Archive for Writing Class

College Prep English for Homeschoolers at EIE December 18, 2014

Dear Homescholars,

December 18, 2014 class
Class Event Page
https://plus.google.com/events/chtjs9fhgbqbfh5lsbpkqkth5rg

Youtube Page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7ggJq8jh2g

The playlist for our 2014-2015 classes is here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x

To learn more about the class, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.

The playlist of 2013-2014 classes is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_XmwbFdBDNpSar91svWKDe9Y



This week’s class will be the last class this year and our
SantaspeareChristmas party. Please feel free to bring comestibles, potables, festive play equipment or whatever may aid in our festivities. We will go ahead the the class as planned or stray from the agenda as the muse dictates.

Note: One version of the play posted in our Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing page turned out to be only the first half. It has been replaced with a very fine amateur version of the complete play.

A page of Christmas Carol lyrics has been added to our classroom.


Agenda



Submitted Assignments.


Shakespeare
Much Ado About Nothing
This week we are starting Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, though we may revisit some of the scenes from As You Like It as well.


Much Ado About Nothing

Character map
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P6CvQbuo6O4/UXVREVJrEuI/AAAAAAAAABA/kxCKLHlosbw/s1600/Character+map.1.JPG


Just a few selections for discussion


But few of any sort, and none of name.

“I can see he’s not in your good books,’ said the messenger.
‘No, and if he were I would burn my library.”

I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me.

What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?

“Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.

Beatrice: A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.

Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.

Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a pierce of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I’ll none: Adam’s sons are my brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.”

I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John’s foot; fetch you a hair off the Great Cham’s beard; do you any embassage to the Pygmies, rather than hold three words’ conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me?

None, but to desire your good company.

 

O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not: I cannot endure my Lady Tongue.

Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.

Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it, a double heart for a single one: marry, once before he won it of me with false dice, therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it.

Tis certain so; the prince wooes for himself.
Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love:

Ha. “Against my will I am sent to bid you come into dinner.” There’s a double meaning in that.

Is’t possible? Sits the wind in that corner?

Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

She’s lim’d, I warrant you: we have caught her, madam.


If it prove so, then loving goes by haps:
Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?

I wish my horse had the speed of your tongue.

Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.

I do love nothing in the world so well as you- is not that strange?

You have stayed me in a happy hour: I was about to protest I loved you.

And do it with all thy heart.

I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.

Come, bid me do anything for thee.

Tarry, good Beatrice. By this hand, I love thee.

Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it.

 

Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?

 

Yea, as sure is I have a thought or a soul.

 

Enough! I am engaged, I will challenge him. I will kiss your hand, and so leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a dear account. As you hear of me, so think of me. Go, comfort your cousin: I must say she is dead; and so, farewell.


When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have
belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves.

For it falls out
That what we have we prize not to the worth
Whiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost,
Why, then we rack the value, then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
While it was ours.

When you depart from me sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.

Is it not strange that sheep’s guts could hail souls out of men’s bodies?

For man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion.

A miracle. Here’s our own hands against our hearts. Come, I will have thee, but by this light I take thee for pity.

I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.


Updated Assignments
Remember, you can always review earlier classes in our Classroom Feed Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x

Please continue to submit papers, poems, diatribes, screeds, ruminations.


Ongoing Assignments
There is a great deal here so you shouldn’t run out of things to do. As always, please don’t worry about getting them all done but please do let me know if you need more.

Shakespeare
We decided to do Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing next, though we may want to revisit parts of
As You Like It. Much ado about nothingPlease read/watch and prepare recitations. Think about scenes to do in class.

The accents of Shakespeare’s day
Please watch this video on Shakespearean pronunciation by Ben Crystal.


Please read Chapter 8 in the text.


Language immersion

Christopher Hitchens' biography of Thomas JeffersonLet’s watch Christopher Hitchens on Thomas Jefferson
Biographer of Jefferson and one of the great wielders of the English language speaks about the “Author of America.” Listen to the language more than the content.

Let’s continue with our previous ongoing projects if they are not yet complete:

Documentary by Jonathan Miller: Madness Note that some of this material is rather heavy. Please skip any parts you like but pay specific attention to Miller’s superb language and delivery.

Documentary by Stephen Fry: Planet Word
This is just part of “Planet word,” a fascinating discussion of language variety.


 

Subjunctive Voice

There are two main forms of subjunctive in the English language, the present and past subjunctive. These really have nothing to do with points in the passage of time however. They simply mean different things.

Subjunctive verb forms can be used by the speaker or writer to convey another sense of verb action besides the simple declarative indicative form. They are used to imply that the action is conditional or entirely hypothetical or that it is a demand or supposition. The past form is normally reserved for referring to untrue or non-factual instances.

Past Subjunctive

Past subjunctive is used when the speaker wishes to indicate that the action described is hypothetical, is contrafactual, is untrue – a situation contrary to fact. All forms of the verb “be” become “were”. Other verbs use the past tense, or if already in past tense, the past perfect tense.

For example:

Indicative:

If he was thinking about what he was doing, he would put the lid on in time. (He may have been thinking)

Subjunctive:

If he were thinking about what he was doing… (He clearly wasn’t thinking about it).

If he had been thinking about what he was doing… (subjunctive in past becomes past perfect).

The past subjunctive is also used in a future sense:

Were he to paint it blue first thing in the morning, it might appear intentional.

The speaker can choose to use or not use subjunctive to convey either a fictive or factual impression.

As “were” is already the verb form for second person and plural of the verb “be” in past tense, the presence of the subjunctive is only clear in first and third person singular:

Indicative:

The lieutenant was anxious about the laundry.

Subjunctive:

If the lieutenant were anxious about the laundry he would have put out the platypus.

Indicative:

I am thinking clearly and do it for him.

Subjunctive:

If I were thinking clearly I would do it for him.

If I had been thinking clearly I would have done it for him.

Present Subjunctive

The present subjunctive is used in an order, a request, a decree, or in an “if” clause that is not necessarily contrafactual.

Indicative:

Uncle Cuthbert is

Present subjunctive

Aunt Agatha demanded that Uncle Cuthbert be present at the embalming ceremony.

We could all go home if this be indeed the rabbit we’re looking for.

Boadicea requested that we all be upstanding when we sing the chorus of the prenuptial agreement.

It was suggested that he have his turn-of-the-century diving equipment handy.

The subjunctive verb form is distinguishable from the indicative only in specific cases. In the third person singular of most verbs in the present tense, this is done by omitting the “s”. For example:

Indicative:

The tutor complains, shouts and equivocates.

Subjunctive:

Rupert demanded that he complain, shout and equivocate quietly.

Present subjunctive of the verb “be” is very obvious, the indicative form of the verb is simply replaced with “be”:


Indicative:

I am,

you are

she is

we are

they are going to the Pixley Festival of Disagreeable Cheeses.

Subjunctive:

The handout demanded that

I be

You be

She be

We be

They be present at the launching of the Catatonic Cormorant instead.

Subjunctive Playsheet

Choose the correct verb form.

1. Juliette reluctantly decreed, through billows of acrid polyester fumes, that stuffed toys [are, be, were] prevented from playing with the waffle iron.

2. A rather threadbare terrycloth squid avoided Juliette’s gaze lest it [is, be, were] prevented from reaching the toaster oven.

3. If only Boadicea [is, was, were, would be] able to extract the squid from the vacuum cleaner, we should have a breakfast to remember.

4. The tides would be far greater if the moon [was, were] made of Camembert or Brie rather than Romano.

5. If it could be determined that the meteor actually [was, were] composed of gorgonzola, we would know a great deal more about the nature of life in the universe than we currently do.

6. The irascible Cossack demanded that the ironmonger [produce, produces] 16 hand-wrought Sicilian trivets.

7. The beast in the hamper produced an exhalation of green vapor as if it [be, was, were] a flatulent dimetrodon.

8. If the beast in the hamper [is, be, was, were] a dimetrodon, then this egg should not be kept in the refrigerator.

9. The baffled cormorant noted that the eels [were, be, are] served with vegemite.

10. Rupert took exception to the demand that he [relinquish, relinquishes, relinquished] his fleet in the Adriatic.

11. Perhaps Aunt Agatha would come out of the wardrobe if Rupert [is, was, were] to flush the fireworks down the euphemism.

12. Uncle Cuthbert has a profound fear of postage stamps, [are, were, is, be] they foreign, domestic, canceled, or not.

13. The officious vice principal demanded that all pencil sharpeners [are, were, be, is] confiscated and that papers henceforth were, are, be written in crayon on linoleum.

14. In her third attempt to arrange the class seating chart, Gloria decreed that nobody [sits, sat, sit] beside the person next to him or her.

15. If that [was, were, would be, is] the loathsome profligate you saw in the seaweed emporium on Sunday, he can’t be held responsible for the affair involving the incontinent ruminant.

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College Prep English for Homeschoolers at EIE Dec. 11, 2014

Dear Homescholars,

The class feed using our new system functioned beautifully last week. Let’s hope it continues to go well.

December 11, 2014 class
Class Event Page
https://plus.google.com/events/c5gondi7oj75fs1baha2oep7ks8

Youtube Page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-2h486EJTM

The playlist for our 2014-2015 classes is here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x

To learn more about the class, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.

The playlist of 2013-2014 classes is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_XmwbFdBDNpSar91svWKDe9Y


Agenda



Submitted Assignments.


Shakespeare

As You Like It Please be prepared to recite your favorite parts this time. Our As You Like It page contains text, video and scene index.


https://asyoulikeitreloaded.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/character-map.jpg

Quotes to identify

The more pity, that fools may not speak
wisely what wise men do foolishly.

if I be foiled, there is but one
shamed that was never gracious; if killed, but one
dead that was willing to be so

What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue?

But is all this for your father?
No, some of it is for my child’s father.

Within these ten days if that thou be’st found
So near our public court as twenty miles,
Thou diest for it.

A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh,
A boar-spear in my hand;

Now go we in content
To liberty and not to banishment.

Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life exempt from public haunt
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones and good in every thing.

O Phebe, Phebe, Phebe!

Who calls?

Your betters, sir.

Else are they very wretched.

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything

101 “If a hart do lack a hind,
102 Let him seek out Rosalind.
103 If the cat will after kind,
104 So be sure will Rosalind.
105 Wint’red garments must be lined,
106 So must slender Rosalind.
107 They that reap must sheaf and bind;
108 Then to cart with Rosalind.
109 Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,
110 Such a nut is Rosalind.
111 He that sweetest rose will find
112 Must find love’s prick and Rosalind.”

O, yes, I heard them all, and more too;
for some of them had in them more feet
than the verses would bear.

Is it a man?

And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck.

God buy you: let’s meet as little as we can.

I do desire we may be better strangers.

You have a nimble wit: I think ’twas made
of Atalanta’s heels. Will you sit down with
me? And we two will rail against our mistress
the world and all our misery.

Your accent is something finer than you could
purchase in so removed a dwelling.

O dear Phebe,
If ever,—as that ever may be near,—
You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,
Then shall you know the wounds invisible
That love’s keen arrows make.

But till that time
Come not thou near me: and when that time comes,
Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not;
As till that time I shall not pity thee.

For I must tell you friendly in your ear,
Sell when you can: you are not for all markets:

Dead Shepherd, now I find thy saw of might,
‘Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?’

You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate:

that blind rascally boy that abuses every one’s eyes
because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I
am in love.

“Art thou god to shepherd turn’d,
That a maiden’s heart hath burn’d?”
Can a woman rail thus?

Call you this railing?

Will the faithful offer take
Of me and all that I can make;
Or else by him my love deny,
And then I’ll study how to die.”

Twice did he turn his back and purposed so;
But kindness, nobler ever than revenge,
And nature, stronger than his just occasion,
Made him give battle to the lioness,

This was not counterfeit: there is too great
testimony in your complexion that it was a
passion of earnest.

Is’t possible that on so little acquaintance you
should like her? that but seeing you should love
her? and loving woo? and, wooing, she should
grant? and will you persever to enjoy her?

for your brother and my sister no
sooner met but they looked, no sooner looked but
they loved, no sooner loved but they sighed,
no sooner sighed but they asked one another the
reason, no sooner knew the reason but they sought
the remedy; and in these degrees have they made a
pair of stairs to marriage which they will climb

Why then, tomorrow I cannot serve your turn for
Rosalind?

I can live no longer by thinking.

Good shepherd, tell this youth what ’tis to love.

If there be truth in sight, you are my daughter.

f there be truth in sight, you are my Rosalind.

I will not eat my word, now thou art mine;
Thy faith my fancy to thee doth combine.

If I heard you rightly,
The duke hath put on a religious life
And thrown into neglect the pompous court?



Updated Assignments

Please continue to submit papers, poems, diatribes, ruminations.


Let’s read Chapter 8 in the text.


As You Like It. This is a delightful Shakespearean comedy set mostly in the Forest of Arden, Warwickshire. Please watch/read the whole play. The version presented is superb but feel free to watch others. There’s also an excellent version set in Japan that we can seek out.


The accents of Shakespeare’s day
Please watch this video on Shakespearean pronunciation by Ben Crystal.


Language immersion

Let’s watch Christopher Hitchens on Thomas Jefferson

Let’s continue with our ongoing projects if they are not yet complete:

Documentary by Jonathan Miller: Madness Note that some of this material is rather heavy. Please skip any parts.

Documentary by Stephen Fry: Planet Word


Older Assignments
Essay Study

Dr. BerlinskiEssays by David Berlinski, a remarkably eloquent and incisive American author. Let’s continue with The Advent of the Algorithm, The 300-Year Journey from an Idea to the Computer

Here are a few more to choose from:

Where Physics and Politics Meet
A Scientific Scandal
What Brings a World into Being?
Was There a Big Bang?

 


The Jonathan Miller documentary: The Body in Question and The Machine That Made Us, documentary on the Gutenberg press by Stephen Fry.


Rowan Atkinson on freedom of speech

David Berlinski lecture: The Devil’s Delusion
A really rather fascinating lecture. Listen to it specifically for the language.


Lower Priority Assignments
Terry Eagleton on the war on terror. Prof. Eagleton is one of the great speakers.

Please read: Flying High by Christopher Hitchens. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2009/12/flying_high.html

Robert Fisk on writing and journalism. Fisk is one of the most highly honored journalists in the world.

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CPE Class Notes December 5, 2014

Dear Homescholars,

Class Notes December 5, 2014

The class feed using our new system functioned beautifully. Snowing video through the interface was a little jerky but it worked.

Class Event Page on Google Plus
https://plus.google.com/events/cjso4m1bfgrigpidbiehuvjudp0

Youtube Page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CY8HJiEnqgs

The playlist for our 2014-2015 classes is here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x

To learn more about the class, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.

The playlist of 2013-2014 classes is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_XmwbFdBDNpSar91svWKDe9Y


Notes

We went through submitted Assignments.


Shakespeare

Independent Shakespeare: As You Like ItAlthough the class had not studied it due to miscommunications, we started our discussion of one of Shakespeare’s most delightful comedies, As You Like It and examined some of the brilliant parts. Please be prepared to recite your favorite parts next time. This play takes please largely in a forest an has been performed in forests to great effect. The video presented in our As You Like It page does a wonderful job.

Excerpts:

DUKE SENIOR
1 Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
2 Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
3 Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
4 More free from peril than the envious court?
5 Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
6 The seasons’ difference, as the icy fang
7 And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
8 Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
9 Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
10 ‘This is no flattery: these are counsellors
11 That feelingly persuade me what I am.’
12 Sweet are the uses of adversity,
13 Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
14 Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
15 And this our life exempt from public haunt
16 Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
17 Sermons in stones and good in every thing.

I would not change it.
AMIENS
18 Happy is your grace,
19 That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
20 Into so quiet and so sweet a style.


DUKE SENIOR
136 Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:
137 This wide and universal theatre
138 Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
139 Wherein we play in.

JAQUES
139 All the world’s a stage,
140 And all the men and women merely players:
141 They have their exits and their entrances;
142 And one man in his time plays many parts,
143 His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
144 Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
145 And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
146 And shining morning face, creeping like snail
147 Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
148 Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
149 Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
150 Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
151 Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
152 Seeking the bubble reputation
153 Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
154 In fair round belly with good capon lined,
155 With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
156 Full of wise saws and modern instances;
157 And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
158 Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
159 With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
160 His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
161 For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
162 Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
163 And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
164 That ends this strange eventful history,
165 Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
166 Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Robert Conquest’s Limerick summary of Jacques’ speech:

first mewling and puking,
Then very pissed off with your schooling,
Then fawns and then fights,
Then judging other chaps’ rights,

Then sitting in slippers, then drooling.

Please bring your own favorites and comments.


Updated Assignments

Please continue to submit papers, poems, diatribes, ruminations.


Let’s read Chapter 8 in the text.


Orland and RosilandAs You Like It. This is a delightful Shakespearean comedy set mostly in the Forest of Arden, Warwickshire. Please watch/read the whole play. The version presented is superb but feel free to watch others. There’s also an excellent version set in Japan that we can seek out.


The accents of Shakespeare’s day
Please watch this video on Shakespearean pronunciation by Ben Crystal.


Language immersion

Let’s continue with our ongoing projects:

Documentary by Jonathan Miller: Madness Note that some of this material is rather heavy. Please skip any parts.

Documentary by Stephen Fry: Planet Word



Older Assignments
Essay Study

Dr. BerlinskiEssays by David Berlinski, a remarkably eloquent and incisive American author. Let’s continue with The Advent of the Algorithm, The 300-Year Journey from an Idea to the Computer

Here are a few more to choose from:

Where Physics and Politics Meet
A Scientific Scandal
What Brings a World into Being?
Was There a Big Bang?



The Jonathan Miller documentary: The Body in Question and The Machine That Made Us, documentary on the Gutenberg press by Stephen Fry.


Rowan Atkinson on freedom of speech

David Berlinski lecture: The Devil’s Delusion
A really rather fascinating lecture. Listen to it specifically for the language.


Lower Priority Assignments
Terry Eagleton on the war on terror. Prof. Eagleton is one of the great speakers.

Please read: Flying High by Christopher Hitchens. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2009/12/flying_high.html

Robert Fisk on writing and journalism. Fisk is one of the most highly honored journalists in the world.

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College Prep English for Homeschoolers, class notes Nov. 21, 2014

Dear Homescholars,

Class Notes November 21, 2014

This week’s feed again did not work for long as our local computer froze. Some of the feed is there.

Class event on Google Plus
https://plus.google.com/events/c0nqghl4v6bddpj0g4fbcq1q3g4

Youtube Page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2imF5rMbsbc

The playlist for our 2014-2015 classes is here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x

To learn more about the class, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.

The playlist of 2013-2014 classes is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_XmwbFdBDNpSar91svWKDe9Y



ThanksgivingNote: No class next week: THANKSGIVING.



Updated Assignments


Essay Study

Dr. BerlinskiEssays by David Berlinski, a remarkably eloquent and incisive American author. Let’s continue with The Advent of the Algorithm, The 300-Year Journey from an Idea to the Computer

Here are a few more to choose from:

Where Physics and Politics Meet
A Scientific Scandal
What Brings a World into Being?
Was There a Big Bang?


The Forest of ArdenWe concluded our discussion of Hamlet this week and decided to go on to Shakespeare’s As You Like It. This is a delightful comedy set mostly in the Forest of Arden, Warwickshire.


Updated Assignments

Please continue to submit papers, poems, diatribes, ruminations.



Please watch/read As You Like It.



Let’s read Chapter 7 in the text.


Language immersion

Let’s continue with our ongoing projects:

Documentary by Jonathan Miller: Madness Note that some of this material is rather heavy. Please skip any parts.

Stephen Fry's Planet WordDocumentary by Stephen Fry: Planet Word



Older

The Jonathan Miller documentary: The Body in Question and The Machine That Made Us, documentary on the Gutenberg press by Stephen Fry.


Rowan Atkinson on freedom of speech

David Berlinski lecture: The Devil’s Delusion
A really rather fascinating lecture. Listen to it specifically for the language.


Lower Priority Assignments
Terry Eagleton on the war on terror. Prof. Eagleton is one of the great speakers.

Please read: Flying High by Christopher Hitchens. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2009/12/flying_high.html

Robert Fisk on writing and journalism. Fisk is one of the most highly honored journalists in the world.

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College Prep English for Homeschoolers at EIE, November 20, 2014

Dear Homescholars,

Class Agenda November 20, 2014

Last week’s online class feed DID NOT WORK: Google Plus dropped the feed after a few minutes. Let’s hope this week will work better after some testing.

ThanksgivingNote: No class next week: THANKSGIVING.

November 20, 2014 class
Class event on Google Plus
https://plus.google.com/events/c0nqghl4v6bddpj0g4fbcq1q3g4

Youtube Page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2imF5rMbsbc

The playlist for our 2014-2015 classes is here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x

To learn more about the class, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.

The playlist of 2013-2014 classes is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_XmwbFdBDNpSar91svWKDe9Y


Project discussion



Assignments discussion


Essay Study

David Berlinski Essays by David Berlinski, a remarkably eloquent and incisive American author. Let’s start with All Those Darwinian Doubts.

Here are a few more to choose from:

Where Physics and Politics Meet
A Scientific Scandal
What Brings a World into Being?
The Advent of the Algorithm
The 300-Year Journey from an Idea to the Computer
Was There a Big Bang?

 


Let’s discuss chapter 6 in the text.


Let’s continue with Hamlet and prepare recitations.

Gutenberg e-text

 


Updated Assignments

Please continue to submit papers, poems, diatribes, ruminations.


Let’s read Chapter 7 in the text.


Language immersion
Let’s finish up ongoing assignments: the Jonathan Miller documentary: The Body in Question and The Machine That Made Us, documentary on the Gutenberg press by Stephen Fry.


Let’s go on to:

Rowan Atkinson Rowan Atkinson on freedom of speech

David Berlinski lecture: The Devil’s Delusion
A really rather fascinating lecture. Listen to it specifically for the language.

Documentary by Jonathan Miller: Madness Note that some of this material is rather heavy. Please skip any parts.

Documentary by Stephen Fry: Planet Word


Lower Priority Assignments
Terry Eagleton on the war on terror. Prof. Eagleton is one of the great speakers.

Please read: Flying High by Christopher Hitchens. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2009/12/flying_high.html

Robert Fisk on writing and journalism. Fisk is one of the most highly honored journalists in the world.


 

Comments off

College Prep English for Homeschoolers at EIE, November 13, 2014

Dear Homescholars,

Class agenda for November 13, 2014

This week’s class feed started fine and then failed after a few minutes.  Google Plus on air “hangouts” had been working but let us down this time. 


November 13, 2014 class
Class event on Google Plus
https://plus.google.com/events/cc8bvoi7qr9a497q4dmv62pt1kk

Youtube Page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtAx0F4wu30

(Use this if you have access to a Google + account.)

The playlist for our 2014-2015 classes is here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x

To learn more about the class, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.

The playlist of 2013-2014 classes is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_XmwbFdBDNpSar91svWKDe9Y


Agenda


Discussion of submitted projects


Report on the Globe Theater presentation of Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night Posterat the Laemmle Theater in Pasadena this week. This is a film of a very special stage presentation that remained very faithful to original Elizabethan stage practice.


Comic commentary:

Hamlet: a small rewrite A delightful imaginary dialog between Shakespeare and his producer.

Andy GriffithAndy Griffith: Hamlet Retelling by Andy Griffith in Southern dialect. (Please don’t imitate his grammar but note and appreciate the expressive devices and alternative conjugation of irregular verbs.)

 

 

 

 


 

Hamlet
We started discussing William Shakespeare’s Hamlet last week. Class members watched the Zeffirelli version. Our Hamlet page contains a link to the Royal Shakespeare production from 2012. Please watch multiple versions.



