WEEK 9

WELCOME!

Your work for week 9...


1. Revise the 2nd Generation Romantics essay.

2. We'll start working with the last form of literature -- FILM. The essay will be a critical review. 

This is American Film Institute's Top 100 list. Your job is to pick one film from the list, — Sorry, no STAR WARS or LORD OF THE RINGS. — (Be wise here; have your parents help you pick it, and pick one you haven't seen yet), view it, and do the following:

a. Write up a "credits" list: producer, director, writer (who wrote the screenplay; was it an adaptation from a book or play?), cinematographer, lead actors/actresses

b. Write a brief (one paragraph) synopsis of the plot.

c. Summarize (one paragraph) a positive review of the film (you'll have to go find one).

d. Summarize a negative review of the film (for this you may need to pull a negative part from an overall positive review; if it's in the top 100 you're not going to find many credible, negative reviews; but there are always haters out there).

e. Write a brief personal review of the film. This is not a formal piece of writing. Let's say 100-150 words. 

f. Read this critical review of an old film, and summarize the thesis and its development in a paragraph. This essay does a good job of demonstrating the form. It's more than a thumb up or thumb down review. A critical review focus in on something in the film and asks the reader to think critically about it. It works very much like a thematic essay for a novel. Yes, this is an example of what you'll write next week.

Due @ midnight Friday.

Have a great week!

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. ~1 Thes. 5:18

WEEK 8

Welcome to week 8! 

We're literally in the home stretch!

No, wait. That's wrong. We're not literally in the home stretch because we're not all on horses making the last turn before racing to the finish line. Literally doesn't work here. Some of you need to look back at your "Literally" sentences. If you lost points and want them back, you can revise them. Re-read the LBGB entry!

For the last two weeks you've been applying Romantic poetical elements to one long poem. This week you'll do the same with three shorter pieces of your choice (sort of). 

Coleridge and Wordsworth are considered the "first generation" Romantics. This week we'll take a look at the "second generation": Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and John Keats. They did their writing in the decades following the release of Coleridge and Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads and continued to work out the idea that poetry is "emotion recollected in tranquility." The poetry of these younger Romantics emphasized the same topics and ideals but in a bolder, more passionate way.


Here is your work for week 8:

1. Revise the RAM essay.

2. Choose THREE poems, one from each of the 2nd generation poets (you'll have to go digging), and in a well-developed and supported essay show how they share the Romantic traits of an emphasis on nature and the use of strong emotion. Consider also how the poets differ in their handling of these traits. 

a. Include the entire text of each poem at the end of your essay. (No worries about copyright laws; these are all public-domain because they're oooold).

b. Title formatting (short poems get "quotes" not italics.)

c. Use lots of quotes.

d. Organization -- you have some options. You could organize it by poem/poet or by trait. Either way, keep it balanced. If you give Byron two paragraphs (one for each trait), be sure to do the same for the other two. If you organize it the other way and write one long paragraph on the nature emphasis, don't write more than one long paragraph for strong emotion. Get it? So you can choose the organization - just cover everything (3 poets and the two Romantic traits) and keep it balanced.

d. 800 words minimum


Turn it in by Friday @ midnight. 


Have a wonderful week! 


  

WEEK 7

Good morning!

Sorry - I know it's not on the agenda, but I need to add in another two-week / catch-up post. I've decided last minute to do the men's retreat this weekend. So yes, we'll end up going a week longer.

Here's your work:

1. LBGB...

A. Read chapter 4. 

B. Explain in your own words the 5 "AVOIDS" in the Style & Usage section.

C. Write a sentence using each term in the pair correctly:

    possible / plausible

    shall / will

    who / whom

D. Write three sentences, each using the word literally in a corret way.     

2. R.A.M. essay...

 In week 6, I had you explore the Neoclassical and Romantic movements and begin tearing down Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It required a lot of small pieces of writing. This week will be different. You'll be writing one essay.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge is considered, along with his literary partner William Wordsworth, the primary influence in Romantic Age poetry. Together, they proposed how poetry should be approached, and for the most part, the rest of the poetry world at the time began to follow their suggestions. And we have never gone back. We have retained the Romantic ideals, though they show up primarily now in our pop culture and the mass media "arts."

Their ideas were, in part, a reaction to the neoclassical period of the previous two centuries. If we look at how specific ideas shifted between the periods, we get a good sense of what to look for in Romantic poetry:

Neoclassical emphasis   >>>   Romantic emphasis...
tradition   >>>   experiment
society   >>>   individual
urban   >>>   rural
artificial   >>>   natural/nature loving
intellect/reason   >>>   imagination/emotion
public/objective   >>>   private/subjective
clear, logical   >>>   mysterious
scientific   >>>   supernatural
aristocratic   >>>   common
cultivated   >>>   primitive
constraint   >>>   spontaneity
formal diction   >>>   natural diction

(There's nothing special or "official" about these designations. You can use your own words to describe them; for example, instead of intellect to imagination, you could say the emphasis shifted from the head to the heart.)

Rime of the Ancient Mariner represents all of these shifts, some more than others. Your job this week will be to draft an essay that proves this by showing how Coleridge relies on FIVE of these Romantic traits. I'll start the list off by saying you HAVE TO deal with nature, emotion, and the supernatural. You can pick the other two. 

Requirements / reminders for this draft...

• no plot summarizing
• author's full name and poem title in first P
• organization (intro / 5 body paragraphs / conclusion makes sense, right?)
• quote the text A LOT (more than any other literary form, poetry has to be quoted in analysis.)
• keep the quotes short (embedded quotes like Coleridge describes the specter woman as having "skin as white as leprosy" work well when writing about poetry)
• 800 words minimum

DUE NEXT FRIDAY, 3/20, AT MIDNIGHT.

Have a blessed two weeks!