Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Tuesday, February 28 The Gambler

Learning Targets: I can cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
I can determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.
I can determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings;

Coming up: vocabulary quiz Friday.

In class: we are listening to the song "The Gambler"; you

have a copy of the lyrics (handout below). Please be

prepared to explain the metaphor behind the lyrics in a well-

written paragraph. These will be collected at the end of

class.

The Gambler

Songwriters: BRADLEY, ROBERT/NEHRA, MICHAEL/NEHRA, ANDREW/FOWLKES, JEFF

When we have finished, please respond to the following in a well-written paragraph of approximately 150 words. Blue or black pen only!

Begin with a MLA heading.

Read over the lyrics to The Gambler and explain the

extended metaphor. Use specific text from the song to

support your response within your sentences.

What is an extended metaphor? The term extended metaphor refers to a comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem. It is often comprised of more than one sentence and sometimes consists of a full paragraph.

On a warm summer's evenin' on a train bound for nowhere,

I met up with the gambler; we were both too tired to sleep.

So we took turns a starin' out the window at the darkness

'Til boredom overtook us, and he began to speak.

He said, "Son, I've made my life out of readin' people's faces,

And knowin' what their cards were by the way they held their eyes.

So if you don't mind my sayin', I can see you're out of aces.

For a taste of your whiskey I'll give you some advice."

So I handed him my bottle and he drank down my last swallow.

Then he bummed a cigarette and asked me for a light.

And the night got deathly quiet, and his face lost all expression.

Said, "If you're gonna play the game, boy, ya gotta learn to play it right.

You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em,

Know when to walk away and know when to run.

You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table.

There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.

Now Ev'ry gambler knows that the secret to survivin'

Is knowin' what to throw away and knowing what to keep.

'Cause ev'ry hand's a winner and ev'ry hand's a loser,

And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep."

So when he'd finished speakin', he turned back towards the window,

Crushed out his cigarette and faded off to sleep.

And somewhere in the darkness the gambler, he broke even.

But in his final words I found an ace that I could keep.

You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em,

Know when to walk away and know when to run.

You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table.

There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.

Chorus

Vocabulary- quiz on Friday, March 3

1 1. promiscuous- (adj) a person having many transient relationships

2. garret- (noun)attic room

3. slovenliness-(adj) marked by negligence

4. cupidity- (noun) greed

5. maxim-(noun) saying

6. to augur- to portend or foretell

7. rumpus- noisy disturbance or commotion

8. perambulate- to walk

9. hegira - a flight to escape danger

10. turpitude- moral depravity

Sunday, February 26, 2017

Monday, February 27 The Namesake final quiz

All grades are up-to-date. All received material is being passed back today.

In class: multiple choice assessment on chapters 10-12 of The Namesake. This counts in the homework category. The reading was posted on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday before break. There are no extensions.
The Namesake film

The Journey Home from Bombay dreams New vocabulary: class handout / copy below / quiz Friday.

Vocabulary- quiz on Friday, March 3

1 1. promiscuous- (adj) a person having many transient relationships

2. garret- (noun)attic room

3. slovenliness-(adj) marked by negligence

4. cupidity- (noun) greed

5. maxim-(noun) saying

6. to augur- to portend or foretell

7. rumpus- noisy disturbance or commotion

8. perambulate- to walk

9. hegira - a flight to escape danger

10. turpitude- moral depravity

Friday, February 17, 2017

Friday, February 17

Here's a look at the Birmingham, Alabama, church bombing that killed four African-American girls during church services in 1963.

September 15, 2013 marked the 50th anniversary of the bombing.

Facts:
September 15, 1963 - A bomb blast at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, kills four African-American girls during church services. At least 14 others are injured in the explosion, including Sarah Collins, the 12-year-old sister of Addie Mae Collins, who loses an eye.

Three former Ku Klux Klan members are eventually convicted of murder for the bombing.

Victims:
Addie Mae Collins, 14
Denise McNair, 11
Carole Robertson, 14
Cynthia Wesley, 14

Timeline:
September 15, 1963 - Four girls are killed and 14 injured in a bomb blast at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.
Riots break out, and two African-American boys, Virgil Ware, 13, and Johnny Robinson, 16, are also killed. In all, at least 20 people are injured from the initial bombing and the ensuing riots.
Alabama Governor George Wallace sends 500 National Guardsmen and 300 state troopers to the city. The next day, they are joined by 500 police officers and 150 sheriffs' deputies.

