Other Wes Moore Resources
The image above links to the audio files to the book. Click on it, and select the chapter you want to listen to. To see the assignment sheet for the reading, go here.
Edition of 1984
This is the edition of 1984 that is available in the NT bookstore. It is ASIN: B01182OH7U…
Syllabus for November 19-23
WHAT IS LIFE LIKE FOR A BLACK American man growing up in relative poverty, in a community beset with social ills like crime and drug addiction? We will explore this issue alongside implicit bias with an independent non-fiction memoir/biography entitled The Other Wes Moore, the story of a black American youth who grows up to find success and happiness alongside another black American child with the same name, whose life takes a significantly different turn. We will be reading Orwell’s 1984 once done with this text, so purchase both.
Monday
Meeting in computer lab W-231 to re-read, proofread, and make final edits on your Catcher in the Rye revisions.
HW: Revisions are due tomorrow.
Tuesday
Introduction to The Other Wes Moore. Today we will examine implicit bias and some definitions of race and identity for your work with this excellent read.
HW: No homework for Thanksgiving break. Have your copy of our new book for class on Monday.
Wednesday
No class for Thanksgiving break.
HW: Get a copy of The Other Wes Moore and 1984.
Thursday
No class for Thanksgiving break.
HW: Get a copy of The Other Wes Moore and 1984.
Friday
No class for Thanksgiving break.
HW: Get a copy of The Other Wes Moore and 1984.
Syllabus for November 12-16
WHAT MAKES GOOD WRITING GOOD? This week we will pause from our study of Catcher in the Rye to carefully read through Phillip Lopate’s essay, “Manhattan, Floating World,” studying his sentence structure and stylistic devices. What does he do, as a writer, that we can emulate in our revision of the CITR essays? We will also look into these CITR essays, looking at what writers have done well and what that is, and looking at what writers could do to improve their essay, and how to accomplish that. Finally, we will discuss and write about another short story, “The Silence” by Haruki Murakami.
Monday
Collecting CITR essays. Small group discussion of the Lopate essay, posting three great sentences to the blog, then discussing what we see in terms of stylistic convention.
HW: Reading “The Silence” for class discussion on Wednesday. Circle words, write questions, and examine the story for a theme.
Tuesday
Lecture on the CITR essays. What has the writer done well? What should the writer do to improve the essay, and how? That will be our focus.
HW: Finish reading and annotating “The Silence” for discussion on Wednesday.
Wednesday
In class discussion on the short story in preparation for in-class writing assignment on Friday.
HW: Begin revising your essay, based upon Tuesday’s lecture.
Thursday
CITR essay lecture, part two.
HW: Continue revising the essay
Friday
In class writing assignment on the short story, “The Silence.”
HW: Revisions of the Catcher essay are due Monday. We will start 1984 on Monday.
Three Great Sentences from "Manhattan, floating world," by Phillip Lopate
Your group should post your “great” sentences here, as comments to your assigned blog group. Please note, each period and group has different threads. Type your sentences inside quote marks, and include “the appropriate MLA cite” (Lopate 136).
Claims for paper on CITR
Having read the entire novel, what do you think Salinger wants us—his learned audience—to realize about society, through the eyes of Holden Caufield? What do YOU think readers should realize as a result of Holden’s example?
Write a two part claim and post it here. The claim should take a stand on what you think Salinger wants us to realize about his novel (i.e.: what we learn about society via Holden), and then what YOU realize about the novel. In other words, you are loosely explaining what Salinger wants his reader to get from Holden, and what you think we should get from Holden.
Before posting, you should type your claim, print your claim, and read it aloud to three peers in the lab. Then, revise your claim, and only then post it as a reply to this post.
Remember to include in your claim a preview of your thinking, or reasons, that support your idea. Do NOT go into your evidence. If you get so far as to write, “For example,” you are going beyond explaining reasons, and are in fact giving evidence.
Syllabus for November 5-9
WHAT LESSONS DO WE TAKE York from Holden Caufield? He is sometimes described as an antihero, an example of someone who correctly criticizes society, but is unable to change himself in accordance to his own beliefs. What do you make of him, his observations, his wanderings through New York? Does America need—or deserve—a catcher in the rye?
Monday
Collecting book journals. Discussion of chapters 25 and 26.
HW: No homework tonight.
Tuesday
Meeting in computer lab 377-N to begin writing a claim for your paper on The Catcher in the Rye. Your claim should be several sentences, should state your debatable thesis statement, and preview your reason(s). For this paper, you should state both what Salinger wants his readers to think about Holden, as well as what you think about Holden. After writing your claim, reading it aloud to three scholars in the lab, and revising your claim, post it to the “CITR blog” post.
