Purchase the following book from Amazon.
Paper due Friday 3/26/10
Due Monday 3/22/10
Group Writing Project - Must be typed.
February Break Homework
Reading Groups
Finish reading The Phantom Tollbooth. Write a one page reflection (typed) on the use of symbolism throughout the novel. Also, remember to take notes as you are reading (every chapter - pay attention to the different characters Milo meets along his journey). Notes will be collected. Be prepared to give a one minute presentation.
Monday 12/21/09
Reflection for chapter 1 & 2 (The Phantom Tollbooth).
Monday December 14, 2009
Need to buy The Phantom Tollbooth ~ Norton Juster
Due Monday 12/7/09
Answer the following questions. Test for A Streetcar Named Desire is Tuesday 12/8/09. .
1. What is the implication of the Napoleonic Code?
2. How does Blanche's past haunt her?
3. Why is the paper lantern so important to Blanche?
4. Who was Allan?
5. How does Stella have an epiphany at the end of the play? What causes this realization?
6. What does Stanley buy Blanche for her birthday?
Due Monday 11/30/09
Answer the following question. Must be typed.
1. At the beginning of the play, Stanley is bowling and at the end he is playing card. What does this suggest about his views of life?
2. Explain how the following is a theme throughout the play: Illusion vs. Reality
3. Describe how a marriage between Blanche and Mitch could have been perfect if Stanley did not interfere.
4. Explain why Tennessee Williams placed the epigraph from Hart Crane's poem, "The Broken Tower" at the beginning of the play. Who or what does it symbolize?
Due Monday 11/23/09
Read Scene 9 of A Streetcar Named Desire.
Wednesday 11/18/09
Be prepared for a quiz based on Scenes One - Five (A Streetcar Named Desire).
Due Monday 11/16/09
Review scenes one and two of A Streetcar Named Desire.
Answer the following questions:
1. Why has Blanche come to stay with Stella? What has happened to Belle Reve?
2. What is the Napoleonic code? Why is it so important to Stanley?
3. How does the following quote give an insight into Blanche's character:
I hurt him the way that you would like to hurt me, but you can't!
I'm not young and vulnerable anymore.
4. Why are Blanche and Stella going out for the evening? Where is Stanley?
5. Why does Blanche send Stella to the store?
6. Why are the stage directions important to understanding the characters? Give an example.
The Lovely Bones ~ Alice Sebold
Choose one of the following questions. Be sure to answer the question with specific examples from the novel. Also, you must include a personal reaction to the novel. This assignment must be typed.
Due Tuesday, November 10.
1. In Susie's heaven the dead enjoy a number of comforts and simple pleasures. Yet it is far from a perfect place - not all wishes can be granted, and many of the inhabitants are victims of tragic crimes. Why do the heavens of different characters take such different forms? Is Sebold offering a rosy view of death and its aftermath? Or do you think she is saying something more profound about the individual experiences of loss and grief?
2. Why does Sebold include scenes from Mr. Harvey's perspective, including details about his childhood? Do these details help to humanize him, or are they immaterial in view of the horrible nature of his crimes? What does Sebold's depiction of Mr. Harvey say about the nature of evil?
3. Choose ONE of the following quotes and explain how it represents a theme throughout the novel.
“These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections - sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent - that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events that my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous body had been my life.” (p. 320)
"You don't notice the dead leaving when they really choose to leave you. You're not meant to. At most you feel them as a whisper or the wave of a whisper undulating down. I would compare it to a woman in the back of a lecture hall or theater whom no one notices until she slips out.Then only those near the door themselves, like Grandma Lynn, notice; to the rest it is like an unexplained breeze in a closed room. " (p. 323)
"All you have to do is desire it, and if you desire it enough and understand why-really know-it will come."
"The dead are never exactly seen by the living, but many people seem acutely aware of something changed around them. They speak of the chill in the air."
by Wednesday 11/4/09.
The Lovely Bones
Finish reading
Monday November 2, 2009
Finish reading The Lovely Bones.
Need to Purchase A Streetcar Named Desire.
Friday 10/30/09
Test Friday Chapters 1 - 19. Finish novel for Monday.
Due Monday 10/26/09
Read up to "Snapshots" in The Lovely Bones.