Performance Schedule (in order)

Wednesday
Group 1: Lindsey, Mindy, Sandy, Midori, Jenny, Anna
Group 2: Edwin, Matthew, Angelica, Samantha, Christina, Dino

Thursday
Group 3: Karen, Ian, Tom, Ernest, Julia, Hannah
Group 4: Abigail, Andie, Leandro, Selenia

Friday
Group 5: Kevin, Harry, Denis, Curtis, Edmund
Group 6: Matt E, Alex, Mario, Edward

Have a great weekend and be sure to practice, practice, practice your lines!

Reading Schedule

Reading Schedule for Othello *

5/13 – Act I, Scene iii (1.3)

5/14 – Act II, Scene I (2.1)

5/15 – Act III, Scene iii (3.3)

5/18 – Act III, Scene iv (3.4)

5/19 – Act IV, Scene I (4.1)

5/20 – Act IV, Scenes ii & iii (4.2 & 4.3)

5/21 – Act V, Scene I (5.1)

5/26 – Act V, Scene II (5.2)

*Reading should be completed by each due date. For each day of reading, two (2) reading logs are also due.

For Monday

Hopefully those of you who weren't in class have received the email by now, but your essays are due Monday in class (and posted to turnitin.com by 11:59pm). If you go into turnitin.com sometime this weekend and look at the "grademark," you will see some brief comment from me.

Also, on Monday will be the vocab quiz. Then we will begin Othello!

Thesis Info + Vocab

Here is the info from today's class on what a thesis statement is not.

Don't worry - I can tell you all need more help, so we will work more on thesis statements on Monday by going over examples. You can also check out Purdue OWL's page on "Creating a Thesis Statement."

We will also be starting some fresh vocabulary journals. I will post the words shortly.

Don't forget to take the 2nd zine survey!

HW: Get to work on your your rough drafts, and enjoy your weekend!

New zine survey

Okay, so the choices have been narrowed down a bit, and we need to agree upon a title.

Based on popular vote, we will have a very colorful zine, probably with an all-over design. We are lucky enough to have a local artist helping us out on this project - Paul Morgan, an artist/printmaker from Oakland, has volunteered to help us print (and design, if we want) the covers.

Please check out his work here and decide if you would like him to design a cover using our ideas, or tell me if you are interested in designing the cover.

After that, you can take the new survey!

Also, to address the other comments you made:
1. Yes, of course we will sell it at Lowell High School! We will also give copies to the school library along with the San Francisco Public Library's zine collection.
2. Matt, we can certainly send a copy to Obama! I'm also going to send one to Sherman Alexie since his writing inspired us.
3. Our audience is the general public - not just Lowell High School! That's why I suggested you may want to give your reader a brief intro to your community using the info you collected in your group research project. Adults may read it, teenagers such as yourselves may read it. I am also putting a few out for sale at the stores I showed you in the powerpoint - if you remember, one is in Chicago and one is in Portland, so our readers won't just be from California.

Today in the computer lab

Before you get started with your group, please take this survey about how you think our zine should look.

After you finish the survey, you can continue working on your group's section.

Essay topics

Choose one of the following topics to write about in an essay of 3-5 pages. In your essay, you should develop an argument in response to one of the following questions, and support it using citations from the text.

1. What do you see as being an important motif in The Bluest Eye? How and why is this motif important to the novel's major themes?

2. Which theme from The Bluest Eye do you see most reflected in your own life today? Please support your argument with specific examples from both the book and your own experience.

3. What kind of theme about whiteness exists in The Bluest Eye? What kind of point is Morrison trying to make? You may also support your ideas with other texts we have examined.

4. How does our society transmit certain standards of beauty, which most of us are unable to live up to? How do we see beauty ideals impacting the lives of the characters in The Bluest Eye?

