Yes, the sophomores turned their in today! Woohoo! And now the count gets bigger and bigger again!
Film: We finished the movie and started presenting our projects. Marty and Peter presented first with vastly different videos. More tomorrow.
E2CP: We took some time to look at portfolios and then I read Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado." HW: Read "The Fall of the House of Usher."
E3H: We read another ESC paper today and then we continued Macbeth through III.ii. More Macbeth tomorrow.
E2CP: YOU HAVE A PORTFOLIO DUE ON MONDAY!!!! You may also choose to bring goodies to share if you'd like. :-)
Film: YOU HAVE A PROJECT DUE ON MONDAY! Goodies, however, are not really an option in your case. :-)
E3H: YOU DO NOT HAVE A PROJECT DUE ON MONDAY. I just thought I'd mention that. But you do have ESC papers and Capstone projects ongoing, and you need to finish reading Macbeth.
This guy is utterly amazing!
On musical weekend, I thought I'd take you to a few more, courtesy of a very talented person. Here is his take on one of the most famous and popular musicals ever. (And you'll never believe his "Christine.")
Here's his take on the new musical "Newsies":
And here is a medley of Disney songs you might know:
And now for something completely different: classes!
Film: We began "Requiem For a Dream." Projects will be due Monday. No extensions.
E3H: We discussed the ESC Papers.We also watched this video, which showed some examples of Capstone Projects:
E2CP: With one more school day before they are due, we were in the lab working on PORTFOLIOS.
And now, just for fun:
What's in a name? A Bard by any other name would write as sweet. Would he not? And yet, forsooth, methinks that the Bard who wears the name of Shakespeare is verily the finest of them all.
And, hey, the dude is 448 years old! That's...old!
You do not need to believe in gay rights to know that hatred is wrong. And you do not need to be dressed in purple today to know that when religion causes hatred that leads to bullying or ostracism that causes kids to takes their own lives, there is nothing about it that can remotely be called holy or righteous. This is something everyone should agree with, yet we all know that not everyone does. I rarely take sides on a partisan issue either in the classroom or in this blog, but I am making an exception today. We have had three suicides this year here, and that is three too many. They may not have been fostered by hatred, but they certainly have been the result of internal pressures that built up beyond tolerance. Perhaps we could have done little to prevent them. But violence against GLBT people is something we can prevent. The pressures that lead to their suicides is something we can prevent. The fomenting and tolerance of hatred against them is something we can prevent.
And we must.
In the hallways I see many students--not the hundreds I would hope for, but at least a hundred or perhaps a bit more--wearing purple, the color selected to show support for this cause. Pretty much the entire English Department, to which I belong, is doing so. Of course we are: we're the touchy-feely department, after all. I know of dozens of students and several teachers who have opted to show solidarity by, like me, vowing not to speak all day. (I passed a gaggle of such kids between periods earlier, an odd meeting in which six students and a teacher crossed paths and not a sound issued from anyone, not even when one student's backpack accidentally bumped me. She turned and flashed an "I'm sorry" look, which I acknowledged. It was all that was needed.)
I want to reach out and tell all of the GLBT kids here not just that it gets better--I've done that, and of course it will: they will not be trapped in the socially incestuous four year nightmare that is high school forever--but that they shouldn't need it to. I want them to know that they should understand how amazingly special they are, that they have been given a gift none of their classmates have been given. If there is pain along with it, it is the pain of misunderstanding, of not seeing the gift for what it is. For they end up possessing knowledge that most of their peers will achieve minimally, if at all. Who among the GLBT community does not understand the nature of hatred and the importance of love? Who among the GLBT community cannot tell you of their deep understanding of their own nature, the end result of the struggle they faced to discover it? Who among the GLBT community--those who have accepted themselves--cannot talk of the unequaled joy of living a life that is true? Who among the GLBT community cannot appreciate the real value of a true friend?
Is it hard? Of course it's hard? What worthwhile thing is not hard? But those who don't have to struggle for this kind of knowledge probably never actually come into it. Not in this way, at least. Not in a way that is so--and here is something that those who hate in the name of religion might find ironic, or even sacrilegious--holy. It is pure and honest and genuine. And those who hate possess none of those qualities, and they never will.
Film: We have one more day (Monday) in the lab. Projects are due Thursday.