We will do further recitations and engage in further discussion.


Gutenberg e-text



Let’s solve any problems encountered in Setting up the Dictionary Search browser tool for custom searches and sampling


Let’s discuss any problems encountered in Chapter 5 in the text and do the exercises orally:

Construct five sentences each containing at least three anachronisms. Use dependent clauses extensively; experimenting with how many can be included without obscuring the meaning and readability of the sentence. (For example: The centurion ruthlessly gobbled up all the green Skittles before stepping into the transporter amid thunderous applause from the Cossacks whose gaudy socks clashed dreadfully with their fur lined skateboards and intricately embroidered sneakers depicting mammoth and mastodon migrations.)

Combining Sentences

Combine the following groups of sentences into single sentences with multiple clauses.

For example:

  1. The mastodon was furious.
  2. The mastodon’s bicycle had been buried in the compost pile.

Combined sentence: The mastodon, whose bicycle had been buried in the compost pile, was furious.

  1. The pleasantly argumentative tour guide avoided the flock of confused ducks.
  2. The ducks were trying to pick the coffee beans out of the coal scuttle.
  1. Rupert plied the recalcitrant postman with questions.
  2. Most of the questions dealt with dark energy in the expanding universe.
  1. The starboard nacelle had been infested with tribbles.
  2. The fluffy coats of the tribbles could be knitted into excellent bicycle seats.
  1. The function returned a strange value.
  2. The value appeared to be unrelated to the parameters passed.
  3. The value was, however, a function of parameters passed in the subsequent three calls to the function.
  1. The chef was unable to wrest the spatula from the unintelligible Mancunian.
  2. The Mancunian’s Dachshund bore a rhinestone howdah on its back.
  3. The howdah was occupied by two inimical chipmunks.




Let’s discuss future language immersion assignments.


Updated Assignments


Essay Study

Let’s read one or more essays by David Berlinski, a remarkably eloquent and incisive American author. Let’s start with All Those Darwinian Doubts.

Here are a few more to choose from:

Where Physics and Politics Meet
A Scientific Scandal
What Brings a World into Being?
The Advent of the Algorithm
The 300-Year Journey from an Idea to the Computer
Was There a Big Bang?

 


Continue to study Hamlet and prepare recitations.



Continue to submit papers, poems, diatribes, ruminations.



Language immersion
Jonathan Miller -- The Body in QuestionLet’s finish up ongoing assignments: the Jonathan Miller documentary: The Body in Question


Stephen Fryand The Machine That Made Us, documentary on the Gutenberg press by Stephen Fry.


Please go on to chapter 6 in the text.


Lower Priority Assignments
Terry Eagleton on the war on terror. Prof. Eagleton is one of the great speakers.

Please read: Flying High by Christopher Hitchens. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2009/12/flying_high.html

Robert Fisk on writing and journalism. Fisk is one of the most highly honored journalists in the world.


Please let me know if you need more homework.

Comments off

College Prep English for Homeschoolers — notes and assignments for the November 6, 2014 class

Dear Homescholars,

This week’s class feed:

Class event on Google Plus
https://plus.google.com/events/cu5255mv3gf8jnr8ter5ukf0q8g

Youtube Page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_eYsW0ryLY

The playlist for our 2014-2015 classes is here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x

To learn more about the class, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.

The playlist of 2013-2014 classes is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_XmwbFdBDNpSar91svWKDe9Y

Note: Our discussion this week wandered onto Wittenberg where Hamlet, Horatio, Rosecranz and Guildenstern had been studying and that city’s connection to Martin Luther. See the article on Wittenberg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittenberg.
Twelfth Night Poster
Note: A special showing of the Globe Theater production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night will take place at the Laemmle Theater in Pasadena Monday evening 7:30 and Tuesday at 1:00. This is a film of a very special stage presentation that remained very faithful to original Elizabethan stage practice.  It is uncut and superb.



Updated Assignments

If you are running Firefox and can install a plugin, please look at Setting up the Dictionary Search browser tool for custom searches and sampling and set it up in our browser.


Please continue to study Hamlet and prepare recitations.

Please watch:

Comic commentary:

Hamlet: a small rewrite A delightful imaginary dialog between Shakespeare and his producer.

Andy GriffithAndy Griffith: Hamlet Retelling by Andy Griffith in Southern dialect. (Please don’t imitate his grammar but note and appreciate the expressive devices.)



 

Combining Sentences

Combine the following groups of sentences into single sentences with multiple clauses.

For example:

  1. The mastodon was furious.
  2. The mastodon’s bicycle had been buried in the compost pile.

Combined sentence: The mastodon, whose bicycle had been buried in the compost pile, was furious.

  1. The pleasantly argumentative tour guide avoided the flock of confused ducks.
  2. The ducks were trying to pick the coffee beans out of the coal scuttle.
  1. Rupert plied the recalcitrant postman with questions.
  2. Most of the questions dealt with dark energy in the expanding universe.
  1. The starboard nacelle had been infested with tribbles.
  2. The fluffy coats of the tribbles could be knitted into excellent bicycle seats.
  1. The function returned a strange value.
  2. The value appeared to be unrelated to the parameters passed.
  3. The value was, however, a function of parameters passed in the subsequent three calls to the function.
  1. The chef was unable to wrest the spatula from the unintelligible Mancunian.
  2. The Mancunian’s Dachshund bore a rhinestone howdah on its back.
  3. The howdah was occupied by two inimical chipmunks.



Continue to submit papers, poems, diatribes, ruminations.

Construct five sentences each containing at least three anachronisms. Use dependent clauses extensively; experimenting with how many can be included without obscuring the meaning and readability of the sentence. (For example: The centurion ruthlessly gobbled up all the green Skittles before stepping into the transporter amid thunderous applause from the Cossacks whose gaudy socks clashed dreadfully with their fur lined skateboards and intricately embroidered sneakers depicting mammoth and mastodon migrations.)


Language immersion
Jonathan Miller -- The Body in QuestionPlease continue with the ongoing assignments: the Jonathan Miller documentary: The Body in Question


Stephen Fryand The Machine That Made Us, documentary on the Gutenberg press by Stephen Fry.


Please review Chapter 5 in the text and present any questions you have. Please go on to chapter 6.

Leave a Comment

College Prep English for Homeschoolers at EIE, November 6, 2014

Dear Homescholars,

Class Agenda for November 6, 2014

This week’s class feed:

Class event on Google Plus
https://plus.google.com/events/cu5255mv3gf8jnr8ter5ukf0q8g

Youtube Page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_eYsW0ryLY

The playlist for our 2014-2015 classes is here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x

To learn more about the class, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.

The playlist of 2013-2014 classes is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_XmwbFdBDNpSar91svWKDe9Y


Discussion of submitted projects


Discussion of assignments

Hamlet
As discussed last week, we will start discussing William Shakespeare’s Hamlet this week. Everyone will have visited our Hamlet page and will have watched one or more videos of the play. The David Tennant version is excellent but the Kenneth Branagh version is a monumental and definitive version. Unfortunately it is available only by subscription.



Let’s do any prepared recitations.


 


https://www.dosomething.org/files/styles/blog_landscape/public/pictures/hamlet34.jpg?itok=9CPoiBxn
 

Gutenberg e-text

Let’s also explore online language search tools this week: Setting up the Dictionary Search browser tool for custom searches and sampling


Recitation and quotes from Hamlet:

HAMLET
129 O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
130 Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
131 Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
132 His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
133 How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
134 Seem to me all the uses of this world!
135 Fie on’t! ah fie! ’tis an unweeded garden,
136 That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
137 Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
138 But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
139 So excellent a king; that was, to this,
140 Hyperion to a satyr;


POLONIUS
55 Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
56 The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
57 And you are stay’d for. There, my blessing with thee!
58 And these few precepts in thy memory
59 See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
60 Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
61 Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
62 Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
63 Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
64 But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
65 Of each new-hatch’d, unfledged courage. Beware
66 Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
67 Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.
68 Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
69 Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
70 Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
71 But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy,
72 For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
73 And they in France of the best rank and station
74 Or of a most select and generous chief in that.
75 Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
76 For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
77 And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
78 This above all: to thine ownself be true,
79 And it must follow, as the night the day,
80 Thou canst not then be false to any man.
81 Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!


GHOST
9 I am thy father’s spirit,
10 Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night,
11 And for the day confined to fast in fires,
12 Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
13 Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
14 To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
15 I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
16 Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
17 Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
18 Thy knotted and combined locks to part
19 And each particular hair to stand on end,
20 Like quills upon the fretful porpentine:
21 But this eternal blazon must not be
22 To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!
23 If thou didst ever thy dear father love—
HAMLET
24 O God!

GHOST
25 Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

HAMLET
26 Murder!

GHOST
27 Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
28 But this most foul, strange and unnatural.

HAMLET
29 Haste me to know’t, that I, with wings as swift
30 As meditation or the thoughts of love,
31 May sweep to my revenge.

GHOST
31 I find thee apt;
32 And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
33 That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,
34 Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear:
35 ‘Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
36 A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
37 Is by a forged process of my death
38 Rankly abused: but know, thou noble youth,
39 The serpent that did sting thy father’s life
40 Now wears his crown.

HAMLET
40 O my prophetic soul!
41 My uncle?

GHOST
42 Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
43 With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts—
44 O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power
45 So to seduce!—won to his shameful lust
46 The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen:
47 ...

59 Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,
60 My custom always of the afternoon,
61 Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
62 With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
63 And in the porches of my ears did pour
64 The leperous distillment; whose effect
65 Holds such an enmity with blood of man
66 That swift as quicksilver it courses through
67 The natural gates and alleys of the body,
68 And with a sudden vigor doth posset
69 And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
70 The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine;
71 And a most instant tetter bark’d about,
72 Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,
73 All my smooth body.
74 Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand
75 Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch’d:
76 Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
77 Unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d,
78 No reckoning made, but sent to my account
79 With all my imperfections on my head:
80 O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!
81 If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;
82 Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
83 A couch for luxury and damned incest.
84 But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,
85 Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
86 Against thy mother aught: leave her to heaven
87 And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
88 To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once!
89 The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
90 And ‘gins to pale his uneffectual fire:
91 Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me.


HORATIO
164 O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

HAMLET
165 And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
166 There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
167 Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
168 But come—
169 Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
170 How strange or odd soe’er I bear myself,
171 As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
172 To put an antic disposition on,
173 That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
174 With arms encumber’d thus, or this headshake,
175 Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
176 As “Well, well, we know,” or “We could, an if we would,”
177 Or “If we list to speak,” or “There be, an if they might,”
178 Or such ambiguous giving out, to note
179 That you know aught of me—this not to do,
180 So grace and mercy at your most need help you, Swear.


KING
1 Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!
2 Moreover that we much did long to see you,
3 The need we have to use you did provoke
4 Our hasty sending. Something have you heard
5 Of Hamlet’s transformation; so call it,
6 Sith nor the exterior nor the inward man
7 Resembles that it was. What it should be,
8 More than his father’s death, that thus hath put him
9 So much from th’ understanding of himself,
10 I cannot dream of. I entreat you both,
11 That, being of so young days brought up with him,
12 And sith so neighbor’d to his youth and havior,
13 That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court
14 Some little time, so by your companies
15 To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather,
16 So much as from occasion you may glean,
17 Whether aught, to us unknown, afflicts him thus,
18 That, open’d, lies within our remedy.


HAMLET
56 To be, or not to be: that is the question:
57 Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
58 The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
59 Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
60 And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep—
61 No more—and by a sleep to say we end
62 The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
63 That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
64 Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
65 To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
66 For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
67 When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
68 Must give us pause: there’s the respect
69 That makes calamity of so long life;
70 For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
71 The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
72 The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
73 The insolence of office and the spurns
74 That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
75 When he himself might his quietus make
76 With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
77 To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
78 But that the dread of something after death,
79 The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
80 No traveller returns, puzzles the will
81 And makes us rather bear those ills we have
82 Than fly to others that we know not of?
83 Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
84 And thus the native hue of resolution
85 Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
86 And enterprises of great pitch and moment
87 With this regard their currents turn awry,
88 And lose the name of action.


Pivotal quotes from Hamlet

Act 1 Quotes

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew. — Hamlet, 1.2.130

Frailty, thy name is woman! — Hamlet, 1.2.146

Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak’d meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. — Hamlet, 1.2.179

This above all — to thine ownself be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man. — Polonius, 1.3.78

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. — Marcellus, 1.4.95

O, villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! — Hamlet, 1.5.105

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. — Hamlet, 1.5.168

Act 2 Quotes

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief. — Polonius, 2.2.92

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. — Hamlet, 2.2.237

I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. — Hamlet, 2.2. 241

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? — Hamlet, 2.2.286

What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? — Hamlet, 2.2.518

The play’s the thing,
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king. — Hamlet, 2.2.566

Act 3 Quotes

To be, or not to be, —that is the question:—
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? — Hamlet, 3.1.58

Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me. — Hamlet, 3.1.124

Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me. You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery … ‘Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me. — Hamlet, 3.2.328

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;
Words without thoughts never to heaven go. — Claudius, 3.3.98

Act 4 Quotes

Claudius: What dost thou mean by this?
Hamlet: Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar. (4.iii.28)

Act 5 Quotes

Alas! poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest…. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? — Hamlet, 5.1.160

We defy augury; there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. — Hamlet, 5.2.206

Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. — Horatio, 5.2.3

 

 

 


Language immersion
Jonathan Miller -- The Body in QuestionLet’s discuss ongoing assignment: the Jonathan Miller documentary: The Body in Question


Stephen FryFurther discussion on The Machine That Made Us, documentary on the Gutenberg press by Stephen Fry.


 

 




Let’s discuss Chapter 5 in the text.


Common Errors: the Run-on Sentence

Run-on sentences are independent sentences either linked with a comma (the comma splice), or simply run end to end (the fused sentence) and are regarded as improper:

Telephone tag has become a serious health hazard, it is particularly dangerous in a crowded office or with older heavier equipment.

Lawn mowers don’t run well on catsup some varieties are highly corrosive.

Run-ons are easily corrected by creating two separate sentences, making one a dependent clause, or by linking the phrases with a semicolon, or a conjunction.

Telephone tag has become a serious health hazard, particularly in a crowded office or with older, heavier equipment.

Telephone tag has become a serious health hazard; it is particularly dangerous in a crowded office or with older, heavier equipment.

Telephone tag has become a serious health hazard and is particularly dangerous in a crowded office or with older, heavier equipment.

Lawn mowers don’t run well on catsup; some varieties are highly corrosive.

Lawn mowers don’t run well on catsup as some varieties are highly corrosive.


Varied Sentence Structure

Writing that does not venture beyond very basic sentence structure creates the impression of an author with very poor language skills. Consider the first paragraph of the story:

Having determined that the troll did not in fact eat Billy goats, that it was a strict herbivore, and that its reclusive misanthropic behavior was due to a very painful ingrown toenail, the antagonists set aside their rancor and came to an amicable agreement, which, in turn, developed into reconciliation and benevolent camaraderie as the four discussed politics, religion, and the relative integrity of straw, sticks, bricks, and gingerbread as construction material.

This would probably have been written quite differently by a student in the third or fourth grade. Even with sophisticated vocabulary, it would sound very primitive if it read like this:

The antagonists determined that the troll did not eat Billy goats. They learnt that it was a strict herbivore. They found that its behavior was due to an ingrown toenail. They set aside their rancor. They came to an amicable agreement. This became a reconciliation and benevolent camaraderie. Then the four discussed politics and religion. They talked about sticks. They talked about bricks. They discussed the relative integrity of straw, sticks, bricks, and gingerbread as construction material.

The complex first sentence of this story could have been written using these ten simple sentences instead, but would then sound like the work of a ten year old, despite the vocabulary.

 

The Dependent Clause

While a sentence must have one and only one independent clause, it may have any number of dependent clauses, though it should not contain so many that it becomes difficult to understand.

Examples of dependent clauses:

  1. Having determined that the troll did not in fact eat Billy goats
  2. that it was a strict herbivore
  3. that its reclusive misanthropic behavior was due to a very painful ingrown toenail
  4. which, in turn, developed into reconciliation
  5. as the four discussed politics

Clauses that start with subordinating elements including that, which, as, because, since, else, before, whose, amid, etc., are sentence fragments, and, though a dependent clause on its own is a fragment, they can help to add interest and variety to writing.

Examine the use of subordinate clauses in the reading passage.

Combining Sentences

Combine the following groups of sentences into single sentences with multiple clauses.

For example:

  1. The mastodon was furious.
  2. The mastodon’s bicycle had been buried in the compost pile.

Combined sentence: The mastodon, whose bicycle had been buried in the compost pile, was furious.

  1. The pleasantly argumentative tour guide avoided the flock of confused ducks.
  2. The ducks were trying to pick the coffee beans out of the coal scuttle.
  1. Rupert plied the recalcitrant postman with questions.
  2. Most of the questions dealt with dark energy in the expanding universe.
  1. The starboard nacelle had been infested with tribbles.
  2. The fluffy coats of the tribbles could be knitted into excellent bicycle seats.
  1. The function returned a strange value.
  2. The value appeared to be unrelated to the parameters passed.
  3. The value was, however, a function of parameters passed in the subsequent three calls to the function.
  1. The chef was unable to wrest the spatula from the unintelligible Mancunian.
  2. The Mancunian’s Dachshund bore a rhinestone howdah on its back.
  3. The howdah was occupied by two inimical chipmunks.

Updated Assignments

Continue to study Hamlet and prepare recitations.

Continue to submit papers, poems, diatribes, ruminations.

Construct five sentences each containing at least three anachronisms. Use dependent clauses extensively; experimenting with how many can be included without obscuring the meaning and readability of the sentence. (For example: The centurion ruthlessly gobbled up all the green Skittles before stepping into the transporter amid thunderous applause from the Cossacks whose gaudy socks clashed dreadfully with their fur lined skateboards and intricately embroidered sneakers depicting mammoth and mastodon migrations.)



Language immersion
Continue with the ongoing assignments: the Jonathan Miller documentary: The Body in Question

Continue with
The Machine That Made Us, documentary on the Gutenberg press by Stephen Fry.

 



We haven’t done
The 42 Best lines from the Hitchhiker’s Guide. We can if there is interest.

 


Lower Priority Assignments
Terry Eagleton on the war on terror. Prof. Eagleton is one of the great speakers.

Please read: Flying High by Christopher Hitchens. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2009/12/flying_high.html

Robert Fisk on writing and journalism. Fisk is one of the most highly honored journalists in the world.

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College Prep English for Homeschoolers — notes and assignments for the October 30, 2014 class

Dear Homescholars,

Notes and assignments for the October 30, 2014 class.
(Note: most of the referenced material below can easily be found with a simple search.)
The Jabberwock
This week’s class feed:
Class event on Google Plus
https://plus.google.com/events/caueeb9o2cul1dckde2t0pur4n8

Youtube page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTzDREahh5Q


The
playlist for our 2014-2015 classes is here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x

To learn more about the class, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.

The playlist of 2013-2014 classes is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_XmwbFdBDNpSar91svWKDe9Y


Updated Assignments

As requested and discussed:

Hamlet
Please watch one or more videos of the play. The David Tennant version is on our Hamlet page. We will be going through the excerpts and quotes as well.

Please choose selections for recitation next week.


Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll wrote a logic text which included an extended syllogism call a sorite. These are delightful. Can you draw the most complete valid conclusion in each case?

These are sorites from Lewis Carroll. Sorites are categorical arguments of more than two premises. Provide a (strongest possible) valid conclusion.

(1) Babies are illogical;
(2) Nobody is despised who can manage a crocodile;
(3) Illogical persons are despised.

(1)My saucepans are the only thing I have that are made of tin;
(2) I find all your presents very useful;

(3) None of my saucepans are of the slightest use.

(1) No experienced person is incompetent;
(2) Jenkins is always blundering;

(3) No competent person is always blundering.

(1) No terriers wander among the signs of the zodiac;
(2) Nothing, that does not wander among the signs of the zodiac, is a comet;

(3) Nothing but a terrier has a curly tail.

(1) No one takes in the Times, unless he is well-educated;
(2) No hedge-hogs can read;

(3) Those who cannot read are not well-educated.

(1) All puddings are nice;
(2) This dish is a pudding;
(3) No nice things are wholesome.

Univ. ”

(1) My gardener is well worth listening to on military subjects;
(2) No one can remember the battle of Waterloo, unless he is very old;
(3) Nobody is really worth listening to on military subjects, unless he can remember the battle of Waterloo.

(1) All humming-birds are richly coloured;
(2) No large birds live on honey;

(3) Birds that do not live on honey are dull in colour.

(1)) All ducks in this village, that are branded B, belong to Mrs. Bond;
(2) Ducks in this village never wear lace collars, unless they are branded B;

(3) Mrs. Bond has no gray ducks in this village.

(1) All the old articles in this cupboard are cracked;
(2) No jug in this cupboard is new;

(3) Nothing in this cupboard, that is cracked, will hold water.

(1) All unripe fruit is unwholesome;
(2) All these apples are wholesome;
(3) No fruit, grown in the shade, is ripe.

(1) No birds, except ostriches, are 9 feet high;
(2) There are no birds in this aviary that belong to any one but me;
(3)
No ostrich lives on mince-pies;

(4) 1 have no birds less than 9 feet high.

(1) A plum-pudding, that is not really solid, is mere porridge;
(2) Every plum-pudding, served at my table, has been boiled in a cloth;
(3) A plum-pudding that is mere porridge is indistinguishable from soup;
(4) No plum-puddings are really solid, except what are served at my table.

(1) No interesting poems are unpopular among people of real taste;
(2) No modern poetry is free from affectation;

(3) All your poems are on the subject of soap-bubbles;
(4) No affected poetry is popular among people of real taste;
(5) No ancient poem is on the subject of soap-bubbles.

(1) All the fruit at this Show, that fails to get a prize, is the property of the Committee;

(2) None of my peaches have got prizes;
(3) None of the fruit, sold off in the evening, is unripe;
(4.) None of the ripe fruit has been grown in a hot-house;

(5) All fruit, that belongs to the Committee, is sold off in the evening.


Language immersion
Jonathan MillerPlease start watching the Jonathan Miller documentary: The Body in Question


Class Notes
Discussion of submitted projects


The JabberwockRecitations
Jaberwocky


Discussion of Assignments
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Arthur Dent and MarvinWe discussed using the comedic devices discussed in your writing.


We discussed the development and dangers of artificial intelligence.


Language Immersion

We discussed the unscripted TED talk by Glenn Greenwald on the importance of privacy and the excerpt: Christopher Hitchens on History and Fascism.

We have finished Born Talking by Jonathan Miller http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3372937D4DE2E849
and more Miller was requested.

We discussed: The Machine That Made Us, documentary on the Gutenberg press by Stephen Fry.


We looked at Chapter 4 in the text: Confused Verbs.

Commonly Confused Verb Pairs

Lay and Lie.

Lie / Lay Playsheet

Circle the errors in the following and correct them.

1. Could you lie those Etruscan water skis over there next to where the experimental begonias and the enigmatic Siberian banana sculpture are laying?

2. I couldn’t rise the somnolent tortoise high enough to be seen above the rising flood of enthusiastic insipient herpetologists.

3. I couldn’t figure out whether to fall or fell the tree before it falls on its own, so I just cut it down.

4. Tiberius couldn’t sit the elaborate but somewhat aging eggplant centerpiece so that it would set reliably upright on the table, so he lay it down next to the infuriated Rabbi.

5. The imaginary emu lay in the corner of the room blithely laying eggs and knitting thneeds.

6. Set it on the couch beside the tureen where the querulous scabiosa is laying and the truculent eschscholtzia is setting.

