Mr. McFarland's English Class

What is your favorite Grimm Brothers story so far and why?  Also, what are you most surprised by so for?

With Necatar in a Sieve, what is Kamala Markandaya trying to do?  What do you think the reader is supposed to get out of this book.  Use specific examples from the text to support your opinion.  After you post, read others’ posts and comment at least once more.

Why use a blog?  My best answer is to browse the links to the left and the posts below, only because these are the fruits of blogging in my own little classroom.  There are conversations happening here that would not have happened otherwise, and I love to see students personalities show through (often through their imperfections).

Step 1. Set up your Gmail account. Why? Use it to do your blogging business and avoid clogging your main address. This is especially handy when setting up student accounts.

Step 2. Set up your edublogs account. This is where your new blog will be.

Step 3. Use wiki commons to find a random picture post it to your blog along with a question about it.

As we begin Nectar in a Sieve, I want you to imagine what it would be like to be Rukmani, or if it would be easier for, to be Nathan.  What would be the best thing about being her or him?  What would be the worst thing about being her or him?  Which one has it better?  Post your response to these questions, then respond to someone else’s post.

Read this article, a 2007 interview with Chinua Achebe, and respond by posting at least three subsidiary questions.  We will use these questions to choose research topics and begin constructing our wiki.

Read the poem Noel, by Ann Porter.  Respond by describing what you see when you read this poem and what you think about it.  Then leave one more comment responding to others’ comments.

Tags: Noel poem

A synopsis of the video project by Dylan, Austin, and Cody:

After Hera casts Hercules with madness in a jealous rage, Hercules kills his wife and three children.  In an attempt to forgive himself he must complete twelve tasks for king Eurystheus.  His journey will take him on a dangerous quest all the way to, Nemea, Lerna, Mount Erymanthus, the Amazon, and even the Underworld.  His tasks will include killing a lion and a creature with nine heads.  He must also bring back a live stag with gold horns, clean Augean stables in a single day, drive away the Stymphalian birds.  Fetching the bull that Poseidon had given Minos, getting a man eating mare, bringing back the girdle of Hippolyta, the cattle of Geryon, and the golden apples of Hesperides, and lastley going to the underworld and bring Cerberus back.

Katie, Katie, Cassie, and Blake are doing the story of The Two Swords. This story is about a boy named Arthur, who taken from his family when he was a baby and was put in a new one. Sir Ector is his new father and Sir Kay is his son. About 16 years later, when Sir Kay forgets his sword, his sends Arthur to go back to the house to get it. When Arthur gets to the house, he can not get in, so while he is walking back to tell him he is trying to think of what to tell him. He walks through a churchyard and sees a sword in a rock. He takes it out without realizing what was writen on the rock. He took the sword to Sir Kay, and Sir Ector had wondered how he had gotten the sword. Sir Kay was jealous. So they made him put the sword back in the rock, then other men tried pulling it out again, and they couldn’t, so Arthur pulled it out again, for he was the true king. So later in the story, the people in the village began to wonder if he was the real king. Merlin, the wizard that took Arthur from his home when he was a baby, gave a speech to the village of how he was the true king of the land. Later on, King Arthur and King Pelinore fight. Arthur breaks his sword during the fight, and the Lady of the Lake tells him to go to the lake and take the sword from the hand. King Arthur and Merlin went and took it, and rode of on horseback. And thats what our movie is about.