E2CP: Today we took a test. (Make it up in the Testing Ctr. Monday if you were absent.) Monday we will be in a lab.
E3H: Today we took a test. (Make it up in the Testing Ctr. Monday if you were absent.) Don't forget Monday to wear your Shakespeare T-Shirts from 7:50-3:10 as your outermost garment. I do spot-check all day long! You will bring your short written explanation to class, where you will present your t-shirt to your classmates and explain it off the cuff, not just reading the essay. (It would be rather good, in order to do this, for you to have at the very least memorized the quotation.) And bring some goodies! It's a birthday, after all!
It's the 19th. That means tomorrow is 4/20. And Sunday is Earth Day. Three of my classes have a vocab assessment. One of them is working on a film project. Life is good.
Sadly, a lot of LGBT kids are not living it anymore. They have been murdered or have committed suicide due to bullying or other pressures. One happened just this week. Tomorrow, on 4/20, some knuckleheads will spend their days getting high to escape the world for awhile. But here, in that world, as we struggle to find a way to grow and learn and get along, many of us will spend the day commemorating those young people who are no longer with us because of the rabid stupidity of hatred.
Will you join in supporting National Day of Silence? The choice is yours. If you choose to not speak, I have stickers you can get first period in the RC. If you don't wish to go that far but wish to express support, just wear purple.
Film: Back in the lab tomorrow. Bring your video!
E2CP: Vocab assessment; lab work.
E3H: Vocab assessment; RW.
WORD OF THE DAY*: Silence
Must have happened while I was not paying attention.
FACTOID THAT MAY INTEREST ONLY ME: There are only five more Mondays remaining on the school calendar. Those of us who particularly detest that day of the week will be happy to receive that bit of news. :-)
Film: Do some shooting!!! Give yourself something to work with that is better than the random stuff you have right now! Tomorrow we'll have a mini-lesson on how to use iMovie. It will be much better with your own video. And don't forget your phone cables!!!
E2CP: We were in the lab today. We'll be in the lab tomorrow too. Countdown is now 12 days.
E3H: The king is dead. Long live the king? More Mac on the morrow.
WORD OF THE DAY*: Friday
* that is the day of the vocab assessment.
I'm still in less than a loquacious mood, but that reminds me: you don't want to forget that we will be having a vocab assessment later this week. :-)
Film: There is a project! Do some shotting tonight and bring in your cameras (and the cords to connect them to the computer--which is usually part of the power adapter--if possible) tomorrow. Meet in Lab 51.
E2CP: Writing Workshop tomorrow.
E3H: Today we discussed capstones and T-shirts. (Chants have been canceled.) Back to Mac tomorrow.
A stormy Monday, really. Not much here to say, really. Stay dry.
Film: We finished the film. For your projects,
Do you fear Friday the 13th?
Are you aware that this fear has been around for only the last century of so (according to Wikipedia) but its component parts have been feared a lot longer. Fridays and the number 13 have long been considered unlucky in the western world. (OTOH, in Italy, it's Friday the 17th that is the unluckiest of days...go figure!)
Well, if you do have friggatriskaidekaphobia, watch out in July, when we do it all again!
Film: We'll finish the film on Monday and then begin a project on editing and sound.
E2CP: Today there was RW. Monday we are have WW. Here are the notes for the weekend assignment:
I'm tired of 24-hour bugs. Most years I get a couple of massive four-day flus; this year it seems as if I've had six or seven of these little things that come and go. I'm not sure which is worse. Ah well, I'm back.
Film: We're in the middle of "Apocalypse Now." We will not finish this week, but should on Monday, I think. And then there will be a project we will be doing. Review #8 will be due Monday.
E2CP: We discussed your Persuasive Speech topics today. If you did not have one, I'd like you to talk to me about your tomorrow. RW tomorrow, the last one of the project. Project reports due Sunday.
E3H: We introduced Macbeth chants and T-shirts today. More on this later, but they are all due on 4/23. RW tomorrow.
WORD OF THE DAY*: EQUIVOCATE
* Click word for information.
This one is best between about 2:00 and 2:45, when they put ice cream in the cone and the kitten grabs it. SO CUTE!
sorry i was not around today.
this is a short post to let you know i'll be back tomorrow. assignments are all the same. in E3H we'll discuss what you discovered today. :-)
I mentioned I loved this movie, right?