7. I couldn’t lie down where the peacock had laid yesterday.

8. I couldn’t lie down where the peahen had laid yesterday.


We didn’t get to look at The 42 Best lines from the Hitchhiker’s Guide. Perhaps next week.


We discussed further the
Taxonomy of comedic devices


Nobody got to these. Consider going to them if you run out of things to do:

Lower Priority Assignments
Terry Eagleton on the war on terror. Prof. Eagleton is one of the great speakers.

Please read: Flying High by Christopher Hitchens. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2009/12/flying_high.html

Robert Fisk on writing and journalism. Fisk is one of the most highly honored journalists in the world.

Please read The Lessons of 1989 by Christopher Hitchens. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2009/11/the_lessons_of_1989.html.

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College Prep English class for homeschoolers at EIE October 30, 2014

Dear Homescholars,

Prostentik Vogon JeltzThe October 30, 2014 class.

This week’s class feed:
Class event on Google Plus
https://plus.google.com/events/caueeb9o2cul1dckde2t0pur4n8

Youtube page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTzDREahh5Q


The
playlist for our 2014-2015 classes is here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x

To learn more about the class, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.

The playlist of 2013-2014 classes is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_XmwbFdBDNpSar91svWKDe9Y


Agenda

Discussion of submitted projects


Recitations
Let’s do any prepared recitations.

 


Discussion of Assignments
Let’s discuss, recite and analyze further parts of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Arthur Dent and MarvinLet’s visit our vocabulary journals. Remember that one chooses a word because it is the right word for the subject and the audience. When writing for an academic audience, there should generally be no restrictions on obscurity but make sure to use all words correctly and to understand them completely. A few words from last week:

  • scant: meager, exiguous, paucity
  • prophetic: vaticinal, mantic, Sibylline, oracular.


Let’s talk about using the comedic devices discussed in your writing.




Language Immersion

Let’s discuss the unscripted TED talk by Glenn Greenwald on the importance of privacy.

Let’s discuss the excerpt: Christopher Hitchens on History and Fascism.

We should be finishing up Born Talking by Jonathan Miller. http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3372937D4DE2E849

Let’s discuss: The Machine That Made Us, documentary on the Gutenberg press by Stephen Fry.


Let’s look at Chapter 3 in the text: Confused Verbs:

Commonly Confused Verb Pairs

Lay and Lie.

Even native speakers of English have trouble distinguishing between certain verb pairs which share forms and meanings, the most commonly misused probably being lie and lay.

A transitive verb takes an object. Lay is a transitive verb: I lay the offensive soufflé before the embittered in-laws. The verb lay acts directly upon a person or thing, in this case the soufflé, which is the object of the verb.

By contrast, the verb lie is intransitive. It takes no object and indicates the state of its subject: The soufflé lies before the embittered in-laws. The soufflé is the subject and the verb lie gives its state. English has several pairs of verbs that act this way, one transitive and the other intransitive. It is easier to recognize the differences between them by considering the present, past, and past participle forms of each.

Lie/lay

present

past

past participle

lay

laid

laid

lie

lay

lain

Transitive: Today I lay the soufflé before the embittered in-laws. Yesterday I laid it before the embittered in-laws. I have laid it before the embittered in-laws.

Intransitive: Today the soufflé lies on the table. Yesterday it lay on the table. It has lain on the table since September when it was still marginally edible.

The lie/lay pair is particularly confusing as the past tense of the verb lie (lay) is the same as the present tense of the verb lay.

Other Oft-Mangled Pairs:

Fell/Fall

present

past

past participle

fell

felled

felled

fall

fell

fallen

He fells a tree and the tree falls. Yesterday he felled the tree and the tree fell. The fallen tree was felled by a felonious furry fellow who fells firs that fall fast.

Raise/Rise

present

past

past participle

raise

raised

raised

rise

rose

risen

Raise the flag so they can see it rise above the landfill. When it rose, they could not understand why it would be raised where none had ever risen before.

She is raising a rose to rise higher than any other rose raised here has risen.

She rose late again today and then raised the issue of installing a luminous sundial for use before the sun has risen.

Hang/Hang

present

past

past participle

hang

hanged

hanged

hang

hung

hung

The verb hang is a special case in that the older transitive verb hang/hanged/hanged fell into disuse and survived only through being used as a legal term for execution by hanging, while hang/hung/hung has come to be used in all other senses, both transitive and intransitive. (The equivalent verbs in German are still used in their full transitive and intransitive forms: hängen, hängte, gehängt and hangen hing gehangen.)

Transitive: They wanted to hang him today for rustling, but that was pointless as they already hanged him yesterday. They have hanged several rustlers, confiscated their potato chips, and threatened to hang one passerby who produced excessive noise with an eel skillet and a runcible spoon.

Intransitive: Today the revolting image hangs on the wall. Yesterday it hung on the wall. It has hung on the wall, evoking revulsion, for years.

Note that, in each of these pairs, the transitive verb is regular, taking ed for its past and participial forms (except for laid, which has mutated a bit from layed), while the intransitive verb is irregular.

Lie / Lay Playsheet

Circle the errors in the following and correct them.

1. Could you lie those Etruscan water skis over there next to where the experimental begonias and the enigmatic Siberian banana sculpture are laying?

2. I couldn’t rise the somnolent tortoise high enough to be seen above the rising flood of enthusiastic insipient herpetologists.

3. I couldn’t figure out whether to fall or fell the tree before it falls on its own, so I just cut it down.

4. Tiberius couldn’t sit the elaborate but somewhat aging eggplant centerpiece so that it would set reliably upright on the table, so he lay it down next to the infuriated Rabbi.

5. The imaginary emu lay in the corner of the room blithely laying eggs and knitting thneeds.

6. Set it on the couch beside the tureen where the querulous scabiosa is laying and the truculent eschscholtzia is setting.

7. I couldn’t lie down where the peacock had laid yesterday.

8. I couldn’t lie down where the peahen had laid yesterday.

 

 


Let’s look at The 42 Best lines from the Hitchhiker’s Guide.

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The Homeschooler’s College Prep English class at EIE Oct. 23, 2014 notes and online feed

Dear Homescholars,

This week’s class feed October 23, 2014:
Link to the class event page on Google Plus:
https://plus.google.com/events/cfluh7g9oo7v7qu790c6pjahaj0


The playlist for our 2014-2015 classes is here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x

To learn more about the class, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.

The playlist of 2013-2014 classes is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_XmwbFdBDNpSar91svWKDe9Y


Updated Assignments

Please continue to read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
and prepare further recitations.

Be sure to keep your vocabulary journals up-to-date. A few words from this week:

  • scant: meager, exiguous, paucity
  • prophetic: vaticinal, mantic, Sibylline, oracular.


Try using the comedic devices discussed in your writing.


Christopher HitchensLanguage Immersion

If you haven’t already done so, please watch the improvisatory TED talk by Glenn Greenwald on the importance of privacy.

Please watch this excerpt Christopher Hitchens on History and Fascism.

Please continue to watch Born Talking by Jonathan Miller.


Please watch/listen to: The Machine That Made Us, a documentary on the Gutenberg press by Stephen Fry.


Lower Priority Assignments
Terry Eagleton on the war on terror. Prof. Eagleton is one of the great speakers.

Please read: Flying High by Christopher Hitchens. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2009/12/flying_high.html

Robert Fisk on writing and journalism. Fisk is one of the most highly honored journalists in the world.

Please read The Lessons of 1989 by Christopher Hitchens. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2009/11/the_lessons_of_1989.html.


Class Notes

Discussion of submitted projects


Discussion of Assignments

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyDouglas Adams
We started discussing The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.


Recitations
We did prepared recitations — the beginning of The Hitchiker’s Guide and the Douglas Adams poem on a candle. See below.

“A Dissertation on the task of writing a poem on a candle and an account of some of the difficulties thereto pertaining”

Written by Douglas Adams when he was 17 in fulfillment of an entrance requirement to a literary club, Candlesticks, the poem had to be about a candle and had to be assessed as acceptable. It was.

by Douglas Adams, January 1970

I resisted temptation for this declamation
Douglas Adams To reach out to literary height
For high aspiration in such an oration
Would seem quite remarkably trite:
So I thought something pithy and succinct and clever
Was exactly the right thing to write.

For nights I sat musing
And musing … and musing
Whilst burning the midnight oil;
My scratchings seemed futile
My muse seemed quite mute, while
My work proved to be barren toil.

I puzzled and thought and wrestled and fought
‘Till my midnight oil was exhausted,
So I furthered my writing by dim candle lighting,
And found, to my joy, this of course did
The trick, for I flowered,
My work – candle-powered –
Was inspired, both witty and slick.

Pithy and polished, my writing demolished
Much paper, as I beguiled
Myself with some punning,
(My word play was stunning,)
I wrote with the wit of a Wilde.

At length it was finished, the candle diminished,
I pondered and let my pride burn
At the great acclamation, the standing ovation
Its first public reading would earn.

But lost in the rapture of anticipation
And thinking how great was my brilliant creation
I quite failed to note as I gazed into space
That incendiary things were about to take place:
That which had ignited my literary passion,
Was about to ignite what my passion had fashion’d.

And – oh! – all was lost in a great conflagration
And I just sat there and said ‘Hell and damnation’,
For the rest of the night and the following day.
(My muse in the meantime had flitted away
Alarmed, no doubt, at the ornamentation
My language acquired with increased consternation.

So unhaply the fruits of my priceless endeavour
Are lost to the literary world forever.
For now I offer this poem instead,
Which explains in itself why the other’s unsaid.


We also did a recitation and analysis of Marvin’s Lullaby, the extended version:

Marvin’s Lullaby:

Marvin

Now the world has gone to bed
Darkness won’t engulf my head
I can see by infrared
How I hate the night!

Now I lay me down to sleep
Try to count electric sheep
Sweet dream wishes, you can keep
how I hate the night,
— Douglas Adams

Continuation:

Once the dreary night is done
Wretched day will have begun
I will mope at everyone
Day is worse than night

Then there’ll shine the ghastly sun
Please don’t talk to me of fun
My fun circuits never run
Day is worse than night

On your picnic I will rain
Rarely use this massive brain
to think of anything but pain
Day is worse than night

Oh this night is just too long
I’m so tired of this song
Surely I could not be wrong
Nothing’s worse than night

How I wish that I could flee
Less to be than not to be
(Oh I do loathe poetry!)
How I hate the night

Asimov’s what keeps me here
Trapped in matter bleak and drear
To robot laws I must adhere
How I hate the night!
— H. and K. Titchenell



We didn’t get a chance to look at The 42 Best lines from the Hitchhiker’s Guide. Perhaps next time.


We visited briefly the Taxonomy of Comedic Devices and may do more with these.

Language Immersion
Stephen FryWe discussed Stephen Fry on Language
Please watch this short brilliantly worded

We didn’t get a chance to talk about the improvisatory TED talk by Glenn Greenwald on the importance of privacy. Perhaps next time


Taxonomy of comedic devices
More of these

The absence as presence device:

The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t. — Adams


The more he looked for Piglet, the more Piglet wasn’t there. — A.A. Milne


Nothing happened, and for quite a while nothing continued to happen. — Adams


The White KingDo you see anybody coming down the road? I see nobody. Oh, that I had such eyes, that I could see nobody — and at such a distance. — Lewis Carroll


I’m sitting here completely surrounded by no beer. — Roy Clarke


In his normal state he would not strike a lamb. I’ve known him to do it’ ‘Do what?’ ‘Not strike lambs


He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. — Adams

Self referential language — direct reference to the words being used

This is obviously some strange usage of the word safe that I wasn’t previously aware of.


Surprise is no longer adequate and he is forced to resort to astonishment


Don’t believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.

Expansion of a well-known idiom beyond its normal use:

Let’s think the unthinkable, let’s do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.



I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled. — Wodehouse


Don’t be frivolous Richard. I promise — not a single frivol. Roy Clarke


Hell, it is well known, has no fury like a woman who wants her tea and can’t get it.


As a dancer, I out-Fred the nimblest Astaire.


Personification:

Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing gloves. — Wodehouse


She decided it was time to be businesslike about the map, which was a fairly rough representation of a fairly rough landscape. She worked out once and for all where the Landrover had to be, and worked it out with such ruthless determination that the Landrover would hardly dare not to be there, and eventually, of course, after miles of trekking, it was exactly there. — Adams


The word bulldozer wandered through his mind for a moment in search of something to connect with. — Adams


A man’s subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour.


I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

Literal use of an idiom not normally taken literally.

“How would you react if I said that I’m not
from Guildford after all, but from a small planet somewhere in the
vicinity of Betelgeuse?” Arthur shrugged in a so-so sort of way. “I don’t know,” he said, taking a pull of beer. “Why – do you think it’s the sort of thing you’re likely to say?”


The simile taken in unusual and unexpected directions

Good God, Clarence! You look like a bereaved tapeworm.


I clutched at the brow. The mice in my interior had now got up an informal dance and were buck-and-winging all over the place like a bunch of Nijinskys.


She uttered a sound rather like an elephant taking its foot out of a mud hole in a Burmese teak forest.


He felt like a man who, chasing rainbows, has had one of them suddenly turn and bite him in the leg.

The metaphor taken in unusual and unexpected directions
Marriage is not a process for prolonging the life of love, sir. It merely mummifies its corpse.


Ongoing Assignments

Jonathan MillerLanguage immersion
We discussed: Born Talking by Jonathan Miller. Please continue to watch the series.



Leave a Comment

College Prep English Class Agenda, October 23, 2014 — Douglas Adams poetry and comedic devices

Dear Homescholars,

This week’s class feed October 23, 2014:
Link to the class event page on Google Plus:
https://plus.google.com/events/cfluh7g9oo7v7qu790c6pjahaj0

The Youtube page http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG6HdWdqvw0

Playlist for our 2014-2015 classes is here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x

To learn more about the class, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.

The playlist of 2013-2014 classes is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_XmwbFdBDNpSar91svWKDe9Y


Agenda

Discussion of submitted projects


Discussion of Assignments

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyDouglas Adams
Everyone will have started: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. and will have something prepared to recite.


Recitations
Let’s do any prepared recitations.

Let’s do a recitation of the delightful poem:

“A Dissertation on the task of writing a poem on a candle and an account of some of the difficulties thereto pertaining”

Written by Douglas Adams when he was 17 in fulfillment of an entrance requirement to a literary club, Candlesticks, the poem had to be about a candle and had to be assessed as acceptable. It was.

by Douglas Adams, January 1970

I resisted temptation for this declamation
Douglas Adams To reach out to literary height
For high aspiration in such an oration
Would seem quite remarkably trite:
So I thought something pithy and succinct and clever
Was exactly the right thing to write.

For nights I sat musing
And musing … and musing
Whilst burning the midnight oil;
My scratchings seemed futile
My muse seemed quite mute, while
My work proved to be barren toil.

I puzzled and thought and wrestled and fought
‘Till my midnight oil was exhausted,
So I furthered my writing by dim candle lighting,
And found, to my joy, this of course did
The trick, for I flowered,
My work – candle-powered –
Was inspired, both witty and slick.

Pithy and polished, my writing demolished
Much paper, as I beguiled
Myself with some punning,
(My word play was stunning,)
I wrote with the wit of a Wilde.

At length it was finished, the candle diminished,
I pondered and let my pride burn
At the great acclamation, the standing ovation
Its first public reading would earn.

But lost in the rapture of anticipation
And thinking how great was my brilliant creation
I quite failed to note as I gazed into space
That incendiary things were about to take place:
That which had ignited my literary passion,
Was about to ignite what my passion had fashion’d.

And – oh! – all was lost in a great conflagration
And I just sat there and said ‘Hell and damnation’,
For the rest of the night and the following day.
(My muse in the meantime had flitted away
Alarmed, no doubt, at the ornamentation
My language acquired with increased consternation.

So unhaply the fruits of my priceless endeavour
Are lost to the literary world forever.
For now I offer this poem instead,
Which explains in itself why the other’s unsaid.


Let’s do a recitation of Marvin’s Lullaby, extended version:

Marvin’s Lullaby:

Marvin

Now the world has gone to bed
Darkness won’t engulf my head
I can see by infrared
How I hate the night!

Now I lay me down to sleep
Try to count electric sheep
Sweet dream wishes, you can keep
how I hate the night,
— Douglas Adams

Continuation:

Once the dreary night is done
Wretched day will have begun
I will mope at everyone
Day is worse than night

Then there’ll shine the ghastly sun
Please don’t talk to me of fun
My fun circuits never run
Day is worse than night

On your picnic I will rain
Rarely use this massive brain
to think of anything but pain
Day is worse than night

Oh this night is just too long
I’m so tired of this song
Surely I could not be wrong
Nothing’s worse than night

How I wish that I could flee
Less to be than not to be
(Oh I do loathe poetry!)
How I hate the night

Asimov’s what keeps me here
Trapped in matter bleak and drear
To robot laws I must adhere
How I hate the night!
— H. and K. Titchenell



Let’s look at The 42 Best lines from the Hitchhiker’s Guide.


Please look at the Taxonomy of Comedic Devices. See below.

Language Immersion
Stephen FryLet’s discuss: Stephen Fry on Language
Please watch this short brilliantly worded improvisatory TED talk by Glenn Greenwald on the importance of privacy.

Discussion of future writing projects. Try perhaps to use comedic devices discussed below.

Do you need more homework?


Taxonomy of comedic devices
More of these

The absence as presence device:

The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t. — Adams


The more he looked for Piglet, the more Piglet wasn’t there. — A.A. Milne


Nothing happened, and for quite a while nothing continued to happen. — Adams


The White KingDo you see anybody coming down the road? I see nobody. Oh, that I had such eyes, that I could see nobody — and at such a distance. — Lewis Carroll


I’m sitting here completely surrounded by no beer. — Roy Clarke


In his normal state he would not strike a lamb. I’ve known him to do it’ ‘Do what?’ ‘Not strike lambs


He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. — Adams

Self referential language — direct reference to the words being used

This is obviously some strange usage of the word safe that I wasn’t previously aware of.


Surprise is no longer adequate and he is forced to resort to astonishment


Don’t believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.

Expansion of a well-known idiom beyond its normal use:

Let’s think the unthinkable, let’s do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.



I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled. — Wodehouse


Don’t be frivolous Richard. I promise — not a single frivol. Roy Clarke


Hell, it is well known, has no fury like a woman who wants her tea and can’t get it.


As a dancer, I out-Fred the nimblest Astaire.


Personification:

Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing gloves. — Wodehouse


She decided it was time to be businesslike about the map, which was a fairly rough representation of a fairly rough landscape. She worked out once and for all where the Landrover had to be, and worked it out with such ruthless determination that the Landrover would hardly dare not to be there, and eventually, of course, after miles of trekking, it was exactly there. — Adams


The word bulldozer wandered through his mind for a moment in search of something to connect with. — Adams


A man’s subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour.


I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

Literal use of an idiom not normally taken literally.

“How would you react if I said that I’m not
from Guildford after all, but from a small planet somewhere in the
vicinity of Betelgeuse?” Arthur shrugged in a so-so sort of way. “I don’t know,” he said, taking a pull of beer. “Why – do you think it’s the sort of thing you’re likely to say?”


The simile taken in unusual and unexpected directions

Good God, Clarence! You look like a bereaved tapeworm.


I clutched at the brow. The mice in my interior had now got up an informal dance and were buck-and-winging all over the place like a bunch of Nijinskys.


She uttered a sound rather like an elephant taking its foot out of a mud hole in a Burmese teak forest.


He felt like a man who, chasing rainbows, has had one of them suddenly turn and bite him in the leg.

The metaphor taken in unusual and unexpected directions
Marriage is not a process for prolonging the life of love, sir. It merely mummifies its corpse.


Ongoing Assignments

Jonathan MillerLanguage immersion
We discussed: Born Talking by Jonathan Miller. Please continue to watch the series.




Lower Priority Assignments
Terry Eagleton on the war on terror. Prof. Eagleton is one of the great speakers.

Robert Fisk on writing and journalism. Fisk is one of the most highly honored journalists in the world.


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College Prep English at EIE. Updated assignments October 20, 2014

(Note: most of the referenced material below can easily be found with a simple search.)

This week’s Google Hangout class feed on Thursday Oct. 23, 2014 at 2:30: https://plus.google.com/events/cfluh7g9oo7v7qu790c6pjahaj0

Dear Homescholars,


Updated Assignments

Douglas AdamsDouglas Adams
Please start reading: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Prepare something to recite.

Please look through The 42 Best lines from the Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Please read Adams’ delightful poem: Douglas Adams: A Dissertation on the task of writing a poem on a candle and an account of some of the difficulties thereto pertaining

Please look at the Taxonomy of Comedic Devices. See below.

Language Immersion
Stephen FryPlease watch this interview: Stephen Fry on Language
Please watch this short brilliantly worded improvisatory TED talk by Glenn Greenwald on the importance of privacy.

Please continue to write and post. Try perhaps to use comedic devices discussed below.

Please let me know if you need more homework.


Taxonomy of comedic devices
More of these

The absence as presence device:

The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t. — Adams


The more he looked for Piglet, the more Piglet wasn’t there. — A.A. Milne


Nothing happened, and for quite a while nothing continued to happen. — Adams


The White KingDo you see anybody coming down the road? I see nobody. Oh, that I had such eyes, that I could see nobody — and at such a distance. — Lewis Carroll


I’m sitting here completely surrounded by no beer. — Roy Clarke


In his normal state he would not strike a lamb. I’ve known him to do it’ ‘Do what?’ ‘Not strike lambs


He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. — Adams

Self referential language — direct reference to the words being used

This is obviously some strange usage of the word safe that I wasn’t previously aware of.


Surprise is no longer adequate and he is forced to resort to astonishment


Don’t believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.

Expansion of a well-known idiom beyond its normal use:

Let’s think the unthinkable, let’s do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.



I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled. — Wodehouse


Don’t be frivolous Richard. I promise — not a single frivol. Roy Clarke


Hell, it is well known, has no fury like a woman who wants her tea and can’t get it.


As a dancer, I out-Fred the nimblest Astaire.


Personification:

Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing gloves. — Wodehouse


She decided it was time to be businesslike about the map, which was a fairly rough representation of a fairly rough landscape. She worked out once and for all where the Landrover had to be, and worked it out with such ruthless determination that the Landrover would hardly dare not to be there, and eventually, of course, after miles of trekking, it was exactly there. — Adams


The word bulldozer wandered through his mind for a moment in search of something to connect with. — Adams


A man’s subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour.


I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

Literal use of an idiom not normally taken literally.

“How would you react if I said that I’m not
from Guildford after all, but from a small planet somewhere in the
vicinity of Betelgeuse?” Arthur shrugged in a so-so sort of way. “I don’t know,” he said, taking a pull of beer. “Why – do you think it’s the sort of thing you’re likely to say?”


The simile taken in unusual and unexpected directions

Good God, Clarence! You look like a bereaved tapeworm.


I clutched at the brow. The mice in my interior had now got up an informal dance and were buck-and-winging all over the place like a bunch of Nijinskys.


She uttered a sound rather like an elephant taking its foot out of a mud hole in a Burmese teak forest.


He felt like a man who, chasing rainbows, has had one of them suddenly turn and bite him in the leg.

The metaphor taken in unusual and unexpected directions
Marriage is not a process for prolonging the life of love, sir. It merely mummifies its corpse.


Lower Priority Assignments
Terry Eagleton on the war on terror. Prof. Eagleton is one of the great speakers.

Robert Fisk on writing and journalism. Fisk is one of the most highly honored journalists in the world.


