http://sheehy.edublogs.org Who knows more than 11th graders? Read them here. Tue, 27 May 2008 15:37:27 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en One of my favorite passages in all of literature is Puck's speech at the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream. After he has caused all the mischief and conflict that drove the play, he apologizes to the audience--sort of. Actually, he suggests how the audience should think of all the ... http://sheehy.edublogs.org/2008/05/22/your-teacher-desires-a-word-with-you/ Upon finishing the book, please write a 300 word article considering the question, "What are your feelings about this book?" It's a generic question, I realize, but I leave it frustratingly generic in order to allow you maximum flexibility in how you respond. Please look back to the chapters you've read ... http://sheehy.edublogs.org/2008/05/22/finale-of-mice-and-men/ Hopefully my pattern for this book won't get too repetitive to be effective, but for chapter three I'd like you to continue picking out important passages and commenting on them. I think it helps us keep our conversations rooted in the text, as well as give you essentially an endless ... http://sheehy.edublogs.org/2008/05/15/of-mice-chapter-3/ Having read the first chapter of Of Mice and Men and discussed it through both the reading of each other's blogs and an almost circle discussion, we move to chapter two (pp. 17-37). Before I tell you what I'd like you to do to respond to chapter 2, I'd like ... http://sheehy.edublogs.org/2008/05/12/let-the-big-guy-talk-of-mice-and-men-chapter-2/ These are what I consider to be important lines from the first chapter of Of Mice and Men. In later chapters, I will expect you to pick out the important lines to discuss in your blogs. In this case, please choose as many of these lines (or ones you've ... http://sheehy.edublogs.org/2008/05/08/of-mice-and-men-chapter-1/ When we read stories -- especially those from Faulkner -- we talked about how a writer loads every detail into it with the most specific intentions. While he was talking about short stories, I think Of Mice and Men (and really, any truly great novel) does the same thing. Each ... http://sheehy.edublogs.org/2008/05/08/saying-much-by-saying-little/ Before we read The Crucible, I'd like you to take some time to look into Arthur Miller. Who was he? What did he do that makes him so famous? When did he write and what about his world was his driving concern? Why is one of his plays in our ... http://sheehy.edublogs.org/2008/04/04/who-is-arthur-miller-and-why-are-we-reading-something-he-wrote/ Last weekend, during our "spring break" I spent some time in a local coffee shop doing some reading (selections from The Portable Faulkner) and making a withdrawal on the gift card I'd been given (a white chocolate mocha was the item of interest, though my first sip almost burned my ... http://sheehy.edublogs.org/2008/03/31/the-old-man-and-the-essay-responding-to-the-quizzical-stories/ Wow. I asked for you to write stories to respond to naturalism and show that you understood what it means for a writer to be called naturalist; what I didn't expect was the quality of the stories. Not that I doubted your creativity, but creativity does not always produce great stories, ... http://sheehy.edublogs.org/2008/03/13/your-naturalist-stories/ Having read Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," you know there's no way to escape writing about it. Maybe in some corner of my pinky finger there had been hidden a cell that might have let you out of a written assignment for this story, but then ... http://sheehy.edublogs.org/2008/02/27/reacting-to-oconnor-is-a-good-blogger-hard-to-find/