F - ... when we talked about the Saturday Night vibe thing.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: How is a "night out" expressed in pop culture and how does that speak to society's obsession about "love"?

Learners started the class by free writing with an audio prompt. Here's the actual "music-video" (what people called it in my day!):

Learners read together and appreciated Alden Nowlan's poem, "Saturday Night." They discussed how animal imagery supports Nowlan's ideas about the Saturday night mating game.

Learners worked in small groups to piece together a Shakespearean sonnet. I interrupted to review the rhyme scheme of the sonnet in order to help learners with the activity. Groups compared their version with Shakespeare's and discussed the reasons for the discrepancies.

NEXT CLASS: Sonnets, Learning Inventories

B - ... when you were supposed to be catching up, but then I drove by and that's that.

I wasn't in class today, but we discussed the plan on Monday so you should've used the time with Mr. Parmar to catch up on your readings.

READ: Pride and Prejudice (on going)

NEXT CLASS: the memory of soil

F - ...when half of you were off singing at Elementary schools.

I had planned to finish our discussion of character in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, but half the class was away and I really want everyone to have a full experience of the novel.

Instead, I reviewed the assignment plan for our Celebration of Learning Week: an "echo" called Voices in Conversation.

Learners use the rest of the period to work on other assignments and begin working on the final demonstration of learning piece.

NEXT CLASS: character, conflict, owners, caretakers, the land

B - ... when you finally did your Scottish accents, but then needed time to get readings done.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What role does memory play in literature?

Learners performed their dramatic reading of Burns's "To A Mouse."

In preparation for some work on the Early Romantics, learners shared their first Grade 8 memory of a place on campus. I explained that Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey," like other romantic writers is a more "inward" piece about the memory of a place in a particular moment in time and that next day we would explore that idea further.

Learners used the rest of the period to catch up on their readings.

NEXT CLASS: Work period

F - ... when the lawn mower was all a- "strewin'" and things could've "Gang aft agley," had I not shut the windows.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: Who's dream is it?

In pairs, learners shared their thought on what it means to "live the dream." Then, they read together and appreciated Jeanette Armstrong's "History Lesson," and connected ideas around displacement, and the difference between ownership of land and being care-taker of land. We offered connections to Yeats's creature enteriing Bethlem, Fortinbras movements in Shakespeare's play, Agnes's relationship with the the land, and Burns's mouse.

Learners also discussed displacement and "living off the fatta of the lan" amongst Steinbeck's characters in Of Mice and Men. They shared their discoveries around character: traits, the dream, animals. Then I proposed that we view Steinbeck's characters as archetypes of the American landscape, using the ranch as a microcosm for American socity in the early 20th century.

POST: Post a response to the digital whiteboard on this question, Is the "dream" (the nest, the farm, the future) a necessary survival mechanism or a cruel delusion that makes the ultimate failure more painful?

NEXT CLASS: conflict, theme

B - ... when we engaged in 21st century digital audits of main character energy from an 18th century play.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: To what extent do our filters prevent us from forming authentic connections?

Learners shared their understanding of Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," and Blake's "The Lamb" and "The Tyger." I filled gaps and talked about how the how Gray, Burns, and Blake kept one foot in the Age of Reason while their poems were expressions of the Age of Feeling, and how the pieces give rise to notions of the sublime.

We then stepped back from the Pre-Romantics to take one last look at the wit and reason of the 18th century as depicted in Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer. Learners worked in pairs to create a "digital audit" of one of the characters from the play, exposing the "public grid" and the "private finsta," and then turning the dialogue into "status updates."

READ:

• Austen's Pride & Prejudice (ongoing)
• Intro to the Romantic Age
• Wordsworth's "Lines Composed Upon Tintern Abbey"

NEXT CLASS: digital audits, Burns, the Early Romantics

F - ... when we did a lot of unpacking with regard to animals and land and perspective.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION: Does the "smallness" of a creature make their suffering less significant or more profound?

We viewed Christie Lee Charles's "Raven Weaves Light" and learners discussed what connections it might have to our recent discussions of literature.

The remaining groups presented their tableaus for Burns's "To A Mouse." We appreciated the poem together and I highlighted the last two stanzas and their connection to land (ownership, bro! consider Charles's "caretaker" POV in "Raven Weaves Light"), and to "smallness." Learners discussed the "fellow-mortal" connection to Steinbeck's novel title, and whether or not it's better to be "mouse" or "men."

We read together the opening paragraph of Of Mice and Men and the first few paragraphs of the last chapter of the novel. We discussed the difference in tone despite being in the same exact spot, then connected to "living off the fatta of the lan" and Charles's views on stewardship.

POST: Does the "smallness" of a creature make their suffering less significant or more profound? (Post your response to the digital whiteboard before you enter class next day.)

NEXT CLASS: conflict, theme, the land