Older Assignments
Please do any as yet incomplete



What is Correct English?

What does it mean to speak and write correctly? What standard, what set of rules, whose example should the student aspire to? There actually exists an irrefutable answer to these questions.

Very simply, correct language usage is that which conveys to the intended audience the message and the impression the writer or speaker would like to give. Really this is the only measure that counts. Let’s call it the Reader Rule. To the extent that the reader receives the intended message and impression, the language is the correct choice. It then only remains to determine what that language is, given a specific body of readers.

If the readers or listeners are college professors or academic colleagues, the appropriate written language is probably a fairly formal variety of Standard English (SE), depending of course on the relationships involved. In other environments – the construction site, jazz studio, football pitch, gridiron, rodeo circuit, oil rig, prison, in various corners of the military – the language treated here might be largely inappropriate and ill suited to acceptance and camaraderie. The languages that would be fitting in these environments, while beyond the scope of this book, can certainly be researched, scrutinized and emulated using the methods here presented – to the extent that they are accessible in some recorded form on the Net.

In the academic or literary worlds and in most realms of business, one would rarely ever be censured for not breaking a grammar rule, for not misusing a word according to its dictionary definition or for not failing to tie the parts of a sentence together properly. On the other hand, committing such errors may well be a cause of embarrassment and opprobrium. In most cases, well-crafted academic language differs very little from one English speaking country to another and when it does, the minor spelling and stylistic variations would only very rarely impede complete comprehension. It is for those who would communicate and interact comfortably in these realms that this book was written.


Reading
Please read: Article: Writers Should Not Fear Jargon by Trevor Quirk. Quirk wields words beautifully. In this piece he treats the importance of using appropriate vocabulary. If you are interested, go on to read his thoughtful and somewhat deprecatory but intensely eloquent review of Waking Up by Sam Harris.


Language immersion
Douglas AdamsPlease watch this short talk by Douglas Adams on his experience as a writer. Shall we look further at his works?

Ken RobinsonPlease watch this short talk by Ken Robinson on education. Does it inspire you to write an essay?




Yet Older Assignments
(please do these if you haven’t already)

MacBeth. Ian McKellen and Judy Dench

A MacBeth page has been created with two excellent video versions including one starring Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Judy Dench. Please watch.

Please watch the heated and rebarbative debate with lots of ad hominem deprecation. Note the striking difference between the language of the two debaters. Which would you prefer to emulate? Christopher Hitchens and George Galloway debate intervention in Iraq.

William F. BuckleyPlease watch this old debate beween legendary orators: William F. Buckley vs Noam Chomsky

Here is a fairly comprehensive List Of Fallacious Arguments
for reference.

Language immersion: Some fun with animals and language:

The Zoo in Winter. Please watch this wonderful piece by Jonathan Miller for its eloquence. How far does your spoken language need to go to mimic his?

2015 Scholastic Writing Awards
This is a contest to which we may want to submit papers.



The query letter
EIE is starting up a new blog that may need contributions from students. Let’s be very proper and submit query letters.

  • The lead, which is designed to catch the editor’s attention. It might be a startling statistic, a time peg, or an anecdote. Your lead should interest the editor enough to continue reading your query.
  • The why-write-it section. This paragraph (or two, if you have a particularly detailed query) fleshes out the idea, demonstrating why the readers of the magazine will be interested in the topic.
  • The nuts-and-bolts paragraph. Here you give the details of the story itself. What types of sources will you contact? How long will the story be? Will it have sidebars, and if so, how many? What section of the magazine will the story fit in? What’s the working title?
  • The I’m-so-great paragraph, or ISG. Here you highlight your relevant qualifications, including your writing experience and background with the subject matter. This is the paragraph in which you showcase your unique qualifications and convince the editor to give you the assignment.

Please watch the debate on US surveillance with Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz and constitutional attorney and journalist Glenn Greenwald. Enjoy watching this epic eloquence battle between eristic giants.

A classroom page for examples of successful essays contains a couple of examples from the essay book, Essays That Worked edited by Boykin Curry, ISBN: 0449905179. We did read parts; please read them more thoroughly and prepare to speculate upon the characteristics that make them successful.

Please consider Shakespeare plays for watching, dramatic readings and discussion. Suggestions: Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, MacBeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet. Please refer to Masefield’s Guide to the Shakespeare Plays for a quick overview. We decided to do MacBeth, possibly followed by Romeo and Juliet

Be familiar with the list of suggested debate topics

Please read the first chapter in our textbook: SAT ACT TOEFL College Prep English Practice, available at the EIE bookstore and Amazon.com.

Please watch this High School Debate Contest, the City Club of Cleveland’s High School Debate Championship. Debate is on whether the US should support and comply with the International Criminal Court.
This is a very fine debate with positions well presented and justified. The commentary is also very useful, particularly for it’s explanation of the judges’ evaluation of the contestants.

Please watch the Oxford Union whistleblower debate.



Our online classroom contains a vast trove of English language resources ranging from full text books and audiobooks to films, plays, software and all of the assignments and activities generated in previous years. Please feel free to explore and suggest any specific items for inclusion in our high priority assignments.


Please post questions, suggestions and discussion

Leave a Comment

College Prep English Class Agenda, October 16, 2014

Dear Homescholars,

This week’s class feed October 16, 2014:
Link to class event on Google Plus
https://plus.google.com/events/cg05ksltvfhtuuaob338hccl9sc

It has also been posted in our classroom theater.

The playlist for our 2014-2015 classes is here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x

To learn more about the class, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.

The playlist of 2013-2014 classes is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_XmwbFdBDNpSar91svWKDe9Y


Agenda

Debate

Left over from last week:
“Student use of TV/media/games should be rationed to encourage serious study.” Let’s do it. We will all try to take both sides.



Discussion of Assignments

Essay Writing

Let’s discuss any essays, narratives, screeds or diatribes posted.


Recitation

Everyone will be prepared to recite — original work, some reading assignment material, a Shakespeare scene. The suggestion was made to try listening to Jonathan Miller (below) first and then practicing the recitation.


Jonathan MillerLanguage immersion
Let’s discuss: Born Talking by Jonathan Miller. This four part series is an ongoing assignments on the neurology of speech.






Shakespeare

Everyone will have seen/read Romeo and Juliet, at least one version.

Let’s continue with identifying quotes.

2013 ROMEO-JULIETQuotes to identify in Romeo and Juliet. Who said each, to whom and under what circumstances?

Let’s review the quotes we discussed:

  • “Some consequence yet hanging in the stars.”
  • “I am fortune’s fool.”
  • “I defy you stars.”
  • “O what more favor can I do to thee than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain to sunder his that was thine enemy.” Forgive me cousin.
  • Death’s pale flag is not advanced there.
  • Blistered be thy tongue.
  • 100 words of that tongue’s utterance.
  • And yet I wish but for the thing I have.
  • She hath forsworn to love and in that vow, do I live dead that live to tell it now.
  • Love moderately. Long love does so.
  • Like fire and powder which when they kiss, consume.
  • Not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church door but ’tis enough. ‘Twill serve.
  • Mercutio’s soul is but a little way above our heads. Either thou, or I, or both shall go with him.
  • ‘Tis the nightingale and not the lark that pierces the fearful hollow of thine ear.
  • The more I give to thee, the more I have for both are infinite.
  • There art thou happy.
  • Run through the ear with a love song.
  • This distilling liquor drink thou of.
  • You ratcatcher!
  • Here in my house do him disparagement.
  • I am for you boy.
  • Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.
  • Not having that, which having, makes them short.
  • ‘Tis twenty years till then.
  • All are punished!
  • Oh that I were a glove upon that hand.
  • A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
  • The blind bow-boy’s butt shaft.
  • Trespass sweetly urged.
  • vile submission.
  • Oh happy dagger!
  • Too flattering sweet to be substantial.
  • Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
  • Too early seen unknown, and known too late.
  • Thou speak’st of nothing.
  • A mutiny among my guests.
  • A brace of kinsmen.
  • Never was a story of more woe.
  • It is an honor that I dream not of.
  • Prince of cats.
  • My ghostly father.
  • You are a princox.
  • A challenge.
  • The forefinger of an alderman.
  • Take back the villain that late thou gavest me.

Let’s continue with the rest:

  • Misadventured piteous overthrows.
  • Drawn, and talk of peace?
  • Another out to have.
  • Nor any other part belonging to a man.
  • There rust and let me die.
  • Come madam, let’s away.
  • Much upon those years that thou art yet a maid.
  • Swallowed all my hopes but she.
  • He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
  • Scorn at our solemnity.
  • Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
  • Verona brags of him.
  • What say you to my suit?
  • They stumble who run fast.
  • And for that name that is no part of thee, take all myself.
  • I have forgot that name and that name’s woe.
  • I remember well where I should be.
  • Churl! Drunk all and left no kindly drop to help me after.
  • for stony limits cannot hold love out.



Scenes done last week

I fear, too early: for my mind misgives
Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night’s revels; and expire the term
Of a despised life, clos’d in my breast,
By some vile forfeit of untimely death:
But He that hath the steerage of my course
Direct my sail!—On, lusty gentlemen!

Benvolio.
Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?

Romeo.
She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste;
For beauty, starv’d with her severity,
Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
She is too fair, too wise; wisely too fair,
To merit bliss by making me despair:
She hath forsworn to love; and in that vow
Do I live dead that live to tell it now.

Benvolio.
Be rul’d by me, forget to think of her.

Romeo.
O, teach me how I should forget to think.

Benvolio.
By giving liberty unto thine eyes;
Examine other beauties.

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.

Juliet.
My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy.

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Romeo.
[Aside.] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?

Juliet.
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;—
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title:—Romeo, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.

Romeo.
I take thee at thy word:
Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptiz’d;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

Juliet.
What man art thou that, thus bescreen’d in night,
So stumblest on my counsel?

Romeo.
By a name
I know not how to tell thee who I am:
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee.
Had I it written, I would tear the word.

Juliet.
My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words
Of that tongue’s utterance, yet I know the sound;
Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?

And yet I wish but for the thing I have;
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.

But come, young waverer, come go with me,
In one respect I’ll thy assistant be;
For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.

Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead! stabbed with a white wench’s black eye; shot through the ear with a love song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy’s butt-shaft: and is he a man to encounter Tybalt?

Friar.
These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die; like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume: the sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,
And in the taste confounds the appetite:
Therefore love moderately: long love doth so;

Tybalt.
Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford
No better term than this,—Thou art a villain.

Romeo.
Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee
Doth much excuse the appertaining rage
To such a greeting. Villain am I none;
Therefore farewell; I see thou know’st me not.

Tybalt.
Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries
That thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw.

Romeo.
I do protest I never injur’d thee;
But love thee better than thou canst devise
Till thou shalt know the reason of my love:
And so good Capulet,—which name I tender
As dearly as mine own,—be satisfied.

Mercutio.
O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!
Alla stoccata carries it away. [Draws.]
Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?

Mercutio.
I am hurt;—
A plague o’ both your houses!—I am sped.—
Is he gone, and hath nothing?

Benvolio.
What, art thou hurt?

Mercutio.
Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, ’tis enough.—
Where is my page?—go, villain, fetch a surgeon.

[Exit Page.]

Romeo.
Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.

Mercutio. No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but ’tis enough, ’twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world.—A plague o’ both your houses!—Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic!—Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.

Romeo.
I thought all for the best.


Romeo.
This day’s black fate on more days doth depend;
This but begins the woe others must end.

Benvolio.
Here comes the furious Tybalt back again.

Romeo.
Alive in triumph! and Mercutio slain!
Away to heaven respective lenity,
And fire-ey’d fury be my conduct now!—

[Re-enter Tybalt.]

Now, Tybalt, take the ‘villain’ back again
That late thou gavest me; for Mercutio’s soul
Is but a little way above our heads,
Staying for thine to keep him company.
Either thou or I, or both, must go with him.

Romeo.
O, I am fortune’s fool!

I will be deaf to pleading and excuses;
Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses,
Therefore use none: let Romeo hence in haste,
Else, when he is found, that hour is his last.

What storm is this that blows so contrary?
Is Romeo slaughter’d, and is Tybalt dead?
My dear-lov’d cousin, and my dearer lord?—
Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!
For who is living, if those two are gone?

Nurse.
Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;
Romeo that kill’d him, he is banished.

Juliet.
O God!—did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?

Nurse.
It did, it did; alas the day, it did!

Nurse.
There’s no trust,
No faith, no honesty in men; all perjur’d,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.—
Ah, where’s my man? Give me some aqua vitae.—
These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.
Shame come to Romeo!

Juliet.
Blister’d be thy tongue
For such a wish! he was not born to shame:
Upon his brow shame is asham’d to sit;

Romeo.
As if that name,
Shot from the deadly level of a gun,
Did murder her; as that name’s cursed hand
Murder’d her kinsman.—O, tell me, friar, tell me,
In what vile part of this anatomy
Doth my name lodge? tell me, that I may sack
The hateful mansion.

[Drawing his sword.]

Scenes left to do this week

Friar.
Hold thy desperate hand:
Art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art;
Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast;
Unseemly woman in a seeming man!
Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
Thou hast amaz’d me: by my holy order,
I thought thy disposition better temper’d.
Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself?
And slay thy lady, too, that lives in thee,
By doing damned hate upon thyself?
Why rail’st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth?
Since birth and heaven and earth, all three do meet
In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.
Fie, fie, thou sham’st thy shape, thy love, thy wit;
Which, like a usurer, abound’st in all,
And usest none in that true use indeed
Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit:
Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,
Digressing from the valour of a man;
Thy dear love sworn, but hollow perjury,
Killing that love which thou hast vow’d to cherish;
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
Mis-shapen in the conduct of them both,
Like powder in a skilless soldier’s flask,
Is set a-fire by thine own ignorance,
And thou dismember’d with thine own defence.
What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;
There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slewest Tybalt; there art thou happy too:
The law, that threaten’d death, becomes thy friend,
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy:
A pack of blessings lights upon thy back;

Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed,
Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her:
But, look, thou stay not till the watch be set,
For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
Where thou shalt live till we can find a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Than thou went’st forth in lamentation.—
Go before, nurse: commend me to thy lady;
And bid her hasten all the house to bed,
Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto.
Romeo is coming.

Nurse.
O Lord, I could have stay’d here all the night
To hear good counsel: O, what learning is!—
My lord, I’ll tell my lady you will come.

Romeo.
Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.

Juliet.
Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierc’d the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree:
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

Romeo.
It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

Juliet.
O God! I have an ill-divining soul!
Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale.

Romeo.
And trust me, love, in my eye so do you:
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!

Lady Capulet.
Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.
I would the fool were married to her grave!

Juliet.
Good father, I beseech you on my knees,
Hear me with patience but to speak a word.

Capulet.
Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!
I tell thee what,—get thee to church o’ Thursday,
Or never after look me in the face:
Speak not, reply not, do not answer me;

Juliet.
Tell me not, friar, that thou hear’st of this,
Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it:
If, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,
Do thou but call my resolution wise,
And with this knife I’ll help it presently.
God join’d my heart and Romeo’s, thou our hands;
And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo’s seal’d,
Shall be the label to another deed,
Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both:
Therefore, out of thy long-experienc’d time,
Give me some present counsel; or, behold,
‘Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
Shall play the empire; arbitrating that
Which the commission of thy years and art
Could to no issue of true honour bring.
Be not so long to speak; I long to die,
If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy.

Friar.
Hold, daughter. I do spy a kind of hope,
Which craves as desperate an execution
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry County Paris
Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then is it likely thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That cop’st with death himself to scape from it;
And, if thou dar’st, I’ll give thee remedy.

Juliet.
O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of yonder tower;
Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk
Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears;
Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house,
O’er-cover’d quite with dead men’s rattling bones,
With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;
Or bid me go into a new-made grave,
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud;
Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble;
And I will do it without fear or doubt,
To live an unstain’d wife to my sweet love.

Friar.
Hold, then; go home, be merry, give consent
To marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow;
To-morrow night look that thou lie alone,
Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:
Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off:
When, presently, through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease:
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;

In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift;
And hither shall he come: and he and I
Will watch thy waking, and that very night
Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.
And this shall free thee from this present shame,
If no inconstant toy nor womanish fear
Abate thy valour in the acting it.
Juliet.
Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!

My dismal scene I needs must act alone.—
Come, vial.—
What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I be married, then, to-morrow morning?—
No, No!—this shall forbid it:—lie thou there.—

[Laying down her dagger.]

Capulet.
Ha! let me see her:—out alas! she’s cold;
Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff;
Life and these lips have long been separated:
Death lies on her like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.
Accursed time! unfortunate old man!

Nurse.
O lamentable day!

Lady Capulet.
O woful time!

Capulet.
Death, that hath ta’en her hence to make me wail,
Ties up my tongue and will not let me speak.

[Enter Balthasar.]

News from Verona!—How now, Balthasar?
Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?
How doth my lady? Is my father well?
How fares my Juliet? that I ask again;
For nothing can be ill if she be well.

Balthasar.
Then she is well, and nothing can be ill:
Her body sleeps in Capel’s monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives.
I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault,
And presently took post to tell it you:
O, pardon me for bringing these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, sir.

Romeo.
Is it even so? then I defy you, stars!—
Thou know’st my lodging: get me ink and paper,
And hire post-horses. I will hence to-night.

Balthasar.
I do beseech you, sir, have patience:
Your looks are pale and wild, and do import
Some misadventure.

Romeo.
Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorg’d with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,

[Breaking open the door of the monument.]

And, in despite, I’ll cram thee with more food!

Paris.
This is that banish’d haughty Montague
That murder’d my love’s cousin,—with which grief,
It is supposed, the fair creature died,—
And here is come to do some villanous shame
To the dead bodies: I will apprehend him.—

[Advances.]

Stop thy unhallow’d toil, vile Montague!
Can vengeance be pursu’d further than death?
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee;
Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.

Romeo.
I must indeed; and therefore came I hither.—
Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man;
Fly hence and leave me:—think upon these gone;
Let them affright thee.—I beseech thee, youth,
Put not another sin upon my head
By urging me to fury: O, be gone!

Death, that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
Thou art not conquer’d; beauty’s ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death’s pale flag is not advanced there.—
Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
O, what more favour can I do to thee
Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain
To sunder his that was thine enemy?
Forgive me, cousin!

Here’s to my love! [Drinks.]—O true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick.—Thus with a kiss I die.

Juliet.
O comfortable friar! where is my lord?—
I do remember well where I should be,
And there I am:—where is my Romeo?

[Noise within.]

Friar.
I hear some noise.—Lady, come from that nest
Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep:
A greater power than we can contradict
Hath thwarted our intents:—come, come away!

What’s here? a cup, clos’d in my true love’s hand?
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end:—
O churl! drink all, and left no friendly drop
To help me after?—I will kiss thy lips;
Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,
To make me die with a restorative.

[Kisses him.]

Thy lips are warm!

1 Watch. [Within.] Lead, boy:—which way?

Juliet.
Yea, noise?—Then I’ll be brief.—O happy dagger!

[Snatching Romeo’s dagger.]

This is thy sheath [stabs herself]; there rest, and let me die.


Where be these enemies?—Capulet,—Montague,—
See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!
And I, for winking at your discords too,
Have lost a brace of kinsmen:—all are punish’d.

Capulet.
O brother Montague, give me thy hand:
This is my daughter’s jointure, for no more
Can I demand.

Montague.
But I can give thee more:
For I will raise her statue in pure gold;
That while Verona by that name is known,
There shall no figure at such rate be set
As that of true and faithful Juliet.

Capulet.
As rich shall Romeo’s by his lady’s lie;
Poor sacrifices of our enmity!

Prince.
A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished;
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.


Lower Priority Assignments
Terry Eagleton on the war on terror. Eagleton is one of the great speakers.


Older Assignments
Please do any as yet incomplete



What is Correct English?

What does it mean to speak and write correctly? What standard, what set of rules, whose example should the student aspire to? There actually exists an irrefutable answer to these questions.

Very simply, correct language usage is that which conveys to the intended audience the message and the impression the writer or speaker would like to give. Really this is the only measure that counts. Let’s call it the Reader Rule. To the extent that the reader receives the intended message and impression, the language is the correct choice. It then only remains to determine what that language is, given a specific body of readers.

If the readers or listeners are college professors or academic colleagues, the appropriate written language is probably a fairly formal variety of Standard English (SE), depending of course on the relationships involved. In other environments – the construction site, jazz studio, football pitch, gridiron, rodeo circuit, oil rig, prison, in various corners of the military – the language treated here might be largely inappropriate and ill suited to acceptance and camaraderie. The languages that would be fitting in these environments, while beyond the scope of this book, can certainly be researched, scrutinized and emulated using the methods here presented – to the extent that they are accessible in some recorded form on the Net.

In the academic or literary worlds and in most realms of business, one would rarely ever be censured for not breaking a grammar rule, for not misusing a word according to its dictionary definition or for not failing to tie the parts of a sentence together properly. On the other hand, committing such errors may well be a cause of embarrassment and opprobrium. In most cases, well-crafted academic language differs very little from one English speaking country to another and when it does, the minor spelling and stylistic variations would only very rarely impede complete comprehension. It is for those who would communicate and interact comfortably in these realms that this book was written.


Reading
Please read: Article: Writers Should Not Fear Jargon by Trevor Quirk. Quirk wields words beautifully. In this piece he treats the importance of using appropriate vocabulary. If you are interested, go on to read his thoughtful and somewhat deprecatory but intensely eloquent review of Waking Up by Sam Harris.


Language immersion
Douglas AdamsPlease watch this short talk by Douglas Adams on his experience as a writer. Shall we look further at his works?

Ken RobinsonPlease watch this short talk by Ken Robinson on education. Does it inspire you to write an essay?




Yet Older Assignments
(please do these if you haven’t already)

MacBeth. Ian McKellen and Judy Dench

A MacBeth page has been created with two excellent video versions including one starring Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Judy Dench. Please watch.

Please watch the heated and rebarbative debate with lots of ad hominem deprecation. Note the striking difference between the language of the two debaters. Which would you prefer to emulate? Christopher Hitchens and George Galloway debate intervention in Iraq.

William F. BuckleyPlease watch this old debate beween legendary orators: William F. Buckley vs Noam Chomsky

Here is a fairly comprehensive List Of Fallacious Arguments
for reference.

Language immersion: Some fun with animals and language:

The Zoo in Winter. Please watch this wonderful piece by Jonathan Miller for its eloquence. How far does your spoken language need to go to mimic his?

2015 Scholastic Writing Awards
This is a contest to which we may want to submit papers.



The query letter
EIE is starting up a new blog that may need contributions from students. Let’s be very proper and submit query letters.

  • The lead, which is designed to catch the editor’s attention. It might be a startling statistic, a time peg, or an anecdote. Your lead should interest the editor enough to continue reading your query.
  • The why-write-it section. This paragraph (or two, if you have a particularly detailed query) fleshes out the idea, demonstrating why the readers of the magazine will be interested in the topic.
  • The nuts-and-bolts paragraph. Here you give the details of the story itself. What types of sources will you contact? How long will the story be? Will it have sidebars, and if so, how many? What section of the magazine will the story fit in? What’s the working title?
  • The I’m-so-great paragraph, or ISG. Here you highlight your relevant qualifications, including your writing experience and background with the subject matter. This is the paragraph in which you showcase your unique qualifications and convince the editor to give you the assignment.

Please watch the debate on US surveillance with Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz and constitutional attorney and journalist Glenn Greenwald. Enjoy watching this epic eloquence battle between eristic giants.

A classroom page for examples of successful essays contains a couple of examples from the essay book, Essays That Worked edited by Boykin Curry, ISBN: 0449905179. We did read parts; please read them more thoroughly and prepare to speculate upon the characteristics that make them successful.

