1. What does Harry dream about at the end of "The Snows of Kilimanjaro"?
2. What is the meaning of "Ngàje Ngài"?
a. Beware the Leopard
b. House of the Holy
c. House of the Leopard
d. House of God
3. What secret does Harry never confess to Helen?
a. He was unfaithful to her.
b. He never loved her.
c. He gave his last morphine pills to Williamson.
d. He lived in a poor neighborhood of Paris when he was a boy.
4. What is Harry referring to when he says, "Never believe any of that about a scythe and a skull"?
a. The use of mysticism to cheat death
b. The traditional, African symbols of death
c. The traditional, Western symbols of death
d. The legend of what lay at the summit of Kilimanjaro
5. Respond to the story. How would you feel if you were in Harry's position? How would your reaction compare/ contrast with his? If you were in that situation, what memories would you ponder? What do you want to write about before you die? Use specfic and concrete examples from the story to elucidate your points.
6. Summarize the poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in your own words.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Ambrose Bierce
The Boarded Window
In 1830, only a few miles away from what is now the great city of Cincinnati, lay an immense and almost unbroken forest. The whole region was sparsely settled by people of the frontier - restless souls who no sooner had hewn fairly habitable homes out of the wilderness and attained to that degree of prosperity which today we should call indigence, than, impelled by some mysterious impulse of their nature, they abandoned all and pushed farther westward, to encounter new perils and privations in the effort to regain the meagre comforts which they had voluntarily renounced. Many of them had already forsaken that region for the remoter settlements, but among those remaining was one who had been of those first arriving. He lived alone in a house of logs surrounded on all sides by the great forest, of whose gloom and silence he seemed a part, for no one had ever known him to smile nor speak a needless word. His simple wants were supplied by the sale or barter of skins of wild animals in the river town, for not a thing did he grow upon the land which, if needful, he might have claimed by right of undisturbed possession. There were evidences of "improvement" - a few acres of ground immediately about the house had once been cleared of its trees, the decayed stumps of which were half concealed by the new growth that had been suffered to repair the ravage wrought by the axe. Apparently the man's zeal for agriculture had burned with a failing flame, expiring in penitential ashes.
The little log house, with its chimney of sticks, its roof of warping clapboards weighted with traversing poles and its "chinking" of clay, had a single door and, directly opposite, a window. The latter, however, was boarded up - nobody could remember a time when it was not. And none knew why it was so closed; certainly not because of the occupant's dislike of light and air, for on those rare occasions when a hunter had passed that lonely spot the recluse had commonly been seen sunning himself on his doorstep if heaven had provided sunshine for his need. I fancy there are few persons living today who ever knew the secret of that window, but I am one, as you shall see.
The man's name was said to be Murlock. He was apparently seventy years old, actually about fifty. Something besides years had had a hand in his ageing. His hair and long, full beard were white, his grey, lustreless eyes sunken, his face singularly seamed with wrinkles which appeared to belong to two intersecting systems. In figure he was tall and spare, with a stoop of the shoulders - a burden bearer. I never saw him; these particulars I learned from my grandfather, from whom also I got the man's story when I was a lad. He had known him when living near by in that early day.
< 2 > One day Murlock was found in his cabin, dead. It was not a time and place for coroners and newspapers, and I suppose it was agreed that he had died from natural causes or I should have been told, and should remember. I know only that with what was probably a sense of the fitness of things the body was buried near the cabin, alongside the grave of his wife, who had preceded him by so many years that local tradition had retained hardly a hint of her existence. That closes the final chapter of this true story - excepting, indeed, the circumstance that many years afterward, in company with an equally intrepid spirit, I penetrated to the place and ventured near enough to the ruined cabin to throw a stone against it, and ran away to avoid the ghost which every well-informed boy thereabout knew haunted the spot. But there is an earlier chapter - that supplied by my grandfather. When Murlock built his cabin and began laying sturdily about with his axe to hew out a farm - the rifle, meanwhile, his means of support - he was young, strong and full of hope. In that eastern country whence he came he had married, as was the fashion, a young woman in all ways worthy of his honest devotion, who shared the dangers and privations of his lot with a willing spirit and light heart. There is no known record of her name; of her charms of mind and person tradition is silent and the doubter is at liberty to entertain his doubt; but God forbid that I should share it! Of their affection and happiness there is abundant assurance in every added day of the man's widowed life; for what but the magnetism of a blessed memory could have chained that venturesome spirit to a lot like that? One day Murlock returned from gunning in a distant part of the forest to find his wife prostrate with fever, and delirious. There was no physician within miles, no neighbour; nor was she in a condition to be left, to summon help. So he set about the task of nursing her back to health, but at the end of the third day she fell into unconsciousness arid so passed away, apparently, with never a gleam of returning reason. From what we know of a nature like his we may venture to sketch in some of the details of the outline picture drawn by my grandfather. When convinced that she was dead, Murlock had sense enough to remember that the dead must be prepared for burial. In performance of this sacred duty he blundered now and again, did certain things incorrectly, and others which he did correctly were done over and over. His occasional failures to accomplish some simple and ordinary act filled him with astonishment, like that of a drunken man who wonders at the suspension of familiar natural laws. He was surprised, too, that he did not weep - surprised and a little ashamed; surely it is unkind not to weep for the dead. "Tomorrow," he said aloud, "I shall have to make the coffin arid dig the grave; and then I shall miss her, when she is no longer in sight; but now - she is dead, of course, but it is all right - it must be all right, somehow. Things cannot be so bad as they seem."
