I asked the Seniors. . .

So I thought I'd ask you too. As juniors, what do you think of the idea of getting rid of Senior year? Please read the article and respond below!
Thanks,
Ms. K

Due Saturday by midnight

Opinion Editorials!

Please read the op-ed below. In the comment section respond to his article. Discuss whether or not you agree with his assertions.


February 23, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist
Where the Bar Ought to Be
By BOB HERBERT

Deborah Kenny talks a lot about passion — the passion for teaching, for reading and for learning. She has it. She wants all of her teachers to have it. Above all, she wants her students to have it.

Ms. Kenny has created three phenomenally successful charter schools in Harlem and is in the process of creating more. She’s gotten a great deal of national attention. But for all the talk about improving schools in this country, she thinks we tend to miss the point more often than not.

There is an overemphasis on “the program elements,” she said, “things like curriculum and class size and school size and the longer day.” She understood in 2001, when she was planning the first of the schools that have come to be known as the Harlem Village Academies, that none of those program elements were nearly as important as the quality of the teaching in the schools.

“If you had an amazing teacher who was talented and passionate and given the freedom and support to teach well,” she said, “that was just 100 times more important than anything else.”

This emphasis on program elements is one of the main reasons it has been so difficult to repeat the successes of outstanding schools. As Ms. Kenny put it, “They were trying to replicate programs instead of trying to develop people.”

It’s not that the program elements are unimportant. When I visited a Harlem Village Academy middle school on First Avenue, the first thing I noticed was an apparent paradox: There was a great deal of energy and excitement in the school but not much noise, not even when children were changing classes. The school day is longer. The curriculum is carefully thought out. And discipline is obviously important. Youngsters are not allowed to make fun of one another. And there is no fighting.

When I asked one boy why there were no fights in the school, he replied, “Because it’s not allowed.”

Ms. Kenny’s point is that these programmatic, structural elements in the schools are just the starting points, the foundation that supports the essential mission of any school: to teach.

“I became obsessed with how to develop great teachers,” she said.

The first step in that complex, difficult process is to create a school environment that has standards high enough and challenging enough to appeal to very good people. “You put all of your focus on finding great people,” said Ms. Kenny, “and you establish a culture that helps them constantly learn and grow and become better at what they do. You have to provide a community in the school that supports and respects teachers. And you have to give them the kind of freedom that allows their passion for teaching to flourish.

“We’ve created a culture that brings out the passion of the teachers and they bring out the passion of the kids.”

Charter schools, of course, can fire teachers for poor performance. “Obviously, none of us should be allowed to be in front of children if we’re not doing a good job,” Ms. Kenny said. “But the threat of being fired if you don’t do a good job is not what makes a teacher great.”

Ms. Kenny has established two middle schools and one high school and is in the process of creating three elementary schools. Her track record has been extraordinary.

The majority of the youngsters come into the middle schools performing at three to four years behind their grade levels. Within a very short time, they are on the fast track toward college. In 2008, when the math and science test scores came in, Ms. Kenny’s eighth graders had achieved 100 percent proficiency. It was not a fluke.

What’s ironic is that the teachers are doing everything but teaching to the tests. Ms. Kenny’s goals for the youngsters in her schools are the same as those that she had for her own three children, who grew up in a comfortable suburban environment and are now in college. Merely passing a standardized test was hardly something to aspire to.

“I had five core things in mind for my kids, and that’s what I want for our students,” she said. “I wanted them to be wholesome in character. I wanted them to be compassionate and to see life as a responsibility to give something to the world. I wanted them to have a sophisticated intellect. I wanted them to be avid readers, the kind of person who always has trouble putting a book down. And I raised them to be independent thinkers, to lead reflective and meaningful lives.”

It never crossed Ms. Kenny’s mind that a rich and abiding intellectual life was out of the reach of kids growing up in a tough urban environment.

Keats!

Please read the poem below and pose 5 questions in the comment section.

Ode on a Grecian Urn
John Keats

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearièd,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea-shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

Almost done with Donne!

Read the poem below. Analyze the conceits and metaphors.
How does it contribute to the tone?

