and consonance. Students will be doing the same to their own poems for homework.

Second period went over the Cyclops episode in the Odyssey.

Homework
  • First period:
    • read “Summer Sky”;
    • answer questions on pages 227-229 in workbook.
  • Second period:
    • semi-long term assignments (part of reader response journals for Odyssey):
      • a poem from the cyclop’s point of view;
      • read page 809 then work on the question of hospitality as it’s presented throughout the Odyssey;
    • for Monday: read “The Witches’ Circle”
  • Fourth and sixth periods: work on adding consonance and alliteration to your poem.

Consonance, Alliteration, and the Lotus Eaters

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Second period began looking at the elements of the Coen brothers’ film Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? that are taken directly from the Odyssey. We’ll be watching five scenes, and we began today with the Coen brothers’ take on the Lotus Eaters.

First period worked on a rather lengthy quiz, then created signs in Microsoft Publisher for our bulletin board on poetry.

Fourth and sixth periods began poetry by looking at consonance and alliteration, two sound devices used in our first poems. Then we watched a short video in which a poet, Jacqueline Woodson, described her work as a poet.

Homework
  • First period: none.
  • Second period: read the section on the cyclops.
  • Fourth and sixth periods:
    • write a poem that describes someone;
    • complete “Works Cited” page (to be turned in tomorrow)

Citation Practice and Poetry

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First period began the poetry unit by looking at several elements of poetry, including:

  • consonnance
  • assonance
  • alliteration
  • simile
  • metaphor
  • personification

Second period began reading the Odyssey after we had a quiz on it.

Fourth and sixth periods completed their work on their “Works Cited” page.

No homework for any classes today.