Homework and Announcements 9/14

All of you have something due in the next few days. I wanted to go over all of that with you as well as your upcoming assignments.

Freshmen:

The rough draft of your memoir writing assignment is due to class Wednesday/Thursday. We will be peer editing these drafts in class. Also, you have a test coming up. Be sure that you're studying the material and using good study habits (be active, summarize, look for common traits).

Seniors:

Tomorrow you will be getting back your tests on Book One of 1984. I'm seeing a lot of strengths in your analytical skills and writing skills, but I'm also seeing some areas for improvement. We'll start the improvement and building process tomorrow.

I really liked today's discussion on "Oranges and Lemons." There's a lot going on here in the text. Personally, I think that there's something really interesting in all of the songs/rhymes that Orwell includes in the text, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Tomorrow, I want us to discuss in some detail 2.7 of the text. Be ready to discuss and answer questions. It's going to get intense.

Finally, I'm seeing a lot of progress in some of the groups pages. I'd like to see more groups putting in data. Remember that the idea here is to discuss the quotes. These things are open to more than one interpretation - if in a group you can't come to a clear consensus about a quote, then this could be telling you something. Our final in-class group day will be Thursday; presentations will begin on Friday.

Alright, time to get back to my book. Almost done with Waiting by Ha Jin (Chinese-born, but now an American) - it's a beautiful story, very interesting. Reminds me a bit of 1984 but it's much happier. Love is doubleplusgood in this book as opposed to doubleplusbad.

G'night.