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
by John Donne

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"The breath goes now," and some say, "No,"

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of the earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we, by a love so much refined
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion.
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two:
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do;

And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like the other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

Almost done with Donne!

Read the poem below. Cite specific details(at least two) that are characteristic of Metaphysical poetry and explain why. Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
by John Donne
As virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls to go, Whilst some of their sad friends do say, "The breath goes now," and some say, "No," So let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move; 'Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love. Moving of the earth brings harms and fears, Men reckon what it did and meant; But trepidation of the spheres, Though greater far, is innocent. Dull sublunary lovers' love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it. But we, by a love so much refined That our selves know not what it is, Inter-assured of the mind, Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss. Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion. Like gold to airy thinness beat. If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two: Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if the other do; And though it in the center sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans, and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home. Such wilt thou be to me, who must, Like the other foot, obliquely run; Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun.

Renaissance Poetry

Below is a link to an essay entitled The Indisputable Benefits of Studying Renaissance Poetry. Please read the essay by Wednesday January 13, 2010. We will discuss it in class. Please comment on the blog with any questions you have about the essay. We will be using your questions in class on Wednesday.

http://www.botticellisvision.com/st%20francis%20web%20site/ibs1-indisputable_benefits_of_studying.htm

Stellaaaaaaaaa!

As we prepare to read Streetcar over the Holiday Break, please read this review of the current production to give you some context of the play. The response to this post is not due until after the break! Please respond with your impressions of the play itself. Do you agree with the claims made about the play in the review? Have a safe and happy holiday.
Sincerely,

Ms. Kavanagh

December 3, 2009

THEATER REVIEW | 'A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE'

A Fragile Flower Rooted to the Earth

By BEN BRANTLEY

The lady who lives for illusion has never felt more real. Playing that immortal bruised Southern lily Blanche DuBois, in Liv Ullmann’s heart-stopping production of “A Streetcar Named Desire” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Cate Blanchett soars spectacularly on the gossamer wings of fantasies that allow her character to live with herself. But you never doubt for a second that this brave, silly, contradictory and endlessly compelling woman is thoroughly and inescapably of this world.

Though it is the place she would least like to be most of the time, Blanche DuBois has been pulled gently and firmly down to earth by Ms. Blanchett and Ms. Ullmann, who guarantee that she stays there. Most interpretations I’ve seen of Blanche, Tennessee Williams’s greatest contribution to dramatic portraiture, ride the glistening surface of the character’s poetry, turning Blanche into a lyric, fading butterfly waiting for the net to descend.

What Ms. Blanchett brings to the character is life itself, a primal survival instinct that keeps her on her feet long after she has been buffeted by blows that would level a heavyweight boxer. This traveling production out of Sydney, Australia, which runs at the Harvey Theater through Dec. 20, features a very creditable adversary for its heroine in Joel Edgerton as Stanley Kowalski, Blanche’s brutish brother-in-law. But the real struggle here is between Blanche and Blanche, which means that nobody wins.

Except, I might add, audiences, who are likely to find themselves identifying with disturbing closeness with a character who has often before seemed too exotic, too anachronistic, too fey to remind you of anyone you knew personally. Ms. Blanchett’s Blanche is always on the verge of falling apart, yet she keeps summoning the strength to wrestle with a world that insists on pushing her away. Blanche’s burden, in existential terms, becomes ours. And a most particular idiosyncratic creature acquires the universality that is the stuff of tragedy.

Blanche DuBois may well be the great part for an actress in the American theater, and I have seen her portrayed by an assortment of formidable stars including Jessica Lange, Glenn Close, Patricia Clarkson and Natasha Richardson. Yet there’s a see-sawing between strength and fragility in Blanche, and too often those who play her fall irrevocably onto one side or another.

Watching such portrayals, I always hear the voice of Vivien Leigh, the magnificent star of Elia Kazan’s 1951 movie, whispering Blanche’s lines along with the actress onstage. But with this “Streetcar,” the ghosts of Leigh — and, for that matter, of Marlon Brando, the original Stanley — remain in the wings. All the baggage that any “Streetcar” usually travels with has been jettisoned. Ms. Ullmann and Ms. Blanchett have performed the play as if it had never been staged before, with the result that, as a friend of mine put it, “you feel like you’re hearing words you thought you knew pronounced correctly for the first time.”

