Wrapping Things Up

We got a taste of Mark Twain at the end of this second quarter 2014, near the Christmas holiday, and there's nothing better to stir a bit of merry mirth for the holidays than a bit of Twainesque hyperbole and satire. We read the Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and The Lowest Animal. But Twain's wit and wisdom go well beyond these selections, as a perusal of any list of quotes would show you. Here's a selection of several I found to be interesting:

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.

Mark Twain

There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.

Mark Twain

Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

Mark Twain

A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.

Mark Twain

It's amazing that we are finishing up the second quarter here, and the holidays are upon us! It's been a busy and enjoyable quarter. Some folks are trying to fill in gaps with missing homework, so I will put the required ones below:

HW13 –The Burning of Our House p. 30 – 2,3,4,7

HW14 –Thanatopsis p. 193 –2,3,4,7

HW16 –The Raven p. 303 – 3,4,6,7

HW18 –Song of Myself 10 & 33 p. 372 - #10:3,4,5; # 33:2,4,6

HW20 –Song of Myself 52 p.374 – 2,3,4,5,7 (choose either HW18 or HW20)

HW21 –Success is Sweetest; Tell All the Truth Slant p. 400 – 1,2,3,4 (& Truth 1,3,4,5)

HW23 –Civil War readings p. 519 – 2,3,4,5                     

HW24 –Jumping Frog Calaveras County p. 533 – 4,5,6,7

HW25 – The Lowest Animal p. 542 – 2,4,5,6

A few need to resend or confirm papers, hand in vocab workbooks, or Q2 classroom notebooks. All presentations have been finished, and later I will put links to the Prezis here.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

https://prezi.com/09ky1cv8_d12/autobiography-of/

Autobiography of Ben Franklin

https://prezi.com/oa6gc4w4krhn/autobiography-of-benjamin-franklin/

Something Wicked This Way Comes

http://prezi.com/gmrmbnfn8uw-/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Fahrenheit 451

https://prezi.com/oryxicumjfzu/fahrenheit-451/

Please remember to hand in all books to the teacher at the final exam!


More info on the final exam will be added over the weekend to the bottom of this post, but some early info will be there. Another thing we need to do is get our speeches from the Wordly Wise books, and I have listed the students who are doing particular chapters from our book below. Everyone must memorize 400 words, but if your selections naturally ends a little beyond that, you stop there. Do Exercises C & E by the Tuesday after we return from break, January 6th.

Lesson 1: Going, Going, Gone (auctions) – Ken

Lesson 2: Looking at Llamas – Michelle

Lesson 3: No Excuses (Olympic Athlete) – Coleen           

Lesson 5: The Quiz-Show Scandal – Karen

Lesson 6: The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection (Art Museum) – Yumi

Lesson 7: Tsunami: The Big Wave – Allen

Lesson 8: Greek Drama – Arielle

Lesson 9: Reaching the Heights    (acrophobia) not assigned            

Lesson 10: The Wall (Vietnam War Memorial) – Calvin                     

Lesson 11: Dwarf Mammoths (frozen ancient remains) – Joanna                       

Lesson 12: A Child of the Sixties   (Joan Baez) – Josh      

Lesson 13: Kwanzaa (First Fruits holiday) – Kevin                      

Lesson 14: Washington National Cathedral – Paul

Lesson 15: Birds of a Feather (hat designer) – Sharah              

Lesson 16: Gateway to the Promised Land (immigration & Eliis Island) – Claire                

Lesson 17: Machiavellii        (The Prince & strategy) – Alvyn              

Lesson 18: Prisoners of Conscience (Universal Declaration of Human Rights) – Jill                         

Lesson 19: Elephant Memories (African Wildlife Foundation) – Kate                          

Lesson 20: It’s a Right-Handed World! (on being left-handed)          not assigned 


About the final exam, there will be two parts. One part is about the reading in the Literature book, taken with your A class. Then there is a writing test, taken during the B class testing time. Any story we have read in Q2 is fair game for the final, but ones for which we have had tests and homework get priority and more questions.


Come back to this post later in the weekend for more details, but the homework list above is a guide. Read the literary focus parts carefully before the selection. No Wordly Wise material will be on the test, but something from your reading group should be in the writing or vocabulary section.

Here are the stories tested on the Final Exam, and the number of questions on each out of 42.

HW13 –The Burning of Our House (5)

HW14 –Thanatopsis (2)

HW16 –The Raven (5)

HW18 –Song of Myself 10 & 33 (5)

HW20 –Song of Myself 52 (6)

HW21 –Success is Sweetest; Tell All the Truth Slant (6)

HW23 –Civil War readings (5)                     

HW24 –Jumping Frog Calaveras County (4)

HW25 – The Lowest Animal (4)

The A test will be graded on 40 questions, so two questions are for extra credit. There is no writing or vocabulary on this A test, which is worth 40 points, and another 10 points come from the B test.

For the B test, you will have no vocabulary and no questions about the book from your reading group. There will be four essays there and you can choose three of them. The authors to focus on for the essays would include Whitman, Dickinson, Poe, and Twain.

Terms you will need to understand to do well on the Exam include:

Inversion, plain style, metaphor, theme, mood, alliteration, onomatopoeia, internal rhyme, free verse, imagery, first-person point of view, parallel structure, cadence, coda, couplet, rhyming pattern, slant truth, symbolism, tone, irony, narrator, frame story, hyperbole (or exaggeration), understatement, vernacular, satire.