Week of August 30, 2010

English 12 AP/GT~Periods 2, 3, 4A~Literary Analysis of British and World Literature, Advanced Composition, Creative Writing, Senior Writing Project, Preparation for the AP English Literature and Composition Exam, Independent Literary Criticism and MLA Research

• Welcome and Introductions
• Slide Presentation--A Few Favorite Things
  
• "August Morning" by Albert Garcia
  
• Course Overview, Policies, Expectations (See Classroom Documents below)
  
• "Postcards from the Edge" HW (50) due Wednesday 9/1
  
• Analysis and discussion of "Blackberry Picking" by Seamus Heaney
• Introductory Essay Assignment HW (100) due Tuesday 9/7
  
• AP Multiple Choice
• Jude the Obscure (1895) by Thomas Hardy; Reading Schedule

English 12 Honors~Period 4B~Literary Analysis of British and American Literature, Application of the Reading Apprenticeship Model, Collegiate Writing with 6+1 Writing Traits, Creative Writing, Senior Writing Project, Vocabulary Study, Preparation for the SAT and the AP Language and Composition Exam, Independent Rhetorical Analysis and MLA Research

• Welcome and Introductions
• Slide Presentation--A Few Favorite Things
  
• "August Morning" by Albert Garcia
  
• Course Overview, Policies, Expectations (See Classroom Documents below)
  
• "Postcards from the Edge" HW (50) due Thursday 9/2
• Reading Survey HW (50) due Wednesday 9/8
  
• Intro to Ken Kesey and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962); Reading Schedule

August Morning

American Life in Poetry: August Morning
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

"William Carlos Williams, one of our country's most influential poets and a New Jersey physician, taught us to celebrate daily life. Here Albert Garcia offers us the simple pleasures and modest mysteries of a single summer day."

August Morning
by
Albert Garcia

It's ripe, the melon
by our sink.
Yellow,
bee-bitten, soft, it perfumes
the house too sweetly.
At five I wake, the air
mournful in its quiet.
My wife's eyes swim calmly
under their lids, her mouth and jaw
relaxed, different.
What is happening in the silence
of this house? Curtains
hang heavily from their rods.
Ficus leaves tremble
at my footsteps. Yet
the colors outside are perfect--
orange geranium, blue lobelia.
I wander from room to room
like a man in a museum:
wife, children, books, flowers,
melon. Such still air. Soon
the mid-morning breeze will float in
like tepid water, then hot.
How do I start this day,
I who am unsure
of how my life has happened
or how to proceed
amid this warm and steady sweetness?

Poem copyright (c) by Albert Garcia from his latest book Skunk Talk (Bear Starr Press, 2005) and originally published in Poetry East, No. 44. Reprinted by permission of the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.