Monday, February 27th

Hello all! Welcome to Monday. Booo Monday, but on the upside it is a four-day week!

Today we started with turning in our yellow packet of 16 quotes from chapters 4-7. The packet was helpful as a reference in the fishbowl, and I'm sure will be helpful in other discussions.

After that we started on our aquarium style fishbowl (we just tried this one out today) over chapters 5-8.
During the discussion we talked about:
-how art influences life, or if life influences art.
-the portrait Dorian Gray became such good friends with and how maybe the portrait took Dorian's soul. We discussed ideas on if Dorian was even living and whether or not he is immortal. Some people talked about how maybe the image wasn't physically changing, but that the change took place in Dorian's perception of himself, aka in his mind.
-some people started to see contradictions in the story such as Lord Henry saying women are practical while earlier in the story he said women are just a decorative sex.

The outer circle did great and had some awesome blog-cussion, I'll just call it that...

Homework for Wednesday:
- Read ch. 9-10 of The Picture of Dorian Gray
- Don't forget about the second part of that Last Lecture, the due date will come quicker than you imagine.
- Blog question for fishbowl over ch. 5-8 (i'm assuming if you're on here then you can get that done, or have already got that done)

Have a wonderful four day week! I can't wait for donuts.

Blog Question: The Picture of Dorian Gray Ch. 5-8

What role does art play in The Picture of Dorian Gray? What are each of the three main characters' attitudes towards art?

DG Fishbowl 5-8

2-24-12

Discussed the blog question over chapters 1-4 from fish bowl:  We've talked about how Oscar Wilde writes himself into the story; which character do you think he wrote himself in as?               

The seminaries between all three characters and how Oscar shows traits in all three characters was discussed.

Fish bowl:  The fish bowls on Wednesday how was it? 

·         To quite

·         Not enough focus on the discussion and “to much on the online blog”

Monday is going to be an aquarium style fish bowl.

Quiz on chapters 3-5

Shared Portrait Project.

HW:  LL conference, read chapters 7-8, LL part 2, and quotes work sheet chapter 4-7

Blog Question: The Picture of Dorian Gray Chapters 1-4

We've talked about how Oscar Wilde writes himself into the story; which character do you think he wrote himself in as?

DG 1-4 Fishbowl

Wednesday February 15th

Today was a late start day so Smith got us started quickly so that we could start on Chapter 3.

Homework:

Chapter 3 of The Picture of Dorian Gray

Last Lecture Part 2

-Start working on your Last Lecture Part 2 but hold off until you have met with Smith because she will help you figure out the direction you need to go.

Self Portrait project:

-This will be due on Wednesday February 22^nd

-there is a yellow sheet that thoroughly describes the project

-you are to make two self portraits, one is how you see yourself and the second how you believe others see you

-examples are drawings, collages, poems, song lyrics, or narrative writing

-the point is to be creative and have a project that reflects the work you put into it

Fish Bowls for The Picture of Dorian Gray

-fish bowls will have an inner circle of discussers that will only get points for speaking and an outer circle where the rest of the class will live blog

-presenters will need to come to class will all of their material prepared.

In class we took a quiz over the background of Oscar Wilde and chapters 1-2 of The Picture of Dorian Gray in groups of three.

We finished off by beginning chapter 3 for homework.

Have a great four days of no school!

Monday, Monday, Monday February 13th

"Hello class!" said Smith with incredible enthusiasm.

Actually I really don't know if that happened, I was late.

New seats were chosen today! I hope you don't expect me to tell you where you sit. After new seats we all got our Last Lectures back, with great, sloppy advice from Smith written all over them.
REMINDER: Don't forget about Last Lecture pt.1 conferences with Smith during the next two weeks.

After that we got to sign up for discussion and presentation dates for fishbowling on The Picture of Dorian Gray. We then went over the background reading on Oscar Wilde, the author of the Picture of Dorian Gray.
-Oscar Wilde was convicted for being a heretic. He believed the Victorian Era and its inhabitants had it all wrong.
-Victorian Era had very strict classes and was not okay with homosexuality.
- Wilde's wife was the man in the relationship, meaning she had all the money, and therefore the power.
- when Oscar had a relationship with another male it was outrageous, not only because of this fact but because of the Victorian beliefs. Some wonder if he was homosexual on purpose.
-Oscar was a self-absorbed man that fully believed in individualism.
- words to describe Oscar Wilde
-defiant
- individualist
- intelligent
- Wilde is famous for his use of epigrams or aphirisms
- one liners that capture the essence of what he's trying to get across

We then read the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, which basically told us that Oscar contradicted himself. He said art was useless in this world, but then later said art was a beautiful creation.
Smith gave us the great question that we derived from the preface of,
Is society just black and white, or is it gray (the picture of dorian gray...)?
We were then assigned to read Ch.1-2 with the guiding questions of:
- Who is the creator in this piece (there could be 3 or 4)?
- Who or waht is the creation?
- What is the role of beauty?
- Connect to guiding question (to what extent does the creator have responsibility for its creation? when does the creation assume responsibility?)

Then ended with the in-class reading of most of Ch. 1.

I hope you all have a great 4-day week.

"Been caught stealing..."

If you could do something without getting caught, would you?  Why/Why not? 

Wednesday, February 8th

IN CLASS:

• Discuss following questions
• What does Frankenstein want to do when he first meets his creation again?
• Frankenstein wants to kill his creation.
• What does the creature ask Frankenstein to do initially?
• The creature asks Frankenstein to listen to the story of how he learned to talk and the observations he made, before deciding his fate.
• After being driven from the village, where did the creature finally settle?
• He settled in a hovel next to a cottage occupied by a young brother and sister and their old, blind father.
• Name one thing the creature did to secretly help the cottagers.
• The creature gathered wood at night time and set it by the front door so Felix could spend time doing other things around the house like helping his father and fixing things.

We read chapter 15 in class

• Is there a connection between the creature and Adam or Satan?

HOMEWORK:

• read chapter 15 and 16
• prepare for in-class essay/fishbowl (those who do not want to participate in the fishbowl discussion can write an in-class essay instead)
• LAST LECTURE PART ONE DUE FRIDAY! NO EXCEPTIONS!!

THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND FOR FISHBOWL/IN-CLASS ESSAY

• beauty
• pride
• abandonment of creation is the only way for the creation to truly learn on its own?
• free will
• creation becomes manifestation of the evils of the creator?

Mon Feb 8

Today we read chapers 10-13 and descussed in class.

HW: Finish reading and be ready to discuss for wednesday