< 3 > He stood over the body in the fading light, adjusting the hair and putting the finishing touches to the simple toilet, doing all mechanically, with soulless care. And still through his consciousness ran an undersense of conviction that all was right - that he should have her again as before, and everything explained. He had had no experience in grief; his capacity had not been enlarged by use. His heart could not contain it all, nor his imagination rightly conceive it. He did not know he was so hard struck; that knowledge would come later, and never go. Grief is an artist of powers as various as the instruments upon which he plays his dirges for the dead, evoking from some the sharpest, shrillest notes, from others the low, grave chords that throb recurrent like the slow beating of a distant drum. Some natures it startles; some it stupefies. To one it comes like the stroke of an arrow, stinging all the sensibilities to a keener life; to another as the blow of a bludgeon, which in crushing benumbs. We may conceive Murlock to have been that way affected, for (and here we are upon surer ground than that of conjecture) no sooner had he finished his pious work than, sinking into a chair by the side of the table upon which the body lay, and noting how white the profile showed in the deepening gloom, he laid his arms upon the table's edge, and dropped his face into them, tearless yet and unutterably weary. At that moment came in through the open window a long, wailing sound like the cry of a lost child in the far deeps of the darkening woods! But the man did not move. Again, and nearer than before, sounded that unearthly cry upon his failing sense. Perhaps it was a wild beast; perhaps it was a dream. For Murlock was asleep. Some hours later, as it afterward appeared, this unfaithful watcher awoke and lifting his head from his arms intently listened - he knew not why. There in the black darkness by the side of the dead, recalling all without a shock, he strained his eyes to see - he knew not what. His senses were all alert, his breath was suspended, his blood had stilled its tides as if to assist the silence. Who - what had waked him, and where was it?
< 4 > Suddenly the table shook beneath his arms, and at the same moment he heard, or fancied that he heard, a light, soft step - another - sounds as of bare feet upon the floor! He was terrified beyond the power to cry out or move. Perforce he waited - waited there in the darkness through seeming centuries of such dread as one may know, yet live to tell. He tried vainly to speak the dead woman's name, vainly to stretch forth his hand across the table to learn if she were there. His throat was powerless, his arms and hands were like lead. Then occurred something most frightful. Some heavy body seemed hurled against the table with an impetus that pushed it against his breast so sharply as nearly to overthrow him, and at the same instant he heard and felt the fall of something upon the floor with so violent a thump that the whole house was shaken by the impact. A scuffling ensued, and a confusion of sounds impossible to describe. Murlock had risen to his feet. Fear had by excess forfeited control of his faculties. He flung his hands upon the table. Nothing was there! There is a point at which terror may turn to madness; and madness incites to action. With no definite intent, from no motive but the wayward impulse of a madman, Murlock sprang to the wall, with a little groping seized his loaded rifle, and without aim discharged it. By the flash which lit up the room with a vivid illumination, he saw an enormous panther dragging the dead woman toward the window, its teeth fixed in her throat! Then there were darkness blacker than before, and silence; and when he returned to consciousness the sun was high and the wood vocal with songs of birds. The body lay near the window, where the beast had left it when frightened away by the flash and report of the rifle. The clothing was deranged, the long hair in disorder, the limbs lay anyhow. From the throat, dreadfully lacerated, had issued a pool of blood not yet entirely coagulated. The ribbon with which he had bound the wrists was broken; the hands were tightly clenched. Between the teeth was a fragment of the animal's ear. top
The Boarded Window
In 1830, only a few miles away from what is now the great city of Cincinnati, lay an immense and almost unbroken forest. The whole region was sparsely settled by people of the frontier - restless souls who no sooner had hewn fairly habitable homes out of the wilderness and attained to that degree of prosperity which today we should call indigence, than, impelled by some mysterious impulse of their nature, they abandoned all and pushed farther westward, to encounter new perils and privations in the effort to regain the meagre comforts which they had voluntarily renounced. Many of them had already forsaken that region for the remoter settlements, but among those remaining was one who had been of those first arriving. He lived alone in a house of logs surrounded on all sides by the great forest, of whose gloom and silence he seemed a part, for no one had ever known him to smile nor speak a needless word. His simple wants were supplied by the sale or barter of skins of wild animals in the river town, for not a thing did he grow upon the land which, if needful, he might have claimed by right of undisturbed possession. There were evidences of "improvement" - a few acres of ground immediately about the house had once been cleared of its trees, the decayed stumps of which were half concealed by the new growth that had been suffered to repair the ravage wrought by the axe. Apparently the man's zeal for agriculture had burned with a failing flame, expiring in penitential ashes.
The little log house, with its chimney of sticks, its roof of warping clapboards weighted with traversing poles and its "chinking" of clay, had a single door and, directly opposite, a window. The latter, however, was boarded up - nobody could remember a time when it was not. And none knew why it was so closed; certainly not because of the occupant's dislike of light and air, for on those rare occasions when a hunter had passed that lonely spot the recluse had commonly been seen sunning himself on his doorstep if heaven had provided sunshine for his need. I fancy there are few persons living today who ever knew the secret of that window, but I am one, as you shall see.
The man's name was said to be Murlock. He was apparently seventy years old, actually about fifty. Something besides years had had a hand in his ageing. His hair and long, full beard were white, his grey, lustreless eyes sunken, his face singularly seamed with wrinkles which appeared to belong to two intersecting systems. In figure he was tall and spare, with a stoop of the shoulders - a burden bearer. I never saw him; these particulars I learned from my grandfather, from whom also I got the man's story when I was a lad. He had known him when living near by in that early day.
< 2 > One day Murlock was found in his cabin, dead. It was not a time and place for coroners and newspapers, and I suppose it was agreed that he had died from natural causes or I should have been told, and should remember. I know only that with what was probably a sense of the fitness of things the body was buried near the cabin, alongside the grave of his wife, who had preceded him by so many years that local tradition had retained hardly a hint of her existence. That closes the final chapter of this true story - excepting, indeed, the circumstance that many years afterward, in company with an equally intrepid spirit, I penetrated to the place and ventured near enough to the ruined cabin to throw a stone against it, and ran away to avoid the ghost which every well-informed boy thereabout knew haunted the spot. But there is an earlier chapter - that supplied by my grandfather. When Murlock built his cabin and began laying sturdily about with his axe to hew out a farm - the rifle, meanwhile, his means of support - he was young, strong and full of hope. In that eastern country whence he came he had married, as was the fashion, a young woman in all ways worthy of his honest devotion, who shared the dangers and privations of his lot with a willing spirit and light heart. There is no known record of her name; of her charms of mind and person tradition is silent and the doubter is at liberty to entertain his doubt; but God forbid that I should share it! Of their affection and happiness there is abundant assurance in every added day of the man's widowed life; for what but the magnetism of a blessed memory could have chained that venturesome spirit to a lot like that? One day Murlock returned from gunning in a distant part of the forest to find his wife prostrate with fever, and delirious. There was no physician within miles, no neighbour; nor was she in a condition to be left, to summon help. So he set about the task of nursing her back to health, but at the end of the third day she fell into unconsciousness arid so passed away, apparently, with never a gleam of returning reason. From what we know of a nature like his we may venture to sketch in some of the details of the outline picture drawn by my grandfather. When convinced that she was dead, Murlock had sense enough to remember that the dead must be prepared for burial. In performance of this sacred duty he blundered now and again, did certain things incorrectly, and others which he did correctly were done over and over. His occasional failures to accomplish some simple and ordinary act filled him with astonishment, like that of a drunken man who wonders at the suspension of familiar natural laws. He was surprised, too, that he did not weep - surprised and a little ashamed; surely it is unkind not to weep for the dead. "Tomorrow," he said aloud, "I shall have to make the coffin arid dig the grave; and then I shall miss her, when she is no longer in sight; but now - she is dead, of course, but it is all right - it must be all right, somehow. Things cannot be so bad as they seem."