September 16, 1963 - President John F. Kennedy responds by saying, "If these cruel and tragic events can only awaken that city and state - if they can only awaken this entire nation to a realization of the folly of racial injustice and hatred and violence, then it is not too late for all concerned to unite in steps toward peaceful progress before more lives are lost."

September 16, 1963 - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holds a press conference in Birmingham, saying that the U.S. Army "ought to come to Birmingham and take over this city and run it."

1965 - Suspects emerge: Bobby Frank Cherry, Thomas Blanton, Robert Chambliss, and Herman Frank Cash, all Ku Klux Klan members. Witnesses are reluctant to talk and physical evidence is lacking, so charges are not filed.

1976 - Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley reopens the case.

September 26, 1977 - Robert Chambliss, 73, a retired auto mechanic and former Ku Klux Klan member, is indicted by a Jefferson County grand jury on four counts of first-degree murder.

November 15, 1977 - On the second day of the trial, Chambliss's niece, Elizabeth Cobb, testifies that before the bombing, Chambliss confided to her that he had "enough stuff put away to flatten half of Birmingham."

November 18, 1977 - Robert Chambliss is convicted of first-degree murder in connection with the bombing and sentenced to life imprisonment.

1985 - Chambliss dies in prison.

1994 - Herman Frank Cash dies without being charged in the bombing.

July 1997 - The case is reopened by the FBI, citing new evidence.

May 16, 2000 - A grand jury in Alabama indicts former Klansmen Bobby Frank Cherry and Thomas Blanton with eight counts each of first-degree murder - four counts of intentional murder and four of murder with universal malice.

May 1, 2001 - Thomas Blanton is found guilty of first-degree murder and is sentenced to four life terms.

May 22, 2002 - Bobby Frank Cherry is found guilty and given a sentence of four life terms.

November 8, 2004 - Cherry dies in prison.

February 20, 2006 - The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church is declared a national historic landmark.

September 12, 2013 - 50 years after the bombing, all four girls who died are awarded Congressional Gold Medals.

September 14, 2013 - A bronze and steel statue of the four girls is unveiled. It is located at Kelly Ingram Park, on the corner of Sixteenth Street North and Sixth Avenue North.

August 3, 2016 - Thomas Blanton, the last living convicted bomber, is denied parole. Blanton, 86, had asked the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles to let him die as a free man. He won't be eligible for parole again until 2021.

Martin Luther King and John Coltrane

Nina Simone

radical brownies..the movement today

Mississippi Goddam (lyrics)

Alabama's gotten me so upset (bombing Church)
Tennessee made me lose my rest (school desegregation)
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam (Medgar Evers)

Can't you see it
Can't you feel it
It's all in the air
I can't stand the pressure much longer (MLK letter from Birmingham J)
Somebody say a prayer

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

This is a show tune (America must write a show to right the wrongs)
But the show hasn't been written for it, yet

Hound dogs on my trail (used to chase slaves)
School children sitting in jail (children's crusade Birmingham)
Black cat cross my path (black cat = black man; danger)
I think every day's gonna be my last (bombing)

Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I don't belong here (no place for African Americans)
I don't belong there
I've even stopped believing in prayer

Don't tell me
I tell you ( I know what is right)
Me and my people just about due
I've been there so I know
They keep on saying "Go slow!"

But that's just the trouble
"do it slow" (equality is too slow)

Washing the windows (menial jobs)
"do it slow"
Picking the cotton
"do it slow"
You're just plain rotten
"do it slow"
You're too damn lazy
"do it slow"
The thinking's crazy
"do it slow"
Where am I going
What am I doing
I don't know
I don't know

Just try to do your very best
Stand up be counted with all the rest
For everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

I made you thought I was kidding didn't we (crowd realizes Simone's claim)

Picket lines
School boycotts (types of protests)
They try to say it's a communist plot
All I want is equality
For my sister my brother my people and me

Yes you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my ears
And talk real fine just like a lady
And you'd stop calling me Sister Sadie

Oh but this whole country is full of lies
You're all gonna die and die like flies
I don't trust you any more
You keep on saying "Go slow!"
"Go slow!"

