The last two short stories

Read "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" here.

Read "Harrison Bergeron" here.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

Today we read the story, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge."  Find the whole story here.


Homework:  Take the reading quiz on Edmodo tonight.  If I don't see it in there by this morning, it is a zero.

Soooo...Alfred Hitchcock is a TOTALLY awesome director...and he tackled this famous story...in three parts.  He does change the plot...a little...so make sure you read the story, not JUST watch the videos.

Tomorrow's Reading

Here are some links to short stories that you should know to get the most out of this weekend's story!  Click on the picture to find out even more information about the nursery rhymes!

Here is the story itself:  "The Case of Four and Twenty Blackbirds"

Georgie Porgie

Georgie Porgie pudding and pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry
When the boys came out to play,
Georgie Porgie ran away.

Here is a nursery rhyme link to "Who Killed Cock Robin" ... that gives away the killer!

Doctor Foster
Went to Gloucester
In a shower of rain.
He stepped in a puddle
Right up to his middle
And never went there again!

Here is the one that the story is based on and explains what happened to the queen (Four and Twenty Blackbirds)

And of course, here is (Humpty Dumpty)

Now, for further investigation, here is the link for "film noir" a genre of film, and stories, were there is usually mystery and murder, and it is always rainy and dark out.

Monday - SST trip

Good morning, Tsunami!

We are only meeting with Period 2 today because of the SST trip.  So, period 2 - check out the previous posts.  The rest of you fine people - new story Tuesday, "The Case of Four and Twenty Blackbirds."

All Summer in a Day

Today we read "All Summer in a Day"  Read the story again here.  Then we started filling out a grid of how all the terms fit in all the stories for the final test at the end of next week.

Homework:  Quiz on Edmodo due Monday.  The terms you are looking for are: Narrator type, irony type, conflict type, symbolism.

Literary Terms

Today we went over the quiz for "The Cask of Amontillado" and briefly discussed the story you read yesterday, "After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned."

Then we got some new terms (see the flashcards in previous post).

• 1st-person, 2nd-person, 3rd-person omniscient, limited, and objective narrator.

• static vs. dynamic, and flat vs. round characters

• foreshadowing

Homework:  take the "After I Was Thrown ..." quiz on Edmodo.  You have 10 minutes, so be ready for it!

Metaphor

Nothing New Under the Sun: 36 types of short story

They say there are no new stories, just variations.  Some say all stories can be related to the Hero's Journey.  Some say all stories are either comedies or tragedies.

There is another popular theory out there that all stories can fit into one of 36 categories.  We'll be talking about those 36 categories on Wednesday in preparation for your final task: to write a short story.

Click here for explanations of those 36 categories.  We will go over many of these in class.

To help you with this task, we'll be reading several cool short stories along the way.  Most of the reading will be started in class and finished at home for homework.  Here are the terms you will be responsible for:


At the end of this unit, you will have a short story test, and will have written a short story!

Tonight's homework:

Read "After I Jumped in the River and Before I Drowned".

The Cask of Amontillado

Today we read a story about revenge.  We will also learn some more literary terms: irony, verbal irony, dramatic irony, and situational irony, AND symbolism.

You can read the story online here, if you prefer.

For a huge list of symbols in literature, and what they often refer to, click here.



Homework:

Finish reading "The Cask of Amontillado" and be able to identify the terms we mentioned in class today

check out these videos....

 

 

Here is what the Parisian catacombs look like:

Id, Ego, and Superego

I always get the Id and Ego mixed up ... but here's a link.

Today's Class

Today in class we discussed the poem, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" by Wallace Stevens.

We also shared your imitation poems from yesterday.

Homework:  Write a response poem, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a (_________)."  It must have the same number of stanzas, and lines per stanza as Wallace's poem.  See the post below for the full poem.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the black bird.

II

I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI

Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII

O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII

I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX

When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X

At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI

He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII

The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs. 

Wallace Stevens

The Second Coming

  William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

       THE SECOND COMING

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;

    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Ozymandias of Egypt and Nothing Gold Can Stay

Ozymandias of Egypt
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away. 

Nothing Gold Can Stay
by Robert Frost
Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.

Poems

Marginalia by Billy Collins

I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died by Emily Dickinson

Hope Is a Thing with Feathers by Emily Dickinson

My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun by Shakespeare

O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening

The Spider and The Fly by Mary Howitt

The Lake Isle of Innisfree by Yeats

The Raven

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore--
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door--
Only this and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;--vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for the lost Lenore--
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
"'Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door--
Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door;
This it is and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you"--here I opened wide the door--
Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"--
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping something louder than before.
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is and this mystery explore--
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;--
'Tis the wind and nothing more.

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he,
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door--
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door--
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then the ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore--
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning--little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door--
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore."

But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if its soul in that one word he did outpour
Nothing farther then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered--
Till I scarcely more than muttered: "Other friends have flown before--
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore--
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never--nevermore.'"

But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore--
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee--by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite--respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!--
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted--
On this home by Horror haunted--tell me truly, I implore--
Is there--is there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me, I implore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore--
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting--
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul has spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!--quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadows on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted--nevermore!

For Monday, 3/5

Today we read the sonnets we wrote yesterday.  I must say, they are really great!  Tomorrow we will be discussing the two Shakespearean sonnets (on Edmodo), so we can write the comparison/contrast paragraphs.

Homework:  Submit your sonnet to Edmodo.  Compare/Contrast paragraph on the two sonnets due Thursday.  

A Sonnet for You

To grade an essay is to find true bliss;
There's nothing on the earth nearly as cool.
I'd rather grade papers than have a kiss.
When I have none to do, I feel the fool.

Kayaking, watching TV or to cook,
spending time with my friends or lovely wife
cannot compare to quizzes on a book
where each one takes a day off of my life.

I hold onto students papers for weeks.
When the beg for grades, I say they must wait,
Because it's not a grade one should seek.
Though they say it's just that I procrastinate.

  Admittedly, I know it may sound dumb
  to find joy in work that is never done.

No Sonnet Due Monday...Tuesday

Hi class,

I hope you've been enjoying your vacation.  I've been sick with a cold up until today, unfortunately.  I will have the video up tomorrow explaining a Shakespearean Sonnet, but we will not have it due Monday...we will wait until Tuesday...so go have fun!