Thursday, March 31, 2011

Now, it's your turn!


Here's your writing assignment for the day:


Anyone feel sorry for Hester Prynne?

-or-

Do you think she deserved the punishment she received?


Hester Prynne is not the only person to has felt isolation and/or alienation. Maybe you or someone you know has felt lonely in the halls of....gulp...high school!


For this writing assignment, I want everyone to watch a Youtube video of a modern day perspective of alienation. This clip is taken from the 2010 movie, Easy A. This movie is essentially about a high school girl desperate to bounce back from a terrible rumor that one of her peers started about her. This clip shows a few attempts from Olive to make things right and escape her feelings of loneliness. View this movie HERE .


Anyone feel sorry for Olive?

-or-

Do you think she deserved the punishment she received?


Sound familiar?


I want everyone to comment on both of these situations. Both of these characters are experiencing alienation and loneliness. Publish your writing assignment as a comment to this blog telling me which leading lady you feel most sorry for -- Hester or Olive. Why do you feel most sorry for the woman you have chosen? If you were a friend to the woman you have chosen, would you have approached your friend about what she done? What would you have said? Please do not add to your classmates' posts or simply agree or disagree with a post. Please address the questions and prompts that I have provided and supply me with your own opinion and ideas.




Eggcorns


Eggcorns = eggs containing pieces of corn?


An eggcorn is formally described as an idiosyncratic substitution of a word or phrase for a word or words that sound similiar or identical in the speaker's dialect. The new word or phrase produces a new meaning of the intended word.


Do you follow?


Haven't there been times where you realized that you've been pronouncing a word wrong for a good portion of your life or realized that you've been using that word incorrectly for quite some time?


I have!


My eggcorn blooper is the word alienation. It was previously mentioned that we would be concentrating on Hester Prynne and how she suffered from alienation and seclusion throughout this novel in more ways than one. You're probably asking yourself what my eggcorn blooper is, right? Well, that is my blooper -- alienation.


Let me explain.


When I was younger, I always heard others speak about alienation. You all know that alienation means being withdrawn from the world, being alone, and/or left alone to your own thoughts. Pretty self-explanatory. When I was younger I thought that alienation actually meant...


"Alien-nation".


Yes, I thought that when one was alienated that one found themselves in an alien-nation; something out of this world. Back to earth! For this novel, we are referring to the common definition of alienation, not mine. Has there ever been a time where you've been guilty of using an 'eggcorn' or heard someone else make a blooper? Give me an example of a time where you or someone you know has been guilty of using an 'eggcorn'.







Thursday, March 24, 2011

The Scarlet Letter



Welcome 11th grade English students! This blog will help you to best understand our next novel, The Scarlet Letter. We will be begin to discuss the theme 'alienation' and how intense this was for our heroine, Hester Prynne. Instead of assigning something in class, I have created this blog so we can have fun with the text. You have much more time to respond to my blog prompts and more time to supply your classmates with many brilliant ideas! Being said, please use appropriate, in-class language and professional blog posts. Take this blog seriously, as this will be most of your homework grades for the unit. Have fun and bring your 'A-Game' :)