But that's just the trouble
"do it slow"
Desegregation
"do it slow"
Mass participation
"do it slow"
Reunification
"do it slow"
Do things gradually
"do it slow"
But bring more tragedy
"do it slow"
Why don't you see it
Why don't you feel it
I don't know
I don't know

You don't have to live next to me
Just give me my equality
Everybody knows about Mississippi
Everybody knows about Alabama
Everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

Thursday, February 16, 2017

Thursday, February 16 The Namesake chapter 10

In class: If there is any work related to The Namesake chapters 3-9, please turn in by tomorrow.
We are listening to chapter 10 today, which begins on page 246.
(disc 8, section 10)
Very important: over the break, make sure you have finished the novel. On Monday, February 27 there will be a multiple choice assessment on chapters 10-12.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Wednesday, February 15, writing response to chapter 9 of the namesake

In class: review of chapter 9
In class writing reflection on chapter 9. You may use your text and most assuredly will need to have read from page 239 (last night's reading to the end of the chapter) in order to successfully complete the writing assignment. (copy below; class handout)

Getting ahead: tomorrow we are listening to chapter 10. If you are absent over the next two days, make sure to finish the book by Monday, February 27. There will be a short, multiple choice assessment on chapters 10-12.

Summary of chapter 9:

2. For the reception, Gogol changes into a suit, and Moushumi into a red Banarasi gown. In the midst of the festivities, the thought occurs to Gogol that two years ago, he might have been watching Moushumi get married to Graham. The dress she is wearing, and many of the preparations, were for her wedding to Graham. Honestly, it's a little awkward.

3. Gogol and Moushumi head off to the honeymoon suite, where Gogol remembers how he asked her to marry him in the spring, on her birthday. He had given her a gift of the hat he bought months before, and included in the box a smaller box with an engagement ring.

4. In the suite, they make love, and afterwards, they count up the cash gifts they received at their wedding, a whopping $7,035. That's a lot of dough.

5. Moushumi decides to hold on to her maiden name, and they move to an apartment together and settle into a routine. Wedded bliss?

6. Not so much. Gogol finds all sorts of reminders of Moushumi's life with Graham. He even spots the wedding dress she was planning to wear at a second ceremony at Graham's father's house.

7. In March, Gogol accompanies Moushumi to a conference in Paris. While Moushumi prepares a paper for her conference, Gogol goes sightseeing. Then, after she gives her paper, they meet up at a café in the Latin Quarter.

8. Gogol wants to take Moushumi's picture, but she refuses; she doesn't want to look like a tourist.

9. Fast forward to a Saturday evening in May. They are at a party thrown by Moushumi's friends, Astrid and Donald. Gogol isn't having fun because it turns out Moushumi had met Graham through Astrid and Donald. There are some seriously bad vibes at this party.

10. Astrid is pregnant, and the guests discuss baby names. But Gogol has issues with the whole name thing, so he wanders around their place instead of chiming in the conversation.

11.Then Gogol helps Donald cook, and Donald makes a comment about Moushumi and Graham that makes Gogol uneasy.

12. Done playing sous-chef, Gogol returns to the other guests, who are still debating baby names. Moushumi tells everyone how Gogol changed his name, and Gogol is ticked off that she shared his secret.
**************************************************************

Name ________________________________ The Namesake by Jumpa Lahiri Chapter 9 response

At a gathering at Donald and Astrid´s house, Nikhil says partially in jest: "There´s no such thing as a perfect name. I think that human beings should be allowed to name themselves when they turn eighteen. Until then, pronouns." (240)

Write a thorough response to Nikhil´s statement. Do you agree or disagree with him? Discuss why his idea is practical or not. Talk about the name that you would have given yourself if you had waited until age eighteen. Remember that Nikhil is already thirty when he makes this statement. What name do you think he would have given himself if he had known at age eighteen what he knows now? Gogol? Nikhil? Other? Explain. (minimum 150 words)

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Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Tuesday, February 14 The Namesake chapter 9

In class today: review of chapter 8 (see below)

listening to chapter 9. (disc 7, 7n)What we do not finish in class, please read the rest of the chapter for homework. You will be writing in class tomorrow without the aid of your text.

(Note that if you are on a field trip tomorrow, I have copies of the writing, which will be collected at the beginning of the class on Thursday.)

The Namesake Summary for chapter 8

A year after Ashoke's death, Gogol is studying for his registration exam that will allow him to be a licensed architect practicing in New York. He has broken up with Maxine a few months after Ashoke's death, and now she is engaged to someone else. Sonia is still living in the house on Pemberton Road with their mother, who spends her nights awake and lonely, watching TV in bed.

