Ms. Matzke's English Class Weblog

Hi everyone! This next assignment will get you used to typing up a blog from scratch as well as help some of you understand how to use the cut and paste feature of your wordpress. This assignment is due next Monday, October 13. Then be prepared to visit other classmate’s websites and read some of the work posted. Feel free to upload a picture to go along with this essay if it can provide a visual to your work. Just go to the add media: add image icon and follow the directions.

Assignment # 1–Hello World and About Me

msmatzkesenglishclass — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:01:00 +0000

This will be your first blog. Edit the Hello World blog that WordPress sets up for you and type up your quickwrite on your opinion of hunting. Then go to your About Me page and edit what WordPress set up for you there. Give a one paragraph explanation of who you are—your likes, dislikes, and anything else you would like to share. Just remember to keep it professional and check your spelling and grammar. You are more than welcome to erase this detail after you leave my class if you want to maintain your blog and don’t want to keep school related information in it. Please do not mention details like the period you are in or our room number as anyone can get this information and use it for harm. Have fun! Oh yes, and IF your theme doesn’t show an “about” link, please include information about you, your likes, dislikes, etc in this section as well. Otherwise edit the “about” section to include information about you after you do this activity.

Assignment #6 Barnes and Noble Book Review–Due Monday, June 9

msmatzkesenglishclass — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:43:54 +0000

Read the directions on the handout I will give you on Wednesday, May 28. This will show you how to write a review and post it here. Here is my example of what I expect your WordPress blog to look like when you finish your assignment.

The Best Story

Theresa Matzke, a high school English teacher

May 23, 2008

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?ean=9780374500016&tabname=custreview&crvAll=1&crvStart=1&displayonly=CRV#cr6

Assignment #5–comments on everyone’s website.

msmatzkesenglishclass — Sat, 10 May 2008 17:24:52 +0000

You should post a link to each of your comments here. Total 3. Due May 13

Poetry Assignment–due May 9th.

msmatzkesenglishclass — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:00:39 +0000

For this assignment, you will post a copy of your poem you read to the class here and cite the author’s name and title. If you found it in a book or website, please cite where you found this information (url address, or book title with publishing date, etc). Underneath the poem, please give us your SOAPSTONE analysis of the poem. Finally underneath that, list the poetic devices the poem uses (imagery, metaphor, personification, simile, rhyme, rhythm, etc) and the structure, including how many stanzas, what kind of poem it is (if you know), and the rhyme scheme if any. Please give examples of each poetic device. Also include a picture that represents something from the poem or perhaps a picture of the author if it not yourself or your friend. Please cite the url address where you found this information.

example–

How Do We Forgive Our Fathers?

by Dick Lourie

How do we forgive our Fathers?
Maybe in a dream
Do we forgive our Fathers for leaving us too often or forever
when we were little?

Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage
or making us nervous
because there never seemed to be any rage there at all.

Do we forgive our Fathers for marrying or not marrying our Mothers?
For Divorcing or not divorcing our Mothers?

And shall we forgive them for their excesses of warmth or coldness?
Shall we forgive them for pushing or leaning
for shutting doors
for speaking through walls
or never speaking
or never being silent?

Do we forgive our Fathers in our age or in theirs
or their deaths
saying it to them or not saying it?

If we forgive our Fathers what is left?

S– The subject of this poem is about all the possible reasons we should forgive our fathers.

O– The Occasion is that the speaker is questioning and contemplating whether or not we should forgive our fathers for their behavior. He then questions what would be left of our fathers if we forgive them for being them.

A–I assume the intended audience is for people who hold hurt or pain against their fathers for any possible reason.

P– Dick Lourie’s purpose is to show his readers that our fathers are in a lose-lose situation. No matter what they do, whether they love us too much, or love us too little, for example, one of us will be mad at him for it. How do our fathers know what is perfect for us? It is all opinion. And when we forgive, we show that they were wrong. But were our fathers at fault? Do they truly deserve forgiveness? If we list all of the reasons we are upset with them, is there anything left that we are not upset by? Your worst father could be my best. My terrible father could be your favorite. Or maybe, no matter what he does, he will be resented. I think he is asking us to analyse whether or not we are being fair to our fathers in being upset with them in the first place.

