Thursday, February 28

Freshmen: Today we focused on the creative responses to art you crafted. You all did a great job. Read for 20 minutes and be ready to start Romeo and Juliet next week.

Sophomores: Today we continued our study of the four stages of the hero. Continue reading The Kite Runner and have it and a seminar prep finished for Monday's seminar. We will begin The Poisonwood Bible next week.

CNF: We concluded The Cave of Forgotten Dreams today and continued Part I of The World Without Us; the goal is to be able to talk about both texts on Monday.

Tuesday, February 26 and Wednesday, February 27

Freshmen: Today we focused on the idea of poetry as a creative response to art, and studied poems and art from the book Heart to Heart and used them as our models. Your task is to find a work of art that you like, and write two poems, each from a different motif that we studied. You are to put this together as some sort of presentation - mount it on a posterboard, make a book, do something electronically, it's up to you. This is due Thursday; read for 20 minutes tonight and Wednesday.

Sophomores: Our focus was on the history of musicals and fairy tales, as well as the four stages of the hero. Finish The Kite Runner for Monday's seminar.

CNF: We began The Cave of Forgotten Dreams today.

Monday, February 25

Freshmen: Today we focused on some things that student writers have done well in some recent letters and essays. Homework is to read for 20 minutes.

Sophomores: Today we focused on chapters 15-19 in The Kite Runner. Finish the book for next Monday.

CNF: Today we focused on Part I of The World Without Us. The goal is to have this read by Friday.

Friday, February 22

Freshmen: Your homework is to write your own division and classification essay and submit it to turnitin.com by 7:59 AM Monday morning. If you need the login info about turnitin, go to the post on August 30, 2012. Read for 20 minutes tonight.

Sophomores: Due for Monday is everything in The Kite Runner through (and including) Chapter 19; have some prep work for a seminar on Monday.

CNF: We're making our way through Part I of The World Without Us.

Friday, February 15

Freshmen: Today we focused a little bit on division and classification, the next rhetorical device we will study. We also tried our hand at imitating Billy Collins with a poem, which if you want to finish and type up can be turned in next week. Read for 20 minutes three times over the break, and Chapter 10 vocab is due next Friday. If you would like, the freshmen boys' basketball team plays Saturday at 2:40 at Judge in the finals of the Freshmen Tournament. I am sure the team would appreciate the support of any students who can attend.

Sophomores: Today we focused on the Hero Catch-Phrase Project and did some reading; due Wednesday is chapters 8-14 in The Kite Runner. We will have a seminar that day, so please prepare with some sort of notes or reflection. The essay we began in class that was an analysis of your Poetry Out Loud poems is extra credit, and if you would like to finish it, type it up and bring it Wednesday. Chapter 10 vocab is due next Friday. If you would like, the freshmen boys' basketball team plays Saturday at 2:40 at Judge in the finals of the Freshmen Tournament. I am sure the team would appreciate the support of any students who can attend.

CNF: We concluded Life After People and began the Prelude to The World Without Us. Please finish the Prelude for Wednesday.

Basketball: Congratulations on a great season. We are done at Sunnyside at 5 today. Be to Judge at 1:45 dressed and ready to go tomorrow for the championship.

Thursday, February 14

Freshmen: Today we participated in Poetry Out Loud. Read for 20 minutes and be working on vocab.

Sophomores: Today we participated in Poetry Out Loud. Keep reading The Kite Runner, work on vocab, and your poem analysis is due on Wednesday.

CNF: Today we finished Life After People in preparation for reading The World Without Us.

Basketball: Great win last night; we're at Sunnyside until 5 today and tomorrow. Be to Judge for the championship game at 1:45 on Saturday; there is a team meal to follow.

Analytical Essay Example for Poetry Out Loud

***For those of you who want a model, here is the essay I wrote in response to the poem I memorized for Poetry Out Loud. 

Jeff Baird
Analysis
Announcement Lead
Strong, Punched Statement Conclusion

In Balance With This Life, This Death

William Butler Yeats’s poem, “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death” is about a fighter pilot going off to war.  He knows - in fact, seems to hope - that he will die up in the clouds, never to return. The poem begins with the assertion, “I know that I shall meet my fate/ somewhere among the clouds above”. The airman is neither happy nor sad about this, neither fearful nor excited. He has simply accepted his fate, for no one can escape fate.
The speaker goes on to state, “Those that I fight I do not hate;/ those I  thatgu ard I do not love;/ my country is Kiltartan Cross,/ my countrymen Kiltartan’s poor;/ no likely end could bring them loss,/ nor leave them happier than before.” If this is true, if he neither hates his enemy nor loves his countrymen, if his fighting and sacrifice make no difference, why go to war at all? Because it is fate. And because he cannot escape fate, he must seek it out, and this internal impulse is his motivation. He is not responding to external pressures nor going foto r for reasons we typically assume men do: “No law nor duty bade me fight/ nor public men nor cheering crowds”. This man is stirred neither by patriotism nor fame, only “A lonely impulse of delight/ drove to this tumult in the clouds”.
This term “delight” is unsettling, for there is no happiness here, only acceptance. The poem’s overall tone is one of somberness - not sadness, exactly, but a melancholy resignation. The speaker may desire the peace he thinks death will bring, but he doesn’t seek it out with the gusto typical of those embarking on a quest. The speaker says he “balanced all, brought all to mind” and in this balancing comes to realize “The years to come seemed waste of breath/ a waste of breath the years behind”. It is in this revelation we come to learn why there is no sadness or fear as he prepares for war: if everything to come after this present moment, and everything leading up to this present moment, is a waste of breath, then this moment is also waste of breath, unremarkable, as drab as the previous present moment, a glum equality of waste.
It is this equality, or perhaps the better term is balance, that is the heart of the poem. The speaker’s last line is “In balance with this life, this death.” It is this line that clarifies the poem, for everything in the poem speaks of balance. Structurally, the poem is sixteen lines long, divided equally between two eight-line sentences. Each line is four iambic feet - eight syllables - echoing both the military beating of the drums as well as reinforcing the structural balance. There is duality and opposites throughout the poem, ranging from the how the outcome of the war will neither hurt nor hinder Kiltartan’s poor, to the fighter’s lack of emotion toward both those he fights and defends.

This then brings us to a final realization, and a final question, that being whether it is possible for two nothings to equal out. For if a death is to matter at all, even in terms of simply balancing out the life that preceded it, isn’t it necessary for the life itself to have meant something?