English 12, Blocks 4 and 7

BLOCK 4 (Grade 12):
This is just a reminder that your sociograms and chapter questions for The Catcher in the Rye should be handed in by Tuesday. And homework from last class: Using SPITS, analyse one of the 6 poems we looked at in class.

BLOCK 7 (Grade 12):
If you have yet to hand in your sociograms and chapter questions for The Catcher in the Rye unit, they should be handed in by Monday. Homework from Thursday's class: Study (and familiarize yourself with) the poetic devices learned in class for the Poetry Analysis Quiz on Monday.

For my BLOCK 4 and 7 Grade 12 students:
-- If you have not finished your synthesis essays, or written your test for The Catcher in the Rye, please come and speak to me. I will be in C203 most lunches and after school, or in the teacher prep room at the back of the library if you can't find me in C203. These should be completed as soon as possible!

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For those of you who were given the opportunity to refine your Catcher in the Rye quotation assignment for Ms. Lambert, here are the quotations.  Remember to work on the quotation that you originally selected.

Below are three (3) quotes from The Catcher in the Rye. You are to choose one (1) of them, and write a response to the quote answering the following question:

• What is the significance of this quote? (Think about the context of the book and Holden as a character- his beliefs, behaviours, opinions, etc)

You are to use textual evidence to support the argument in your response. Your response should be no shorter than 1 page, and no longer than 2. You are allowed to use first person point of view-- in fact, I would really appreciate your personal connection to the quote, and to the argument about it’s significance in regards to the novel.

This will be marked out of 15 (5 marks for analysis, 5 marks for use of textual evidence, and 5 marks for personal response).

Here is the first set of three quotation (given just 

before Spring Break). 

Choose one of the following quotations:

1. "Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, except me.  and I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff.  What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff--I mean if they're running and they don't' look where they're going, I have to come out from somewhere and catch them.  That's all I'd do all day.  I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.  I know its' cray , but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.  I know its crazy" (p.173).  
     
2. "The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was.  Nobody'd move.  You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished carching those two fish....Nobody'd be different.  The only thing that would be different would be you.  Not that you'd be so much older this time or anything.  It wouldn't be that, exactly.  You'd just be different, that's all" (p.121).  
                   
3.  "I think if you don't really like a girl, you shouldn't horse around with her at all, and if you do like her, then you're supposed to like her face, and if you like her face, you ought to be careful about doing crumby stuff to it, like squirting water all over it.  It's really too bad that so much crumby stuff is a lot of fun sometimes" (p.62).

 Here is the second set of three quotation (given just after Spring Break):

Choose one (1) of the following three (3) quotes:

1.    “Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behaviour. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them- if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful, reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry,” (p. 189).

2.    “The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one,” (p. 188)

3.    “I thought what I’d do was, I’d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn’t have to have any goddam stupid useless conversations with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they’d have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They’d get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I’d be through with having conversations for the rest of my life,” (p. 198)