Please consider Shakespeare plays for watching, dramatic readings and discussion. Suggestions: Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, MacBeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet. Please refer to Masefield’s Guide to the Shakespeare Plays for a quick overview. We decided to do MacBeth, possibly followed by Romeo and Juliet

Be familiar with the list of suggested debate topics

Please read the first chapter in our textbook: SAT ACT TOEFL College Prep English Practice, available at the EIE bookstore and Amazon.com.

Please watch this High School Debate Contest, the City Club of Cleveland’s High School Debate Championship. Debate is on whether the US should support and comply with the International Criminal Court.
This is a very fine debate with positions well presented and justified. The commentary is also very useful, particularly for it’s explanation of the judges’ evaluation of the contestants.

Please watch the Oxford Union whistleblower debate.



Our online classroom contains a vast trove of English language resources ranging from full text books and audiobooks to films, plays, software and all of the assignments and activities generated in previous years. Please feel free to explore and suggest any specific items for inclusion in our high priority assignments.


Please post questions, suggestions and discussion

Leave a Comment

College Prep English Class Agenda, October 9, 2014

Dear Homescholars,

Note that some links below are to pages inside our classroom.  In most cases a simple search will find the resource easily though. To learn more about the class, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.

This week’s feed has been posted in our classroom theater
and will take place through Google Plus.





The
playlist for our 2014-2015 classes is here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x



The playlist of 2013-2014 classes is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_XmwbFdBDNpSar91svWKDe9Y


Agenda

Debate

In the absence of submitted debate topics, let’s use:
“Student use of TV/media/games should be rationed to encourage serious study.” Let’s do it. We will all try to take both sides.


Discussion of Assignments

Reading
Article: Writers Should Not Fear Jargon by Trevor Quirk.

If you went on to read his thoughtful and somewhat deprecatory but intensely eloquent review of Waking Up by Sam Harris, let’s discuss that.

Shakespeare

Everyone will have seen/read Romeo and Juliet, at least one version.

Let’s identify the quotes and do some scenes:

2013 ROMEO-JULIETSome quotes to identify in Romeo and Juliet. Who said each, to whom and under what circumstances?

  • “Some consequence yet hanging in the stars.”
  • “I am fortune’s fool.”
  • “I defy you stars.”
  • “O what more favor can I do to thee than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain to sunder his that was thine enemy.” Forgive me cousin.
  • Death’s pale flag is not advanced there.
  • Blistered be thy tongue.
  • 100 words of that tongue’s utterance.
  • And yet I wish but for the thing I have.
  • She hath forsworn to love and in that vow, do I live dead that live to tell it now.
  • Love moderately. Long love does so.
  • Like fire and powder which when they kiss, consume.
  • Not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church door but ’tis enough. ‘Twill serve.
  • Mercutio’s soul is but a little way above our heads. Either thou, or I, or both shall go with him.
  • ‘Tis the nightingale and not the lark that pierces the fearful hollow of thine ear.
  • The more I give to thee, the more I have for both are infinite.
  • There art thou happy.
  • Run through the ear with a love song.
  • This distilling liquor drink thou of.
  • You ratcatcher!
  • Here in my house do him disparagement.
  • I am for you boy.
  • Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.
  • Not having that, which having, makes them short.
  • ‘Tis twenty years till then.
  • All are punished!
  • Oh that I were a glove upon that hand.
  • A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
  • The blind bow-boy’s butt shaft.
  • Trespass sweetly urged.
  • vile submission.
  • Oh happy dagger!
  • Too flattering sweet to be substantial.
  • Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
  • Too early seen unknown, and known too late.
  • Thou speak’st of nothing.
  • A mutiny among my guests.
  • A brace of kinsmen.
  • Never was a story of more woe.
  • It is an honor that I dream not of.
  • Prince of cats.
  • My ghostly father.
  • You are a princox.
  • A challenge.
  • The forefinger of an alderman.
  • Take back the villain that late thou gavest me.
  • Misadventured piteous overthrows.
  • Drawn, and talk of peace?
  • Another out to have.
  • Nor any other part belonging to a man.
  • There rust and let me die.
  • Come madam, let’s away.
  • Much upon those years that thou art yet a maid.
  • Swallowed all my hopes but she.
  • He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
  • Scorn at our solemnity.
  • Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
  • Verona brags of him.
  • What say you to my suit?
  • They stumble who run fast.
  • And for that name that is no part of thee, take all myself.
  • I have forgot that name and that name’s woe.
  • I remember well where I should be.
  • Churl! Drunk all and left no kindly drop to help me after.
  • for stony limits cannot hold love out.



Scenes


I fear, too early: for my mind misgives
Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night’s revels; and expire the term
Of a despised life, clos’d in my breast,
By some vile forfeit of untimely death:
But He that hath the steerage of my course
Direct my sail!—On, lusty gentlemen!

Benvolio.
Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?

Romeo.
She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste;
For beauty, starv’d with her severity,
Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
She is too fair, too wise; wisely too fair,
To merit bliss by making me despair:
She hath forsworn to love; and in that vow
Do I live dead that live to tell it now.

Benvolio.
Be rul’d by me, forget to think of her.

Romeo.
O, teach me how I should forget to think.

Benvolio.
By giving liberty unto thine eyes;
Examine other beauties.

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.

Juliet.
My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy.

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Romeo.
[Aside.] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?

Juliet.
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;—
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title:—Romeo, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.

Romeo.
I take thee at thy word:
Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptiz’d;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

Juliet.
What man art thou that, thus bescreen’d in night,
So stumblest on my counsel?

Romeo.
By a name
I know not how to tell thee who I am:
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee.
Had I it written, I would tear the word.

Juliet.
My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words
Of that tongue’s utterance, yet I know the sound;
Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?

And yet I wish but for the thing I have;
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.

But come, young waverer, come go with me,
In one respect I’ll thy assistant be;
For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.

Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead! stabbed with a white wench’s black eye; shot through the ear with a love song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy’s butt-shaft: and is he a man to encounter Tybalt?

Friar.
These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die; like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume: the sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,
And in the taste confounds the appetite:
Therefore love moderately: long love doth so;

Tybalt.
Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford
No better term than this,—Thou art a villain.

Romeo.
Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee
Doth much excuse the appertaining rage
To such a greeting. Villain am I none;
Therefore farewell; I see thou know’st me not.

Tybalt.
Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries
That thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw.

Romeo.
I do protest I never injur’d thee;
But love thee better than thou canst devise
Till thou shalt know the reason of my love:
And so good Capulet,—which name I tender
As dearly as mine own,—be satisfied.

Mercutio.
O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!
Alla stoccata carries it away. [Draws.]
Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?

Mercutio.
I am hurt;—
A plague o’ both your houses!—I am sped.—
Is he gone, and hath nothing?

Benvolio.
What, art thou hurt?

Mercutio.
Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, ’tis enough.—
Where is my page?—go, villain, fetch a surgeon.

[Exit Page.]

Romeo.
Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.

Mercutio. No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but ’tis enough, ’twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world.—A plague o’ both your houses!—Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic!—Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.

Romeo.
I thought all for the best.


Romeo.
This day’s black fate on more days doth depend;
This but begins the woe others must end.

Benvolio.
Here comes the furious Tybalt back again.

Romeo.
Alive in triumph! and Mercutio slain!
Away to heaven respective lenity,
And fire-ey’d fury be my conduct now!—

[Re-enter Tybalt.]

Now, Tybalt, take the ‘villain’ back again
That late thou gavest me; for Mercutio’s soul
Is but a little way above our heads,
Staying for thine to keep him company.
Either thou or I, or both, must go with him.

Romeo.
O, I am fortune’s fool!

I will be deaf to pleading and excuses;
Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses,
Therefore use none: let Romeo hence in haste,
Else, when he is found, that hour is his last.

What storm is this that blows so contrary?
Is Romeo slaughter’d, and is Tybalt dead?
My dear-lov’d cousin, and my dearer lord?—
Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!
For who is living, if those two are gone?

Nurse.
Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;
Romeo that kill’d him, he is banished.

Juliet.
O God!—did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?

Nurse.
It did, it did; alas the day, it did!

Nurse.
There’s no trust,
No faith, no honesty in men; all perjur’d,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.—
Ah, where’s my man? Give me some aqua vitae.—
These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.
Shame come to Romeo!

Juliet.
Blister’d be thy tongue
For such a wish! he was not born to shame:
Upon his brow shame is asham’d to sit;

Romeo.
As if that name,
Shot from the deadly level of a gun,
Did murder her; as that name’s cursed hand
Murder’d her kinsman.—O, tell me, friar, tell me,
In what vile part of this anatomy
Doth my name lodge? tell me, that I may sack
The hateful mansion.

[Drawing his sword.]

Friar.
Hold thy desperate hand:
Art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art;
Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast;
Unseemly woman in a seeming man!
Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
Thou hast amaz’d me: by my holy order,
I thought thy disposition better temper’d.
Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself?
And slay thy lady, too, that lives in thee,
By doing damned hate upon thyself?
Why rail’st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth?
Since birth and heaven and earth, all three do meet
In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.
Fie, fie, thou sham’st thy shape, thy love, thy wit;
Which, like a usurer, abound’st in all,
And usest none in that true use indeed
Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit:
Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,
Digressing from the valour of a man;
Thy dear love sworn, but hollow perjury,
Killing that love which thou hast vow’d to cherish;
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
Mis-shapen in the conduct of them both,
Like powder in a skilless soldier’s flask,
Is set a-fire by thine own ignorance,
And thou dismember’d with thine own defence.
What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;
There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slewest Tybalt; there art thou happy too:
The law, that threaten’d death, becomes thy friend,
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy:
A pack of blessings lights upon thy back;

Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed,
Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her:
But, look, thou stay not till the watch be set,
For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
Where thou shalt live till we can find a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Than thou went’st forth in lamentation.—
Go before, nurse: commend me to thy lady;
And bid her hasten all the house to bed,
Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto.
Romeo is coming.

Nurse.
O Lord, I could have stay’d here all the night
To hear good counsel: O, what learning is!—
My lord, I’ll tell my lady you will come.

Romeo.
Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.

Juliet.
Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierc’d the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree:
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

Romeo.
It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

Juliet.
O God! I have an ill-divining soul!
Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale.

Romeo.
And trust me, love, in my eye so do you:
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!

Lady Capulet.
Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.
I would the fool were married to her grave!

Juliet.
Good father, I beseech you on my knees,
Hear me with patience but to speak a word.

Capulet.
Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!
I tell thee what,—get thee to church o’ Thursday,
Or never after look me in the face:
Speak not, reply not, do not answer me;

Juliet.
Tell me not, friar, that thou hear’st of this,
Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it:
If, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,
Do thou but call my resolution wise,
And with this knife I’ll help it presently.
God join’d my heart and Romeo’s, thou our hands;
And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo’s seal’d,
Shall be the label to another deed,
Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both:
Therefore, out of thy long-experienc’d time,
Give me some present counsel; or, behold,
‘Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
Shall play the empire; arbitrating that
Which the commission of thy years and art
Could to no issue of true honour bring.
Be not so long to speak; I long to die,
If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy.

Friar.
Hold, daughter. I do spy a kind of hope,
Which craves as desperate an execution
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry County Paris
Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then is it likely thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That cop’st with death himself to scape from it;
And, if thou dar’st, I’ll give thee remedy.

Juliet.
O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of yonder tower;
Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk
Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears;
Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house,
O’er-cover’d quite with dead men’s rattling bones,
With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;
Or bid me go into a new-made grave,
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud;
Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble;
And I will do it without fear or doubt,
To live an unstain’d wife to my sweet love.

Friar.
Hold, then; go home, be merry, give consent
To marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow;
To-morrow night look that thou lie alone,
Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:
Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off:
When, presently, through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease:
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;

In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift;
And hither shall he come: and he and I
Will watch thy waking, and that very night
Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.
And this shall free thee from this present shame,
If no inconstant toy nor womanish fear
Abate thy valour in the acting it.
Juliet.
Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!

My dismal scene I needs must act alone.—
Come, vial.—
What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I be married, then, to-morrow morning?—
No, No!—this shall forbid it:—lie thou there.—

[Laying down her dagger.]

Capulet.
Ha! let me see her:—out alas! she’s cold;
Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff;
Life and these lips have long been separated:
Death lies on her like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.
Accursed time! unfortunate old man!

Nurse.
O lamentable day!

Lady Capulet.
O woful time!

Capulet.
Death, that hath ta’en her hence to make me wail,
Ties up my tongue and will not let me speak.

[Enter Balthasar.]

News from Verona!—How now, Balthasar?
Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?
How doth my lady? Is my father well?
How fares my Juliet? that I ask again;
For nothing can be ill if she be well.

Balthasar.
Then she is well, and nothing can be ill:
Her body sleeps in Capel’s monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives.
I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault,
And presently took post to tell it you:
O, pardon me for bringing these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, sir.

Romeo.
Is it even so? then I defy you, stars!—
Thou know’st my lodging: get me ink and paper,
And hire post-horses. I will hence to-night.

Balthasar.
I do beseech you, sir, have patience:
Your looks are pale and wild, and do import
Some misadventure.

Romeo.
Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorg’d with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,

[Breaking open the door of the monument.]

And, in despite, I’ll cram thee with more food!

Paris.
This is that banish’d haughty Montague
That murder’d my love’s cousin,—with which grief,
It is supposed, the fair creature died,—
And here is come to do some villanous shame
To the dead bodies: I will apprehend him.—

[Advances.]

Stop thy unhallow’d toil, vile Montague!
Can vengeance be pursu’d further than death?
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee;
Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.

Romeo.
I must indeed; and therefore came I hither.—
Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man;
Fly hence and leave me:—think upon these gone;
Let them affright thee.—I beseech thee, youth,
Put not another sin upon my head
By urging me to fury: O, be gone!

Death, that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
Thou art not conquer’d; beauty’s ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death’s pale flag is not advanced there.—
Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
O, what more favour can I do to thee
Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain
To sunder his that was thine enemy?
Forgive me, cousin!

Here’s to my love! [Drinks.]—O true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick.—Thus with a kiss I die.

Juliet.
O comfortable friar! where is my lord?—
I do remember well where I should be,
And there I am:—where is my Romeo?

[Noise within.]

Friar.
I hear some noise.—Lady, come from that nest
Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep:
A greater power than we can contradict
Hath thwarted our intents:—come, come away!

What’s here? a cup, clos’d in my true love’s hand?
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end:—
O churl! drink all, and left no friendly drop
To help me after?—I will kiss thy lips;
Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,
To make me die with a restorative.

[Kisses him.]

Thy lips are warm!

1 Watch. [Within.] Lead, boy:—which way?

Juliet.
Yea, noise?—Then I’ll be brief.—O happy dagger!

[Snatching Romeo’s dagger.]

This is thy sheath [stabs herself]; there rest, and let me die.


Where be these enemies?—Capulet,—Montague,—
See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!
And I, for winking at your discords too,
Have lost a brace of kinsmen:—all are punish’d.

Capulet.
O brother Montague, give me thy hand:
This is my daughter’s jointure, for no more
Can I demand.

Montague.
But I can give thee more:
For I will raise her statue in pure gold;
That while Verona by that name is known,
There shall no figure at such rate be set
As that of true and faithful Juliet.

Capulet.
As rich shall Romeo’s by his lady’s lie;
Poor sacrifices of our enmity!

Prince.
A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished;
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.


Language immersion
Douglas AdamsLet’s discuss: this short talk by Douglas Adams on his experience as a writer. Shall we look further at his works?


Ken RobinsonLet’s discuss this short talk by Ken Robinson on education. Does it inspire you to write an essay?



Grammar

Let’s discuss chapter 3 in the text.



Let’s discuss:

What is Correct English?

What does it mean to speak and write correctly? What standard, what set of rules, whose example should the student aspire to? There actually exists an irrefutable answer to these questions.

Very simply, correct language usage is that which conveys to the intended audience the message and the impression the writer or speaker would like to give. Really this is the only measure that counts. Let’s call it the Reader Rule. To the extent that the reader receives the intended message and impression, the language is the correct choice. It then only remains to determine what that language is, given a specific body of readers.

If the readers or listeners are college professors or academic colleagues, the appropriate written language is probably a fairly formal variety of Standard English (SE), depending of course on the relationships involved. In other environments – the construction site, jazz studio, football pitch, gridiron, rodeo circuit, oil rig, prison, in various corners of the military – the language treated here might be largely inappropriate and ill suited to acceptance and camaraderie. The languages that would be fitting in these environments, while beyond the scope of this book, can certainly be researched, scrutinized and emulated using the methods here presented – to the extent that they are accessible in some recorded form on the Net.

In the academic or literary worlds and in most realms of business, one would rarely ever be censured for not breaking a grammar rule, for not misusing a word according to its dictionary definition or for not failing to tie the parts of a sentence together properly. On the other hand, committing such errors may well be a cause of embarrassment and opprobrium. In most cases, well-crafted academic language differs very little from one English speaking country to another and when it does, the minor spelling and stylistic variations would only very rarely impede complete comprehension. It is for those who would communicate and interact comfortably in these realms that this book was written.


Essay Writing

Project discussion.


Assignments
Please do any as yet incomplete

Reading
Please read: Article: Writers Should Not Fear Jargon by Trevor Quirk. Quirk wields words beautifully. In this piece he treats the importance of using appropriate vocabulary. If you are interested, go on to read his thoughtful and somewhat deprecatory but intensely eloquent review of Waking Up by Sam Harris.

Shakespeare

Oh happy daggerPlease see the Romeo and Juliet page, watch the videos, refer to the text, try to identify the quotes.




Language immersion
Douglas AdamsPlease watch this short talk by Douglas Adams on his experience as a writer. Shall we look further at his works?


Ken RobinsonPlease watch this short talk by Ken Robinson on education. Does it inspire you to write an essay?



Grammar

Please go on to chapter 3 in the text.


Please read this from the introduction to the text:

What is Correct English?

What does it mean to speak and write correctly? What standard, what set of rules, whose example should the student aspire to? There actually exists an irrefutable answer to these questions.

Very simply, correct language usage is that which conveys to the intended audience the message and the impression the writer or speaker would like to give. Really this is the only measure that counts. Let’s call it the Reader Rule. To the extent that the reader receives the intended message and impression, the language is the correct choice. It then only remains to determine what that language is, given a specific body of readers.

If the readers or listeners are college professors or academic colleagues, the appropriate written language is probably a fairly formal variety of Standard English (SE), depending of course on the relationships involved. In other environments – the construction site, jazz studio, football pitch, gridiron, rodeo circuit, oil rig, prison, in various corners of the military – the language treated here might be largely inappropriate and ill suited to acceptance and camaraderie. The languages that would be fitting in these environments, while beyond the scope of this book, can certainly be researched, scrutinized and emulated using the methods here presented – to the extent that they are accessible in some recorded form on the Net.

In the academic or literary worlds and in most realms of business, one would rarely ever be censured for not breaking a grammar rule, for not misusing a word according to its dictionary definition or for not failing to tie the parts of a sentence together properly. On the other hand, committing such errors may well be a cause of embarrassment and opprobrium. In most cases, well-crafted academic language differs very little from one English speaking country to another and when it does, the minor spelling and stylistic variations would only very rarely impede complete comprehension. It is for those who would communicate and interact comfortably in these realms that this book was written.


Essay Writing

Please continue to write essays, narratives, screeds or diatribes.


Lower Priority Assignments
Terry Eagleton on the war on terror. Eagleton is one of the great speakers.


Older Assignments
(please do these if you haven’t already)

MacBeth. Ian McKellen and Judy Dench

A MacBeth page has been created with two excellent video versions including one starring Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Judy Dench. Please watch.

Please watch the heated and rebarbative debate with lots of ad hominem deprecation. Note the striking difference between the language of the two debaters. Which would you prefer to emulate? Christopher Hitchens and George Galloway debate intervention in Iraq.

William F. BuckleyPlease watch this old debate beween legendary orators: William F. Buckley vs Noam Chomsky

Here is a fairly comprehensive List Of Fallacious Arguments
for reference.

Language immersion: Some fun with animals and language:

The Zoo in Winter. Please watch this wonderful piece by Jonathan Miller for its eloquence. How far does your spoken language need to go to mimic his?

2015 Scholastic Writing Awards
This is a contest to which we may want to submit papers.



The query letter
EIE is starting up a new blog that may need contributions from students. Let’s be very proper and submit query letters.

  • The lead, which is designed to catch the editor’s attention. It might be a startling statistic, a time peg, or an anecdote. Your lead should interest the editor enough to continue reading your query.
  • The why-write-it section. This paragraph (or two, if you have a particularly detailed query) fleshes out the idea, demonstrating why the readers of the magazine will be interested in the topic.
  • The nuts-and-bolts paragraph. Here you give the details of the story itself. What types of sources will you contact? How long will the story be? Will it have sidebars, and if so, how many? What section of the magazine will the story fit in? What’s the working title?
  • The I’m-so-great paragraph, or ISG. Here you highlight your relevant qualifications, including your writing experience and background with the subject matter. This is the paragraph in which you showcase your unique qualifications and convince the editor to give you the assignment.

Please watch the debate on US surveillance with Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz and constitutional attorney and journalist Glenn Greenwald. Enjoy watching this epic eloquence battle between eristic giants.

A classroom page for examples of successful essays contains a couple of examples from the essay book, Essays That Worked edited by Boykin Curry, ISBN: 0449905179. We did read parts; please read them more thoroughly and prepare to speculate upon the characteristics that make them successful.

Please consider Shakespeare plays for watching, dramatic readings and discussion. Suggestions: Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, MacBeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet. Please refer to Masefield’s Guide to the Shakespeare Plays for a quick overview. We decided to do MacBeth, possibly followed by Romeo and Juliet

Be familiar with the list of suggested debate topics

Please read the first chapter in our textbook: SAT ACT TOEFL College Prep English Practice, available at the EIE bookstore and Amazon.com.

Please watch this High School Debate Contest, the City Club of Cleveland’s High School Debate Championship. Debate is on whether the US should support and comply with the International Criminal Court.
This is a very fine debate with positions well presented and justified. The commentary is also very useful, particularly for it’s explanation of the judges’ evaluation of the contestants.

Please watch the Oxford Union whistleblower debate.



Our online classroom contains a vast trove of English language resources ranging from full text books and audiobooks to films, plays, software and all of the assignments and activities generated in previous years. Please feel free to explore and suggest any specific items for inclusion in our high priority assignments.


Please post questions, suggestions and discussion

Leave a Comment

College Prep English Updated Assignments Oct. 5, 2014

Note: most references in this posting can easily be searched and the material below used by anyone.  If you would like access to the classroom and the links, please see: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html

Updated Assignments

Reading
Please read: Article: Writers Should Not Fear Jargon by Trevor Quirk. Quirk wields words beautifully. In this piece he treats the importance of using appropriate vocabulary. If you are interested, go on to read his thoughtful and somewhat deprecatory but intensely eloquent review of Waking Up by Sam Harris.

