Week at a glance May 3 - 7, 2011

Curriculum focus: identifies, interprets, and analyzes figurative language including: idiom, imagery, and symbolism (11.1.2.K4), uses information from the text to make inferences and draw conclusions (11.1.4.K5), compares/contrasts textual aspects: character traits, themes, character motives, and author's purpose (11.1.4.K7), analyzes and evaluates how the author's style (word choice and sentence structure) and use of literary devices work together to achieve his/her purpose by using tone, mood, and imagery (11.1.4.K11d, e, and h), and analyzes contextual aspects of setting and their influence on characters and events in the story including the contexts of history, society, and culture (11.2.1.K2a-c).

Root words for this week (root - definition - examples):

1. endo - internal - endocrine, endorse
   
2. exo - external - exoskeleton, exonym
   
3. tact/tang - touch - contact, intangible
   
4. veloc - quick - velocity, velociraptor
   
5. vers/vert - turn - invert, conversion
   

This week we'll finish reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Last Friday we read over the climax as Daisy made her choice and Myrtle Wilson met her tragic end. This week we'll analyze the falling action and the consequences. Do Daisy and Gatsby still have a chance to be together? Who are the other two characters who will die before the end of the novel? What was it that made Nick tell us in the beginning, "When I came back from the East last autumn I felt I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart" (2)? We will read and discuss the answers this week.

• Mon: New root words; quiz on Friday. The Great Gatsby - Chapter VII quiz, study guide due by the end of the hour.
  
• Tues: The Great Gatsby - read and discuss Chapter VIII. For Wed: finish reading Chapter VIII.
  
• Wed: The Great Gatsby - Chapter VIII quiz, study guide due by the end of the hour.
  
• Thurs: The Great Gatsby -read and discuss Chapter IX. For Fri: finish reading Chapter IX.
  
• Fri: Root words quiz. The Great Gatsby - Chapter IX quiz, study guide due by the end of the hour.