My daughter had two good soccer games, Notre Dame crushed Michigan State, and I had a great run today. Ah...life is good! Then again, I have spent most of today assessing some recent writing assignments. You'll be getting those back tomorrow. We'll be reflecting on them, discussing the strengths and weaknesses. (How many different ways can students write the title of the Toni Cade Bambara story? Guess correctly, and I'll sign your Archer card. But you must see me before period one tomorrow.) Then, after taking them home, we'll be filing those in our portfolios.
Of more immediate interest might be the results of the in class writing from Friday featuring "The Mask of the Red Death" and our special guest, John Donne. There were many deer-in-the-headlight looks as I walked around the class. "How the heck am I supposed to connect these two pieces, Mr. O'Malley?" We'll be discussing that in more depth on Tuesday (the day I hope to return them to you), but from what I saw, too many of you were reading the poem literally and trying to connect it on a literal level. Instead, you needed to examine the two pieces looking for symbolic connections. Wish I could tell you more, but a few of you still need to take it. (That includes the period six individual who was not in school but managed to be healthy enough to attend the Penn football game Friday evening. Hmmm...).
In addition to working with the TCB paper, we'll be doing a bit of work with static and dynamic characters and then diving head first into the excerpt from World War Z. That, honestly, is one of my favorite reads in the last few years. It's such a creative way to tell the story. As I'm sure you noticed by now, since I'm sure you have spent a good deal of time actively reading the piece to be properly prepared for class tomorrow, I had to do some editing. Nothing major was cut. Nothing that effected the meaning of the piece. Just a few choice words here and there. Thematically, it is a higher level read. It won't be as difficult to understand as the Poe piece, but it will challenge you to understand human nature in a way you may not have thought of before. Speaking of Poe and human nature and World War Z, I trust you've found some serious similarities between the writings of Poe and Brooks. That is a major discussion point tomorrow. Be ready.
Aside from all this, I wish you a good night sleep tonight so that you can come to class excited to read, write, speak and listen. Don't forget your passion!
"Our passion is our strength." Billie Joe Armstrong
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