S– the poem doesn’t give us any reason to believe the speaker is not the poet. The speaker is Mr. Lourie. A man who has some emotional history with his father and knows that he is not the only one.

Tone- The speaker is questioning, contemplative, and sympathetic.

Figurative language and structure– This poem is a free verse poem broken down into six stanzas of various line lengths. He doesn’t use rhyme, but the repetition of “shall we forgive,” “do we forgive,” and “or” give it a musical quality. Additionally his stanzas share similar vowel sounds (assonance) which add to its musical quality. For example the first stanza uses a lot of words with a long “a” sound. He also adds consonance to his stanzas where many words share similar consonant sounds. For example in stanza 4, he uses a lot of words with the “s” sound and the diagraph of “sh.” The poet does not use any metaphors, similes, or personification, but he does use some imagery–In stanza four, he gives a list of behaviors of fathers which we can visualize or hear. “Speaking through walls” (line 13) is an example of auditory imagery, for example. In conclusion, Mr. Lourie writes a free verse poem which has catalog qualities. While it is prosey in many ways, his use of repetition, assonance and consonance, and imagery make it a poem worth analyzing.

This poem was retrieved at: http://www.miracosta.cc.ca.us/home/gfloren/alexie.htm

This image was retrieved at: http://www.shirleys-preschool-activities.com/fathers-day-poems.html

Assignment #3–Favorite Mythological God

msmatzkesenglishclass — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:19:16 +0000

Your assignment will be to go to http://www.pantheon.org/

and research a mythological god that you are interested in. It can be a god from any culture–Greek, Nordic, etc. Then write a paragraph about some facts that you learned. Make sure it is summarizes what you learned in your own words. Plagarism will not be accepted and you will get an F on the assignment if you copy anything without puting quotes around it. Finally make a connection between the God you researched and something else you have read or a way that it still connects to what we say or believe today. Include a picture by finding it on the internet (don’t forget to copy the website url address you found it at) and posting it using the uploading section where you write your post. At the bottom of your post, please write the exact website address from Pantheon.org where you found the information about your god as well as the exact website address where you found the picture of your god.

See my example below:

***

My favorite Greek god is Zeus. I think his story is facinating–how he dethroned his father after his mother Area tricked his father Cronus by giving him a rock to swallow instead of him. How he started a war between the Titans and the Olympian Gods. Not only did he become the ruler of the earth and Mt. Olympus but he could transform himself into different beings. He was promiscuous and fathered many children from different mothers outside of his wife Hera. Through my research I learned about a different version of the story as to how he fathered Athena. According to Pantheon.org, Zeus had relations with Metis and then heard form an oracle that she would bear a god who would overthrow him, so he swallowed her when he found out she was pregnant. His wife Hera became jealous when she found out Zeus was going to have a baby that wasn’t hers and that would be birthed by him and not a woman. So she impregnanted herself without a male and gave birth to Hephaestus as payback. Hephaestus then attacked Zeus with an ax and that is when his daughter Athena popped out of his head fully grown. I also learned that his Roman equivelant name is Jupiter and that he makes sure the world follows Greek law, morals, and also “enforces justice.” This makes sense since he punished Odysseus and his men in the Homeric Epic The Odyssey with a thunderstorm after they disrespected the Cicones on their way home from Troy. It seems important to understand Zeus today because we still see how his story connects to the world today. People can still visit The Temple of Zeus in Olympia, Greece. It is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World. I also learned that The Olympics is named in honor of Zeus since he was the father of the Olympian gods.

I found these facts at: http://www.pantheon.org/articles/z/zeus.html

I found the picture of Zeus here: http://karenswhimsy.com/greek-statues.shtm

Assignment #2–Blogroll

msmatzkesenglishclass — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:19:30 +0000

Check your email for a list of all your classmates wordpress websites. Find three (2 people you know and 1 person you don’t know or would think of visiting their site) and add them to your blogroll. Directions are on the handout given to you in class. Have this completed by Monday, March 24th.