< 3 > He stood over the body in the fading light, adjusting the hair and putting the finishing touches to the simple toilet, doing all mechanically, with soulless care. And still through his consciousness ran an undersense of conviction that all was right - that he should have her again as before, and everything explained. He had had no experience in grief; his capacity had not been enlarged by use. His heart could not contain it all, nor his imagination rightly conceive it. He did not know he was so hard struck; that knowledge would come later, and never go. Grief is an artist of powers as various as the instruments upon which he plays his dirges for the dead, evoking from some the sharpest, shrillest notes, from others the low, grave chords that throb recurrent like the slow beating of a distant drum. Some natures it startles; some it stupefies. To one it comes like the stroke of an arrow, stinging all the sensibilities to a keener life; to another as the blow of a bludgeon, which in crushing benumbs. We may conceive Murlock to have been that way affected, for (and here we are upon surer ground than that of conjecture) no sooner had he finished his pious work than, sinking into a chair by the side of the table upon which the body lay, and noting how white the profile showed in the deepening gloom, he laid his arms upon the table's edge, and dropped his face into them, tearless yet and unutterably weary. At that moment came in through the open window a long, wailing sound like the cry of a lost child in the far deeps of the darkening woods! But the man did not move. Again, and nearer than before, sounded that unearthly cry upon his failing sense. Perhaps it was a wild beast; perhaps it was a dream. For Murlock was asleep. Some hours later, as it afterward appeared, this unfaithful watcher awoke and lifting his head from his arms intently listened - he knew not why. There in the black darkness by the side of the dead, recalling all without a shock, he strained his eyes to see - he knew not what. His senses were all alert, his breath was suspended, his blood had stilled its tides as if to assist the silence. Who - what had waked him, and where was it?
< 4 > Suddenly the table shook beneath his arms, and at the same moment he heard, or fancied that he heard, a light, soft step - another - sounds as of bare feet upon the floor! He was terrified beyond the power to cry out or move. Perforce he waited - waited there in the darkness through seeming centuries of such dread as one may know, yet live to tell. He tried vainly to speak the dead woman's name, vainly to stretch forth his hand across the table to learn if she were there. His throat was powerless, his arms and hands were like lead. Then occurred something most frightful. Some heavy body seemed hurled against the table with an impetus that pushed it against his breast so sharply as nearly to overthrow him, and at the same instant he heard and felt the fall of something upon the floor with so violent a thump that the whole house was shaken by the impact. A scuffling ensued, and a confusion of sounds impossible to describe. Murlock had risen to his feet. Fear had by excess forfeited control of his faculties. He flung his hands upon the table. Nothing was there! There is a point at which terror may turn to madness; and madness incites to action. With no definite intent, from no motive but the wayward impulse of a madman, Murlock sprang to the wall, with a little groping seized his loaded rifle, and without aim discharged it. By the flash which lit up the room with a vivid illumination, he saw an enormous panther dragging the dead woman toward the window, its teeth fixed in her throat! Then there were darkness blacker than before, and silence; and when he returned to consciousness the sun was high and the wood vocal with songs of birds. The body lay near the window, where the beast had left it when frightened away by the flash and report of the rifle. The clothing was deranged, the long hair in disorder, the limbs lay anyhow. From the throat, dreadfully lacerated, had issued a pool of blood not yet entirely coagulated. The ribbon with which he had bound the wrists was broken; the hands were tightly clenched. Between the teeth was a fragment of the animal's ear. top
Friday, April 25, 2008
Write a poem, of at least ten lines, relating in some way to either winter or spring. You will present your poem (out loud) on Wednesday, February 4, 2009. Be sure use plenty of sensory details, and to describe things in fresh, new ways.
Use the following links to help your writing.
Alliteration: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_terms/alliteration.html
Assonance: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_terms/assonance.html
Slant Rhyming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_rhyme
Internal Rhyming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_rhyme
Extended Metaphor: http://www.changingminds.org/techniques/language/metaphor/extended_metaphor.htm
Onomatopoeia: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_terms/onomatopoeia.html
Use the following links to help your writing.
Alliteration: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_terms/alliteration.html
Assonance: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_terms/assonance.html
Slant Rhyming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_rhyme
Internal Rhyming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_rhyme
Extended Metaphor: http://www.changingminds.org/techniques/language/metaphor/extended_metaphor.htm
Onomatopoeia: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_terms/onomatopoeia.html
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The House With a Clock in Its Walls Webquest.
Answer the following questions (with the word processor) and e-mail your answers (either as an attachment or inline text) to brugiond@yahoo.com - or print them.
1. In what city is the novel set? Describe it.
2. What is Lewis's dad's name?
3. Name three other novels featuring Lewis.
4. Describe Lewis in a few well-written sentences. Then draw a picture of him.
5. Where did the "Black Hope Horror" haunting supposedly take place? Describe it.
6. Do you believe in ghosts? In a well-written paragraph, tell why you do or don't, and try to convince others to see your side.
7. Respond to this picture in any way you see fit.
Some links to help your search:
Lewis Barnavelt, New Zebedee, John Bellairs
Answer the following questions (with the word processor) and e-mail your answers (either as an attachment or inline text) to brugiond@yahoo.com - or print them.
