Trimester Exam Review

What to study:

Vocabulary

(Definitions, synonyms, antonyms, word parts)

- Chapter V (Lessons 16 – 30), congratulate – vociferous, pp. 176 – 202

N.B. Start at Lesson 16

- Chapter VI, “Words from Classical Mythology and History,”

Adonis – titanic,pp. 203 – 214

- Chapter VII, “Anglo-Saxon Vocabulary” and “Latin-Derived Synonyms and Near-Synonyms for Anglo-Saxon Words,” aboard – nuptials, pp. 215 – 231

- Chapter VIII, “French Words in English,” au-courant – vis-à-vis,

pp. 232 – 255

Spelling         

- Lists 13 – 22

Literature

The Romantic Period

Lives of the poets and authors

Quotations from all works of literature on this list

Thomas Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”

William Blake, “The Lamb,” “The Tyger”

William Wordsworth “The World Is Too Much with Us,” “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Kubla Khan”

George Gordon, Lord Byron “She Walks in Beauty”

Percy Bysshe Shelley “Ozymandias,” “Ode to the West Wind”

John Keats “When I Have Fears” “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

The Victorian Period

Alfred, Lord Tennyson "In Memoriam, Lyric # 7," “Ulysses”

Robert Browning “Porphyria’s Lover “My Last Duchess”

Matthew Arnold, “Dover Beach”

Thomas Hardy “The Man He Killed, ” “Ah, Are Your Digging on My Grave?”

Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Pied Beauty”

A. E. Housman “To an Athlete Dying Young”

Aldous Huxley Brave New World

 

Brave New World on the Big Screen

If you thought the book was weird, check out the BBC's take on it.
The people are a bit robotic at times, their clothes are a bit , but overall, the creative liberties taken by director Burt Brinckerhoff make things pretty easy to understand.

What to Study for the Trimester Exam

                           Vocabulary

A.      Chapter III, “Building Vocabulary Through Central Ideas,” bliss – vanity,  pp. 46-106 

B.      Chapter IV, “Words Derived From Greek,” acrophobia – peritonitis,

 pp. 107-145

C.      Chapter V, “Words Derived From Latin,” Latin Prefixes 1 – 30 (a – vice) and Lessons 1 – 15 only, abrupt – perfidy, pp. 146-176

Definitions, synonyms, antonyms, and word parts (Greek roots and prefixes, Latin roots and prefixes; be sure to study the list of thirty Latin prefixes found at the beginning of Chapter V.)

                             Spelling – Lists 1-13 (see Spelling List page)

                             Grammar and Composition – Elements of Language

A.      Types of Phrases – Chapter 16

B.      Types of Subordinate Clauses – Chapter 17

C.      Complete Sentences, Fragments, and Run-ons – Chapter 17

D.     Types of Sentences According to Structure – Chapter 17

(simple, compound, complex, compound-complex)

Literature     

(Literary periods, literary techniques, authors, genres, quotations, details, details, details . . . )

A.      The Anglo-Saxon Period

B.   Beowulf

C.   The Middle Ages

D.   The Canterbury Tales: “General Prologue,” “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” – Chaucer

E.      The Renaissance

F.      Sonnets 18, 29, 116 – Shakespeare  (Be sure to know the first line of each.)

G.      Macbeth – Shakespeare

H.     “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” – Donne

I.         “Death Be Not Proud” (Holy Sonnet #10) – Donne

J.       “Meditation 17” – Donne

K.      “Of Studies,” – Bacon

L.      “To His Coy Mistress” – Marvell

M.    “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent” – Milton

N.      Paradise Lost (excerpt from Book I) – Milton

O.     The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century

P.      “A Modest Proposal” – Swift

Revised 12/11/09 

Meet John Donne

Here are some prime cuts from John Donne:

I am two fools, I know,
For loving, and for saying so
In whining poetry.
- from "The Triple Fool"

Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.
- from "Elegy II: The Anagram"

Any man's death diminishes me, because
I am involved in Mankind; And therefore
never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.
- from "Meditation XVII"


Click here for more on John Donne, the great poet, lawyer, world explorer, chaplain, preahcer, womanizer, and [eventual] family man.

Don't say "Macbeth" in a theater!

Did you know that saying "Macbeth" in a theater is considered by theater folk to be very bad luck. In fact, it's widely acknowledged as being even more ominous than the time-honored classis, "Break a leg."

Here's a rundown from Listverse, a very cool web site that lists Top 10s:  

Theater folk avoid using it, referring to the play as ‘The Scottish Play’ or ‘The Bard’s Play’. If the name is spoken in a theater, there is a cleansing ritual one can do to rectify the mistake. The ritual I am familiar with is: The person is required to leave the theater building, spit, curse and spin around three times, before begging to be allowed back inside. Other variants include: Reciting a line from another Shakespearean work, brushing oneself off, running around the theater counter clock-wise, or repeating the name 3 times while tapping their left shoulder.

There are several possible origins for this superstition. One option is to believe in witchcraft. According to one superstition, Shakespeare himself got the words from a coven of real witches, who, after seeing the play weren’t impressed by their portrayal. Another says the props master from the original performance stole a cauldron from said coven, and the witches, again, weren’t impressed. The best witchcraft explanation is that Shakespeare put a curse on the play so that no-one, other than him, would be able to direct it correctly.

Another origin is that there is more swordplay in it than most other Shakespeare plays, and, therefore, more chances for someone to get injured. But the option I believe is most likely is that, due to the plays popularity, it was often run by theaters that were in debt and as a last attempt to increase patronage; the theaters normally went bankrupt soon after.

NB: The superstition is even parodied in an episode of The Simpsons. While visiting London, the Simpson family comes across Sir Ian McKellen outside a theater showing “Macbeth.” Every time “Macbeth” is said, something happens to McKellen.

Patrick Stewart as Macbeth

Take a look at some of the other scenes/chapters if you have time; once you know the story, you can better appreciate this new take on an old classic.

Watch Macbeth on PBS. See more from GREAT PERFORMANCES.

Shakespeare: The Authorship Controversy

Did William Shakespeare really write all of the timeless plays for which he is given credit? Or were these plays penned by noblemen whose social status was above that of the Renaissance theater types? After all, how could Shakespeare, with his limited education, know so much about foreign language and culture, as well as matters of the law?

Outside of scholarly circles, the authorship controversy surrounding the great bard remains popular, and a new feature film called Anonymous explores the idea that "Shakespeare never wrote a single word" of his plays -- or sonnets. Check out the trailer below:




Not buying into the hype? Click here for The Shakespeare Authorship Page, which proposes that Shakespeare did, in fact, write Shakespeare.

A Real Life Shangri-La

Author Mitchell Zukoff's novel Lost in Shangri-La recounts a 1945 military mission over the island of New Guinea and its practically prehistoric tribesman and women. If the book is as inspiring as this short video, it's no wonder Lost in Shangri-La has been lauded as one of the best books of 2011.

There'd Be No "Lost" without the Lords

Here are some excerpts of a great piece about the parallels between the TV series Lost and Lord of the Flies from Yahoo!:

...To start with, the characters in both Lost and Lord of the Flies first arrived by plane crash and they landed on a deserted island. Also, although only a select few survived in both fictions, those who did were relatively unharmed.

In Lord of the Flies, only the children survived, with the oldest being about 12 years old. Not a single adult authority was left to help the kids in their survival or their attempt at being rescued. In Lost, there were many adults that survived (in contrast, few kids), but not a single adult authority. The reason this similarity is important is that in both fictions, the emergence of authority from people who didn't previously hold specific authority positions is a major force in moving along the plotline.

In Lord of the Flies, one of the main character's/leader's name is Jack, just as in Lost. If you consider it character-wise, Jack in Lost is more like Ralph in Lord of the Flies. Nonetheless, there's little doubt in my mind that the name Jack was chosen for Lost because of the prominence of the character Jack in Lord of the Flies.

Also, one of the first motivators in both fictions was securing food. In both Lost and Lord of the Flies, wild boar is the main (even only) source of meat and those who hunt it receive special recognition. Even many of the scenes, wherein the wild boar is charging the hunters and knocking them over, seem eerily familiar in both stories.

Early in the show Lost, as in the book Lord of the Flies, the fear of an anonymous monster or beast takes over the survivors. In both stories the fear of a beast makes most of the camp scared of the forest and they choose to stay on the beach to avoid it. In Lord of the Flies, the reader finds out that the beast is just a human, whereas the identity or source of the monster in Lost has not yet been revealed. With the strong similarities so far though, it would come as no surprise if Lost's monster was also of human origin.

Lord of the Flies first used the phrase, "the Others", in reference to an opposing tribe on the same island. The same phrase is used constantly throughout the TV series, Lost. The one major difference is that in William Golding's book, "the Others" were once a part of the original tribe, whereas the source of "the Others" in Lost is only occasionally hinted at.

It may be true though, that "the Others" in Lost are mainly survivors of other plane crashes who were once turned against their fellow survivors and made to join "the Others." This same thing explicitly happens at least once after the development of the two tribes in Lord of the Flies.

Also, something that is continually recurring in Lost is "the Others" killing people from the original surviving tribe. That's exactly how it happens in Lord of the Flies. One main difference is that the TV series Lost has gone on long enough that the killing happens back and forth, whereas in the book Lord of the Flies, the surviving tribe never attempted or succeeded in killing any of "the Others."

Finally, one of the central points of Lord of the Flies is a critique on human society and human nature. It can be equally argued that this is a central point of the TV show Lost. In both, the inherent evil nature of humanity is greatly considered. In Lost, several of the main characters have criminal backgrounds and are murderers. The rest of the cast just seem burdened by varying human weaknesses: pride, insecurity, and vanity.

Also, the ongoing competition between official leadership and subversive attempts at leadership is always a major plot point in episodes of Lost. This was the same driving force throughout Lord of the Flies plot...

Lord of the Flies Game

Here's a Lord of the Flies game for which you start off by clicking and dragging items and quotes to the characters associated with them. When you have matched everything, you will see all the boys and a "GO ON" sign in the lower right corner; click it to move on to the next challenge. This will bring you back to the map of the island. Click the pigs and follow the instructions from there.