HW: Read through everyone’s claims on our class blog. Select THREE and post a question about his/her claim as a reply to their post, so that they can revise their claim, making it more specific, more relevant, or more insightful.
Wednesday
Today, we will read, "Manhattan, Floating World" by Phillip Lopate. As you read, circle vocabulary, mark 3-5 particularly well crafted sentences, and annotate for this question: "What effect does Manhattan have upon the narrator?'
HW: First draft of the CITR essay is due Monday. Typed, printed, stapled.
Thursday
No school for Parent/Teacher Conferences.
Friday
No school for Professional Development.
Syllabus for October 29-November 2
WHAT LESSONS DO WE TAKE York from Holden Caufield? He is sometimes described as an antihero, an example of someone who correctly criticizes society, but is unable to change himself in accordance to his own beliefs. What do you make of him, his observations, his wanderings through New York? Does America need—or deserve—a catcher in the rye?
Monday
Discussion of Holden’s red “people shooting” hunting hat and BBC published data about gun culture in America.
HW: Only 1/2 of the class posted their observations of Mr. Antollini on our blog. If you haven’t done that, do that. If you haven’t finished reading, finish reading. Book journals will be due one week from today.
Tuesday
Starting the documentary, Salinger.
HW: Work on the journals.
Wednesday
Continuing with the documentary, as well as distributing grade reports.
HW: Work on journals.
Thursday
Last day of documentary.
HW: Working on journals.
Friday
Lecture/class discussion. Returning to discussion of chapter 24, the encounter with Mr. Antollini.
HW: Journals are due on Monday. Make sure they are typed and stapled, and that your name, the course, and the date are headers on the first page.
Chapter 24: Mr. Antollini
In your view, apart from the conversation Holden has with Mr. Antollini in response to his question, “What’s the trouble?” wherein Holden talks about failing Oral Expression and Richard Kinsella’s farm speech, what other moments warrrent our attention?
Post your observations here, as a comment:
Syllabus for October 22-27
AS HOLDEN WANDERS NEW York, he ponders American life philosophically. What does this philosopher make of American life? What is the ideal life, according to Holden? How has America lost its way, according to Holden? What do the symbols of Holden’s life mean in the context of his philosophy? Our study of the novel deepens.
Monday
Discussion, through chapter 21. What does Holden propose that he and Sally do? Why does this appeal to Holden, and why wouldn’t it appeal to Sally? Subsequently, we will move to his conversation with Luce. What is this conversation about?
HW: Work on journals throughout this week, catching up with where the class is with the reading.
Tuesday
Reading chapter 22 together. Then, small group discussion of what Holden says about Allie’s funeral and the record he bought for Phoebe. Time permitting, short lecture on what the novel from a post-war perspective. How is Holden’s search for meaning parallel to America’s post-war optimism?
HW: Work on the journals.
Wednesday
We will read chapter 23 together, and review the Bobby Burns poem. It will then be a day for Crayola Crayons as we visually portray Holden’s dream. Submit a photo here, changing the file name to your lastname with your period#.
HW: Work on journals.
Thursday
Our novel opens with Holden visiting Mr. Spencer, a former teacher. As we approach the end of the novel, he visits another teacher, Mr. Antolini. How are these teachers significantly different? How is their advice similar? What do we make of this second teacher?
HW: Read chapter 24
Friday
Lecture/class discussion on Mr. Antolini’s question to Holden in chapter twenty-four,, “What’s the trouble?”
HW: Post your answer relative to other moments in chapter 24 that we should discuss. Read chapters 25-26, working on journals. I will collect your annotations on Tuesday of next week, and will collect your journals a week from this coming Monday.
Syllabus for October 15-19
WHERE IS HOLDEN GOING? After his breif dalience with prostitution, we’ll watch Holden wax religiously and physically fight obscenity in the guise of Maurice the Pimp, try another stab at love (Romeo and Juliet pun intended) with Sally Hayes, search for meaning at a museum of natural history before finally getting to his (doomed) date with the unfortunate Sally. Where is Holden going? What does he seem to be in search of?
Monday
Breifly returning to Jane’s hand on the back of Holden’s neck in chapter 11. We will then return to our analysis of America during the 1950s to discuss Americans search for purpuse in post-world war Earth. We will watch a short educational film., “Shy Guy.”
HW: Review your annotations from chaptes 11-15. What patterns do you notice about the theme of morality and immorality, religion and politics? Tonight, write a journal for one of the prior chapters.
Tuesday
Meeting again in small research groups to discuss what you’ve found from last night’s homework. Then discussing chapters 14 and 15. What does Holden learn, if anything, from his fight with Maurice? Why does Holden give the nuns so much money?