5. See Ms. Aaland if there is a topic you are interested in writing about which is not listed above.

Essays should be 10-12 point font, double-spaced, and have margins no larger than 1”. You will need to submit a paper copy in class for each of the two due dates, and you will also need to submit your essay to Turnitin.com by 11:59pm on the same day (both times).

1^st draft due for peer review Tuesday, May 5^th (2 copies)

2^nd draft due Friday, May 8^th (1 copy plus copy of 1^st draft)

Videos, vocab, homework

Links to the clips we watched last week:
Mean Girls clip 1
Mean Girls clip 2
"Girl Like Me"

And here are your vocab words for the next week:
forsythia (97)
macabre (65)
coon (149)
dingy
threnody (137)
hallucination (149)
rheumatism (138)
insolent (38)
misanthrope (164)
dissipation (38)

We will begin vocab journals tomorrow and your sentences will be due Friday - I will collect your sentences then so I can evaluate them over the weekend (so you knew whether you are using the words correctly) and return them to you on Monday. If you put them on a separate sheet of paper I will just stamp your journal so you can hang on to it over the weekend (if you want to study).

By Monday you need to have finished the book!
Also, on Friday we will be in the library computer lab to work on our zines, so make sure you bring your files.

Tonight's Homework

Write one paragraph where you reflect upon the discussions we've had about beauty, and how the characters in The Bluest Eye are treated differently based upon the color of their skin. How does this make you feel?

Also, don't forget to read pages 110-131.

Spring Break HW

Reading the first section of The Bluest Eye, entitled "Autumn."

Have a great break and don't forget to explore your city and do something fun!

Tomorrow is free day at the museums; check it out! The YBCA has an exhibition which looks especially cool.
Yerba Buena
SF Moma
Museum of Craft Art and Folk - installations of artists re-creating their working spaces
Legion of Honor
de Young
Cartoon Art Museum

Drama

For those who were interested in extra credit for going to see the play, your reflections will be due Friday before we leave for break. Reflections must be at least one full page typed (double-spaced is ok). In your reflection, you should choose one scene you enjoyed and explain what you thought was successful about it, reflecting specifically on what you think the actors did to enhance the scene through their choices in portraying the characters through body language, tone, gestures, pitch, etc. (you can also discuss costume, lighting, scenery, or other aspects of the scene not specific to the work of the actors). You must also include an original ticket stub with your reflection. If your reflection meets these criteria you will earn 10 extra credit points.

Short Story Length

In reading your drafts this weekend, I realized that 3-4 double-spaced pages is not nearly enough length to adequately allow for enough detail in your stories. While I'm not going to require that you write more than the length I already gave you, many of you have asked if your stories can be longer. Because short stories (and novels) are generally single-spaced (while essays are in most cases double-spaced), you are invited to write 3-4 SINGLE-SPACED pages. Regardless of what you choose to do, when we print our zine the stories will be single-spaced. I apologize for not realizing this when I gave you the instructions, but I do want to give you accurate information about the general differences in formatting between short stories (which you are writing) and essays (which you are not), along with giving you enough space to write a narrative where something can actually happen and be resolved. So, again, you are certainly encouraged to single-space your stories, but you are not required to.

Info from Thursday's Class

Here are the overheads I made for Thursday if you want to see them again while you revise:

Fragments? Unheard of! Seriously. (You can!)

The shared, unsanitary bathrooms, probably carrying thousands of bacteria and diseases with them on the seats. Leaky pipes. Peeling paint. Damp, dark carpet. And lastly, my personal favorite, the sweat and cigarette-scented hallways so narrow they would give even the thinnest person alive claustrophobia.

I saw the boy stooping down, as if to pick up something of sentimental value. Then, his arm shot out so fast you would have thought he had super reflexes or something. I thought, “Ugh,” when I saw what he picked up. If that wasn’t enough, my stomach almost flipped out when I saw him put the thing into his mouth. He did it. The boy put a live cockroach into his mouth and ate it. Whole. Talk about 100% organic..