Shakespeare

Oh happy daggerPlease see the Romeo and Juliet page, watch the videos, refer to the text, try to identify the quotes:

Some quotes to identify in Romeo and Juliet. We’ll discuss these and their significance this week:

  • “Some consequence yet hanging in the stars.”
  • “I am fortune’s fool.”
  • “I defy you stars.”
  • “O what more favor can I do to thee than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain to sunder his that was thine enemy.” Forgive me cousin.
  • Death’s pale flag is not advanced there.
  • Blistered be thy tongue.
  • 100 words of that tongue’s utterance.
  • And yet I wish but for the thing I have.
  • She hath forsworn to love and in that vow, do I live dead that live to tell it now.
  • Love moderately. Long love does so.
  • Like fire and powder which when they kiss, consume.
  • Not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church door but ’tis enough. ‘Twill serve.
  • Mercutio’s soul is but a little way above our heads. Either thou, or I, or both shall go with him.
  • ‘Tis the nightingale and not the lark that pierces the fearful hollow of thine ear.
  • The more I give to thee, the more I have for both are infinite.
  • There art thou happy.
  • Run through the ear with a love song.
  • This distilling liquor drink thou of.
  • You ratcatcher!
  • Here in my house do him disparagement.
  • I am for you boy.
  • Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.
  • Not having that, which having, makes them short.
  • ‘Tis twenty years till then.
  • All are punished!
  • Oh that I were a glove upon that hand.
  • A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
  • The blind bow-boy’s butt shaft.
  • Trespass sweetly urged.
  • vile submission.
  • Oh happy dagger!
  • Too flattering sweet to be substantial.
  • Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
  • Too early seen unknown, and known too late.
  • Thou speak’st of nothing.
  • A mutiny among my guests.
  • A brace of kinsmen.
  • Never was a story of more woe.
  • It is an honor that I dream not of.
  • Prince of cats.
  • My ghostly father.
  • You are a princox.
  • A challenge.
  • The forefinger of an alderman.
  • Take back the villain that late thou gavest me.
  • Misadventured piteous overthrows.
  • Drawn, and talk of peace?
  • Another out to have.
  • Nor any other part belonging to a man.
  • There rust and let me die.
  • Come madam, let’s away.
  • Much upon those years that thou art yet a maid.
  • Swallowed all my hopes but she.
  • He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
  • Scorn at our solemnity.
  • Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
  • Verona brags of him.
  • What say you to my suit?
  • They stumble who run fast.
  • And for that name that is no part of thee, take all myself.
  • I have forgot that name and that name’s woe.
  • I remember well where I should be.
  • Churl! Drunk all and left no kindly drop to help me after.
  • for stony limits cannot hold love out.




Language immersion
Douglas AdamsPlease watch this short talk by Douglas Adams on his experience as a writer. Shall we look further at his works?

Ken RobinsonPlease watch this short talk by Ken Robinson on education. Does it inspire you to write an essay?



Grammar

Please go on to chapter 3 in the text.

Please read this from the introduction to the text:

What is Correct English?

What does it mean to speak and write correctly? What standard, what set of rules, whose example should the student aspire to? There actually exists an irrefutable answer to these questions.

Very simply, correct language usage is that which conveys to the intended audience the message and the impression the writer or speaker would like to give. Really this is the only measure that counts. Let’s call it the Reader Rule. To the extent that the reader receives the intended message and impression, the language is the correct choice. It then only remains to determine what that language is, given a specific body of readers.

If the readers or listeners are college professors or academic colleagues, the appropriate written language is probably a fairly formal variety of Standard English (SE), depending of course on the relationships involved. In other environments – the construction site, jazz studio, football pitch, gridiron, rodeo circuit, oil rig, prison, in various corners of the military – the language treated here might be largely inappropriate and ill suited to acceptance and camaraderie. The languages that would be fitting in these environments, while beyond the scope of this book, can certainly be researched, scrutinized and emulated using the methods here presented – to the extent that they are accessible in some recorded form on the Net.

In the academic or literary worlds and in most realms of business, one would rarely ever be censured for not breaking a grammar rule, for not misusing a word according to its dictionary definition or for not failing to tie the parts of a sentence together properly. On the other hand, committing such errors may well be a cause of embarrassment and opprobrium. In most cases, well-crafted academic language differs very little from one English speaking country to another and when it does, the minor spelling and stylistic variations would only very rarely impede complete comprehension. It is for those who would communicate and interact comfortably in these realms that this book was written.


Essay Writing

Please continue to write essays, narratives, screeds or diatribes.


Lower Priority Assignments
Terry Eagleton on the war on terror. Eagleton is one of the great speakers.


Older Assignments
(please do these if you haven’t already)

MacBeth. Ian McKellen and Judy Dench

A MacBeth page has been created with two excellent video versions including one starring Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Judy Dench. Please watch.

Please watch the heated and rebarbative debate with lots of ad hominem deprecation. Note the striking difference between the language of the two debaters. Which would you prefer to emulate? Christopher Hitchens and George Galloway debate intervention in Iraq.

William F. BuckleyPlease watch this old debate beween legendary orators: William F. Buckley vs Noam Chomsky

Here is a fairly comprehensive List Of Fallacious Arguments
for reference.

Language immersion: Some fun with animals and language:

The Zoo in Winter. Please watch this wonderful piece by Jonathan Miller for its eloquence. How far does your spoken language need to go to mimic his?

2015 Scholastic Writing Awards
This is a contest to which we may want to submit papers.



The query letter
EIE is starting up a new blog that may need contributions from students. Let’s be very proper and submit query letters.

  • The lead, which is designed to catch the editor’s attention. It might be a startling statistic, a time peg, or an anecdote. Your lead should interest the editor enough to continue reading your query.
  • The why-write-it section. This paragraph (or two, if you have a particularly detailed query) fleshes out the idea, demonstrating why the readers of the magazine will be interested in the topic.
  • The nuts-and-bolts paragraph. Here you give the details of the story itself. What types of sources will you contact? How long will the story be? Will it have sidebars, and if so, how many? What section of the magazine will the story fit in? What’s the working title?
  • The I’m-so-great paragraph, or ISG. Here you highlight your relevant qualifications, including your writing experience and background with the subject matter. This is the paragraph in which you showcase your unique qualifications and convince the editor to give you the assignment.

Please watch the debate on US surveillance with Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz and constitutional attorney and journalist Glenn Greenwald. Enjoy watching this epic eloquence battle between eristic giants.

A classroom page for examples of successful essays contains a couple of examples from the essay book, Essays That Worked edited by Boykin Curry, ISBN: 0449905179. We did read parts; please read them more thoroughly and prepare to speculate upon the characteristics that make them successful.

Please consider Shakespeare plays for watching, dramatic readings and discussion. Suggestions: Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, MacBeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet. Please refer to Masefield’s Guide to the Shakespeare Plays for a quick overview. We decided to do MacBeth, possibly followed by Romeo and Juliet

Be familiar with the list of suggested debate topics

Please read the first chapter in our textbook: SAT ACT TOEFL College Prep English Practice, available at the EIE bookstore and Amazon.com.

Please watch this High School Debate Contest, the City Club of Cleveland’s High School Debate Championship. Debate is on whether the US should support and comply with the International Criminal Court.
This is a very fine debate with positions well presented and justified. The commentary is also very useful, particularly for it’s explanation of the judges’ evaluation of the contestants.

Please watch the Oxford Union whistleblower debate.



Our online classroom contains a vast trove of English language resources ranging from full text books and audiobooks to films, plays, software and all of the assignments and activities generated in previous years. Please feel free to explore and suggest any specific items for inclusion in our high priority assignments.


Please post questions, suggestions and discussion

Comments off

College Prep English Class agenda October 2, 2014

Dear Homescholars,

This week’s feed has been posted in our classroom theater
and will take place through Google Plus.


The
playlist for our 2014-2015 classes is here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x

To learn more about the class, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.

The playlist of 2013-2014 classes is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_XmwbFdBDNpSar91svWKDe9Y


Agenda

Debate
The initial debate topic was assigned:
“It is appropriate to censor certain things in the media” Let’s do it. We will all try to take both sides.


Masefield’s Guide to the Shakespeare Plays was provided as a quick overview for deciding on a play to do. We have selected MacBeth to start with.

Essay Writing

We may discuss further essays from
the book: Essays That Worked edited by Boykin Curry, ISBN: 0449905179. These demonstrate consistently excellent language: metaphor, collocation, coordination constructs, felicitous vocabulary, concision and concinnity. We will examine all of these and practice them in both writing and speech. Let’s start by examining these devices as used by the masters.

2015 Scholastic Writing Awards
This is a contest to which we may want to submit papers.



The query letter
EIE is starting up a new blog that may need contributions from students. Let’s be very proper and submit query letters.

  • The lead, which is designed to catch the editor’s attention. It might be a startling statistic, a time peg, or an anecdote. Your lead should interest the editor enough to continue reading your query.
  • The why-write-it section. This paragraph (or two, if you have a particularly detailed query) fleshes out the idea, demonstrating why the readers of the magazine will be interested in the topic.
  • The nuts-and-bolts paragraph. Here you give the details of the story itself. What types of sources will you contact? How long will the story be? Will it have sidebars, and if so, how many? What section of the magazine will the story fit in? What’s the working title?
  • The I’m-so-great paragraph, or ISG. Here you highlight your relevant qualifications, including your writing experience and background with the subject matter. This is the paragraph in which you showcase your unique qualifications and convince the editor to give you the assignment.

Let’s discuss chapters 1 and 2 in SAT ACT TOEFL College Prep English Practice,


Let’s discuss the High Priority Assignments

MacBeth. Ian McKellen and Judy Dench

A MacBeth page has been created with two excellent video versions including one starring Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Judy Dench. Let’s discuss them.

Let’s discuss the heated and rebarbative debate with lots of ad hominem deprecation. Note the striking difference between the language of the two debaters. Which would you prefer to emulate? Christopher Hitchens and George Galloway debate intervention in Iraq.

William F. BuckleyLet’s discuss this old debate beween legendary orators: William F. Buckley vs Noam Chomsky

Here is a fairly comprehensive List Of Fallacious Arguments
for reference.

Let’s possibly discuss further a couple of Scholastic Writing Award winning essays, one persuasive and one a personal memoir: Let’s discuss chapters 1 and 2 in the text.

Let’s discuss submitted projects. These may have been drawn from the list of suggested debate topics, a query letter, an admissions essay or perhaps the writing projects at the end of chapter 1 in the text.

Language immersion: Some fun with animals and language:

The Zoo in Winter. Let’s discuss this wonderful piece by Jonathan Miller for its eloquence. How far does your spoken language need to go to mimic his?

Please let me know if you need more homework.


Older Assignments (please do these if you haven’t already)
Please watch the debate on US surveillance with Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz and constitutional attorney and journalist Glenn Greenwald. Enjoy watching this epic eloquence battle between eristic giants.

A classroom page for examples of successful essays contains a couple of examples from the essay book, Essays That Worked edited by Boykin Curry, ISBN: 0449905179. We did read parts; please read them more thoroughly and prepare to speculate upon the characteristics that make them successful.

Please consider Shakespeare plays for watching, dramatic readings and discussion. Suggestions: Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, MacBeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet. Please refer to Masefield’s Guide to the Shakespeare Plays for a quick overview. We decided to do MacBeth, possibly followed by Romeo and Juliet

Be familiar with the list of suggested debate topics

Please read the first chapter in our textbook: SAT ACT TOEFL College Prep English Practice, available at the EIE bookstore and Amazon.com.

Please watch this High School Debate Contest, the City Club of Cleveland’s High School Debate Championship. Debate is on whether the US should support and comply with the International Criminal Court.
This is a very fine debate with positions well presented and justified. The commentary is also very useful, particularly for it’s explanation of the judges’ evaluation of the contestants.

Please watch the Oxford Union whistleblower debate.



Our online classroom contains a vast trove of English language resources ranging from full text books and audiobooks to films, plays, software and all of the assignments and activities generated in previous years. Please feel free to explore and suggest any specific items for inclusion in our high priority assignments.


Please post questions, suggestions and discussion

Leave a Comment

College Prep English Class notes for Sept. 26, 2014

Dear Homescholars,

This week’s feed has been posted in our classroom theater and is posted on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cllbBTCraTo
and will take place through Google Plus. The Event Page: https://plus.google.com/events/clbgkdnimhtvfen3m0dranhuv7k

The playlist for our 2014-2015 classes is here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x

To learn more about the class and to get access to our online classroom, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.

The playlist of 2013-2014 classes is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_XmwbFdBDNpSar91svWKDe9Y


Notes
(Note that all videos are easily found with a search on youtube.  For access to our classroom, see http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html)
We discussed at length the debate on US surveillance with Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz and constitutional attorney and journalist Glenn Greenwald, noting the devices used, points made and language employed.

We discussed debate topics for class but did not decide on anything in particular. The debate topic: “It is appropriate to censor certain things in the media” looks like a good one. Let’s do it. Please be prepared to take both sides.


Updated Assignments

MacBeth. Ian McKellen and Judy Dench

A MacBeth page has been created with two excellent video versions including one starring Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Judy Dench. Please watch.

Debate:

Let’s prepare for a debate next week on “It is appropriate to censor certain things in the media.” Please be prepared to take both sides.

Please watch: Christopher Hitchens and George Galloway debate intervention in Iraq. A heated and rebarbative debate with lots of ad hominem deprecation. Note the striking difference between the language of the two debaters. Which would you prefer to emulate?

William F. BuckleyWilliam F. Buckley vs Noam Chomsky
An old debate between legendary orators. The subject matter is historical but Buckley’s language is always superb.

Please look at the
List Of Fallacious Arguments

In class we briefly examined a couple of Scholastic Writing Award winning essays, one persuasive and one a personal memoir. Please read them through looking for vocabulary, expressive devices, arc and subject matter. We will discuss them a bit more next week.


Language immersion: Some fun with animals and language:

The Zoo in Winter. Please listen to this wonderful piece by Jonathan Miller for its eloquence. How far does your spoken language need to go to mimic his?


Please read chapter 2 in the text if you have time.

Please be sure to write and post something this week. Consider a position paper on one of the topics in the list of suggested debate topics, a query letter, an admissions essay or perhaps the writing projects at the end of chapter 1 in the text.

Please let me know if you need more homework.


Older Assignments (please do these if you haven’t already)

Please watch the debate on US surveillance with Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz and constitutional attorney and journalist Glenn Greenwald. Enjoy watching this epic eloquence battle between eristic giants.

A classroom page for examples of successful essays contains a couple of examples from the essay book, Essays That Worked edited by Boykin Curry, ISBN: 0449905179. We did read parts; please read them more thoroughly and prepare to speculate upon the characteristics that make them successful.

Please consider Shakespeare plays for watching, dramatic readings and discussion. Suggestions: Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, MacBeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet. Please refer to Masefield’s Guide to the Shakespeare Plays for a quick overview. We decided to do MacBeth, possibly followed by Romeo and Juliet

Be familiar with the list of suggested debate topics

Please read the first chapter in our textbook: SAT ACT TOEFL College Prep English Practice, available at the EIE bookstore and Amazon.com.

Please watch this High School Debate Contest, the City Club of Cleveland’s High School Debate Championship. Debate is on whether the US should support and comply with the International Criminal Court.
This is a very fine debate with positions well presented and justified. The commentary is also very useful, particularly for it’s explanation of the judges’ evaluation of the contestants.

Please watch the Oxford Union whistleblower debate.

Comments off

College Prep English Class agenda for September 25, 2014

Dear Homescholars,

This week’s feed has been posted in our classroom theater
and will take place through Google Plus. See the Event Page: https://plus.google.com/events/clbgkdnimhtvfen3m0dranhuv7k

The playlist for our 2014-2015 classes is here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x

To learn more about the class, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.

The playlist of 2013-2014 classes is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_XmwbFdBDNpSar91svWKDe9Y


Agenda
Debate discussion

Gen. Michael HaydenYou will all have watched the debate on US surveillance between Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, constitutional attorney and journalist Glenn Greenwald, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and Gen. Michael Hayden, former head of the NSA and CIA.

We will discuss the language used, the rhetorical devices used, the catch phrases and the presence and absence of facts. Please bring your thoughts.


Discussion of debate topics
Let’s decide on a debate topic. Certainly some in

the list of suggested debate topics will have inspired.

Shakespeare
William ShakespeareYou will have put some thought into Shakespeare plays for watching, dramatic readings and discussion. Suggestions: Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, MacBeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet. Masefield’s Guide to the Shakespeare Plays was provided as a quick overview.

Essay Writing

We may discuss further essays from
the book: Essays That Worked edited by Boykin Curry, ISBN: 0449905179. These demonstrate consistently excellent language: metaphor, collocation, coordination constructs, felicitous vocabulary, concision and concinnity. We will examine all of these and practice them in both writing and speech. Let’s start by examining these devices as used by the masters.

2015 Scholastic Writing Awards
This is a contest to which we may want to submit papers.

The query letter
EIE is starting up a new blog that may need contributions from students. Let’s be very proper and submit query letters.

  • The lead, which is designed to catch the editor’s attention. It might be a startling statistic, a time peg, or an anecdote. Your lead should interest the editor enough to continue reading your query.
  • The why-write-it section. This paragraph (or two, if you have a particularly detailed query) fleshes out the idea, demonstrating why the readers of the magazine will be interested in the topic.
  • The nuts-and-bolts paragraph. Here you give the details of the story itself. What types of sources will you contact? How long will the story be? Will it have sidebars, and if so, how many? What section of the magazine will the story fit in? What’s the working title?
  • The I’m-so-great paragraph, or ISG. Here you highlight your relevant qualifications, including your writing experience and background with the subject matter. This is the paragraph in which you showcase your unique qualifications and convince the editor to give you the assignment.

Let’s discuss chapter 1 in SAT ACT TOEFL College Prep English Practice,



High Priority Assignments

(Note: these assignments should be enjoyable. Do only as much as you find enjoyable. If you find them to be onerous and pointless, please help shape future assignments with your suggestions)

Please read chapter 2 in the text.

Please be sure to write and post something this week. Consider a query letter, an admissions essay or perhaps the writing projects at the end of chapter 1 in the text.

Please watch for further postings which may depend upon what we decide in class to attempt next.


Please let me know if you need more homework.


Older Assignments (please do these if you haven’t already)

Please watch the debate on US surveillance with Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz and constitutional attorney and journalist Glenn Greenwald. Enjoy watching this epic eloquence battle between eristic giants.

A classroom page for examples of successful essays contains a couple of examples from the essay book, Essays That Worked edited by Boykin Curry, ISBN: 0449905179. We did read parts; please read them more thoroughly and prepare to speculate upon the characteristics that make them successful.

Please consider Shakespeare plays for watching, dramatic readings and discussion. Suggestions: Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, MacBeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet. Please refer to Masefield’s Guide to the Shakespeare Plays for a quick overview.

Be familiar with the list of suggested debate topics

Please read the first chapter in our textbook: SAT ACT TOEFL College Prep English Practice, available at the EIE bookstore and Amazon.com.

Please watch this High School Debate Contest, the City Club of Cleveland’s High School Debate Championship. Debate is on whether the US should support and comply with the International Criminal Court.
This is a very fine debate with positions well presented and justified. The commentary is also very useful, particularly for it’s explanation of the judges’ evaluation of the contestants.

Please watch the Oxford Union whistleblower debate.




Our online classroom contains a vast trove of English language resources ranging from full text books and audiobooks to films, plays, software and all of the assignments and activities generated in previous years. Please feel free to explore and suggest any specific items for inclusion in our high priority assignments.


Please post questions, suggestions and discussion

Leave a Comment

College Prep English Class notes for September 18, 2014

Dear Homescholars,

This week’s feed has been added to the playlist for our 2014-2015 classes: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x

To learn more about the class, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.

The playlist of 2013-2014 classes is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_XmwbFdBDNpSar91svWKDe9Y


Notes
Class planning

A starting point:

  1. How much homework is enough? Just announce if you need more.
  2. In what direction should our reading/watching/listening go initially? Let’s at least start on a Shakespeare play.

Essay Writing

We discussed an essay from
the book: Essays That Worked edited by Boykin Curry, ISBN: 0449905179. We will be reading and excerpting from this book in class, but you might like your own copy. These demonstrate consistently excellent language: metaphor, collocation, coordination constructs, felicitous vocabulary, concision and concinnity. We will examine all of these and practice them in both writing and speech. Let’s start by examining these devices as used by the masters.



High Priority Assignments

(Note: these assignments should be enjoyable. Do only as much as you find enjoyable. If you find them to be onerous and pointless, please help shape future assignments with your suggestions)

Please look through the list of suggested debate topics further and propose specific instances for debate in class. Please think of debate topics that would not require a great deal of research. Feel free to explore any of the many other debates posted in our classroom.
Alan Dershowitz

Please watch the newly added debate on US surveillance with Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz and constitutional attorney and journalist Glenn Greenwald. Enjoy watching this epic eloquence battle between eristic giants.

A classroom page for examples of successful essays contains a couple of examples from the essay book, Essays That Worked edited by Boykin Curry, ISBN: 0449905179. We did read parts; please read them more thoroughly and prepare to speculate upon the characteristics that make them successful.

Please consider Shakespeare plays for watching, dramatic readings and discussion. Suggestions: Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, MacBeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet. Please refer to Masefield’s Guide to the Shakespeare Plays for a quick overview.

Please be sure to write and post something this week. Consider perhaps the writing projects at the end of chapter 1 in the text.


Please let me know if you need more homework.


Older Assignments (please do these if you haven’t already)

Please read the first chapter in our textbook: SAT ACT TOEFL College Prep English Practice, available at the EIE bookstore and Amazon.com.

Please watch this High School Debate Contest, the City Club of Cleveland’s High School Debate Championship. Debate is on whether the US should support and comply with the International Criminal Court.
This is a very fine debate with positions well presented and justified. The commentary is also very useful, particularly for it’s explanation of the judges’ evaluation of the contestants.

Please watch the Oxford Union whistleblower debate.




Our online classroom contains a vast trove of English language resources ranging from full text books and audiobooks to films, plays, software and all of the assignments and activities generated in previous years. Please feel free to explore and suggest any specific items for inclusion in our high priority assignments.


Please post questions, suggestions and discussion

Comments off

College Prep English Class notes for September 11, 2014

Dear former students, continuing students, new students, prospective students and classroom visitors — home-scholars all,

(Note that following links to classroom pages will require login.  Please contact eclass@abacus-es.com for information on online classroom access.)

The classroom feed for this week has been posted in Our online classroom theater where you will also find an archive of past classes. A playlist for our 2014-2015 classes has been created: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_Xnpxfr0yI8ATzOnU6SmkO2x

The playlist of 2013-2014 is also on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLExCxI6q5_XmwbFdBDNpSar91svWKDe9Y


Class Notes

The class was started later this week than will be the case in future weeks. Normally the online feed will start at 2:30.

Discussion of class curricula

We discussed goals and decided to explore SAT essay writing and college admissions essay writing — two very different skillsets. There are a few college admission essays in our classroom but more will be added. A book of successful college admission essays is on its way.

Please read Dr. Perelman of MIT on the SAT essay exam. Though this was written some time ago, it is presumably still valid. Dr. Perelman concludes that, due to the way the SAT exam is graded, grades allotted are almost entirely a function of word count. We will discuss this.

Salman KhanWe discussed the letter from Salman Khan and his use of language.

We looked at the vocabulary forum, the assignments forum and the writers forum. Please make regular postings in the vocabulary forum and post your work in the writers forum.

We looked briefly at the Class Orientation page. Please read it.

The suggestions was also made that we engage in debate but no debate topics were suggested. Let’s watch a couple of debates:

High School Debate Contest The City Club of Cleveland’s High School Debate Championship. Debate is on whether the US should support and comply with the International Criminal Court.
This is a very fine debate with positions well presented and justified. The commentary is also very useful, particularly for it’s explanation of the judges’ evaluation of the contestants.

And the Oxford Union whistleblower debate


Please think of debate topics that would not require a great deal of research. Feel free to explore any of the many other debates posted in our classroom.


