The World on the Turtle's Back

Good morning,
  This week you got your English Journal all set up. Today we begin to use it.

We've looked at several examples of Native American writings. Today we are going to tackle a longer piece. It is called The World on the Turtle's Back.

Your task today is to read through the text with one or two partners. As you read you'll see that the text is marked into segments with horizontal lines. Your group should stop at each of these breaks and write a short 3-4 sentence summary about that segment. You and your partners must have identical summaries. Talk about what you are going to write and help each other with spelling  and punctuation.

Note: Make sure you put this new work at the TOP of your English Journal. Make sure you include the date.

Yep another essay...Get used to it.

Good morning,
Today the blog is the boss of you. Read these directions carefully.

1. Find a partner, anyone you want, but choose wisely, there is a grade coming. (You may work alone if you really want to and I may choose your partner for you if I really want to.)
   
2. Open Google Docs and create a new doc. Share it with your partner and Mrs. R. (one new doc for each partner ship)
3. Name it (period#, initials, initials Comparing Archetypes)
4. With your partner make a list of ways the Left Handed Twin (from "The World On The Turtle's Back") and Old Scratch (The devil in "The Devil and Tom Walker") are the SAME.
5. Then make a list of the ways they are DIFFERENT.

Tip: It might help to insert a table with two columns. Put similarities in one column and differences in the other column.

Friday Update

Good morning,
Good work on Archetypes this week. Next week we will do some analysis comparing the Devil character in "The Devil and Tom Walker" with the left handed twin in "The World on the Turtle's Back" If you haven't read both those texts you need to catch up. They are both in your textbook and on-line.

Today we need to do an assessment essay. I will give you a prompt and you will write a response. This is the type of writing that is similar to the writing on the SAT, and the EAP and the CAHSEE. Other American Lit classes are also writing this assessment this week or next week and the teachers will be sharing your essays with each other. Your score also counts as part of your grade in this class.

Monday Afternoon Update

Bring your book tomorrow (Tuesday)!

Today we learned about what a character flaw is and saw how Coyote was a flawed character for a number of reasons. We also learned what an allusion is and how to spot them in literature. An Allusion is when one work of literature mentions or borrows from another work of literature. Then we looked for the biblical allusions in The World on the Turtle's Back in the textbook. There are a number of different versions of this myth on the web. Many of them are inexplicably blocked by our district. The link above goes to a document that is the most similar to what we read in the textbook.

Tuesday we have a quiz on the Native American texts we've been reading.
And check out this cool list of common character flaws.