Replace summary with dialogue

Half past five, Oh no, not again. They won’t understand.

“Where have you been?” questioned her Father. But it sounded too much like “You should’ve been here an hour ago to do your chores and help your brother.”

“What were you doing?” sounded like “Your food is cold, heat it up and eat. Quick. You have other things to do.”

“How was school?” sounded too much like “Try your best and get good grades. Did you?”

Sometimes the television blocked all the screeching screams blasting through Mary Anne’s ear. But today it was the only thing she could hear.

Create some tension! A great way to use your snapshot skills . . .

He stumbled in one night from doing god-knows-what, with god-knows-who and startled me scouting for his stash under his mattress. “Hey!” he barked, “What’cha lookin’ for in there?”

(...)

I just shrugged it off, mumbling, “Nothing.” It’s not like I was expecting a parade for snooping around his bed.

But doing a double take, there was something in his face that spoke more than what he could say. I’ve heard that people say only 10% of what they say with words and the rest is in your facial expression, your body language, and how you say it. Well, standing there and looking at me, Dad delivered an essay with his face. With the most powerful subtle combination of nerve impulses triggering his facial muscles in layers of meaning, he said he didn’t want to catch me looking under there again. He said “stay out” with his mouth, but not with his voice.

Play with Punctuation—Try something new!

Original:

One day, at long last, her persistence was rewarded—a police report had been issued, singling out the gang in question: it was a group of high school dropouts, who had all gone to the same school as Iris at one point in time or another.

Alternative:

One day, at long last, her persistence was rewarded—a police report had been issued, singling out the gang in question—it was a group of high school dropouts; all had gone to the same school as Iris at one point in time or another.

Original:

Although she couldn’t figure it out quite yet, Iris knew there was a pattern to these murders—it was due to something a friend told her a long time ago.

Alternative:

Although she couldn’t figure it out quite yet—Iris knew there was a pattern to these murders—it was due to something a friend told her a long time ago.

Either way works! Make sure if you are using a semicolon though that it separates something which could be a sentence on its own. Conversely, make sure you don't just add commas where you could have another sentence (or use semicolons or m-dashes)--that will leave you wil run-ons.

Again, try some dialogue! Here are the two IM conversations I showed you for comparison:

• 3threat@hotletter.com: hey

• lilqt@gletter.com: whatever

• 3threat@hotletter.com: whatever

• lilqt@gletter.com: bye

• 3threat@hotletter.com: bye

• 3threat@hotletter.com: hey baby, you there?

• lilqt@gletter.com: you want to talk about things here?! wow. you r classier than I thought!

• 3threat@hotletter.com: look, stop. i’m sorry. how many times do I have to say it I AM SORRY!

• lilqt@gletter.com: no you’re not! you just got caught, like that Rihanna song. so just stop. it’s so over.

• 3threat@hotletter.com: i know i can’t change your mind. i know you. and i know it looks bad but that girl must have slipped that number in my pocket without me knowing. i did NOT ask for it, and i wouldn’t ever have even known about it if you hadn’t snooped in my stuff.

• lilqt@gletter.com: so now i not only DON’T believe you, but i think you are ungrateful for calling me a snoop because

• 3threat@hotletter.com: hello?

• lilqt@gletter.com: sorry, thought i heard a noise downstairs…as i was saying…because stupid you forgot to empty your pockets before your girl DID YOUR LAUNDRY FOR YOU!!!! HOW ABOUT A THANK YOU?!

• 3threat@hotletter.com: i’m sorry again, you’re right, i can’t say anything how i mean it, baby.

• lilqt@gletter.com: don’t you keep calling me baGI;UJHBV q;bg ;’;’ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

• 3threat@hotletter.com: huh?

• lilqt@gletter.com is signed off

• 3threat@hotletter.com: baby?

