Monday, November 19, 2007

GOW: the electronic text!

A nice searchable e-text of The Grapes of Wrath is available here.

Weeks 9/10 Blog

The work:

Over the past fortnight we...have been surrounded by John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath. After going through nearly twelve chapters we've discovered and analyzed many themes such as survival...and reproduction...(SS) The book explores the circumstances of the great depression. Steinbeck takes a critical look at the government's role in the suffering of midwestern farmers...(MM) The class wrote imitations which mirrored the detail of chapters (3 and) 6 (AH). We focused on the zooming in of the turtle chapter...(KK) We have also set ourselves up for a character analysis on a character from Steinbeck's novel. We will continue to read and pluck evidence from the novel for our research (MF). We were shown captivating images of life during the Great Depression which were taken by Dorothea Lange (RH).

The workers:
"It would be a lesson the chipmunk would never forget." ~SC
Steve said that Ma was the leader of the Joad family--which makes it a matriarchy. (DM)
Andrew said that farmers love the land while banks just want to monopolize the industry (TR).
Ryan said that with all the descriptions of nature in the book, it is hard not to recognize the beauty even in time of hardship (AH).
Conor talked about the theme of the turtle (DG).
Eric pointed out that chapter 7 was generic (DC).
Mike believes that Ma burned the memories as a way to get rid of any physical memories of the farm (RH).

Words to live by:
"You're bound to get idears if you go thinkin' about stuff." ~Tom Joad
"Times are changed, don't ya know?" ~Driver
"Maybe all men got one big soul everybody's a part of." ~Jim Casy
"The women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole." ~Steinbeck
"Don't roust your faith bird-high an' you won't do no crawlin' with the worms." ~Tom Joad

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Blog, week 8

The work:
For the past two weeks we have been reading Henry IV. We have also been studying some vocabulary words such as "comic relief," "deus ex machina," and "blank verse" (TR). We identified scenes of comic relief and the true scenes in which we saw the relationships between father and son and also how some women play cunning roles in the outcome of the story...(GM). We took turns reading out of Henry IV with our [assigned] characters (PD). We [discussed] the combined character that is Prince Hal and Falstaff and the uniqueness of...such individuals as Hotspur (SS). We did have some fallen soldiers on the glorious Monday the 27th while most of us were in recovery from [the World Series] the night before (BB). We donated 180 grams of rice as a class at freerice.com (GM). We skimmed the surface of writing good body paragraphs when provided an introductory paragraph (DG).

The workers:
Conor stated that the ending of Henry IV did not live up to the expectations that he already [had] at the beginning of the play (JW). Steve said that Falstaff in Act II was an "immature cowardly figure..." (DC). Graham noticed the transition from funny to serious when Falstaff and the Prince exchanged words in Act II (SC). Eric found that Glendower's belief that the earth shook when he was born to be a humorous line (RH). Dan gave us a PG-13 rendition of the hostess's line, "Any man know where to have me" (CM).

Words to live by:
"Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere." ~Prince Henry

"Do thou amend thy face and I'll amend my life." ~Falstaff

"O gentlemen, the time of life is short,/To spend that shortness basely were too long." ~Hotspur

"I will never be a truant." ~Mortimer