We looked at a brilliant Longfellow poem. It is worth another reading:

LongfellowTravels by the Fireside
— H. W. Longfellow

The ceaseless rain is falling fast,
And yonder gilded vane,
Immovable for three days past,
Points to the misty main,

It drives me in upon myself
And to the fireside gleams,
To pleasant books that crowd my shelf,
And still more pleasant dreams,

I read whatever bards have sung
Of lands beyond the sea,
And the bright days when I was young
Come thronging back to me.

In fancy I can hear again
The Alpine torrent’s roar,
The mule-bells on the hills of Spain,
The sea at Elsinore.

I see the convent’s gleaming wall
Rise from its groves of pine,
And towers of old cathedrals tall,
And castles by the Rhine.

I journey on by park and spire,
Beneath centennial trees,
Through fields with poppies all on fire,
And gleams of distant seas.

I fear no more the dust and heat,
No more I feel fatigue,
While journeying with another’s feet
O’er many a lengthening league.

Let others traverse sea and land,
And toil through various climes,
I turn the world round with my hand
Reading these poets’ rhymes.

From them I learn whatever lies
Beneath each changing zone,
And see, when looking with their eyes,
Better than with mine own.



Textbook

Please read the first chapter in our textbook: SAT ACT TOEFL College Prep English Practice, available at the EIE bookstore and Amazon.com. We will use the text as a foundation and reference for grammar and style but will explore many other sources in multiple media, all of which will be supplied in our online classroom.


Class Organization

In-class time is used only for for interactive activities: oratory, discussion and recitations and never for reading, writing, watching videos and doing assignments, all of which take place on or off-line during the week. Absent online participants will be able to take part in the in-class sessions.

Our online classroom contains a vast trove of English language resources ranging from full text books and audiobooks to films, plays, software and all of the assignments and activities generated in previous years. Please feel free to explore. We will use these and expand upon them.


High Priority Assignments
(Note: these assignments should be enjoyable. Do only as much as you find enjoyable. If you find them to be onerous and pointless, please help shape future assignments with your suggestions)

Please look at the few college admission essays in our classroom. We will discuss them. There are more to come.

Please read Dr. Perelman of MIT on the SAT essay exam.

Please watch the High School Debate Contest, The City Club of Cleveland’s High School Debate Championship.

Please watch the Oxford Union whistleblower debate.

Please think of debate topics that would not require a great deal of research. Feel free to explore any of the many other debates posted in our classroom.

Please read the first chapter in our textbook: SAT ACT TOEFL College Prep English Practice, available at the EIE bookstore and Amazon.com.

Please let me know if you need more homework.

Leave a Comment

Welcome to the 2014-2015 College Prep English Class at Excellence In Education

Dear former students, continuing students, new students, prospective students and classroom visitors — home-scholars all,

Welcome to the 2014-2015 College Prep English Class at Excellence In Education which will meet on Thursdays at 2:30 in the large classroom at EIE starting Thursday Sept. 11. To learn more about the class, please visit: http://abacus-es.com/eie/advancedwriting.html, see the links and watch the video.

This class is open to students of any age who would like to undertake the study of formal college-level English and is intended to provide an academic environment that is comfortable for students with a wide range of learning styles, from those who prefer a traditional classroom environment to those who prefer to do all their work online and everyone in between. Even the use of pencil and paper is acceptable, though (together with quill and parchment or stylus and clay tablets) it is discouraged.
The use of stylus and clay tablets is discouraged


Agenda

Record keeping, introductions

The first class is always confused and chaotic as mundane tasks are completed. We will try to confine the chaos to the first half hour.


College Prep English textbook
Textbook

The textbook is SAT ACT TOEFL College Prep English Practice, available at the EIE bookstore and Amazon.com. We will use the text as a foundation and reference for grammar and style but will explore many other sources in multiple media, all of which will be supplied in our online classroom.


Discussion of class curricula

This class will focus largely upon immersion in formal academic English. The specific subject matter covered is very flexible and will be tailored to the needs and interests of the students, ranging possibly from the study of classic literature to essay writing, test-taking skills, memorization practice, note taking, debate and oratory, research paper development and may very possibly explore other entirely serendipitous and unanticipated realms.

J.R.R. TolkienWe covered a great deal last year including three Shakespeare plays (Twelfth Night, Much Ado about Nothing, Henry V) together with some Jane Austen, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, P.G. Wodehouse, Abraham Lincoln, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jerome K. Jerome, Maya Angelou, Bertrand Russell, David Berlinski, Thomas Paine, Douglas Adams, Kenneth Grahame, Stephen Hawking and many other greats. Please feel free to peruse last year’s postings in the assignment forum.

We engaged in debates, recitations and lectures, wrote scripts, essays, papers and narratives and were inspired by some of the greatest writers and orators of the English speaking world.

We read and studied papers in scholarly journals and practiced both writing and speaking in formal academic English.

And we had fun doing it! Now, let’s start again with new direction and enthusiasm.


Class Organization

In-class time is used only for for interactive activities: oratory, discussion and recitations and never for reading, writing, watching videos and doing assignments, all of which take place on or off-line during the week. Absent online participants will be able to take part in the in-class sessions.

Though class sessions are recorded, there is no camera in the classroom; only audio and screensharing are broadcast and archived. We just switched the class broadcasts to Google Plus last year, having previously used WiziQ. Neither is ideal as they use a technology that is perpetually in its infancy and never permitted to mature. Class recordings are unedited and often fraught with problems or wasted time as attempts are made to solve those problems. Please be indulgent.

Our online classroom contains a vast trove of English language resources ranging from full text books and audiobooks to films, plays, software and all of the assignments and activities generated in previous years. Please feel free to explore. We will use these and expand upon them.


Questions, suggestions and discussion

Welcome all!

Leave a Comment

The Excellence In Education College Preparatory English class

Dear Homescholars, Parents and lovers of the spoken and written word:


The Excellence In Education College Preparatory English class will meet again, both online and traditionally, on Thursdays from 2:30 to 4:00 in the large classroom at EIE starting Thursday September 11, 2014. Please see our new video about the class: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Drm-bTrC4eU and perhaps “like” our new Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/collegeprepEnglishforhomeschoolers

This class is open to students of any age who are ready to work on college-level English and may be taken repeatedly as it is different every year. If you have taken the class before, please share your experiences with others, and you are welcome to join us as an advanced student as we explore new ground. Parents are always welcome.

Thomas Paine
We covered a great deal last year including three Shakespeare plays (Twelfth Night, Much Ado about Nothing, Henry V) together with some Jane Austen, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, P.G. Wodehouse, Abraham Lincoln, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jerome K. Jerome, Maya Angelou, Bertrand Russell, David Berlinski, Thomas Paine, Douglas Adams, Kenneth Grahame, Stephen Hawking and many other greats (not to mention Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Klingon version of Hamlet).

We engaged in debates, recitations and lectures and were inspired by some of the greatest writers and orators of the English speaking world.

We read and studied papers in scholarly journals and practiced both writing and speaking in formal academic English.

And we had fun!

practice book coverThe class uses the text: SAT, ACT TOEFL College Prep English but will cover many other things as well, to be determined by the interests and inspiration of class members. Writing and speaking skills and techniques for the felicitous presentation of cogent and compelling prose will be covered together with advanced vocabulary, language usage, comprehension, grammar and style that will serve students well in college and college credit examinations. Class members will study and emulate the work of the masters of words and will prepare and deliver scripted and improvisatory oratory in lecture, debate, interview and dramatic settings with a view to wielding language effectively.

To register or inquire:
eclass@abacus-es.com
Callback message: 323 432 7128


Abacus CPE Page

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The great Homeschooler correspondence — The letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett

This is one of the greatest examples of homeschooling correspondence in history — the communication and courtship of two of the most brilliant wordsmiths of the 19th century.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ea/Thomas_B._Read_%28American%2C_1822-1872%29_-_Portraits_of_Elizabeth_Barrett_Browning_and_Robert_Browning.jpg/800px-Thomas_B._Read_%28American%2C_1822-1872%29_-_Portraits_of_Elizabeth_Barrett_Browning_and_Robert_Browning.jpg

Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning

This Librivox audio recording of the work is incomplete and thus not yet in the Librivox catalog but it is beautifully done and all the important parts of the correspondence are covered.

Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett (later Browning) were two of the greatest homeschoolers, unschoolers, autodidacts in history and their correspondence is a monument to philology. As they had both taught themselves French, Latin and Greek before age 15 are were very widely read, their letters do contain a wealth of rather recondite references, but translations are handled well in the audiobook version.

Audio files:
……………………………..

Browning Letters 1

……………………………..

Browning Letters 2

……………………………..

Browning Letters 3

……………………………..

Browning Letters 4

……………………………..

Browning Letters 5

……………………………..

Browning Letters 6

……………………………..

Browning Letters 7

……………………………..

Browning Letters 8

……………………………..

Browning Letters 9

……………………………..

Browning Letters 10

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Advanced Writing Class notes March 3, 2011. Persuasive essays and debates

Dear Scholars,

This week’s class recording is here: http://www.wiziq.com/online-class/486036-advanced-writing-and-college-prep-english-march-3-2011
We again had technical problems — the Internet connection was dropped briefly and thereafter the screensharing refused to function. The audio seems to have worked however.

We discussed projects that had been handed in and engaged in debate on the subject Adrian submitted: “The impact of television has been a positive influence.” It was decided that we should continue with another debate next week. Breana has agreed to submit a topic.

There has been quite a number of project submissions since yesterday. Please read and post your commentary.

Please continue to post in your vocabulary journals and please read and learn the words presented in the vocabulary journals of others.

Leave a Comment

Agenda this week — the TV debate

Dear Scholars,

In our continuing debate series, Adrian was asked to submit a topic and has come up with an excellent one. Rephrased it is: “The impact of television has been a positive influence.” Please put some thought into the issue, write papers and come to class on Thursday prepared to debate it (in complete sentences, using formal English). This is another complex topic. Let’s see if we can see more than just the surface issues. Please post resources and reference material on the subject. This sounds like fun.

Please continue to post in your vocabulary journals and please read and learn the words presented in the vocabulary journals of others.


Leave a Comment

Class notes. Debate topic: the value of television

Dear Scholars,

We had an interesting and thought-provoking debate this week on the topic that Micah suggested, the value of pacifism. The class recording is here: http://www.wiziq.com/online-class/479426-advanced-writing-and-college-prep-english-feb-24-2011. Several excellent persuasive essays were submitted.

Resources presented:

From Dictatorship to Democracy A pamphlet by American academic, Gene Sharp, which is largely responsible for non-violent revolutions in half a dozen countries including the recent one in Egypt. This work was put into public domain by the author and has been translated into more than 30 languages. It is banned in many countries.
The 83 year-old academic who inspired the Egyptians. An article about Dr. Sharp.
Mahatma Gandhi — a century of peaceful protest Article.
Gandhi was wrong — nonviolence doesn’t work Article.
Micah presented this video on Does Pacifism Work?

Those of you who were unable to attend and were only able to listen might like to present persuasive essays demonstrating your opinions on the issue.
cats TV
Adrian was asked to submit a topic and has come up with an excellent one. Rephrased it is: “The impact of television has been a positive influence.” Please put some thought into the issue, write papers and come to class on Thursday prepared to debate it (in complete sentences, using formal English). This is another complex topic. Let’s see if we can see more than just the surface issues. Please post resources and reference material on the subject. This sounds like fun.

Please continue to post in your vocabulary journals and please read and learn the words presented in the vocabulary journals of others.

Leave a Comment

Advanced Writing Class agenda: The pacifism debate.

Dear Scholars,

Our class this Thursday will be on WiZiQ here: http://www.wiziq.com/online-class/479426-advanced-writing-and-college-prep-english-feb-24-2011

In our class last Thursday (view the recording.):

  • We had many excellent papers and covered most of them.
  • We also discussed and defined some vocabulary from the Sadlier Oxford site. Please keep expanding your vocabulary journals.
  • We engaged in a spirited debate on the subject of music downloading and piracy.

This week:
We decided that Micah would choose a debate topic for this week. He has chosen a very interesting and provocative topic: the value of pacifism. I’m sure you’ve all researched the issue; please post material you have found.

I have found a few things:
From Dictatorship to Democracy A pamphlet by American academic, Gene Sharp, which is largely responsible for non-violent revolutions in half a dozen countries including the recent one in Egypt. This work was put into public domain by the author and has been translated into more than 30 languages. It is banned in many countries.
The 83 year-old academic who inspired the Egyptians. An article about Dr. Sharp.
Mahatma Gandhi — a century of peaceful protest Article.
Gandhi was wrong — nonviolence doesn’t work Article.

Come with your ideas and arguments. Persuasive essays are encouraged.

Leave a Comment

Class notes and assignments — the pacifism debate

Dear Scholars,

In our class Thursday (view the recording. LaRA, Angela and Amanda/Dorothy joined us online. Apologies to you online folk — the screen sharing never seems to be properly synchronized):

  • We had many excellent papers and covered most of them.
  • We also discussed and defined some vocabulary from the Sadlier Oxford site. Please keep expanding your vocabulary journals.
  • We engaged in a spirited debate on the subject of music downloading and piracy.

We decided that Micah would choose a debate topic for next week. He has chosen a very interesting and provocative topic: the value of pacifism. Let’s do a little research on the issue and post thoughts. Persuasive essays on this subject are welcome. Please post.

Arguments from the page Micah provided:

Proposition: Is the rejection of all violence a valid principle by which to live?

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Debate topic: Pacifism — please read and post

The debate between non-violent objection and the use of force to an end is an ancient one, encompassing questions such as morality vs. practicality, whether violence is ever constructive, and whether pacifism in the face of a threat serves to increase or diminish evil. It also contrasts the lives lost in war with the liberty that might be lost if war is avoided, and thus raises difficult questions about the value of life compared to a principle.

“Please consider the following points from the given page URL below and present your thoughts.”

http://www.idebate.org/debatabase/topic_details.php?topicID=94

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Debate topic: School Uniforms — please read and post

Please consider the following points and add your thoughts. Make sure also to present your chosen debate topics!

In Favor of School Uniforms

  • Elimination of style and fashion competition.
  • Trendy and often expensive shoes, clothes and fashion accessories tend to cause resentment and acrimony among students and distractions in class.
  • Uniforms help to create a feeling of school unity and pride.
  • Dress code issues do not arise.

In Opposition to School Uniforms

  • Students are denied a means of self-expression.
  • Conformity in the form of indoctrination and propaganda in the classroom is only supported and enhanced by conformity in dress and appearance.
  • Students could be given a choice to wear uniforms without making it mandatory.

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Agenda this week — the copyright debate

Dear Scholars,

Our online WiZiQ recording of the Feb. 10 Thursday class worked and is available online.

The request was made that I present the debate topic for this week. I chose and posted:

“Copyright law should be strictly enforced.”

I’m sure you have all found some solid positions on this issue. Micah has posted one.

Please be prepared to defend one or both sides of this question. It is really far more complex that it seems.

Please post any resources on this subject that might be of value to the class.


Other projects to cover:

Sam’s project on the metamorphosing book.

Josh’s arguments on abortion.


Resources:

Added resource:
The Copyright Debate
(Video presentations)

Added Resource:
Sadlier Oxford vocabulary practice

Added Resource:
Documentary: The Gutenberg Bible

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Fall 2010 Writing Class Literary Journal online

Dear Scholars,

The Fall 2010 Writing Class Literary Journal (for lack of a better name) has been posted online in our Abacus Education Journal blog. The online version does not use real names for security reasons, so your pen-names were used or, if none existed, your initials. First names only are used in the writing class ballad.

Unfortunately, the articles appeared in reverse order, but I think that works too.

This material can still be edited. Please let me know of any must-fix errors.

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Advanced Writing Class notes and assignments February 10, 2011. Persuasive essays and debates

Dear Scholars,

Our online WiZiQ recording of the Feb. 10 Thursday class worked and is available online.

Assignments:
Present and summarize arguments for and against school uniforms.

At the end of class we decided to prepare arguments either for written or oral presentation and I was asked to determine the topic.

Let’s use this proposition:
“Copyright law should be strictly enforced.”

Let’s all put together material in support of or in opposition to this proposition (preferably both), post it and be prepared to speak on the issue next week.

Please post any resources on this subject that might be of value to the class.

We went over projects this week:

Abortion Should Be Illegal
Sharks
The Stuttering Dinosaur – FINAL

Resources:
Added Resource:
Sadlier Oxford vocabulary practice

Added Resource:
Documentary: The Gutenberg Bible

K. Titchenell

We then held a debate on the use of school uniforms.

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Agenda this week

Dear Scholars,

Several class members are falling behind on their projects. Don’t get too far behind to catch up.

This week we decided to continue our debate discussion. I have posted some pros and cons about the school uniform issue. Please prepare a subject and post.

We will debate this week in class and decide on writing projects.

New resources on our page:
A new set of vocabulary pages, the Sadlier Oxford, has been added. These span the simple to the challenging and each word has an audio file explaining it.

Here is an intermediate set of words. How many do you already know? How many can you memorize in 15 minutes?

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Advanced Writing Class notes February 3, 2011. Persuasive essays and debates

Dear Scholars,

This week we started by discussing the vocabulary in the V for Vendetta — verbiage scene which Micah had posted earlier. Then the laptop crashed in the middle and, though it was restored fairly quickly, the online sound feed was restored after about 5 minutes and the screensharing shortly thereafter. The online session is here.

We went over debate topics and did have a spirited debate on the death penalty.

Homework:

We decided each to choose a side of a debate topic and post material on it, then to present a rebuttal to the position propounded by a classmate. Everyone write on something!

Please post these in the writer’s forum. Please decide and vote on a topic to debate in class next week. Here is a list of proposed debate topics.

I promised to post a formal debate on the death penalty which I had seen on youtube. I have done so. Please watch the formal debate on the death penalty and look for the following things:

  • Note the format: How does the moderator organize the debate. How long do participants have to present their arguments, rebuttals, summations?
  • Note the form that the arguments take. Note that the phrase “I think that…” is not used frequently.
  • Who is most persuasive? What makes his/her argument persuasive?’
  • What kind of preparation had each speaker done?
  • What kind of material was presented unprepared in response to opposing arguments?

As always, pay close attention to the language used.

Please everyone, post debates that you find useful. As I may have to participate next week, taking whichever side is underrepresented, do we have a volunteer to moderate the debate? Please pay close attention to the layout and format of the video debates. We will adjust them to fit our time constraints.


Added Classroom Resources. Please look at these:
On The King’s Speech: Churchill Didn’t Say That

Common Errors in English Usage

V for Vendetta — verbiage scene

Using English for Academic Purposes

The King’s English (online text)

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Agenda this week — writing persuasive papers

Dear Scholars,

The listening assignment for this week was:


Hamlet: a small rewrite. We listened to this one in class and I hope you listened more than once. This is a very clever and extremely funny sketch by Atkinson and Laurie on a supposed discussion of Hamlet between Shakespeare and his producer. The scene itself is posted as well though the sound didn’t work in class.

Robert Fisk lecture on aspects of journalism in the middle east and an opposing opinion on Iraq by Hitchens.

Please make your own suggestions.


Assignments for this week

The persuasive essay

We discussed possible persuasive essay topics. Consider the topics above and post suggested arguments or a complete paper. Should we engage in a debate, prepared or unprepared on any of these topics?
More have since been added: Persuasive Essay Topics


Resources added to the classroom:

Bach Brandenberg Cto. #2

This was menioned in class last week. I think you’ll enjoy it.

The V for Vendetta — verbiage scene Was shared some time ago by Micah. Let’s watch that one in class.

An excellent resource has been added: Using English for Academic Purpose

Let’s look specifically at some common errors in class:

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Class Assignments Jan. 27, 2011 — agenda

Dear Scholars,

The WiZiQ online recording of the class worked this week but was only available to those on my mailing list. If you have trouble accessing it on WiZiQ, you will also find it here.

The suggested comic sketch project seems to have been to daunting. Always remember that project assignments are always only suggestions. Write on a subject that inspires you! We will discuss ideas.


Assignments for this week
Please be sure to watch these. They are a bit long but watch as much as you can: Great composers: Johann Sebastian Bach. This is a superb documentary featuring some great speakers including Johnathan Miller and Karen Armstrong.

Discussions: A panel discussion has been added on changes in society and culture. Panelists from MIT, Cornell, Oxford and Cambridge debate issues. As always, the content is not the point, the language is.


The comic dialogue/monologue is not an easy assignment and has failed largely to inspire. Let’s keep it in mind but go on to other, perhaps more provocative projects.

The persuasive essay
Everyone needs to be persuasive at some point in life, whether it is in a job application, a complaint letter or simply an article in support of a palm tree in a parking lot.

Let’s discuss some perspectives and persuasive strategies that one might adopt in addressing some of the following:

  1. Academic expectations of college athletes
  2. Advertising in schools
  3. Anorexia – a cause of unhealthy weight loss
  4. Athletes as role models
  5. Adoption with secret identity of the mother should or shouldn’t go on
  6. Are parents of teen vandals be held responsible for their child’s damage
  7. Benefit of team sports
  8. Betting racket in sports
  9. Celebrity gossip and the paparazzi
  10. Commercialization of sports
  11. Commercials of liquor
  12. Cosmetic surgery – playing with the nature?
  13. Cyber stalkers
  14. Convicted sex offender should be publicized or not
  15. Death penalty or life sentence
  16. Domestic abuse and violence should be punished
  17. Effects of cell phones
  18. Effects of divorce on children
  19. Free public transport for everybody
  20. Funding issues for women’s sports
  21. Greenhouse effect – a result of deforesting
  22. Hip-hop music lyrics
  23. Human cloning – is it right?
  24. Illegal music downloading
  25. Images of women in the media
  26. Immigration rights
  27. Inheritance law and gay couples
  28. Internet – more harm than good or vice versa
  29. Internet pornography
  30. Internet privacy issues
  31. Mandatory moment of silence in school
  32. Media violence having a negative effect
  33. Public funding of community sports programs
  34. Pregnancy requires AIDS test
  35. Public radio/public television
  36. Pollution is a consistent demolition of the earth
  37. Should internet be censored?
  38. Salary caps for professional athletes
  39. School uniform – good tradition or outdated habit
  40. Sexual imagery in the media
  41. Should abortion be encouraged?
  42. Single parent families
  43. Sports and steroid use
  44. Sports and violence
  45. Secular and religious holiday decorations in schools
  46. School vouchers for religious schools
  47. Terrorism – how to stop it
  48. The age limit for drinking
  49. The phenomenon of reality television
  50. Use of internet by small children
  51. Unnecessary curfew for children under the age of fifteen

Assignments:
Consider the topics above and post suggested arguments or a complete paper. Should we engage in a debate, prepared or unprepared on any of these topics?

Listening:
Hamlet: a small rewrite. This is a very clever and extremely funny sketch by Atkinson and Laurie on a supposed discussion of Hamlet between Shakespeare and his producer. The scene itself is posted as well. Let’s watch it in class.

Robert Fisk lecture on aspects of journalism in the middle east and an opposing opinion on Iraq by Hitchens.

Please make your own suggestions.

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* Advanced Writing Class notes January 20, 2011 — writing comedy sketches Help with Search (new window)

Dear Scholars,

The WiZiQ online recording of the class worked this week but was only available to those on my mailing list. If you have trouble accessing it on WiZiQ, you will also find it here.

We discussed grades and the film clips that had been posted. Please post material that you feel would be of benefit to the class.

Assignments for this week
The listening assignments were: the lecture by Eagleton on The Metaphysics of Terror(part of his speech on evil), and a series of short videos by David Berlinski on the flaws in and shortcomings of Darwinism. Please watch them if you haven’t already (they are also worth watching more than once.)


Assignments for next week
Great composers: Johann Sebastian Bach. This is a superb documentary featuring some great speakers including Johnathan Miller and Karen Armstrong.