Become a filmmaker—use imagery (and all five senses) to create your scene

Lino reminisced when he and his wife would huddle together on the couch in the Philippines and watch soap operas all day. The aroma of freshly cooked adobo filled the air and the savory scent of kare-kare encased the kithen room; his wife was a fantastic cook.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“AYE, YOU MOONG-KEY, I got that piece of fruit furst. Why you take frum me,” I heard some lady yell in broken English.

I could recognize that voice from anywhere, it was my mother in her faded washed out Hello-Kitty pajamas; my face flushed red from the embarrassment. I attempted to turn around and make a run, but it was too late, she had already recognized me, “SIU MING, SIU MING. Where you going? Ah Mah rai here.”

[...]

As I finally got in front of our housing complex, I turned around to see if any of my classmates had “accidentally” followed me, it was as deserted as the sale racks in Target after a Black Friday sale, and I could almost even hear the rats squeaking through the sewage pipes.

Found poems

Here are the poems we created in class last week from Alexie's story "Witnesses, secret and Not" about being thirteen and Indian:

I learned how to use a hypodermic needle before I learned how to ride a bike.
Punctuated by more accidents
A tough life,
Thirteen.
One Indian doesn't tell another what to do.
It's all about reaction as opposed to action.
We just watch things happen then make comments.
We ordered diet since my father and I are both diabetic.
Must be kind of like disappearing.

***

Most of all, I had to find out what it meant to be an Indian
and there ain't no self-help manual for that.
360 degrees
At age 13 nobody thinks they're going to die.
I had to figure out what it meant to be a boy, a man too.
Just got swallowed up
Figuring out each year as it came,
then discarding it when the new one came along.
His eyes had stories written across them.

HW reminder for this weekend

Due Wednesday (but do not leave all of this until Tuesday night!)

• Bring in one copy of draft 2 of your short story for peer editing on Wednesday. You should have done significant revision using the draft with your notes from this week. I will also give you my feedback Tuesday.
  
• Read the criticism articles on Alexie and write a 1/2-1 page response - Do you think Alexie is reinforcing stereotypes or criticizing them, or both? Why do you believe this?
  
• Final drafts of your short stories will be due Thursday, when we will also begin presentations. You may want to meet with your group over the weekend, either virturally or in person, to make a plan for your presentation.

Have an excellent 3-day weekend--don't forget to do something fun and enjoy life!

Research Task

Welcome to the computer lab! Today we will work on researching our topics for our community studies. Before we begin, though, we are going to practice evaluating websites.

First, use google to find some websites about your topic. Use the sheet in front of you to evaluate two websites on your topic. When you are done, give your worksheet to Ms. Aaland and begin researching! Below I have included some links to help you get started.

Research Info

How to Evaluate a Web Page

The 5 W's of Website Evaluation

Web Page Evaluation Checklist

Another Checklist

Citation Machine

Research Resources

General Research Links

San Francisco Public Library's Local Links

San Franciso Public Library's SF Statistics

San Francisco Chronicle

Pew Research Center

New York Times

National Public Radio

KQED - Bay Area Public Media

New America Media - Ethnic Media

YO! Youth Outlook Media

Some Websites You Can Use

Stress

NEA (National Education Association) – Stress Management

NEA - Saving Kids from Stress

AIS (American Institute of Stress)

Parent Poll on Bay Area Students' Health (includes statistics)