HW: Read chapter 16.
Wednesday
Hamlet day. We will watch and read a few scenes from Shakespeare: Ophelia with her brother, Laertes, wherein he gives her advice about avoiding the Stradlaters in the world. In the subsequent scene, their father, Polonius, gives her advice about avoiding the Stradlaters in the world. And finally, the disparity between genders, wherein (in the more famous scene) Polonius gives advice to his son as he travels out into the world. What do we make of all this advice? Why does Shakespeare matter here, and why does Salinger (purposefully) insert the Bard into Holden’s world?
HW: Read chapter 17.
Thursday
Exploring the gender gap in the 1950s, and examining The Catcher in the Rye as a particularly patriarcal novel.
HW: Read chapter 18
Friday
The Radio City Rockettes’s Christmas spectacular and the main feature.
HW: Read chapters 19-21
2nd Period Research Reports
Does this cover of 1950s Archie Comics confrirm or contradict the results of your research? Does this image make sense, given the other images you’ve examined?
What conclusions did your group make about what American teenager's lives were like in the late 1940s and early 1950s? You should post your results here, as a comment to this blog entry. Please begin your entry with your group name. Follow that heading with each paragraph, clearly labeled, in the following order: Teenagers, Conformity, Success and Family.
1st Period Research Reports
Does this cover of 1950s Archie Comics confrirm or contradict the results of your research? Does this image make sense, given the other images you’ve examined?
What conclusions did your group make about what American teenager's lives were like in the late 1940s and early 1950s? You should post your results here, as a comment to this blog entry. Please begin your entry with your group name. Follow that heading with each paragraph, clearly labeled, in the following order: Teenagers, Conformity, Success and Family.
Syllabus for October 8-12
HOLDEN IS IN MANHATTAN, and we see his seemingly aimless wandering. But we will think more critically about Holden, where he goes, whom he sees, what he discusses. We will also think more critically about what Salinger is saying about society, through Holden. What patterns do you see? What does Holden mean by calling some people phonies? And what pattern exists in that criticism?
Monday
No class for four day winter weekend.
HW: Read chapters 11 and 12, and writing journals for 8-10.
Tuesday
Meeting again in small research groups to finish compiling your “see, think, and wonder” observations about the Life magazines and New Trier yearbooks. After selecting a group “Holdenesque” name, groups will finalize their research on the 1950s. When finished, students will share one journal entry written to date (reading aloud an entry you feel comfortable sharing), and time permitting will also pair-and-share annotations in their books.
HW: Re-read your annotations. Are you circling vocabulary/language? What types of questions are you writing?
Wednesday
No classes for PSAT testing.
HW: Finish reviewing your annotations.
Thursday
If the reports on American teenage life in late 40s, early 50s are done, we will post and read these online. After reading, we will examine them stylistically, looking at work choice and sentence structrue. If not, we will finish writing reports today. Subsequently, we will watch an instructional film on how to avoid being a social misfit from the early 50s, “Shy Guy.”
HW: Read chapter 13,
Friday
Discussions on chapters 11 through 13. What more do we learn about Holden’s view of relationships?
HW: Read chapters 14 and 15.
Syllabus for October 1-5
LAST WEEK: We practiced the research skill of analyzing a source objectively, drawing reasonble conclusions based upon the available data, and developing questions to resolve unknowns. This week, in research groups, students will assemble their findings about family, conformity, success, and teenagers in 1950s America. We will also follow Holden into Manhattan, where he will wander (seemingly) aimlessly as a cloud after being expelled from Pency Prep.
Monday
Our discussion will shift slightly, but importantly, from Friday’s “Who is Holden?” to “What does Holden care about?” We will practice the Great Books discussion format again.
HW: Read chapter 8 in The Catcher in the Rye.
Tuesday
Meeting again in small research groups to begin compiling your “see, think, and wonder” observations about the Life magazines and New Trier yearbooks. In groups, students will share annotations in CITR, and we will then discuss Holden’s view of religion small groups.
HW: Read chapter 9 in The Catcher in the Rye.
Wednesday
Today in research groups, students will assemble their evidence and create a biography for their sources.
HW: Read chapter 10 in The Catcher in the Rye.
Thursday
What prompts Holden to lie on the train to the mother of his acquantence? What does Holden see through his hotel window, and what does he make of it? What do the events in the Lavender Room with the ladies from Seattle demonstrate about Holden? What argument is Salinger making about American society in these scenes?
HW: Read chapters 11-12, and complete journals on chapters 8-10.
Friday
No class for fall break.
HW: Read chapters 11-12, and complete journals for chapters 8-10.
