This week's Sunday Review of The New York Times focused on writing and language. Here are three pieces on:
what makes writing good,
how language learning helps us,
and how fiction works in the brain.
We'll read and discuss these in class this week. I'll let you know due dates, etc. in class on Monday.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Monte Cristo Vocabulary, Part 2
Chapter 45: impassable,
irksome, condescension, temperate
Chapter 46: abated,
auspices, yonder, apoplectic, phantom
Chapter 47:
distraught, reconciliation, resolute, ineffable, supplications, torpor, desolation,
scrutinizing, austere
Chapter 48: notary,
convulsively, stupefied, injunction, filial, candor, ominous, recourse, ruffian
Chapter 49:
misapprehension
Chapter 50:
amorous, laden, contemptuous, dainty, perceived, ascend, reminiscence,
sonorous, aperture
Monday, February 20, 2012
Writing contest info
Essay for the contest should be 500 words or less. Poems have no fixed limit, but don't overdo it. The two topics are:
1) Exploring themes of intolerance, prejudice and hate. Communicate through essay or poem how the tragedy of Sept. 11 reinforces the need to teach our young people about the Holocaust and the consequences of what intense prejudice, hatred, and discrimination can bring about.
2) The Holocaust Experience of Jews from the former Soviet Union. (This does not require that you have some personal connection to this topic.)
Good luck writers!
1) Exploring themes of intolerance, prejudice and hate. Communicate through essay or poem how the tragedy of Sept. 11 reinforces the need to teach our young people about the Holocaust and the consequences of what intense prejudice, hatred, and discrimination can bring about.
2) The Holocaust Experience of Jews from the former Soviet Union. (This does not require that you have some personal connection to this topic.)
Good luck writers!
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Quotes
For Wednesday, write your interpretation of ONE of the following quotes:
Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love.
George Eliot
Jealousy is a dog's bark which attracts thieves.
Karl Kraus
Monday, February 6, 2012
Count of Monte Cristo Vocaublary
Chapter 1: bespoke, countenance, obsequious, imperceptibly, proverb
Chapter 2: insinuation
Chapter 3: promontory, cordiality, mesmerized, demented, vengeance
Chapter 4: donned, piquant, epicure, betrothed, commissary, consternation
Chapter 5: annihilation, plebeian, suffused, partisans
Chapter 6: jaunty, dowry, betrothal, partaking, haggard
Chapter 7: formidable, gendarmes, repugnance, abode, gaol, dungeon
Chapter 8: banished, sanguine, pang
Chapter 9: boisterously, conspiracy, adherents
Chapter 10: usurper, ineptitude, scaffold, recompensed
Chapter 2: insinuation
Chapter 3: promontory, cordiality, mesmerized, demented, vengeance
Chapter 4: donned, piquant, epicure, betrothed, commissary, consternation
Chapter 5: annihilation, plebeian, suffused, partisans
Chapter 6: jaunty, dowry, betrothal, partaking, haggard
Chapter 7: formidable, gendarmes, repugnance, abode, gaol, dungeon
Chapter 8: banished, sanguine, pang
Chapter 9: boisterously, conspiracy, adherents
Chapter 10: usurper, ineptitude, scaffold, recompensed
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Contact information
By far the most effective way to contact me is through the email providedby Engrade. However, I can also be reached at (718) 724-8500. Leave a message, and I will return the call as soon as possible. You can also email at my Dept. of Education email: pvilbig@schools.nyc.gov.
Grades/class info
Grades will be based on the following:
Tests/ at home writing and projects (including creative writing projects): 60 percent
Classwork, quizzes, and homework: 40 percent
Total: 100 percent
How we'll work:
For creative writing, we will use a workshop approach, in which you'll share your work with other writers in the class and get their feedback. (More on this later.)
For each book or literary work we read, you’ll be expected to read about 15 pages a night. In addition you will sometimes have homework in which you'll be asked to write brief responses or answer questions about your reading or topics for class discussion. You can expect that for each book or literary work, you'll write one at-home essay and have one to two tests. Pop quizzes occur whenever the teacher (me) gets the sense that students are not reading the material!
IMPORTANT: Grades are cumulative. That means the grades you make now count as much as the grades later in the semester. So it's important to work hard from the very beginning and not dig yourself into a hole in the first weeks of our class.
We will use Engrade, an online grading system in this class. I’ll give you information shortly about how to register. You’ll have your own account, where I’ll post grades. Your parents or guardians should be given access to your account.
Tests/ at home writing and projects (including creative writing projects): 60 percent
Classwork, quizzes, and homework: 40 percent
Total: 100 percent
How we'll work:
For creative writing, we will use a workshop approach, in which you'll share your work with other writers in the class and get their feedback. (More on this later.)
For each book or literary work we read, you’ll be expected to read about 15 pages a night. In addition you will sometimes have homework in which you'll be asked to write brief responses or answer questions about your reading or topics for class discussion. You can expect that for each book or literary work, you'll write one at-home essay and have one to two tests. Pop quizzes occur whenever the teacher (me) gets the sense that students are not reading the material!
IMPORTANT: Grades are cumulative. That means the grades you make now count as much as the grades later in the semester. So it's important to work hard from the very beginning and not dig yourself into a hole in the first weeks of our class.
We will use Engrade, an online grading system in this class. I’ll give you information shortly about how to register. You’ll have your own account, where I’ll post grades. Your parents or guardians should be given access to your account.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Edgar Allen Poe birthday
Today (Thursday) was the 203rd anniversary of Edgar Allen Poe's birth. For years a mysterious figure had visited his gravesite and left behind a bottle of cognac each on year on his birth date. He didn't show this year. Here's a video that goes into the background.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
How to use peer review feature on turnitin ...
Go to this url on turnitin to find a tutorial on how to use the peer review feature of turnitin.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
A Plethora of Words
imperviousness, indelicacy, abnormal, drudgeries
intermittent, perverse, mused, coexists
ostensible, credulous, impartiality, implication
dejection, altruism, aloof, innocuous
prosaic, proverbially, panoramic, inexorable
intermittent, perverse, mused, coexists
ostensible, credulous, impartiality, implication
dejection, altruism, aloof, innocuous
prosaic, proverbially, panoramic, inexorable
Monday, October 31, 2011
Homework for Tuesday
Give your assessment of Chapter 3. Create a brief summary. Then choose the moment that you find either most important or most striking and explain the significance of the scene, and why you believe it's important. (This doesn't have to be the most dramatic scene or the most important from the standpoint of plot.)
Monday, October 24, 2011
Times articles
Choose one of the following articles and write a response in which you a) briefly explain what the article is about and briefly state your opinion or view in response to it (first paragraph); b) detail the articles main points (second paragraph); and c) elaborate on your opinion in response, using evidence from the article to back up your point (third paragraph). One page minimum. Due Monday, October 31.
Use turnitin.com to file your work.
Articles: horses, Murakami, homework, bike trip, end of Nazism in Germany
Use turnitin.com to file your work.
Articles: horses, Murakami, homework, bike trip, end of Nazism in Germany
Monday, October 17, 2011
Hurrah! More vocabulary!
disparities, contortions, solicitations, obstinately
subdued
irrepressible, lamentable, whimsical, nebulous aspirations
rambling, milieu, tumult, credulity, inclination
deluded, idiosyncrasies, foreboding, antagonistic, prosperity
irrepressible, lamentable, whimsical, nebulous aspirations
rambling, milieu, tumult, credulity, inclination
deluded, idiosyncrasies, foreboding, antagonistic, prosperity
Saturday, October 1, 2011
What are stories supposed to do?
Remember when we talked about Junot Diaz on our first day of class? In addition to being a novelist and short story writer, he's the editor of a literary magazine, the Boston Review. Here's how he describes what he's looking for in a good short story. (I'd like you to consider how this could apply to your own writing)
“I’m looking for fiction that resembles the Thirty-Mile Woman from Toni Morrison’s Beloved: ‘She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.’ Or as Takashi Murakami puts it: ‘We want to see the newest things. That is because we want to see the future, even if only momentarily. It is the moment in which, even if we don’t completely understand what we have glimpsed, we are nonetheless touched by it. This is what we have come to call art.’ I’m looking for fiction in which a heart struggles against itself, in which the messy unmanageable complexity of the world is revealed. Sentences that are so sharp they cut the eye."
“I’m looking for fiction that resembles the Thirty-Mile Woman from Toni Morrison’s Beloved: ‘She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.’ Or as Takashi Murakami puts it: ‘We want to see the newest things. That is because we want to see the future, even if only momentarily. It is the moment in which, even if we don’t completely understand what we have glimpsed, we are nonetheless touched by it. This is what we have come to call art.’ I’m looking for fiction in which a heart struggles against itself, in which the messy unmanageable complexity of the world is revealed. Sentences that are so sharp they cut the eye."
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
More vocabulary words
admonishing,
circuitous, depleted, consoled,complacency, ambiguity, mystically,
repugnance, fastidiousness, perplexity, provocation, conjecture, coquetry, perpetual, discomfiture, disillusionment, conducive,
pessimism, promenade
vindication,
seclusion, denouement, denunciation, grotesqueness
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Creativity and "flow"
Watch this video by the the social scientist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and come to class prepared to discuss his ideas involving creativity, fullfillment, and flow.
Registering for Engrade ...
Grades for this class will be recorded on Engrade, the online grading system. How to sign up:
1) Go to Engrade at www.engrade.com.
2) Click on Sign Up, and then click on Student.
3) In the box provided put your information: teacher name-student id-special access code. Example: mrvilbig-284950604-5403.
4) Note: mrvilbig is spelled with no capitals or periods; I'll give you your special access code in class.
5) Click next and set your own username and password.
Once you are registered, you and your parents or guardians can check grades at any time.
1) Go to Engrade at www.engrade.com.
2) Click on Sign Up, and then click on Student.
3) In the box provided put your information: teacher name-student id-special access code. Example: mrvilbig-284950604-5403.
4) Note: mrvilbig is spelled with no capitals or periods; I'll give you your special access code in class.
5) Click next and set your own username and password.
Once you are registered, you and your parents or guardians can check grades at any time.
Friday, September 9, 2011
9/11 Reactions
The playwright Christopher Shinn offers some thoughts on his personal reaction to the September 11 attacks and how they affected his writing. I'd like you to watch the video this weekend and think about his reaction for a discussion in class on Monday. What was the main way, in his view, that his focus as a writer changed? He questions whether television and movies will be able to address the profound issues raised by the September 11 events. Why do you think he takes this view? What are your own thoughts?
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