The first documentary is required. Since we may not have time in class, you should watch this documentary in its entirety -- from home (flipped classroom!). Consult your Worksheet (above) in order to understand what you should take away from this documentary.

Today in class
After the Great Expectations quiz on Volume III, we'll discuss satire. Here are two questions for you to consider:

1, What aspects of Victorian life does Charles Dickens satirize in Great Expectations? How? Through what means? Through which characters? Situations?

2. Which characters change throughout the course of teh novel 

You can expect to receive your GE and Dracula in-class essays on Wed./Thu. and we will discuss ways to improve your analytical writing.

I will be handing you a print-out of the following packet. Please treat this as the most important handout of the year.

     DOWNLOAD: How to Write a Literary Essay (PDF)

Today is a big day in your high school English career. Today is the day I am going to begin pushing you to move beyond the formulaic 5-paragraph essay. Understanding this formulaic writing -- intro w thesis + 3 bodies paragraphs, each with a topic sentence  + a conclusion -- is important to being able to move ahead and develop your own style and tone.

College-level writing is not formulaic. You are expected to bump up to college-level writing as of today. Today, I will be returning your Dracula essays to be revised. You will treat your in-class essay as a "rough draft". Your revision, since you will be taking it home to work on over the course of a week, is expected to be a development of the ideas you put down on paper in 50-minutes. Your revision should reflect your understanding of the PowerPoint above and the "How to Write a Literary Essay" handout (see below).

First, a couple of quick tips:

1. Thesis + Evidence: Every analytical essay you write on the subject of literature will need a controlling thesis. And that thesis will still need to be clear, strongly worded, debatable (not fact), and supportable by evidence (examples, details, etc.) from the text. So, in order to prepare for the next in-class essay, you should review my handout on "How to Write a Literary Essay." Everything in that handout still applies.

2. Avoid All Redundancies / Repetitions: Part of the problem with formulaic 5-paragraph essay writing is that it 1) often sounds like a lab report, and 2) often includes a number of redundancies and/or repetitions. The rule of thumb now should be: avoid all redundancies and repetition. In order to do that, first make sure that you are varying your word phrasing. Second, you probably don't need a blueprint statement that tells the reader the subject of each of your three supporting paragraphs. Third, in the more sophisticated writing that you will be doing, you can almost always dispense with that formulaic topic sentence at the beginning of each support paragraph. Instead you should work on using appropriate transitional phrasing that leads from topic to topic. Fourth, your conclusion absolutely must not repeat your thesis. Instead, your conclusion should focus on providing some insight, tying together your various supports, and driving home your thesis  by explaining its importance.

For next class - Fri-B3/Mon-A2
    - Review Chapters 1-9 of Dracula and be prepared for a quiz and class discussion
    - Complete LRJ#3 for Dracula: "A Definitive Primer..."

Today in class (Thu/Fri)
Great Expectations in-class essay first 50 minutes of class followed by review of literary terms you REALLY need to know.

For next class (Mon/Tues)
First off, you should prepare for the Dracula in-class essay on Mon-B3/Tues-A2. Be sure to bring your annotated copy of Dracula.

Also, please read: "Victorian Literature -- An Overview" (DOCX). We'll discuss this after the Dracula essay. (No, you won't have a quiz on it.)

Moeller Brit Lit Tour -- June 2016 (Open to Juniors)
London - Cambridge - Stratford-upon-Avon - Oxford - Greenwich

Discover the many different qualities of England. Oxford and Cambridge evoke a scholarly atmosphere. Literary tradition lives in Stratford, birthplace of Shakespeare, and lurks on just about every street we'll walk on through London. Visit Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. See a West End play. Eat at bustling Borough Market in Southwark and J.R.R Tolkien's favorite pub in Oxford. Ride the tube and a double-decker bus. Take a flight on the London Eye and a river cruise on the Thames. Visit the British National Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Explore famous bookshops along The Strand and Cecil Court. Walk in the footsteps of Dickens, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Orwell, Huxley, Tolkien, Bram Stoker and Mary Shelly, Oscar Wilde and G.K. Chesterton!

     MORE INFO: Click Here!

I have a few suggestions for you as you begin to prepare to sit your two in-class essays on Thu/Fri (G.E.) and Mon/Tues (Dracula) this coming week.

1. Have a look at the analytical essay prompts for Great Expectations  and Dracula. Decide which prompt you would like to respond to -- and then prepare by annotating the pertinent
sections in your book. You will be expected to provide quotations and cite example throughout your analytical essay.

2. Peruse (peruse here means "to look through carefully") my seminal instructional handout for this class: How to Write a Literary Essay. We will be referring to this handout throughout the year. 

Here is the PowerPoint on the Five Paragraph Essay -- a review that should prove helpful.

3. Don't forget to bring your annotated books with you. Again, you may use post-it notes if you wish -- these are silly and clumsy compared to making notes in your own book -- but you may not use any notecards, notes, or your laptop on the in-class essays.

4. Don't forget to bring a pen and loose-leaf notebook paper.

Here's the grading rubric I use for essays: Essay Rubric (PDF)

Brit Lit Trip to England -- June 2016
Interested in going to England next summer? The Moeller Brit Lit Trip for June 2016 is now open for enrollment. Space is limited.

    FULL DETAILS: Moeller Trip to England (webpage) 

Today in class: Summer Reading quiz

Before we get into discussing our summer reading, we're going to begin this year by asking some fundamental questions about reading: 

    1. Why do we read?
    2. Why do we read old books?
    3. Why study literature?
    4. How should we read literature?
    5. Why don't we just watch movies instead?

In order to get you thinking about some intelligent answers to those questions, watch the seven minute video above, "How and Why We Read: Crash Course in English Literature" when you are not within Moeller's Youtube.com ban zone. And then -- your first assignment -- read the two articles below:

    "Why Read Old Books?" by Mitchell Kalpakgian (PDF)
    "Why Study Literature? The Top 25 Reasons" (PDF)

In order to get into the habit of annotation, be sure to read these article in PDF Annotator -- or, better yet, print them off and annotate them with real pen on paper. You will be responsible for this material on Friday, August 22 (A) / Monday, August 25 (B).

For next class - Aug. 25 (B3) /26 (A2)
     - Quiz on Intro to Reading articles (see above)
     - Sign syllabus and turn in to me at beginning of next class

You've discovered the class blog. Well done!

This space will be used for a variety of purposes, including class announcements, assignment reminders and clarifications, topics related to what we're reading, and step-by-step instructions when necessary.

Have a good look through this website. It will function -- more or less as your textbook, along with the books we'll be reading in the course.

First Assessment -- Summer Reading: Next Class
You will have an extended response quiz on the summer reading. See previous blog entry for links.

Also, you will most definitely find this handout helpful:
     Rubric for grading extended response questions - with sample responses (PDF)