New York Times article on teen stress

Washington Post Article

San Francisco Chronicle - Stress -- and how kids deal with it

The Lowell - Ms. Seawell

Lowell Wellness Center

About.com Stress management

Adolescent Stress and Depression

Managing stress

Test anxiety

Berkeley Daily Planet - Teens and Stress

Stanford conference: Stressed Out Students

Parental Pressure on AsianAmericans

Report on Asian Americans student stress in the Bay Area

Asian American Youth Needs Assessment Report

Report on 'Model Minority' Stereotype - NY Times

ModelMinority.com

Article responding to model minority myth on IMDiversity.com

Push to achieve tied to suicide in Asian-American women

Learning to Stand Out Among the Standouts

Pew Research - Parental Pressure

UCLA article on pressure to succeed

Push to achieve tied to suicide in Asian-American women

Homelessness

SF Department of Public Health Homeless Services

San Francisco Homeless Services Coalition

San Francisco Homeless Coordinating Board

Bay Area Homeless Alliance

SF Chronicle Homeless Special

Attitude Toward Homeless Shifts in San Francisco

Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco

Project Homeless Connect

San Francisco Homeless Resource

San Francisco Plan to Abolish Homelessness

Sexism Against Asian-American Women

Breaking Down Sexualized Stereotypes of Asian Women

"Dragon Lady" stereotype

Racism and Sexism - A Collective Struggle: A Minority Woman's Point of View

Asian American Women: Why We Are Everywhere

Asian American Women: Issues, Concerns and Responsive Human and Civil Rights Advocacy

Asian Nation: Women and Gender Issues

Asian American Women: Issues and Concerns

Asian American Women and Men – Yen Le Espiritu

Gang Violence

SF Chronicle – Surenos

SF Chronicle - Widow pleads for death penalty

SF Chronicle - Latino homicides on sharp increase

ABC - Excelsior District sees increase in murders

SF Weekly - The War on Gangs

Controversial gang injunction

SF Gov Office - Civil gang injunction

Mission Dispatch

Mara Salvatrucha

What San Francisco Can Do About Gangs

SF Public Defender's Office

SF Excelsior Residents Demand End To Violence

YO! Youth Outlook

Golden Gate Xpress - Murder In The Mission

City Attorney's Office - Gang OSC Hearing

Immigration

Center for Immigration Studies

SF Chronicle - Feds probe S.F.'s migrant-offender shield

SF Chronicle - Immigration debate riles Latinos

San Francisco Sanctuary Ordinance

Beyond Chron - San Francisco Activists Must Build Latino Power

IM Diversity - Hispanic Media Size Up Election Results

The Latino Journal

Mission Local - Immigrant Voters Divided on Immigration, Presidential Picks

PBS film - Beyond the Border

San Francisco Organizing Project

KQED - Immigration in Focus

KQED - Immigration Resources

Today's Activity

Because it is important to have some cultural and historical context in order to understand literature written from an Indian perspective, over the next two days we will be building on our collective knowledge of American Indians. Today, you will conduct research on a topic in Native American history/culture which Sherman Alexie draws on in The Lone Ranger and Tonto. You will use this information to create a handout which is one (1) page. Here is what your handout needs to include:

• Title/topic

• 200-300 word summary of research in your own words
  

• A brief, interesting, and relevant quote from one of your sources

• A 3-5 item bulleted list of important facts or a timeline of 4-5 important dates

• One image

• 3 complete citations

Choose one of the topics below to research (you may need to pair up, sharing topics and computers but creating your own handouts):

• Broken Native American treaties

• Coeur D'Alene War/Spokane Plains War

• Colonel Wright and 1858 Horse Slaughter

• Crazy Horse

• Coeur D'Alene/Schitsu'Umsh tribe

• Chief Til-co-ax

• Commodity food

• Ghost Dance

• General George Armstrong Custer

• Coerced sterilization of Native American women

• HUD houses (US Department of Housing and Urban Development)

• American Indian Movement/Alcatraz Occupation

• Indian Health Service/tribal hospitals

• Stick game

• Spokane Indian Reservation

• Dawes Act/allotment of Native lands

• Owl dance

• Fancydancing

• Smallpox-infected blankets

• Diabetes in Native American populations

• Sacred Black Hills/Mount Rushmore

• Uranium mining on Native American land

• Massacre at Wounded Knee

Here are some websites to get you started in your research:

• Native Web Resource Database

• Native American Resources

• A huge list of links

• Image Galleries

• Smithsonian - Amer. Indian History & Culture

Here is a sample handout I made about Sherman Alexie.

This will be due Thursday, March 5th at the beginning of class.

Tonight's HW

Read "Every Little Hurricane"
Meet at the computer lab tomorrow!

Meet Sherman Alexie...

Sherman Alexie, author of our next book (a collection of short stories, actually), The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian who lives in Seattle, Washington. Born in 1966, he grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, WA a very impoverished community about 5 hours east of Seattle (very close to Idaho). He loves basketball and much of his writing brings in his love of sports.

When he began high school, he decided to attend a mostly-white school off the reservation, and was "the only Indian except the mascot." Recently he published his first work of young adult fiction, The True Diary of a Part-time Indian, which is about this time in his life. It's a great read and I recommend it to anyone who is interested! Our school library has a copy and I may even consider giving some extra credit to anyone who reads it and writes a short reflection. Let me know!

He received his B.A, from Washington State University. During college, he had a drinking problem (which is another recurring theme we will see in his writing), and so at 23, gave up drinking and has been sober ever since.

Sherman Alexie has two sons, Joseph, who is 12, and David, who is 8 years old. He has won many awards for his writing and has had his work made into at least three films, one of which we will watch in class (Smoke Signals).

Two things we talked about today

1. For your heading, in the top right of your paper:

Name
Date
Ms. Aaland
Mods

Don't forget to title your essay! Also, please don't use a 3200g735billion-pt. font (12pt. is perfect), or I will be a sad sack of potatoes when I read your essay.

2. Quotation review: When quoting, put the page number in parentheses outside of the quotation marks. After that, put your period (or comma, if you are using one). Like:

Malcolm X is famous for saying "“If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything" (34).

For more "fancy" punctuation, like a question mark, exclamation point, or an ellipse, you should put it inside the quote, but add a period after the parentheses:

Like bell hooks, I agree that "forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?" (132).

Look here for some brief extra info, or our good friend the OWL.

Links to help with writing

Here are a few from Purdue University's OWL (Online Writing Lab) website:
Getting Started
Dealing with Writer's Block
Writing About Literature (from class on Monday)
Creating a Thesis Statement
Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing
Brief Overview of Punctuation
Quotation Marks
Run-on Sentences

Essay Topics

Bone Essay

Choose one of the following topics to write about in an essay of 3-4 pages. Develop a thesis for your argument, and be sure to support it with evidence from the book.


1.Which character in Bone do you identify with most? Why?

2.What do you think “bone” means as a symbol in the novel?

3.How do the characters in Bone balance their individual vs. cultural identities?

4.How do perspectives on identity and nationality differ between generations of family members, particularly between those who are immigrants and those who are American-born (ABC-FOB)?


Essays should be 10-12 point font, double-spaced, and have margins no larger than 1”. You will also need to submit your essay to Turnitin.com.​

Due Friday, February 27th

Vocab + HW for this week

Here are your due dates for the rest of this week:
By Thursday 2/19 - Read Chapters 11 and 12, do your reading logs, and be prepared to discuss today.
By Friday 2/20 - Read and do reading logs for Chapter 13 (this is subject to change, but for now, have this ready for Friday). I will collect your vocab journals (including sentences) right before we take the quiz today. Be prepared for Question Time after the quiz. We will also choose new vocabulary words today like we did last week so come with the new words you'd like to work with!

Here are your vocab words for these week, just in case you need them again:

benevolent
elegiac
bouffant
"Q's"/quaaludes
ditties/ditty
gossipmonger
maritime
acute
shoal
dialect
8 Holy Immortals

Welcome to our class blog!

Hello 10th graders and welcome to our internet zone. In case you want to check out some of those images of Joseph Cornell's work again, here are a few (some of these images are too large for blogger so right click and select "View Image" to see the whole thing):










Here are a few websites with information about him as well:
SFMOMA page on Cornell
The Joseph Cornell Box
Cornell at Wikipedia
NPR story you can listen to