Here is what I detest: the outright snobbery of people who say they hate it but really the basic reason is that it made a crapton of money. So what? I think it is wonderful that a high quality film with a strong cast, excellent acting (Leonardo DeCaprio is constitutionally unable to give a mediocre performance and both actresses playing Rose were nominated for Academy Awards!), incredible music, editing, effects, art direction, cinematography, and direction (all of which won Oscars), and which was by acclamation the Best Picture in a year that included "LA Confidential" and "Good Will Hunting" should also make billions at the box office. Far better such a film than something like "American Reunion."
So deal with it, haters! This is simply one of the best movies ever made, and obviously the most successful. And if it leaves me crying at the end, well, that's OK too.
Film: We started "Apocalypse Now Redux," a somewhat flawed but utterly compelling Viet Nam war movie by Francis Ford Coppola, one of the most incredible directors of our time.
E2CP: Bad day to be absent. We spent the whole day discussing what goes into a persuasive speech (using "Titanic" as an example). I will try to write it up and put it online. Topics due Thursday.
E3H: Macbeth continued...read through II.ii.
WORD OF THE DAY*: ALACRITY
* Click word for information.
You thought maybe today's video would be anything else? :-)
Yes, I am going to see Titanic 3D. Probably this afternoon, if I get finished with all of this in time. And why not? It was one of the quintessential films of the 90's and easily one of the great movie experiences of my life. If it is not considered one of the finest films of all time I think that is just anti-blockbuster snobbery. It is far more than a love story, yet Kate and Leo's story is brilliantly handled, a pair of doomed lovers on a doomed ship who, with the audacity of youth, think they have the whole world ahead of them. It is far more than a disaster film, yet the actual sinking of the ship is utterly compelling and brilliantly filmed. It is far more than a film about class differences, yet they are clearly outlined in the stark realities of steerage and first class. It is a film that is far more than the sum of its parts, full of tiny moments and grand expansive ones. And every one of them seems to be critical in making it work.
Even that darned Celine Dion song is critical.
So, yes, tonight (probably) I'll be with Leo again, the King of the World. And I'll undoubtedly cry again as he slips beneath the waves. My fondness for that film is unsinkable.
Film: Today we watched more videos on sound and editing leading us to tomorrow, when we begin "Apocalypse Now."
E3H: More "Macbeth" today. Come in tomorrow about to explain the line "fair is foul and foul is fair." Also, the capstone outline is due by Wednesday.
E2CP: WW today. We are back in the classroom tomorrow.
WORD OF THE DAY*: CHICANERY
* Click word for information.
Now here is a bit of Easter-themed chicanery for you...
:-)
No, that is not a Japanese sea monster.
Golgotha is the place where Christ was crucified, the event in commemoration of which there is no school tomorrow. (I know: technically it is simply a "day of non-attendance," but we all know better, don't we?) I bring up Golgotha, though, not merely because of that, but because of the fact that, in two sections of honors juniors, only one single student knew what it was!
Now I am not a religious person, but I do think that if one calls oneself "Christian" one ought to know a few basic facts about one's religion, including the place where that cross you wear around your neck was originally planted. What else don't you know about Good Friday? Do you know how many hours Jesus hung on that cross? Do you know who were there as witnesses? Who took the body down? Do you know about the two thieves? Do you know what "eli, eli, lema sabachthani" means and who said it? Do you know who pronounced the sentence that he be crucified in the first place?
What do you know about Easter? I won't even bother with the Bible here. Here's a good one: do you know why it is celebrated on the date on which it is celebrated? I mean, it is not, like Christmas, celebrated on a fixed date, so how is the date chosen each year? And just what is the deal with the egg-bearing bunny anyway?
Those are all just off the top of my head. So are the answers. And I'm not religious. It seems to me that, if you are, you should be able to answer them too.
E3H: We have entered 11th Century Scotland. There are witches. There's a civil war that has just been squashed. There's a thane who has turned traitor. And there are two pretty darned spectacular generals, one of whom is somehow connected to the aforementioned witches. Something is amiss here. Read the rest of Act One for Monday.
Film: We discussed Sound in film. I showed a few videos, the last of which dealt with sound design in the film "Apocalypse Now," which is a movie we'll be watching next week. Film review due on Monday.