1. In what city is the novel set? Describe it.
2. What is Lewis's dad's name?
3. Name three other novels featuring Lewis.
4. Describe Lewis in a few well-written sentences. Then draw a picture of him.
5. Where did the "Black Hope Horror" haunting supposedly take place? Describe it.
6. Do you believe in ghosts? In a well-written paragraph, tell why you do or don't, and try to convince others to see your side.
7. Respond to this picture in any way you see fit.
Some links to help your search:
Lewis Barnavelt, New Zebedee, John Bellairs
Friday, March 14, 2008
Green Flash
She said meet me on the shoal
Where the red moonlight lingers
Where hot wind whispers on the boles
Bright waters glowing with green flash
She led me down to the banks of Mbini
She said my friend you’re so cold and dead
She wrapped me in her silence and then began to sing
While the shadows fell on my riverbed
We’ll lean on the soft machines
And make up rhymes to the sun
And drink tea over maps of islands
And drop foreign coins in fountains
The dust of spirits
Hums low malaguenas
Of painted landscape
Of broken circle
I’ve many questions
For the boatmen
Who haunt the shoreline
Of el Rio Bonito
I woke at dawn to the rattle of rain
When the mist draped over the thick yellow river
She caressed my skin with the music of whispers
We descended to the banks and knelt in the eddies
I said I can’t open my eyes
I said I’m hot and river blind
I’ve lain through this echoing evening
In dim purgatorial musings
Onchocerciasis
A swarm of insects
A backlit canvas
Of dancing shadow
I feel the light falling on swollen arms
The purging of springtime’s network of rivers
I feel the soft gasp of memory’s fading
Licking my wounds with her sweet muddy tongue
The locusts buzz and hum
I murmur that all is darkness
I’ve lost the streets and the cities
The bending hills of forgotten islands
I dream of Coriolanus
The doomed march of rotten heroes
I dream of airports and slums
The slow lap of waves on a rowboat
She said meet me on the shoal
Where the red moonlight lingers
Where hot wind whispers on the boles
Bright waters glowing with green flash
She led me down to the banks of Mbini
She said my friend you’re so cold and dead
She wrapped me in her silence and then began to sing
While the shadows fell on my riverbed
We’ll lean on the soft machines
And make up rhymes to the sun
And drink tea over maps of islands
And drop foreign coins in fountains
The dust of spirits
Hums low malaguenas
Of painted landscape
Of broken circle
I’ve many questions
For the boatmen
Who haunt the shoreline
Of el Rio Bonito
I woke at dawn to the rattle of rain
When the mist draped over the thick yellow river
She caressed my skin with the music of whispers
We descended to the banks and knelt in the eddies
I said I can’t open my eyes
I said I’m hot and river blind
I’ve lain through this echoing evening
In dim purgatorial musings
Onchocerciasis
A swarm of insects
A backlit canvas
Of dancing shadow
I feel the light falling on swollen arms
The purging of springtime’s network of rivers
I feel the soft gasp of memory’s fading
Licking my wounds with her sweet muddy tongue
The locusts buzz and hum
I murmur that all is darkness
I’ve lost the streets and the cities
The bending hills of forgotten islands
I dream of Coriolanus
The doomed march of rotten heroes
I dream of airports and slums
The slow lap of waves on a rowboat
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Background on the Salem Witch Trials - Use these links to answer the questions below. http://www.salemwitchmuseum.com/
1. Approximately when did the Salem witch trials take place?
2. What are some possible causes for the hysteria in Salem?
3. Who was Samuel Parrish?
4. Who was Tituba?
5. What event concerning the Parrish children ignited the hysteria?
6. Who was Cotton Mather?
7. What types of punishment were used for those accused of witchcraft?
8. What happened to those who did not confess to witchcraft?
9. How many lives did the Salem trials ultimately claim?
Background on McCarthyism - More links, more questions. http://encarta.msn.com/
1. What did Senator Joseph McCarthy have to do with the Red Scare of the 1950’s?
2. What political situation prompted the hysteria during the Red Scare?
3. What is the HUAC and what did it set out to do in the 1940’s and 1950’s?
4. What were blacklists and who was most likely to be named to these lists?
5. What happened to those accused by Joseph McCarthy and the HUAC?
6. What kinds of trials or hearings were held? Were they fair or not?
7. What questions were accused people asked?
8. How many were found guilty? Any famous people?
9. What ultimately happened to his investigation?
1. Approximately when did the Salem witch trials take place?
2. What are some possible causes for the hysteria in Salem?
3. Who was Samuel Parrish?
4. Who was Tituba?
5. What event concerning the Parrish children ignited the hysteria?
6. Who was Cotton Mather?
7. What types of punishment were used for those accused of witchcraft?
8. What happened to those who did not confess to witchcraft?
9. How many lives did the Salem trials ultimately claim?
Background on McCarthyism - More links, more questions. http://encarta.msn.com/
1. What did Senator Joseph McCarthy have to do with the Red Scare of the 1950’s?
2. What political situation prompted the hysteria during the Red Scare?
3. What is the HUAC and what did it set out to do in the 1940’s and 1950’s?
4. What were blacklists and who was most likely to be named to these lists?
5. What happened to those accused by Joseph McCarthy and the HUAC?
6. What kinds of trials or hearings were held? Were they fair or not?
7. What questions were accused people asked?
8. How many were found guilty? Any famous people?
9. What ultimately happened to his investigation?
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Here is the address for Ifolders:http://moodle.lakeridge.k12.in.us/ifolder/Login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fifolder%2fiFolders.aspx!
Type or copy it into the URL bar if the link to the right doesn't work. You can also click here.
Type or copy it into the URL bar if the link to the right doesn't work. You can also click here.
Monday, February 04, 2008
World War One Webquest
1. Research the following new weapons that were developed for use in the Great War and explain how they changed the face of war. Weapons to explore: flamethrower, tank, machine gun, submarine, airplane, and 3" mortar.
2. Explain what "no man's land" was and draw an illustration of it.
3. How was gas used as a biological weapon in the Great War? What types of gas were used, and what were their effects?
4. What was life like in the trenches for the typical German soldier?
5. We've discussed (briefly) the concept of an unreliable narrator. (Think of the multi-named protagonist from "Reconnaissance.") What are the characteristics of an unreliable narrator? How does this effect/ affect the plot of a story?