One night, Gogol agrees to go out with the other students in the class he is taking to prepare for his registration exam. He ends up having a good time with a woman named Bridget, who is his age and married. Her husband lives in Massachusetts, and she begins to have an affair with Gogol. They never exchange numbers and he never goes home with her; she always comes to his apartment, just to have sex, not a relationship. Gogol ends the affair when he begins to feel guilty about Bridget's betrayal of her husband.

Gogol's mother encourages him to call Moushumi Mazoomdar, the daughter of family friends whom Gogol has grown up around at family parties. He doesn't really remember much about her, but he calls her anyway and they meet at a bar. They reminisce about their childhoods, which overlapped but not in a way that is significant to either of them. She tells him that she moved to Paris to study French literature, and moved to New York to follow her ex-fiancé, an American named Graham. They go into a French restaurant for a bottle of wine and dessert and decide to see each other again.

A week later, Gogol goes out with Moushumi again, this time for lunch. After lunch, they go for a drink at a place Gogol frequents and the waiter mistakes Moushumi for Gogol's sister. They go into a hat shop so Gogol can buy a hat, since he is not dressed for the cold weather. Moushumi tries on an expensive, fancy hat and Gogol decides to return to the shop to buy it for her later. The next weekend, she invites him over for dinner. They have sex and the dinner she was cooking burns, so they order Chinese food.

Moushumi confides in Gogol that she never liked any of the Indian men who courted her; because she is a woman, the encouragement to get married had been more intense for her. She felt lonely, as if she would never meet anyone to marry. After college, when she went to Paris, she began to have a newfound confidence that allowed her to carry out romantic affairs with many men at once. She fell in love with Graham, an American living in Paris for a year, and returned with him to New York to become a PhD candidate at NYU.

She and Graham had lived together in Manhattan, hiding their romance from her parents. When she finally introduced him to her parents, they had done their best to accept him as a potential son-in-law. Moushumi had proposed to Graham in a taxi in traffic, impulsively. He had said yes and they had gone to Calcutta to meet her extended family. He had seemed at ease with them. They had begun to plan the wedding, which would be Bengali.

A few weeks before the wedding, Moushumi had overheard Graham talking about how unhappy he had been with her family in India. She confronted him about it on the walk home, and it had turned into an awful fight. She threw her engagement ring into oncoming traffic and he moved out soon after, canceling their engagement. Moushumi had taken the rest of the semester off from NYU and mourned, finally returning to school in the fall. It was then that she had met Gogol.

Joyce, Meghan. Wang, Bella ed. "The Namesake Chapter 8 Summary and Analysis". GradeSaver, 21 November 2011 Web. 12 February 2017.

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Monday, February 13 The Namesake chapter 8

Essential question: How do the following themes impact an Indian family torn between the pull of respecting family traditions and the American way of life?

Themes to consider:

1.clash of lifestyles

2. cultural disorientation

3. the conflicts of assimilation

4. the tangled ties between generations

In class: listening to chapter 8 (disc 7)

accompanying text-based questions. Class handout / copy below.

These will be collected at the beginning of class on Tuesday.

The Namesake Summary for chapter 8

Joyce, Meghan. Wang, Bella ed. "The Namesake Chapter 8 Summary and Analysis". GradeSaver, 21 November 2011 Web. 12 February 2017.

Name______________________________________ Chapter 8 content responses. Please weave in textual evidence and cite.

Why is Maxine no longer in Nikhil's life? What has he recently learned from her parents when he bumps into them in a gallery?

Why does Ashima want Gogol to meet Moushumi Mazoomdar? What does he remember of her when his mother first mentions her name? What update does Ashima give Gogol on Moushumi's life?

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How does his first meeting with Moushumi go?

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Why is Nikhil "secretly pleased that [Moushumi] has seen th[e] rooms [of his house on Pemberton Road], tasted his mother's cooking, washed her hands in the bathroom, however long ago" (200)?

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How does the story of the hat bode well for their future relationship?

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How does Bengali enter their common language once they start to see one another?

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How was Moushumi's rebellion at Brown similar to Nikhil's rebellion at Yale?

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How does Moushumi perceive the breakup of her engagement to Graham as a result of his being disrespectful to her cultural heritage?