Syllabus for September 24-28
LAST WEEK: Having met Holden, we will start the week finding out more about the America Holden lived in. Remember, as you read, make certain to circle words, write questions (whatever they may be), and annotate for this question: Who is Holden?
Monday
Class does not meet because of late start schedule.
HW: Read chapters 5 for Wednesday in The Catcher in the Rye.
Tuesday
Meeting in the library for orientation to the New Trier Library.
Hw: Work on your journal tonight. Complete the chapter 1 and 2 assignment.
Wednesday
We will meet again the library to gather information about the 1940s and 1950s via the New Trier yearbook, The Echo, and from Life magazine. What was life like as a teenager during the late 1940s, early 1950s in America? Writing down verbal evidence and taking pictures of visual evidence.
HW: Work on your journal, completing the chapter 3-4 assignment.
Thursday
Continuing our research in the library. Today, narrow your focus to say more about less (SMAL...one of our precepts of good writing). Choose one of the four categories and spend today looking for evidence related to it.
HW: Read chapter six and double check your annotations by re-reading them. Look at the words your circled, the questions you write, and how you answered the question, “Who is Holden?”
Friday
Today we will look closely at Holden and have a large group discussion of the novel so far. As we did with the summer reading, we will compare annotations in small groups prior to our discussion.
HW: Read chapter seven, and complete the reading journal for 6 and 7.
Dick and Jane Readers in the 1950s
Click on the above image to watch two, short segments on Dick and Jane readers.
Friday, we will examine the following image using the K-T-W (know-think-wonder) method of analysis. We will start with objective, factual examination. What do you objectively see? Write a list of details that you see. Secondly, how do you interpret these facts? What does the image mean? What conclusions can you draw, based upon what you objectively observe. Finally, what questions do we—the observers—have, given what we see and think? What should we research to find out more about the image, and what the image means?
After analyzing the image individually, we will discuss what you see as a class. After that discussion, the class will watch two short video clips about Dick and Jane readers. Click on the image above to view the video.
Period 2 Symbol Paragraphs
Second period should post their WEWD symbolism paragraphs on this blog entry, as a comment to this blog. Then, you should revise your first draft, and post that as a comment to your first comment.
Paragraph and the revision is due by Thursday.
Syllabus for September 16-20
THIS WEEK WE’RE STARTING CATCHER in the Rye. Students need to write while reading the book. Remember, writing is a form of thinking, so write while you read. However, when it comes to annotations, more does not equal better. I want you focused on three skills: 1) circling words, either vocabulary or language that reveals our author’s intentions; 2) writing questions you have about the text, particularly those about what the author wants us to learn (not about the story, but about life); 3) the chapter’s or novel’s theme.
Monday
Period 1: Reviewing the symbol paragraphs, looking for additional issues related to structure and style.
Period 2: Returning to the character analysis paragraphs on W.E.W.D., looking at conventions of structure and style. Then, students will begin writing paragraphs on the most important symbol or image in the novel. Post as a comment to the new thread, listed as “Period 2 Symbol Paragraphs.”
HW: Students who have not completed both paragraphs, and re-written each paragraph—posting a revision of it as a comment to your first draft posting, should do so by class on Thursday. Students must have copies of Catcher in the Rye for class tomorrow.
Tuesday
First page assignment and review of biographic information on Salinger. Start our reading of chapter one.
HW: Read chapter one of CITR tonight. Annotate by circling words, writing questions, and answering the question, "Who is Holden?"
Wednesday
No school for Yom Kippur holiday.
HW: You should have read the first chapter of CITR and revised your paragraphs for WEWD for class tomorrow.
Thursday
Reviewing questions from chapter one, and discussing. Begin listening to chapter two.
HW: Finish reading chapter two.
Friday
Analyzing a Dick & Jane image, using the see, wonder, ask technique. We will then turn to a documentary on 1950s culture.
HW: Read chapter three and four, and complete a journal assignment. On Monday and Tuesday of next week, we are meeting in the Library for a short research assignment on culture during the 1950s.
Audio for Catcher in the Rye
This poster is available for purchase at Red Bubble via this link.
A professional, commercially available recording of Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye does not exist. In his lifetime, Salinger (and now, by extension, his estate) was vehemently protective of his artistic vision, refusing other artists to reproduce or otherwise interpret his work.
Nonetheless, fans have produced various versions of the novel. The poster below leads to an mp3 reading of the novel that was posted to youtube, which I have divided into chapters for ease of access. While not an approved reading of the book, is is a fair reading of the text with only few errors, and for those who require an audio copy of our text, is a valuable resource that can supplement your annotation of the physical book.