Movie Version

I watched the PBS version of The Scarlet Letter.   We checked it out from the library.  It was very well done, with much of the dialogue coming directly from the book.  It seems you can watch it for free at this site.

http://www.watch-the-movies-online.com/the-scarlet-letter

Week 10

As we approach this week set aside for giving thanks, I'd like to express my gratitude for this class.  I am truly grateful for each of you!  I enjoy our conversations each week, and look forward to hearing the insights that you all bring to the discussion.  I'm thankful for the opportunity to grow and learn from you as we journey through great books together.

Reading assignment:

• Finish reading The Scarlet Letter
• Continue to highlight as previously instructed, and write a should question for each chapter

Writing Assignment:

This week we will revert to the Introductory Persuasive Essay from lesson 2.  This is so that you can focus on writing well developed proof paragraphs.  Do your best to explain as fully as you can why you selected each sub proof to support your thesis.   Give examples and quotes from the book when possible, and explain the relevance of each point to your thesis.  Use schemes, tropes, and analogies that you have learned.  Plan to write 2 or 3 sentences per sub proof.

Also, remember that you now have a DELIBERATIVE issue. This means that you are looking forward to a decision yet  to be made (deliberating) rather than looking back to judge a decision after it has been made.  You will need to use your imagination to place yourself in the story at the point of the action, as if you do not yet know the outcome for certain.  This change of perspective will alter your language, especially the use of verbs.  You can still use information in the book that occurs after the point of decision, but avoid language that speaks as though those events have already occurred.  You can say that they might occur, will likely occur, or even that they will occur, so long as your verbs are consistent with those events occurring later in the story.  

Example:

"Hester should not vow to keep her husband's identity a secret.  He intends to seek out and destroy her child's father. He is not to be trusted, and she will be putting her minister's well being at risk."

Complete arrangement AND elocution this week.

• Use the sorting & outline worksheets given in class for the Introductory Persuasive Essay 
• Write your DELIBERATIVE essay with well developed paragraphs using the check list handout.

Week 9

Given that our reading in The Scarlet Letter has significantly outpaced our discussion, and that we won't meet again until Nov. 20, we're going to take a break before finishing the novel.  Instead, we'll  finish Cicero's De Amicitia.

Also,  a few of you still need to complete previous assignments. Please check your number to see what you lack. I'm planning to mail out work from this past week so that you can make corrections prior to our next class.

Reading Assignment

• Finish Cicero's De Amicitia

Writing Assignment

• Complete worksheet on Circumstance
• Create an ANI chart for your Scarlet Letter Issue (20A-20N-20I)
• Add a few pieces of information (at least 3) from your Circumstance worksheet to your ANI chart and mark them with a circled letter C

Caution: The Scarlet Letter movie - 1995

Last night I previewed the 1995 The Scarlet Letter movie to see if it would be a good film version to recommend after we finish the book.  I DO NOT recommend it! Graphic seduction and nudity aside, it is a radically different story with an overtly anti-Christian message.  While Hawthorn does find fault (perhaps unfairly) with what he perceives to be a graceless and hypocritical culture among the Puritans, he at least grapples with the destructive nature of un-repented sin and hypocrisy in a way that, in my opinion, points us toward truths worth contemplating.  He also provides his reader with a vivid depiction of the pain and suffering that accompanies a choice to "follow your heart" rather than to submit to the law of God.  The producers of the latest film adaptation however, try to convince viewers that the way to happiness and freedom lies in a commitment to the self and its passions, ignoring that the heart from which these impulses spring is "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Jeremiah 17:9

I ordered an earlier version of the film on Netflix.  I'll let you all know whether I think its worth watching.

Week 8

Reminder: We will not have class on November 13th.  I'll be in North Carolina for a CiRCE staff meeting.  We'll resume classes on November 20.

Reading assignment:
Continue to highlight as previously instructed

• De Amicitia - sections 14-17
• The Scarlet Letter - ch. 13-16 - for each chapter, write a should question (try to pick one that drives the action of the chapter in some way) and find one blue to share
• Aristotle for Everybody ch 15

Writing Assignment:

• Write your Pilgrims Progress essay.  Check off the items on your checklist (your check indicates that you have indeed checked your paper for the item) and staple it to the front of your essay.  Your essay is not eligible for submission until your checklist is complete, including the signature of a proof reader.

• Write a DELIBERATIVE issue for The Scarlet Letter.  A deliberative issue should be written as if the decision is yet to be made. 

ex: 

Judicial issue (we have been writing these all along) ==> Whether Pilgrim should have left his home

Deliberative issue ==> Whether Pilgrim should leave his home

Notice the change in verb tense: have left vs. leave

• Complete the Invention Review worksheet with your Scarlet Letter issue.  I sent the worksheet by email this evening.  If this is your first year, its likely that you will enounter unfamiliar concepts on the worksheet.  Just do the best you can.  I won't hold you accountable for lessons that you have not yet learned, but do try to fill in as much as you're able to help you think about your issue. 

Week 7

Reading Assignments
(Highlight all reading as you've been doing)

• The Scarlet Letter: chapters 9-12- After you read each chapter, write what you consider to be the most important "Should" question in the chapter on the first page of that chapter.  Find one blue in each chapter.  
• De Amicitia: sections 11-13, mark characteristics of friendship that you notice in the margins with "F"

Writing Assignments

• Catch up with corrections
• Add personification and apostrophe to your Pandora essay (you should already have alliteration and assonance underlined and labeled)
• Anaphora worksheet (pages 180 - 183)
• Episotrophe worksheet (pages 184-187)

Week 6

Reading Assignments:

• Aristotle for Everybody ch. 14 (read, make notes, and highlight)
• De Amicitia (review 1-6 and add 7-10.  make notes and highlight)
• The Scarlet Letter 5-8 (read and highlight as you did last week.  Find one blue per chapter.  After you read the chapter, write a should question above the title of the chapter that you think is central to the chapter)

Writing Assignments:

Arrangement

• Sort the A and the N columns of your Pilgrims Progress ANI chart.  Refer to pages 13-15 if you need to review.  Remember the first step is to see if you can move I points to A or N.
• Complete the Arrangement Worksheet (first year students, pgs 16-17 / returning students, pgs 117-120)
• Complete an outline (first year students, use template on page 18 / returning students, use template on page 121-22)

New Elocution Lesson

• Personification worksheet, pages 159-162
• Apostrophe worksheet, pages 163-167