Apologies to Figure Skaters Everywhere

Dear Disney On Ice,

I am sorry. Much of the skating was really awesome. For example, how about those aliens dancing on their knees? Or Barbie surviving all those lifts with Ken? What about those skaters in the pig costume - two people in one costume doing jumps - now that's talent! I humbly admit, I was wrong.

So, let's glide on to another topic (weak segue, I know, but it's not always so easy to be amusing.)

Your homework: Please write your own Talk to Teachers. This is not a 5000 word essay, people. Merely two pages in journal format. Try to emulate Baldwin's tone and style. I suggest you examine a few paragraphs very closely and try to copy the sentence structure. Does he really get rolling with a semi-colon list like Emerson? Dose he use asyndeton or polysyndeton like Joan Didion? Remember, the point here is that you can learn from reading, and yes, to some extent, copying the rhetorical style of great rhetoricians.

Off to practice some cross overs and my camel spin! 

Concise

Last day we did an in-class. For homework, please read and highlight or annotate the handouts on conciseness, and then do all three exercises. This is quite time-consuming, so you should break it up over a few days. If you did not pick up the handouts, there are extras on the overhead cart in room 407.

See you Tuesday.

The Story of Ms. M. and the Italian Shipyard

The Port of Antibes, France

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago - o.k. not that long ago - Ms. Mountain, known to you as Patti Mountain for the purposes of this story only, went backpacking around Europe. While in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Bavaria, she heard about working on private yachts on the Cote D'Azur in France. So, Patti headed off to the south of France and went to a huge port called Antibes, where interestingly and irrelevantly, Picasso once lived and worked. There, she met Giacobbi Giancarlo, or Captain Carlo, who hired her, after her job interview in French, as a deckhand and stewardess to work on the motor yacht, Kiss. 
As luck would have it, the aforementioned Kiss was in Genoa, Italy in the shipyard, Cantierri Marsic. So, because Patti was, at that time, considerably more naive and trusting than she is now, she got into the 52-year-old captain's Alfa Romeo with him and sped at 150km/hour down the twisting coastal highway to Genoa. Not entirely idiotic, she did phone some friends in France and tell them that if they didn't hear from her by 9:00 a.m. the next morning to call the police. Then she slept overnight in the boat, docked in a port that was closed and deserted for the winter, in the same cabin - different bed - as the captain. Keenly aware of the potential danger of such a situation, she slept with one eye open and her Swiss Army Knife at the ready in her pocket. Fortunately, the captain was a genuinely good, fatherly figure, and he took Patti to work in the shipyard on the boat with the Italian shipyard workers until it was ready to set sail for Sardinia. Unfortunately, he hired another deckhand named Ivo, who was a nice enough guy - naive Patti really liked him and lent him money -  but he was a heroin addict, and he had to be fired. No, Patti didn't ever get that money back, but she learned a valuable lesson about drug addicts and cash. And so, that is the story of how Patti Mountain, destined to become your English teacher, once worked in an Italian shipyard. Next time I see you, I'll tell you about the Arabian Prince and Princess. Seriously!

Sardinia; scene of the Arabian Royalty

So, in APE today, we wrote a metacognitive journal - that sounds so impressive - about the strategies you use for comprehension when reading a text like R.W.E.'s. Then we read the essay titled "The Uncommon Reader" and examined, in depth, how reading is an active process. 
For homework: please do the Questions on Rhetoric and Style, page 108, # 6, 10, and 12. Then please write a paragraph or multi-paragraph response (not an essay) to question # 1 or 3 from the Suggestions for Writing section. Remember there will be an in-class essay, AP style, next day.

Reading Ralph

Hi Folks,
Hope you have a great weekend! 
Homework: Paraphrase paragraph 10 of the essay from "Education" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Then, finish reading the essay. I suggest that you read for meaning by taking notes or writing down a short point form summary of each paragraph or section of the essay. 
As you read, ask yourself how you are figuring out the meaning - what strategies are you using to decode the language and syntax? Are you looking up words as you go? Are you trying to understand words in context? How can you transfer what you are doing with this text to other pieces of text in other disciplines or situations?
I'm off to the annual AP conference tomorrow - going to an essay-writing workshop, so I can continue to share my love of essays with you. I bet that makes your weekend! Can't wait until Monday to tell you all about it!
Ciao!
Ms. M

Written Posthumourously

Sad to say, I am no longer funny. Or rather, amusing. At least not at this time of night when I have just remembered to do the blog now that I have picked up kids from school and daycare and made dinner and unloaded the dishwasher and helped do the dictee and read Olivia the Pig stories and brushed teeth and hugged and kissed three kids goodnight. And I haven't even started the laundry yet! Not that I'm complaining; this is my life, and truth be told I love it, but my goal here is to give you a glimpse, a mere glimmer, into a world that is not your own, to in some small way explain my "other life" to you, so that when I forget the blog or seem a bit dazed, you will understand and cut me some slack and not make comments about how my not writing the blog stops you from doing your homework. Get it?
To recap in detail, but quickly because I am tired and want to go to bed, in today's class Stephanie gave an extension on the book $, so you can bring your $17 on Thursday if you like. We came to a consensus on the day for the next in-class analysis -  that would be Monday, November 7th. Then you worked on the paragraph exercises, and then we began to read Ralph Waldo Emerson together. Hopefully by reading the text out loud and discussing it, I will help you transcend some of the impenetrable qualities of his writing to better pursue your "naturel" and achieve your preordained genius. 
HOMEWORK: Complete the paragraph exercises (#1-6) on the photocopied handouts I gave you today in class. For exercise 6, you do not need to complete question C because it is cut off. 
Goodnight; Sleep tight; Don't let the bedbugs bite. 
Lorimey: picture of the furniture to be posted later. Sorry ... too tired.