Due: August 30th

1. Take a section of the Road passage that I printed off for you. Identify the point of view. Rewrite a small section of the text from an alternate point of view. (You are not expected to be professional writers). Think about some elements that change because of the specific point of view.

- What is included?
- What is left out?
- What diction choices are telling of the point of view?
- What was lost? Gained?
- How has the overall impact of the passage changed?
- What information does the reader now have?
- Did the author choose the best POV? Why?

You are all doing GREAT! Keep up the great work!!

Due: Monday, August 29th

1. Go through the second passage from The Road. You are, again, using the point of view questions as your point for analysis. As you read, look for evidence for your findings. Make notes... Underline things you notice.. look for patterns. As you are finding... be considering the "Why?" "What is the significance of this?" "What does this do to the meaning of the text?" "How does it shape/form meaning?"

All you need is notes/annotations. We will work on developing the arguments. Bit by bit... just be patient.

Due: Friday, August 19th (Point of View)

After annotating the passage of The Road with the sole focus upon Point of View, you should have a collection of findings/questions/patterns emerge. From your annotations, you are going pick one aspect of point of view that you feel has been revealed.. .and/or you feel has legs to be developed.

I think the questions... What details does the narrator tell us? What order are things presented to us" 
are pretty important in the passage we worked with in class. I examined the text carefully looking at details we have/what was left out/what order is it presented.

With some of my findings... I ask myself... So? What are the implications/ What is the significance of these findings? What do they do to the text? The characters? The meaning? Why does the author do this?

My conclusion...

For an example: The omniscient narrator in The Road often emphasizes the father's coping with a world lost by including mundane details of a previous society juxtaposed with his new reality. 

After you have used the questions on point of view to bring new points of interest to the surface, and you have come up with the implications/significance of this usage (see example), you will simply list examples from The Road under your argument.

So I would present...
"In the livingroom the bones of a small animal dismembered and placed in a pile. Possibly a cat. A glass tumbler by the door". . . 

"Wearing masks and goggles, sitting in their rags by the side of the road like ruined aviators . . . He sat.. . and read old newspapers while the boy slept" 

Due: August 22nd The Study of Literature and The Road

Today we have been introduced to the first assessment in the IB Programme, the Individual Oral Presentation. This will provide you a target for the skills you will need to accumulate and hone over the next few weeks in conjunction with The Road. 

You will become very familiar with the scoring guide found here: Individual Oral Presentation Rubric

For Tuesday, you will need to read the article:
"Lit Classes Under Attack? Standford's Joshua Landy to the Rescue"

Half of the battle of performing literary analysis is recognizing a larger purpose to the text. Therefore, in order to practice this, we need to exercise this.

From this article, I have pulled out some key statements... key quotes... addressing literature/study or literature/purpose of literature.

For Tuesday, You will need to find aspects/examples/passages of The Road that exemplify the spirit that is revealed in the statements about the purpose/goal of literature. Please put these in your notes.

The challenge is to 1. recognize an underlining goal/ purpose of literature. 2. See how that goal/purpose is achieved by McCarthy.

Due: August 22nd

1. Define and start your study of the 52 literary devices found below.
2. Intro survey found on Google Classroom.

Literary Devices (52)

Literary Definitions

Due: August 19th

For class on Thursday, you were asked to find a passage or section of text that represents your argument for The Road representing mankind as essentially destructive or regenerative. You were also asked to annotate the text for the literary devices that you were able to recognize/identify. 

For Friday, take 5 of the literary devices you have found and now explain them back to how they support your argument. Please put these explanations in your notes. Focus on the clarity of the connection of the device to its support of your argument. 

Remember your Syllabus Agreement form for Friday!

Greetings! Welcome to a new year!

For those students who want a head start on things, here is a list of poetry/literary terms/devices that we will be utilizing this year. We will be having a quiz on these terms in the first few weeks of school. You should be familiar with many of these devices already, and ideally utilizing this knowledge when you are evaluating what you read! I would get these printed off and put them in your English binder in order to access them often. These are fundamental tools in your reading toolbox.

52 Terms LIST:
Literary Terminology