This newly lucid production of a quintessentially American play comes to us via a Norwegian director, best known as an actress in the brooding Swedish films of Ingmar Bergman, and an Australian movie star, famous for impersonating historical figures like Elizabeth I and Katharine Hepburn. Blessed perhaps with an outsider’s distance on an American cultural monument, Ms. Ullmann and Ms. Blanchett have, first of all, restored Blanche to the center of “Streetcar.”

Ever since Brando set Broadway abuzz in the original stage production in 1947, Stanley — the young, ruthless sexual animal who is married to Blanche’s sister, Stella — has usually been presented as Blanche’s equal, in terms of both thematic import and star presence. But Ms. Ullmann’s production makes it clear that in “Streetcar” it is Blanche who evolves, struggles and falls as heroes classically have.

We are achingly aware of just how difficult that struggle will be when we first see Blanche, blank-faced in creased linen, outside the New Orleans apartment building where she knows (and rues) that Stella (Robin McLeavy, in a lovely natural performance) lives. At that moment this pale, spiritless woman might belong to the walking dead. When she rises, she trembles perceptibly, and she speaks often of how raw her nerves are.

During the next three hours Blanche will summon every weapon left in her artillery to keep those nerves under control, to hold herself together, to function in a world where it is all too easy to be lost beyond salvation. At times you feel this Blanche, who was a schoolteacher after all, has the upper hand of a prim martinet. Placing those decorative feminine touches amid the squalor of the two-room apartment shared by Stanley and Stella, she is not merely frivolous; she is remaking the world in her image.

The genteel belle, the imperious English teacher, the hungry sensualist, the manipulative flirt: no matter which of these aspects is in ascendancy, Ms. Blanchett keeps them all before us, in a range of voices that seem to come from different compartments of the soul. The layers that she packs into single words are astonishing: “He-e-y,” for example, stretched into several syllables of longing as she speaks to a confounded young man, or “Eureka” as a cry not of discovery but defeat.

This Blanche is no passive victim. She knows herself painfully well, which makes her both funnier and sadder than most Blanches. Always, though, we are aware of her knowing that standing up and staying sane are merely provisional; she could topple over at any second. That delicate balance assumes its most wrenching form in her climactic face-off with Stanley, as Blanche tries to defy not only her predatory brother-in-law but also the drunkenness that keeps pulling her to the floor. Gravity is not on her side.

The supporting cast members are excellent. Mr. Edgerton brings out the childlike side of Stanley, both its simple joyousness and thoughtlessness, and it has rarely been clearer that Stella’s husband has the winning strength of youth. Ms. Ullmann, as befits a veteran of Bergman films, arranges her men and women in fleeting tableaus that speak resonantly of sexual relationships. Two early moments between Stanley and Blanche — one in which he tries to button a dress, another in which they silently battle for control for the radio — say everything about “the date,” as Stanley puts it, that awaits them. But there are also tender pietas with Stella and Blanche, Stella and Stanley and Blanche and Mitch (Tim Richards), Stanley’s pal, who courts Blanche with the giddiness of a boy who has been allowed access to a carnival of wonders.

It has become the fashion with “Streetcar” productions to bring the whirl of New Orleans street life to the stage. This interpretation — meticulously designed by Ralph Myers (set), Tess Schofield (costumes) and Nick Schlieper (lighting) — confines us to the Kowalskis’ apartment, with glimpses through windows of other lives. Thus framed, these lives have the loneliness of figures in Edward Hopper paintings, whose cool, compassionate bleakness is deliberately evoked here.

No one, of course, is lonelier than Blanche, and her valiant battle against that condition lends this “Streetcar” a poignancy that, by the end, slides into full pathos. Our last vision of this Blanche is, like our first, of a ghost, if by ghost we mean someone defeated by life. But an image of warmth remains, like the afterglow of an extinguished flame, of the life poured into one woman’s last stand against a fate that is uniquely her own and somehow ours as well.