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.

November 11, 2014 · Filed under Class agenda, Class notes, Writing Class

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