E2CP: We were in the lab today, and some of you were even working. No matter: the portfolio is due in 25 days for all of you, whether you use your time wisely or not. We have another WW on Monday.
WORD OF THE DAY*: PROSAIC
* Click word for information.
Tony Orlando and Dawn (who sang "Candida," one of today's songs), had a giant hit in 1973 with a song called "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree," about a man coming home from prison who has asked his love to, well, do just that if she still wants him. Eight years later, when Americans were held hostage in Iran, yellow ribbons popped up on trees across the country and this song became a sort of anthem. Since then, the yellow ribbon has become associated with support for soldiers away from home.
AND, JUST BECAUSE...
Have a great weekend!
Thinking about historical events today. I'm still doing history lessons in E3H (because what else is English for?) and I'm also reading Stephen King's 11-22-63, about a man who discovers he can time travel back to the years before Kennedy was shot and decides to try to prevent the assassination. Then I looked at the date and realized it's April 4...the day M L King was shot back in 1968. No one will ever convince me that those two events are not linked. If Oswald never kills Kennedy, Ray never kills King and Sirhan never kills Robert Kennedy. Period. It's the domino effect, started by one crazy jackass who fashioned himself as some kind of heroic figure.
I went to the Fifth Floor Museum at the Texas School Book Depository once, where they have all sorts of exhibits about Kennedy and Oswald. They even have a replicated version of his sniper's nest at the window from which he took the shots. That day scarred the country and it scarred me--only six years old at the time but I felt it powerfully anyway. The country's scars have never healed, have only deepened with time, solidified into something ugly and unrecognizable.
The protagonist of King's story keeps saying that he finds life in the 1950s thoroughly enjoyable because it is a much simpler, more trusting time with better food, less development, etc. He admits the pollution and the omnipresent cigarette smoke and the poorer health service, but prefers it anyway. He loves the lack of computers, which he quickly realizes he had become "addicted" to back in 2011. I think he is probably right. Life was probably better then. But I think what started the change was not anything recent; it was three bullets fired in Dallas on November 22, 1963. We've been on a long, terrible fall ever since.
Film: We finished "Midnight in Paris" and discussed it a bit. More tomorrow plus the Sound chapter. Bring your books.
E3H: History lesson redux; caught up to the start of the play and began the reading: how Shakespeare connected the witches and Macbeth from the outset.
E2CP: RW today. You might not have another full one, considering the amount of time wasted in this one. WW tomorrow. Don't waste that.
WORD OF THE DAY*: VENERABLE
* Click word for information.
Tomorrow's Conferences:Willie, Tommy W
Great song:
Bizarre people. (I really couldn't even watch #1.)
Today was a story-telling day in my E3H classes. I forget how much fun it is just to tell stories. You sit (or stand) around and spend the time to paint the picture of how things were, building up the plot to your desired climax, aware of the time you have to make it all work. How did Elizabeth become queen? What made her reign a Golden Age? What does any of this have to do with studying Macbeth? It is just fun to weave it all together even if it takes two or three periods to make it happen. And then...
The book begins (I hope) with more richness, more depth.
Well, that's the idea, anyway. :-)
Film: Continuing "Midnight in Paris," which we are noting is basically a love letter to the city presented in a pretty classical way.
E3H: Hmm...see above.
E2CP: We had WW. RW tomorrow.
WORD OF THE DAY*: OSTENTATIOUS
* Click word for information.
Tomorrow's Conferences: Allie :-)
This is totally twisted. Don't say I didn't warn you:
Back in October, I said that once we passes spring break it was "all downhill from there." So let it be. We've passed the break, there's another day off on Friday, a messed up week near the end of the month, and then there's May. Summer can't be far behind. Let us get there in one piece.
Please.
Please.
Film: We started watching Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" today. Your reading assignment for the week: Chapter 5: Sound. Finish it for Wednesday.
E2CP: This is a Workshop Week. Today, tomorrow and Thursday we will have WW; Wednesday we'll have RW. If you still owe me CR journals or essays, get them to me.
E3H: Today we mostly discussed a bit more of the Capstone Project.
WORD OF THE DAY*: DROLL
* Click word for information.
Tomorrow's Conferences: Tommy L, Andy, Collin, Emma
Here is an April Fool's Joke from Kodak:
