AP Literature Hell

Today, my students went to hell.  Literarily speaking, of course!  

I wish I could say that this was my idea, but I just took the concept and ran with it.

This lesson is to help us review for the AP Literature exam, but could be adapted for other purposes.  All my students knew was that the calendar said "AP Hell" for today's lesson, and for some odd reason, they feared the worst.  :)

I decorated our door for the right inspiration.

Yeah, I need to work on those flames!  They look too much like hand- cut-out turkeys!  Then, of course, the right ambiance with both a fog machine (complete with red light) and sounds of hell coming from the tv.

Pro-tip - put the video into a Google Slides presentation set to run automatically when that slide is put up.  That way you don't have the ads interfering with your video.

The funny this is every student who was not in my class were ohhing and ahhing over the fog coming out of the room.  My students, expecting the worst, sighed and walked in waiting for some insane AP multiple choice practice!

Then I gave them this handout that has all the levels of Dante's Inferno on it.  I told them to write down all the characters they could remember from what we read in class - no matter how minor the character may seem.

After giving them some time, the fun began.  First I started by telling them the story of Dante being trapped in the Woods of Error and the three beasts and Beatrice and Virgil and all that good stuff!  Then I told them about the Vestibule with it's awful punishment.  That's where they jumped in.  I had all the levels written on the board and I wrote up on the board characters that thought would be there (Banquo was a unanimous first choice).  Then we continued into hell proper, level by level.  Each time I told them the punishment and they suggested characters that belonged there.  Every once and a while, we had debates on if a character should be included in hell (we decided that the old blind man in Frankenstein and Myrtle's dog from The Great Gatsby belonged in heaven) or if they should be moved to a different level as we descended.  They became determined to have at least one character in every level.  

For the finale, we decided to put the three worst sinners in Satan's mouth, like in The Inferno.  They chose Macbeth, Victor Frankenstein, and the author of "The Lady or the Tiger".  They were so mad when they read that story!  

It's a great idea and worked wonderfully as a review of all the characters since they had to explain why Ozymandias belonged level 8 or why Emily (from "The Rose for Emily") belonged in level 9 and so forth.  I wish I could properly credit the person who had the idea to begin with, but here it is if you can find use for it!

By the way, that white board is the one I added on the cheap in my room at the beginning of the year.  It still works great!  

AP Lit Freebie - Peer Editing

 This is my first year teaching AP Lit.  I'm loving it!  I don't have a lot of materials and find myself constantly creating content or scouring on the web to find something someone else ahs created.  Last night, I decided to try and find something to help my students peer edit one of their FRQs.  I thought I might share it here for free for anyone who wants to try it. I would appreciate any feedback on making it better.

It's on TPT, but it is a free resource:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/XET-AP-Lit-FRQ-Peer-Edit-Guide-Sheet-9339963

A Different Side of Auschwitz

 If you teach Night, Maus, or other Holocaust-centric book, you know that videos can be powerful tools.  Here is a video of a different nature - the resort at Auschwitz.  Yes, you read that correctly.  There was an actual resort at Auschwitz.

The video comes from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.  It is of a photo album of a Nazi officer who worked in Auschwitz during the time that Elie Wiesel was there.  It shows a resort that was on the premises where Nazi soldiers could hang out with women, lounge on a deck, and even participate in sing-alongs.  It is absolutely fascinating and horrifying at the same time to see that while unspeakable suffering was going on, these soldiers were having a grand time relaxing.

If you are teaching the term juxtaposition in your classroom, this would be a moment where you could see juxtaposition in real life.  It floors me every time I see this the complete disconnect between these men and women with what is happening within an easy walk from the premises.

How Do I Love Thee?

Today is Elizabeth Barrett Browning's birthday.  She is known almost as much for love letters as she is for her poetry.  For those of you who need a refresher, Elizabeth (and her ten siblings) was forbidden by her father to ever marry and have children.  When Robert Browning read her poetry, he fell in love with her and began to write her.  Between the two of them, they wrote 570 letters to each other before they ran away and eloped.  They both kept all the love letters and the door to the Barrett house which half of those letters came through, was saved before the house was torn down.  I believe it is kept at Wellesley College Library and was a popular place for college students to slip Valentine cards until it was sealed shut.

So why did Elizabeth's father want to stop his bloodline?  Well, according to one scholar, Julia Markus, in her book Dared and Done, It might be because either her grandfather or great grandfather has a child with a Jamaican slave. Either he was such a racist that he did not want his bloodline tainted or, being an abolitionist, he was ashamed of his white bloodline and wished to end it.

Either way, it was the reason for Elizabeth and Robert's secrecy.  Her father never forgave her for running off and getting married and having a child.  She wrote to him often and he always returned her letters unopened.

Here is a reading comprehension practice for her poem "How Do I Love Thee?"

Teaching the Graphic Novel to Struggling Readers

Want to skip to the lesson idea?  Jump down to the picture and start reading from there!

Comics have a bad reputation.  That stems all the way back to the late '50s when a guy named Dr. Frederick Wertham wrote a book called Seduction of the Innocent.  It details how comic books cause kids to be violent, disruptive, anxious, and homosexual.  It caused quite the stir and I could go on and on about it, but I will spare you today.  There were senate hearings and self-imposed censorship on it. Comics almost went out of business because of it and if it were not for the Marvel surge led by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko, they may just have disappeared.  

Several generations have passed since then and each generation has been more open to comics as a legitimate genre, but even so, many teachers think it is good only for students who struggle.  "Well, reading comics is better than nothing..." is a phrase thrown about quite often.  True, there are some low-brow comics out there, just as there are some low-brow novels, stories, movies, poems, etc.  However, there are also quite a bit of complex stories being told.  Maus and Persepolis are two that have broken the ranks.  Classical Comics does and EXCELLENT job adapting Shakespeare (and you can get them with the full text).  A good comic does more than illustrate the story - like a movie, the images should assist in telling the story, so that the words and images blend.  One without the other is no good.

One problem I've encountered with teaching Persepolis to struggling readers is that they often have trouble following which word balloon to read next and following along with who is actually speaking.  To combat this, for some of the chapters we are reading, I photocopy the pages and highlight the parts and let them read it like a play.  This way they get to model how to read and are able to focus on the story being told.  We don't do this for all chapters, but with the group I have now, I will probably do it for just under half of the chapters. 

If you are interested in discussing with your class the history of the CCA and Dr. Wertham's book, you can use my presentation.  I have basic notes on it because I was not setting it up for others, but it should be enough for you to spark some discussion.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1tv3fSQfw-tvKn7eVBf9HUmsSn57e4pOU/edit#slide=id.p1

By the way, what is the difference between a comic book and a graphic novel?  Well, technically graphic novels tend to be longer and self-contained, but in reality "graphic novel" is often used by those who are embarrassed to be reading comics and want to make them sound more "literary".

Toughest Tongue Twisters

Tongue twisters are fun for using as grammar practice sentences or for teaching literary terms like alliteration, consonance, and assonance.  I found a two contenders for the title of toughest tongue twister in the English language.  

Researchers at MIT created this to be the hardest:

Pad kid poured curd pulled cod.

The Guinness Book of World Records says that last one is the hardest.  

The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick.

The official Extreme English Teacher position is that the 'Sheik' one is far tougher than the MIT one.

Got a favorite to share or want to weigh in on these?  Leave a comment!

Similes and Supervillains

Most students know that a simile is a comparison using "like" or "as", but we more enlightened teachers also know that the comparison can be made using "than".  Most of us don't teach "than" with similes because they are not as obvious or common as the other two.

I bring this up only because I ran across on in a book recently.

"I was stiller than the men who got an eyeful of Medusa."

The phrasing is done that way because this is a crime noir novel.  In fact, if you are a superhero fan and a crime noir fan, I have a book for you!

For a guy like me, who can shrug off bullets and lift seven tons, there's no better profession than powered crime, and no greater burg to practice it in than Gold Coast City. But after ten years of tossing Buicks at heroes I wised up, took the black cape off my back, and hung out a shingle. Only instead of Dark Deeds Done Daily, this one reads Dane Curse, PI. Now I work cases for the dark denizens I was once counted among. The problems they got aren't the kind that cops care about, so I do what I can, because sometimes even the unjust deserve a little justice.  

I do not know Matt Abraham, nor get any kick back for promoting his book.  I just enjoyed the book for some fun reading. Here it is on Amazon.