6. True or false: You should get a copy of All Quiet on the Western Front by Friday. Answer in 5 pages or less, demonstrating grade-level appropriate control of diction and tone.
7. How did Americans view the war before American involvement? Did this opinion change once the United States was involved? If so, how?
8. What happened at Verdun that made it so notorious?
Click here to start your search. You may also use such search engine sites as Google or Yahoo, or browse Wikipedia. Remember, plagarism is strictly prohibited! Use vivid sensory details in your answers, and don't be afraid to be unusual. Your anwsers are due Wednesday, so get crackin' weiners.
Daniel: Draw the following: snake, bear, square, dog.
1. Research the following new weapons that were developed for use in the Great War and explain how they changed the face of war. Weapons to explore: flamethrower, tank, machine gun, submarine, airplane, and 3" mortar.
2. Explain what "no man's land" was and draw an illustration of it.
3. How was gas used as a biological weapon in the Great War? What types of gas were used, and what were their effects?
4. What was life like in the trenches for the typical German soldier?
5. We've discussed (briefly) the concept of an unreliable narrator. (Think of the multi-named protagonist from "Reconnaissance.") What are the characteristics of an unreliable narrator? How does this effect/ affect the plot of a story?
6. True or false: You should get a copy of All Quiet on the Western Front by Friday. Answer in 5 pages or less, demonstrating grade-level appropriate control of diction and tone.
7. How did Americans view the war before American involvement? Did this opinion change once the United States was involved? If so, how?
8. What happened at Verdun that made it so notorious?
Click here to start your search. You may also use such search engine sites as Google or Yahoo, or browse Wikipedia. Remember, plagarism is strictly prohibited! Use vivid sensory details in your answers, and don't be afraid to be unusual. Your anwsers are due Wednesday, so get crackin' weiners.
Daniel: Draw the following: snake, bear, square, dog.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Friday, December 07, 2007
Thursday, December 06, 2007
THE CHARACTERS By Relationship
Parris: A minister in Salem who is more worried about his reputation than the life of his daughter or the lives of his parishioners
Betty: Parris's young daughter; stricken at the beginning of the play; one of the girls who "cry out" during the trial
Abigail: Orphan; niece of Parris; tauntress; mistress of Proctor; leads "crying out" during the trial
Tituba: Parris's slave from Barbados; first accused witch
Putnam: Vindictive, bitter villager who believes he has been wronged and cheated; leading village voice against the witches
Mrs. Putnam: Wife of (Thomas) Putnam; first plants the idea that Betty has been bewitched
Ruth: Daughter of the Putnams; one of the girls who "cry out" at trials
Mercy Lewis: Putnams' servant; also involved in accusation of witches; one of the girls who "cry out" during the trial
Proctor: Good man with human frailties and a hidden secret; often the voice of reason in the play; accused of witchcraftElizabeth:
Wife of (John) Proctor; a cold, childless but upright woman who at first cannot forgive her husband's frailties; an accused witch
Mary Warren: Proctor's servant; an easily swayed young girl who plants the evidence of witchcraft on Elizabeth; one of the girls who "cry out" during the trial
Hale: A minister who is a recognized authority on witchcraft; at the play's end tries to save the accused
Danforth: Deputy Governor of Massachusetts who is taken in by the testimony; attempts to get confessions of accused witches
Hathorne: One of the judges for the trials
Rebecca: Wife of the respected Francis Nurse; midwife; exemplary Christian; accused witch
Francis: Husband of Rebecca; had land dispute with the Putnams
Giles Corey Old, garrulous villager; inadvertently causes his wife to be accused
Sarah Good: Accused witch who cracks under the strain of imprisonment
Susanna: Doctor's messenger; one of the girls who "cry out" during the trial
Cheever: Charged with arresting the witches
Herrick: Also charged with arresting the witches; acts as jailkeeper
Hopkins: Messenger
Martha: Giles Corey's wife who likes to read; accused witch
Goody Osburn: Midwife at birth of three Putnam babies who were born dead; accused witch
Bayley: Putnam's brother-in-law; Putnam's choice to be minister; opposed by Nurses
Parris: A minister in Salem who is more worried about his reputation than the life of his daughter or the lives of his parishioners
Betty: Parris's young daughter; stricken at the beginning of the play; one of the girls who "cry out" during the trial
Abigail: Orphan; niece of Parris; tauntress; mistress of Proctor; leads "crying out" during the trial
Tituba: Parris's slave from Barbados; first accused witch
Putnam: Vindictive, bitter villager who believes he has been wronged and cheated; leading village voice against the witches
Mrs. Putnam: Wife of (Thomas) Putnam; first plants the idea that Betty has been bewitched
Ruth: Daughter of the Putnams; one of the girls who "cry out" at trials
Mercy Lewis: Putnams' servant; also involved in accusation of witches; one of the girls who "cry out" during the trial
Proctor: Good man with human frailties and a hidden secret; often the voice of reason in the play; accused of witchcraftElizabeth:
Wife of (John) Proctor; a cold, childless but upright woman who at first cannot forgive her husband's frailties; an accused witch
Mary Warren: Proctor's servant; an easily swayed young girl who plants the evidence of witchcraft on Elizabeth; one of the girls who "cry out" during the trial
Hale: A minister who is a recognized authority on witchcraft; at the play's end tries to save the accused
Danforth: Deputy Governor of Massachusetts who is taken in by the testimony; attempts to get confessions of accused witches
Hathorne: One of the judges for the trials
Rebecca: Wife of the respected Francis Nurse; midwife; exemplary Christian; accused witch
Francis: Husband of Rebecca; had land dispute with the Putnams
Giles Corey Old, garrulous villager; inadvertently causes his wife to be accused
Sarah Good: Accused witch who cracks under the strain of imprisonment
Susanna: Doctor's messenger; one of the girls who "cry out" during the trial
Cheever: Charged with arresting the witches
Herrick: Also charged with arresting the witches; acts as jailkeeper
Hopkins: Messenger
Martha: Giles Corey's wife who likes to read; accused witch
Goody Osburn: Midwife at birth of three Putnam babies who were born dead; accused witch
Bayley: Putnam's brother-in-law; Putnam's choice to be minister; opposed by Nurses
Here's my list of historical inaccuracies in the play/screenplay:
Betty Parris' mother was not dead, but very much alive at the time. She died in 1696, four years after the events.
Soon after the legal proceedings began, Betty was shuttled off to live in Salem Town with Stephen Sewall's family. Stephen was the clerk of the Court, brother of Judge Samuel Sewall.
The Parris family also included two other children -- an older brother, Thomas (b. 1681), and a younger sister, Susannah (b. 1687) -- not just Betty and her relative Abigail, who was probably born around 1681.
Abigail Williams is often called Rev. Parris' "niece" but in fact there is no genealogical evidence to prove their familial relationship. She is sometimes in the original texts referred to as his "kinfolk" however.
Miller admits in the introduction to the play that he boosted Abigail Williams' age to 17 even though the real girl was only 11, but he never mentions that John Proctor was 60 and Elizabeth, 41, was his third wife. Proctor was not a farmer but a tavern keeper. Living with them was their daughter aged 15, their son who was 17, and John's 33-year-old son from his first marriage.
Everyone in the family was eventually accused of witchcraft. Elizabeth Proctor was indeed pregnant, during the trial, and did have a temporary stay of execution after convicted, which ultimately spared her life because it extended past the end of the period that the executions were taking place.
The first two girls to become afflicted were Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, not Ann Putnam, and they had violent, physical fits, not a sleep that they could not wake from.
There never was any wild dancing rite in the woods led by Tituba, and certainly Rev. Parris never stumbled upon them. Some of the local girls had attempted to divine the occupations of their future husbands with an egg in a glass -- crystal-ball style. Tituba and her husband, John Indian (absent in Miller's telling), were asked by a neighbor, Mary Sibley, to bake a special "witch cake," -- made of rye and the girls' urine, fed to a dog -- European white magic to ascertain who the witch was who was afflicting the girls.
The Putnam's daughter was not named Ruth, but Ann, like her mother, probably changed by Miller so the audience wouldn't confuse the mother and the daughter. In reality, the mother was referred to as "Ann Putnam Senior" and the daughter as "Ann Putnam Junior."
Ann/Ruth was not the only Putnam child out of eight to survive infancy. In 1692, the Putnams had six living children, Ann being the eldest, down to 1-year-old Timothy. Ann Putnam Sr. was pregnant during most of 1692. Ann Sr. and her sister, however did lose a fair number of infants, though certainly not all, and by comparison, the Nurse family lost remarkably few for the time.
Rev. Parris claims to Giles Corey that he is a "graduate of Harvard" -- he did not in fact graduate from Harvard, although he had attended for a while and dropped out.
The judges in The Crucible are Samuel Sewall, Thomas Danforth, and John Hathorne. The full panel of magistrates for the special Court of Oyer and Terminer were in fact named by the new charter, which arrived in Massachusetts on May 14, 1692 were William Stoughton, John Richards, Nathaniel Saltonstall, Wait Winthrop, Bartholomew Gedney, Samuel Sewall, John Hathorne, Jonathan Corwin and Peter Sergeant. Five of these eight had to be present to form a presiding bench, and at least one of those five had to be Stoughton, Richards, or Gedney.
Thomas Danforth the Deputy Governor, joined the magistrates on occasion as the presiding magistrate.
The events portrayed here were the examinations of the accused in Salem Village from March to April in the context of a special court of "Oyer and Terminer." These were not the actual trials, per se, which began later, in June 1692. The procedure was basically this: someone would bring a complaint to the authorities, and the authorities would decide if there was enough reason to send the sheriff or other law enforcement officer to arrest them. While this was happening, depositions -- statements people made on paper outside of court -- were taken and evidence gathered, typically against the accused. After evidence or charges were presented, and depositions sworn to before the court, the grand jury would decide whether to indict the person, and if so, on what charges. If indicted, the person's case would then go to a petit jury, or to "trial" something like we know it only much faster, to decide guilt or innocence. Guilt in a case of witchcraft in 1692 came with an automatic sentence of death by hanging, as per English law.
Saltonstall was one of the original magistrates, but quit early on because of the reservations portrayed as attributed to Sewall's character in the play. Of the magistrates, only Sewall ever expressed public regret for his actions, asking in 1696 to have his minister, Rev. Samuel Willard, read a statement from the pulpit of this church to the congregation, accepting his share of the blame for the trials.
Rebecca Nurse was hanged on July 19, John Proctor on August 19, and Martha Corey on September 22 -- not all on the same day on the same gallows. And the only person executed who recited the Lord's Prayer on the gallows was Rev. George Burroughs -- which caused quite a stir since it was generally believed at the time that a witch could not say the Lord's Prayer without making a mistake. They also would not have been hanged while praying, since the condemned were always allowed their last words and prayers.
Reverend Hale would not have signed any "death warrants," as he claims to have signed 17 in the play. That was not for the clergy to do. Both existing death warrants are signed by William Stoughton.
The elderly George Jacobs was not accused of sending his spirit in through the window to lie on the Putnam's daughter -- in fact, it was usually quite the opposite case: women such as Bridget Bishop were accused of sending their spirits into men's bedrooms to lie on them. In that period, women were perceived as the lusty, sexual creatures whose allure men must guard against!
The hysteria did not die out "as more and more people refused to save themselves by giving false confessions," as the epilogue of the movie states. The opposite was true: more and more people gave false confessions to save themselves as it became apparent that confession could save one from the noose. What ended the trials was the intervention of Governor William Phips.
Contrary to what Phips told the Crown in England, he was not off in Maine fighting the Indians in King William's War through that summer, since he attended governor's council meetings regularly that summer, which were also attended by the magistrates. But public opinion of the trials did take a turn. There were over two hundred people in prison when the general reprieve was given, but they were not released until they paid their prison fees. Neither did the tide turn when Abigail Williams accused Rev. Hale's wife, as the play claims -- although the "afflicted" did start accusing a lot more people far and wide to the point of absurdity, including various people around in other Massachusetts towns whom they had never laid eyes on, including notable people such as the famous hero Capt. John Alden (who escaped after being arrested).
Abigail Williams probably couldn't have laid her hands on 31 pounds in Samuel Parris' house, to run away with John Proctor, when Parris' annual salary was contracted at 66 pounds, only a third of which was paid in money. The rest was to be paid in foodstuffs and other supplies, but he even then, he had continual disputes with the parishioners about supplying him with much-needed firewood they owed him.
Certain key people in the real events appear nowhere in Miller's play: John Indian, Rev. Nicholas Noyes, Sarah Cloyce, and most notably, Cotton Mather.
Giles Corey was not executed for refusing to name a witness, as portrayed in the movie. The play is accurate: he was accused of witchcraft, and refused to enter a plea, which held up the proceedings, since the law of the time required that the accused enter a plea. He was pressed to death with stones, but the method was used to try to force him to enter a plea so that his trial could proceed. Corey probably realized that if he was tried at all, he would be executed, and his children would be disinherited. (Interestingly, Miller wrote both the play and the screenplay... Who knows why he changed it to a less-accurate explanation for his punishment and execution?)
"The afflicted" comprised not just a group of a dozen teenage girls -- there were men and adult women who were also "afflicted," including John Indian, Ann Putnam, Sr., and Sarah Bibber -- or anyone in Andover, where more people were accused than in Salem Village!
There's a tiny scene in the movie with a goat getting into someone's garden and tempers flaring -- the actual history is that three years before the witchcraft accusations, a neighbor's pigs got into the Nurse family's fields, and Rebecca Nurse flew off the handle yelling at him about it. Soon thereafter, the neighbor had an apparent stroke and died within a few months. This was seen as evidence in 1692 of Rebecca Nurse's witchcraft.
Betty Parris' mother was not dead, but very much alive at the time. She died in 1696, four years after the events.
Soon after the legal proceedings began, Betty was shuttled off to live in Salem Town with Stephen Sewall's family. Stephen was the clerk of the Court, brother of Judge Samuel Sewall.
The Parris family also included two other children -- an older brother, Thomas (b. 1681), and a younger sister, Susannah (b. 1687) -- not just Betty and her relative Abigail, who was probably born around 1681.
Abigail Williams is often called Rev. Parris' "niece" but in fact there is no genealogical evidence to prove their familial relationship. She is sometimes in the original texts referred to as his "kinfolk" however.
Miller admits in the introduction to the play that he boosted Abigail Williams' age to 17 even though the real girl was only 11, but he never mentions that John Proctor was 60 and Elizabeth, 41, was his third wife. Proctor was not a farmer but a tavern keeper. Living with them was their daughter aged 15, their son who was 17, and John's 33-year-old son from his first marriage.
Everyone in the family was eventually accused of witchcraft. Elizabeth Proctor was indeed pregnant, during the trial, and did have a temporary stay of execution after convicted, which ultimately spared her life because it extended past the end of the period that the executions were taking place.
The first two girls to become afflicted were Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, not Ann Putnam, and they had violent, physical fits, not a sleep that they could not wake from.
There never was any wild dancing rite in the woods led by Tituba, and certainly Rev. Parris never stumbled upon them. Some of the local girls had attempted to divine the occupations of their future husbands with an egg in a glass -- crystal-ball style. Tituba and her husband, John Indian (absent in Miller's telling), were asked by a neighbor, Mary Sibley, to bake a special "witch cake," -- made of rye and the girls' urine, fed to a dog -- European white magic to ascertain who the witch was who was afflicting the girls.
The Putnam's daughter was not named Ruth, but Ann, like her mother, probably changed by Miller so the audience wouldn't confuse the mother and the daughter. In reality, the mother was referred to as "Ann Putnam Senior" and the daughter as "Ann Putnam Junior."
Ann/Ruth was not the only Putnam child out of eight to survive infancy. In 1692, the Putnams had six living children, Ann being the eldest, down to 1-year-old Timothy. Ann Putnam Sr. was pregnant during most of 1692. Ann Sr. and her sister, however did lose a fair number of infants, though certainly not all, and by comparison, the Nurse family lost remarkably few for the time.
Rev. Parris claims to Giles Corey that he is a "graduate of Harvard" -- he did not in fact graduate from Harvard, although he had attended for a while and dropped out.
The judges in The Crucible are Samuel Sewall, Thomas Danforth, and John Hathorne. The full panel of magistrates for the special Court of Oyer and Terminer were in fact named by the new charter, which arrived in Massachusetts on May 14, 1692 were William Stoughton, John Richards, Nathaniel Saltonstall, Wait Winthrop, Bartholomew Gedney, Samuel Sewall, John Hathorne, Jonathan Corwin and Peter Sergeant. Five of these eight had to be present to form a presiding bench, and at least one of those five had to be Stoughton, Richards, or Gedney.
Thomas Danforth the Deputy Governor, joined the magistrates on occasion as the presiding magistrate.
The events portrayed here were the examinations of the accused in Salem Village from March to April in the context of a special court of "Oyer and Terminer." These were not the actual trials, per se, which began later, in June 1692. The procedure was basically this: someone would bring a complaint to the authorities, and the authorities would decide if there was enough reason to send the sheriff or other law enforcement officer to arrest them. While this was happening, depositions -- statements people made on paper outside of court -- were taken and evidence gathered, typically against the accused. After evidence or charges were presented, and depositions sworn to before the court, the grand jury would decide whether to indict the person, and if so, on what charges. If indicted, the person's case would then go to a petit jury, or to "trial" something like we know it only much faster, to decide guilt or innocence. Guilt in a case of witchcraft in 1692 came with an automatic sentence of death by hanging, as per English law.
Saltonstall was one of the original magistrates, but quit early on because of the reservations portrayed as attributed to Sewall's character in the play. Of the magistrates, only Sewall ever expressed public regret for his actions, asking in 1696 to have his minister, Rev. Samuel Willard, read a statement from the pulpit of this church to the congregation, accepting his share of the blame for the trials.
Rebecca Nurse was hanged on July 19, John Proctor on August 19, and Martha Corey on September 22 -- not all on the same day on the same gallows. And the only person executed who recited the Lord's Prayer on the gallows was Rev. George Burroughs -- which caused quite a stir since it was generally believed at the time that a witch could not say the Lord's Prayer without making a mistake. They also would not have been hanged while praying, since the condemned were always allowed their last words and prayers.
Reverend Hale would not have signed any "death warrants," as he claims to have signed 17 in the play. That was not for the clergy to do. Both existing death warrants are signed by William Stoughton.
The elderly George Jacobs was not accused of sending his spirit in through the window to lie on the Putnam's daughter -- in fact, it was usually quite the opposite case: women such as Bridget Bishop were accused of sending their spirits into men's bedrooms to lie on them. In that period, women were perceived as the lusty, sexual creatures whose allure men must guard against!
The hysteria did not die out "as more and more people refused to save themselves by giving false confessions," as the epilogue of the movie states. The opposite was true: more and more people gave false confessions to save themselves as it became apparent that confession could save one from the noose. What ended the trials was the intervention of Governor William Phips.
Contrary to what Phips told the Crown in England, he was not off in Maine fighting the Indians in King William's War through that summer, since he attended governor's council meetings regularly that summer, which were also attended by the magistrates. But public opinion of the trials did take a turn. There were over two hundred people in prison when the general reprieve was given, but they were not released until they paid their prison fees. Neither did the tide turn when Abigail Williams accused Rev. Hale's wife, as the play claims -- although the "afflicted" did start accusing a lot more people far and wide to the point of absurdity, including various people around in other Massachusetts towns whom they had never laid eyes on, including notable people such as the famous hero Capt. John Alden (who escaped after being arrested).
Abigail Williams probably couldn't have laid her hands on 31 pounds in Samuel Parris' house, to run away with John Proctor, when Parris' annual salary was contracted at 66 pounds, only a third of which was paid in money. The rest was to be paid in foodstuffs and other supplies, but he even then, he had continual disputes with the parishioners about supplying him with much-needed firewood they owed him.
Certain key people in the real events appear nowhere in Miller's play: John Indian, Rev. Nicholas Noyes, Sarah Cloyce, and most notably, Cotton Mather.
Giles Corey was not executed for refusing to name a witness, as portrayed in the movie. The play is accurate: he was accused of witchcraft, and refused to enter a plea, which held up the proceedings, since the law of the time required that the accused enter a plea. He was pressed to death with stones, but the method was used to try to force him to enter a plea so that his trial could proceed. Corey probably realized that if he was tried at all, he would be executed, and his children would be disinherited. (Interestingly, Miller wrote both the play and the screenplay... Who knows why he changed it to a less-accurate explanation for his punishment and execution?)
"The afflicted" comprised not just a group of a dozen teenage girls -- there were men and adult women who were also "afflicted," including John Indian, Ann Putnam, Sr., and Sarah Bibber -- or anyone in Andover, where more people were accused than in Salem Village!
There's a tiny scene in the movie with a goat getting into someone's garden and tempers flaring -- the actual history is that three years before the witchcraft accusations, a neighbor's pigs got into the Nurse family's fields, and Rebecca Nurse flew off the handle yelling at him about it. Soon thereafter, the neighbor had an apparent stroke and died within a few months. This was seen as evidence in 1692 of Rebecca Nurse's witchcraft.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
To access IFolders:
Click on the IFolders icon on your desktop, then click on IFolders again (if necessary).
Login. Your username is your first name, followed by a period, followed by your last name - all lowercase, with no spaces. For example: daniel.brugioni
Your password is your four digit student ID number.
Once logged in, click on "Create New Folder." Name it.
To save - first, save your essay to the computer. Then, in IFolders, click browse, find your essay title, double click on the title, then click upload. It will be saved, and you can open it anywhere - even Mongolia.
Click on the IFolders icon on your desktop, then click on IFolders again (if necessary).
Login. Your username is your first name, followed by a period, followed by your last name - all lowercase, with no spaces. For example: daniel.brugioni
Your password is your four digit student ID number.
Once logged in, click on "Create New Folder." Name it.
To save - first, save your essay to the computer. Then, in IFolders, click browse, find your essay title, double click on the title, then click upload. It will be saved, and you can open it anywhere - even Mongolia.
Friday, November 02, 2007
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Background on the Salem Witch Trials - Use these links to answer the questions below.
http://www.salemwitchmuseum.com/
1. Approximately when did the Salem witch trials take place?
2. What are some possible causes for the hysteria in Salem?
3. Who was Samuel Parrish?
4. Who was Tituba?
5. What event concerning the Parrish children ignited the hysteria?
6. Who was Cotton Mather?
7. What types of punishment were used for those accused of witchcraft?
8. What happened to those who did not confess to witchcraft?
9. How many lives did the Salem trials ultimately claim?
Background on McCarthyism - More links, more questions.
http://encarta.msn.com/
1. What did Senator Joseph McCarthy have to do with the Red Scare of the 1950’s?
2. What political situation prompted the hysteria during the Red Scare?
3. What is the HUAC and what did it set out to do in the 1940’s and 1950’s?
4. What were blacklists and who was most likely to be named to these lists?
5. What happened to those accused by Joseph McCarthy and the HUAC?
6. What kinds of trials or hearings were held? Were they fair or not?
7. What questions were accused people asked?
8. How many were found guilty? Any famous people?
9. What ultimately happened to his investigation?
http://www.salemwitchmuseum.com/
1. Approximately when did the Salem witch trials take place?
2. What are some possible causes for the hysteria in Salem?
3. Who was Samuel Parrish?
4. Who was Tituba?
5. What event concerning the Parrish children ignited the hysteria?
6. Who was Cotton Mather?
7. What types of punishment were used for those accused of witchcraft?
8. What happened to those who did not confess to witchcraft?
9. How many lives did the Salem trials ultimately claim?
Background on McCarthyism - More links, more questions.
http://encarta.msn.com/
1. What did Senator Joseph McCarthy have to do with the Red Scare of the 1950’s?
2. What political situation prompted the hysteria during the Red Scare?
3. What is the HUAC and what did it set out to do in the 1940’s and 1950’s?
4. What were blacklists and who was most likely to be named to these lists?
5. What happened to those accused by Joseph McCarthy and the HUAC?
6. What kinds of trials or hearings were held? Were they fair or not?
7. What questions were accused people asked?
8. How many were found guilty? Any famous people?
9. What ultimately happened to his investigation?
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