river oaks [english]

The profile essay is due on Friday, with a typed rough draft due on Thursday. The essay should be around 750 words in length, formatted according to MLA guidelines. For a copy of the printed assignment, click here.  Your essay should focus on specific aspects of your subject's character, description, personality, advice or accomplishments. You are NOT to write a biography, or list of life events. Your goal is to point out what is unique about your subject, through descriptive language and dialogue, so that the reader can "see" him/her clearly. Although the contest winners on ULM's site use a slightly different prompt, the 2011 winners are good models for organization and content: ULM Freshman Writing Competition .

The Macbeth Exam will be on Thursday, November 21st. Quiz on Act III Monday, and we will cover the rest of the play on Tuesday and Wednesday. There is no vocabulary portion of this exam, and it will require quite a bit of writing (just a heads up).

Sophomores Read Act III of Macbeth . Optional homework is Comp Check and #2-5, due on Monday. There is also a quiz on Act III on Monday. For the 2009 BBC version (151 minutes) starring Patrick Stewart, click here.   For the Shakespeare Uncovered episode featuring Ethan Hawke, click here. Seniors We will continue to work on revisions until Friday, when we will have a peer review session. The final draft of the revision, with original attached, is due on Monday.

Seniors You should be working on your interview with a parent or guardian this week. Thankfully, the deadline for ULM is November 30th. We will write the "Profile" Essay next week and revise before submitting. This week, we are talking about revision. I've handed back your three most recent in-class essays and you will pick one to revise for Friday. Bring that essay to class tomorrow, and we will type in class. The optional homework assignment for Wednesday is an exercise on parallelism (Ex.2 on p343). Sophomores Quiz on Act II of Macbeth tomorrow. Optional homework from handout: Comp Check and #2-6.

Sophomores Honors assignment due tomorrow. Everyone needs to finish Act One. Quiz on Monday. Seniors Essay in class tomorrow . Bring your books!

Your reading assignment for tonight is Act One: Scenes 1-3.  Your HONORS assignment for this week is to read the "Anti-Stratfordian" section of your Macbeth introduction (xi-xv) and to type a one-page summary for Friday . Please follow MLA guidelines.

Today is Bonfire Day, or Guy Fawkes Day, in England. Celebrated every November 5th since 1605, this celebration commemorates the plot and subsequent execution of conspirators lead by Robert Catesby against James I and his protestant government. Guido (Guy) Fawkes was in charge of the gunpowder kegs placed under the House of Lords. He was discovered, tortured and hanged for treason. The story and nursery rhyme was used as a central motif in V For Vendetta , and the Guy Fawkes mask has been associated most recently with the hacker group Anonymous. Below is a short history of how the tradition began: Remember, remember!   The fifth of November,   The Gunpowder treason and plot;   I know of no reason   Why the Gunpowder treason   Should ever be forgot!

This week we are working with two different essays: "The Real New York Giants"  by Rick Reilly "For Fasting and Football: A Dedicated Game Plan"  by Samuel J. Freedman At the end of the week, you will choose one of these two superb examples of sports writing to be the subject of an analysis paper. You will write the essay in class on Friday.

Sophomores have a quiz/test on Renaissance Drama and Shakespeare tomorrow. Everyone should have your copy of Macbeth by now. Please bring it to class!

Here are a couple of things to help orient you to the Globe Theatre in London, still a vibrant part of Shakespeare's legacy: Macbeth @ Shakespeare's Globe  Shakespeare's Globe Mini-Doc