Life of Pi Review for Students

Prayer to the Teachers to Forgive them for Solely Using TPCASTT

Last year, I began moving away from the formulaic TPCASTT and Somebody-Wanted-But-So methods of poetry analysis in my AP course. I still teach those methods of analysis; any tools my students have for decoding poems that serve as potential pathways toward understanding are valuable, and I want them to have as many tools as possible! However, I found that by emulating mentor texts, my students were able to find all of the poetic devices and reach a deeper understanding of the author’s work. This is simply a natural by-product of analyzing which parts of the poem – diction, syntax, theme, repetition and other devices – that they would like to mimic in their own work. My students came up with some of the most beautiful and deeply personal work I’ve ever experienced – some of which they performed at a poetry slam that they organized at the end of the year. To that end, tomorrow we will read “Forgive My Guilt” by Robert P. Tristram Coffin and “Prayer to the Living to Forgive them for B...

Station Eleven - a Review (With Spoilers!)

Warning: plot spoilers ahead... It's funny. Sometimes, the films and books I enjoy the most are the ones that I initially approached with hesitancy or ambivalence. Having recently finished the second book in a row for our book club that I found merely mildly entertaining, I had no real hopes for Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven , which I had not even heard of prior to the suggestion by one of our club members. With no expectations in mind, I skimmed the comments on the back cover and inside flap, but they didn't give much away. Thus, I started reading with almost no information about the book, its author, or even its genre. I knew it was post-apocalyptic, but was it dystopian? Was it similar to Cormac McCarthy's The Road ? Would it feature a teen love story as depicted in both The Hunger Games trilogy and the Divergent series? I had several post-apocalyptic stories in mind as I began to read; boy was I surprised to find one that was different! Typically, aut...

No Inconsequential Choices

12/5/23 "No Inconsequential Choices" by Amber Counts I reflect on the combination of random, wild, mindless, labored, right or wrong choices made by my parents that resulted in my existence. If one ponders the infinite possibilities or potential parallel universes created by each decision, a mental fight, flight, or freeze reflex takes hold. I feel overwhelmed by the near impossibility of me . Calculating these moments of fateful decision-making as they compound exponentially through ancestors and time, I freeze in awe not just of my own existence but also of everyone and every historical consequence throughout human history. And it's not just the choices my ancestors made but also the choices made for them, about them, and around them that continue to shape reality in ways foreseen and unforeseen. For we are all part of a great human tapestry women both together and in isolation, and the thread I carefully weave might be reinforced or unraveled by another. If we let ...

"All this happened, more or less."

Search This Blog