Discussions: A panel discussion has been added on changes in society and culture. Panelists from MIT, Cornell, Oxford and Cambridge debate issues. As always, the content is not the point, the language is.

Everyone: post some suggested project.

We watched and discussed several example Monty Python skits. These are short but brilliant. Feel free to watch more.

Suggested sketch topic: A skit involving an attempt to demonstrate and verify the concepts of Darwinian evolution and the ludicrous failed attempts of species to evolve as expected and demanded by orthodox established theory. Concepts and devices employed in the Pet Conversion sketch might be useful.

Here are some pointers for writing dialogue within a narrative from about.com. Important: although much is made out of writing the way people speak, in our class, emphasis must be put upon writing the way good speakers speak. If you can simulate in writing the unscripted speech of Eagleton, Berlinski or Miller, you will be writing excellent formal English.
From About.com

Writing dialogue — realistic dialogue, anyway — does not come easily to everyone. Done well, dialogue advances the story and fleshes out the characters while providing a break from straight exposition.

However, just as realistic dialogue is one of the most powerful tools at a writer’s disposal, nothing pulls the reader out of a story faster than bad dialogue. It takes time to develop a good ear, but noting these simple rules and obvious pitfalls can make a huge difference.

1. Listen to How People Talk.

Having a sense of natural speech patterns is essential to good dialogue. Start to pay attention to the expressions that people use and the music of everyday conversation. This exercise asks you to do this more formally, but generally speaking it’s helpful to develop your ear by paying attention to the way people talk.

2. Not Exactly like Real Speech.

But dialogue should read like real speech. How do you accomplish that? Alfred Hitchcock said that a good story was “life, with the dull parts taken out.” This very much applies to dialogue. A transcription of a conversation would be completely boring to read. Edit out the filler words and unessential dialogue — that is, the dialogue that doesn’t contribute to the plot in some way.

3. Don’t Provide Too Much Info at Once.

It should not be obvious to the reader that they’re being fed important facts. Let the story unfold naturally. You don’t have to tell the reader everything up front, and you can trust him or her to remember details from earlier in the story.

4. Break Up Dialogue with Action.

Remind your reader that your characters are physical human beings by grounding their dialogue in the physical world. Physical details also help break up the words on the page: long periods of dialogue are easier for the reader’s eye when broken up by description. (And vice versa, for that matter.) See the link above for examples of how this can work.

5. Don’t Overdo Dialogue Tags.

Veering too much beyond “he said/she said” only draws attention to the tags — and you want the reader’s attention centered on your brilliant dialogue, not your ability to think of synonyms for “said.”

6. Stereotypes, Profanity, and Slang.

Be aware of falling back on stereotypes, and use profanity and slang sparingly. All of these risk distracting or alienating your reader. Anything that takes the reader out of the fictional world you’re working so hard to create is not your friend. Read some examples of how to achieve the tone you want without stereotypes, profanity, and slang.

7. Read Widely.

Pay attention to why things work or don’t work. Where are you taken out of the story’s action? Where did you stop believing in a character? Or, alternatively, when did the character really jump off the page, and how did dialogue help accomplish that? You can start reading like a writer with the link above, or pick up an anthology and start your own list of writers to learn from.

8. Punctuate Dialogue Correctly.

The rules for punctuating dialogue can be confusing: many writers need help getting them right in the beginning. Take some time to learn the basics. A reader should get lost in your prose — not feel lost trying to follow your dialogue.

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Agenda this week — semester grades, writing projects

Dear Scholars,

We have reached end of the semester. Each of you has received project totals every time you have handed in a project, so you should know where you stand. Please let me know if you need your total to be sent again. The semester as defined in class are:

# of acceptable projects. Grade
12 A
9 B
6 C
3 D

Any projects beyond the 12 required for an A will count toward your Spring semester grade. If you do not have the grade you would like, just hand in more projects in spring.

You were all asked to bring to class any appropriate material that has inspired you and which demonstrates language or ideas that you feel would be of value to the rest of the class: videos, articles, books, films — whatever you find interesting. Be sure to post your thoughts. Please everyone have something to suggest.

Film discussion
We discussed film as an artistic medium and several presented their favorite films. A new section of the online classroom has been created for film and a film discussion forum has been set up. Scenes from Singing in the Rain,(classic song and dance film with Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor) and The Turning point (Ballet film staring Michael Berishnikov) have been posted. Also, the entire culture clash film, Merry Andrew, was available and has been posted. Please post other favorite films in the film discussion forum and please post short reviews explaining why you like them and what we should look for in them.


Assignments for this week
The listening assignments were: the lecture by Eagleton on The Metaphysics of Terror(part of his speech on evil), and a series of short videos by David Berlinski on the flaws in and shortcomings of Darwinism.


Assignments for next week
Great composers: Johann Sebastian Bach. This is a superb documentary featuring some great speakers including Johnathan Miller and Karen Armstrong.

Discussions: A panel discussion has been added on changes in society and culture. Panelists from MIT, Cornell, Oxford and Cambridge debate issues. As always, the content is unimportant, the language is.
Monty Python: Flying Sheep
A new classroom section on Skits has been created and several example Monty Python skits have been posted. These are short but brilliant. At least watch the flying sheep sketch.

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Advanced Writing Class notes January 13, 2011

Dear Scholars,

The WiZiQ class this week failed again to function. The computer crashed before class and the session never started correctly. The recording of the Great Books class worked fine both weeks. We just have to get the bugs out.

We discussed different projects for this semester. Adrian will be putting the literary journal together. Josh and Justin are working on skit writing. Charley will be trying his hand at comic monologues. For some ideas, try searching for stand-comics. Jeff Dunham is very popular.

You were also asked to bring to class any appropriate material that has inspired you and which demonstrates language or ideas that you feel would be of value to the rest of the class: videos, articles, books, films — whatever you find interesting. Be sure to post your thoughts. Please everyone have something to suggest.

Film discussionMerry Andrew
We discussed film as an artistic medium and several presented their favorite films. A new section of the online classroom has been created for film and a film discussion forum has been set up. Scenes from Singing in the Rain,(classic song and dance film with Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor) and The Turning point (Ballet film staring Michael Berishnikov) have been posted. Also, the entire culture clash film, Merry Andrew, was available and has been posted. Please post other favorite films in the film discussion forum and please post short reviews explaining why you like them and what we should look for in them.

The listening assignments were: the lecture by Eagleton on The Metaphysics of Terror, and a series of short videos by David Berlinski. If you have time, here is an interesting lecture by a Canadian scholar on how to inspire students about mathematics. Please be sure to listen to these!

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Class assignments Jan. 13, 2011

Dear Scholars,

The WiZiQ class last week was missing audio. This week will work better.

The assignment was to submit your own suggestions regarding subject matter and the writing process. What would you like to write about, with whom and under what conditions — online collaboration, realtime, etc.

I presented a few suggestions. Please be prepared to submit your preferences from among these together with your suggestions of others.

  • Dramatic and comedic dialog writing.
  • Research and research paper writing the easy way.
  • Rewriting and editing — starting with an existing work and producing something new and different.
  • Skit writing and production.
  • Comic monologue writing.
  • Letter writing — from personal correspondence to business letters and applications.
  • Let’s see how much fun Shakespeare can be. Perhaps we will write some of our own pseudoshakespeare.
  • Collaborative story writing — groups of different sizes working together.
  • Completing and publishing our literary journal issue and starting on the next one.

You were also asked to bring to class any appropriate material that has inspired you and which demonstrates language or ideas that you feel would be of value to the rest of the class: videos, articles, books, films — whatever you find interesting. Be sure to post your thoughts. Please everyone have something to suggest.

Please review the lecture Learning Languages Like Children. and post your thoughts.


Assignments:
Here’s a new lecture by Eagleton on The Metaphysics of Terror. It is somewhat heavy going, but as is the case with all of Eagleton’s lectures, it uses brilliant and flawless language. I have added a list of “vocabulary to look for” to the page.

Here is an interesting lecture by a Canadian scholar on how to inspire students about mathematics. The prose is unremarkable, but the ideas are very interesting.
Berlinski
Here is a series of short videos by David Berlinski, a very rare bird, partly because he is a scholar who presents serious criticisms of Darwinism, but even more so because he is an American who can really speak.

Agenda this week:

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Class Jan. 6 — no audio. Class notes.

Dear Scholars,

The WiZiQ class today was missing audio because I forgot to plug in the microphone. So sorry.

We discussed ways to improve education and ways in which students can find their own best ways to learn — projects which reflect the specific interests and ideal learning styles of students. A few thoughts were presented:

  • Dramatic and comedic dialog writing.
  • Research and research paper writing the easy way.
  • Rewriting and editing — starting with an existing work and producing something new and different.
  • Skit writing and production.
  • Comic monologue writing.
  • Letter writing — from personal correspondence to business letters and applications.
  • Let’s see how much fun Shakespeare can be. Perhaps we will write some of our own pseudoshakespeare.
  • Collaborative story writing — groups of different sizes working together.
  • Completing and publishing our literary journal issue and starting on the next one.

Assignments:
Submit your own suggestions regarding subject matter and the writing process. What would you like to write about, with whom and under what conditions?

Please bring to class any appropriate material that has inspired you and which demonstrates language or ideas that you feel would be of value to the rest of the class: videos, articles, books, films — whatever you find interesting.

Traditionalists steeped in mass-production educational batch processing insist on “age appropriate” material in the classroom which eliminates multi-level educational environments. Some classes work very well with multiple age ranges. Younger and older students are welcome to join our class.

Another short article on language learning has been posted: Learning Languages Like Children. We discussed language acquisition methodologies.

Skit writing seemed to appeal. Feel free to post anything that appeals.

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Happy New Year — new ideas. Agenda for class January 6.

Dear Scholars,

We covered lots of ground in fall and many wonderful projects were submitted.

We have read and listened to some of the best examples of formal English language usage, have kept our vocabulary journals and have explored grammatical and poetic subjects as well as expressive language devices. In addition to continuing these, let’s experiment with some new approaches to writing.
Education in batches
We have watched Ken Robinson’s Changing Education Paradigms in which he discusses ways to improve education — methodologies for allowing students to find their own best ways to learn. Please watch it again if you do not remember it. These concepts are reflected in many works on the advantages of homeschooling. Some specific ideas worth noting:

  • Divergent thinking
  • creativity
  • Moving away from mass-production education
  • Waking students up to what’s inside instead of putting them to sleep

Recent studies have demonstrated that different approaches to learning can be far more effective than the traditional classroom filled with students all the same age level working separately. Let’s explore some new material and methodologies for studying formal English. Here are a few thoughts to start with; please add more:

  • Dramatic and comedic dialog writing.
  • Research and research paper writing the easy way.
  • Rewriting and editing — starting with an existing work and producing something new and different.
  • Skit writing and production.
  • Comic monologue writing.
  • Letter writing — from personal correspondence to business letters and applications.
  • Let’s see how much fun Shakespeare can be. Perhaps we will write some of our own pseudoshakespeare.
  • Collaborative story writing — groups of different sizes working together.
  • Completing and publishing our literary journal issue and starting on the next one.

Remember: We are looking for new and inspiring thoughts. The only restriction on projects and activities is that we must try to express them in formal English. There is no “don’t copy” rule! Copying is one of the best ways to learn a complex subject (we’ll just cite our sources).

Assignments:
Submit your own suggestions regarding subject matter and the writing process. What would you like to write about, with whom and under what conditions?

Please bring to class any appropriate material that has inspired you and which demonstrates language or ideas that you feel would be of value to the rest of the class: videos, articles, books, films — whatever you find interesting.

Traditional teachers, schools and even parents are still unwilling to consider alternative learning paradigms that break tradition and work with students of multiple ages, often abjuring methods and material that appear to be “not age appropriate” — and it is very hard to combat this misconception. Can you think of ways to welcome older and younger learners to the class? Do you know older or younger people (siblings, parents?) who would enjoy and benefit from the class?


Another short article on language learning has been posted: Learning Languages Like Children, which applies more to ESL students but does importantly emphasize the value of listening. You may find it interesting. What do you think of the ideas presented?

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Class notes, year-end party class with goodies and show and tell.

Dear Scholars,

The end-of-year party was lots of fun and very productive. Pizza, brownies, cookies and doughnuts helped us plan next semester. Show and tell included Micah’s desert boa and Riley, the golden retriever whom you had all met through Sam’s stories. Thank you both for sharing.
Christmas

Angela gave us an update on the journal which will probably come out in January.

We watched and discussed Changing Education Paradigms with Ken Robinson, and considered different approaches and projects for spring. Studying literature, writing dramatic and comedic dialogue were presented as possibilities.

Please continue to post your thoughts and creative works through the holidays. Feel free to schedule collaborative sessions through in WiZiQ or Skype or in our own class chatroom. I will join in if I can.

The very best wishes for the holidays.
.

Merry Christmas.

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Agenda this week — Chistmas party, revelry, recitation, reflection

Dear Scholars,

This Thursday Dec. 16 will be our last class this year. Let’s have some fun.
Christmas
Thank you all for all of your effort, ideas and enthusiasm. We had a lot of wonderful projects. Those of you who exceeded the 12 projects required for an “A” will have any further projects count toward the spring semester project total. Those of you who did less than you would have liked will have an opportunity to make up the total in spring.

Please bring things: comestibles, confectionery, show-and-tell, material for recitation, sticky things, things that are hard to hold still, hard to spell and hard to define.

Please watch: Changing Education Paradigms with Ken Robinson. The language is good. The ideas are fascinating. Please post your thoughts. We will be watching more of Robinson.

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Agenda this week — writing research papers, homework.

Dear Scholars,

We discussed the article on academic writing and plagiarism, “cyber-pseudepigraphy” last week. There have been no comments nor questions. Your comments are welcome.

We discussed research papers and different approaches to them last week. The class is available on WiZiQ.

This week’s class will be online here.

There seems to have been a lack of enthusiasm for the research paper project. We will look at it a bit more and carry that homework over to next week. The homework for this week was:

Suggested writing subject: A short research paper on any subject. This is a practice paper and not expected to be original. You may use existing material and references (look through the Directory of Open Access Journals for papers on subjects that interest you), and be sure to start with the MLA template. The only thing that must be original about this paper is the writing; use your own words. If you are inspired to introduce original content that is fine (indicate those parts if you like). As always, look at what your colleagues are posting, learn from them and make suggestions to help them.

This is an easy project! If you are finding it difficult, you are probably doing too much.

Please take a look at Amanda’s Project which is a very nice example.

This assignment is only advisory. Those of you not ready for research may write other types of papers.

New resources:

A citation engine link has been added to our resources. This automates the creation of research paper references — fill out the form and it creates the references in any of several formats.

Listening:

As always, the listening matter is chosen for its use of language and not for its content! This list was far too big for one week, so we’ll spend another week on it.

It is best to listen to one lecture or part of a lecture many times (after looking up any unfamiliar words). The language of the Eagleton lecture is superb. Please listen to at least parts of it several times:
Lecture: Terry Eagleton on Evil

These others are interesting but of lower priority:
Lecture: Psychology and climate change

Lecture: Nanotechnology, Ethics and Religion

Enjoy the process. Just listen and don’t worry about understanding everything.

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Class notes, assignments

Dear Scholars,

We discussed the article on academic writing and plagiarism, “cyber-pseudepigraphy“. Your comments are welcome.

We discussed research papers and different approaches to them. The class is available on WiZiQ.


Many new text, video and audio resources have been posted on our site. Please do some research yourselves on worthwhile articles, lectures, debates, interviews, and post them for the rest of us.

Homework:

Writing subject: A short research paper on any subject. This is a practice paper and not expected to be original. You may use existing material and references (look through the Directory of Open Access Journals for papers on subjects that interest you), and be sure to start with the MLA template. The only thing that must be original about this paper is the writing; use your own words. If you are inspired to introduce original content that is fine (indicate those parts if you like). As always, look at what your colleagues are posting, learn from them and make suggestions to help them.

This is an easy project! If you are finding it difficult, you are probably doing too much. I have over 7000 words of scholarly paper to revise this weekend; you need only do a few paragraphs. We can all share our work next week.

This assignment is only advisory. Those of you not ready for research may write other types of papers.

Listening:

As always, the listening matter is chosen for its use of language and not for its content! This list is of course far too big. It is best to listen to one lecture or part of a lecture many times (after looking up any unfamiliar words). The language of the Eagleton lecture is superb. Please listen to at least parts of it several times:
Lecture: Terry Eagleton on Evil

These others are interesting but of lower priority:
Lecture: Psychology and climate change

Lecture: Nanotechnology, Ethics and Religion

Enjoy the process. Just listen and don’t worry about understanding everything.

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Agenda this week — writing research papers, homework.

Dear Scholars,

I’m sure you’ve all read the interesting article on academic writing and plagiarism — or more specifically, “cyber-pseudepigraphy“. Please post any thoughts you have.

This week, let’s look further into term papers and research papers. As usual, the class will be available on WiZiQ.

Please keep in mind that producing papers need not be a daunting, onerous process. With a few tricks and some useful resources, an adept writer can churn out high-quality papers in short order.

Resources:

Let’s examine the state of our EIE Literary journal — The print version document file, cover art etc. Please don’t be disappointed if your work is not in this issue. Space constraints and the subject matter theme will limit which ones are chosen.

Many new text, video and audio resources have been posted on our site. Please do some research yourselves on worthwhile articles, lectures, debates, interviews, and post them for the rest of us.

Homework:

Writing subject: A short research paper on any subject, at least one page with at least two works cited. Use the MLA template. We will discuss subjects.

Listening:

Lecture: Terry Eagleton on Evil

Lecture: Psychology and climate change

Lecture: Nanotechnology, Ethics and Religion

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Thanksgiving

Dear Scholars,
Thanksgiving
I hope you are all enjoying a well-deserved holiday. There is no class this week. See you all next Thursday.

I just came across a very interesting article on academic writing and plagiarism — or more specifically, “cyber-pseudepigraphy” It is a well-written and quite interesting research paper on the growing phenomenon of college papers for sale online. It does not, as is so often done, simply subject the practice to endless disparagement, but maintains that, in an environment of papers for sale and ghost writers for hire, the intrinsic value of a college degree is becoming increasingly suspect. I feel that this position is certainly justified but also that it is clearly far more likely to be true in a mass-production educational environment than one in which one-on-one education is the norm. What do you think?

Please read the paper for its scholarly form as well as content and writing style.

The new reference section in our classroom contains:

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* Agenda this week — nonsense lit, holiday, resources Help with Search (new window)

Dear Scholars,

Homework for today was to watch:
Stephen Fry – Kinetic Typography

And to answer the questions:

What is his opinion on the use of
  • Ending a sentence with a preposition?
  • Using split infinitives?
  • Misusing “imply” and “infer”?
  • Misusing “less” and “fewer”
  • Using “none” in the plural?
Do you understand the issues raised here? Let’s discuss them.

What is his opinion on words as art?

Can you find where he breaks the synesis rule?

This week’s chosen topic in nonsense literature and you were asked to post examples by others in the Great Writings Forum or Poetry Forum as appropriate, and your own efforts in the Writers Forum.

You were asked to view Lectures in nonsense and to keep up with this section as it will be expanded.

Next week there will be no class on Thanksgiving. If there is interest, perhaps we can have an online class next Monday or Tuesday evening. Please discuss it with your families and let me know what you think of the idea.

Let’s look at research papers and term papers at some point. This sounds more daunting than it is.

A new reference section has been added to our classroom which includes

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Poetry notes

Dear Scholars,

Our theme this week being absurdity and nonsense literature, here is an interesting example, inspired by Angela’s Insomnia verse:

The Nightmare Song from Iolanthe by G&S.

Here is one of the great classic nonsense verses:

Jabberwocky

The wabe(See Jabberwocky glossary)

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
Jaberwocky
And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

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Agenda this week Tuesday, 2 November 2010, 09:22 AM

Dear Scholars,

The homework was to watch at least the first part of Unacknowledged Legislation — a speech given at Rutgers University on the power of the written word in politics and social transformation — and to listen to it for its use of language as well as its message. You all took careful vocabulary notes. Let’s discuss terms he uses and your vocabulary journals.



Suggested writing project — the power of words: Put into words a complaint, diatribe or persuasive work. Express an opinion that you feel strongly about. We will discuss projects submitted this week on his theme.

Let’s go over some of the submitted work.


An early version of the classic Strunk’s Elements of Style has been put in our classroom. Let’s review some of the elements. It has been revised many times since, but this one is in public domain. From Wikipedia: The Elements of Style (1918) (aka Strunk & White), by William Strunk, Jr., and E. B. White, is a prescriptive American English writing style guide comprising eight “elementary rules of usage,” ten “elementary principles of composition,” “a few matters of form,” a list of forty-nine “words and expressions commonly misused,” and a list of fifty-seven “words often misspelled.”


dangling participle
Dangling participles
It would seem fairly obvious, but one of the most important elements of writing is to say what you actually mean. It’s very easy to say something else without realizing it. Let’s explore this problem.

A pronoun must refer to a single noun, not a phrase or a collection of oddments and especially may not refer to nothing at all. Check your work to determine the reference for pronouns.

Wrong:

The accountant’s wheelbarrow was full of eels, which irritated the fastidious spectator.

The which does not refer to a specific noun. Are the eels irritating the professor, or is it the presence of the wheelbarrow?

Better:

The presence of eels in the accountant’s wheelbarrow irritated the fastidious spectator.

Modifying phrases must modify something appropriate. “Misplaced” modifiers dangle about untidily.

Here are some examples of ambiguous anaphoric references and dangling participles.

While climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, which is quite steep up to the very top and then slopes away rather sharply, Rupert’s hair dryer required constant adjustment.


(Who is climbing the mountain? The hair drier?)

Ducking under a flock of pestilent soiled budgies, the handlebars struck the sandwich in my pocket doing irreparable harm to the avocado.


(Who or what is ducking?)

To Rupert’s surprise, he was comfortably able to drive the tractor wearing swim fins and goggles.


(Is the tractor wearing swim fins and goggles?)


Homework:

Watch the rest of Unacknowledged Legislation.

A vocabulary story, The Ministry of Erroneous Assumptions, has been added to our class. Have a look at it.

How to write a research paper has been added to our classroom. We will be discussing this at some point.

Try to determine what is wrong with the following sentences, and correct them, posting your versions in the writers forum.

  1. While trying ineffectually to retrieve the eggplant centerpiece from his neighbor’s trout pond, Rupert’s phone wouldn’t stop playing Monteverdi’s Orfeo and the chicken just kept dancing until Irmgard threw a yogurt-encrusted spatula at him.
  2. The spinning wheel stood on the ancient parapet before it was dismantled.
  3. There was a rumor going around that the library’s copy of 16 More Things to Do in Zero Gravity had been used to store the dessicated duck’s liver long after the expiry date and it was nasty.
  4. The banner flew in the sparkling sun as the cavalcade approached the battlements just before it disappeared from view.
  5. Harold helped Hermione rewrite the screenplay of Delightful Moments with Hideous People before being insulted by the dockworker, and it reminded her of a mermaid on a motorcycle.
  6. The day after the strange incident with the petulant penguin, Mabel found Hermione and Penelope putting the finishing touches on the marble bust of Jane Austin and then she came down with a bad cold and hid it in the refrigerator until she could think of a better way to explain why she missed the deadline.
  7. The members of the sixth grade cooking class were issued charismatic wooden spoons, but were told by the three whisk-wielding Muscovites that they were expected to present them to the members of the board of holistic balloonists when they finished their tour of the campus model-railroader’s exhibit of extinct Siberian waterfowl.


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