Intro to some characters in "The Crucible" (for Thurs 28 July)

English 11 mcrawford
The Crucible (character description and quotation)
In this important, still relevant and oft-performed play, Miller provides rather detailed character introduction/descriptions. Read the descriptions. Then, using the model below as your guide, write a summary of the character descriptions for the characters listed. using a balance of your own words and quotations from the text.

Abigail Williams:
Miller describes the 17 year-old Abigail as a “strikingly beautiful girl, an orphan, with an endless capacity for dissembling” (9). Webster’s says to dissemble is “to hide under a false appearance.” She is also described as speaking “with an ill concealed resentment.” Later in Act 1 when John Proctor appears, we learn that something has taken place between him and Abigail.

Reverend Parris:



Thomas Putnam:




Rebecca Nurse:




John Proctor:

Resources for part 2 of First Day Survey

Lucien Freud Self Portrait

(Poem)
Dead Hand
Temptations still nest in it like basilisks.

Hang it up till the rings fall.
-W. S. Merwin

(Three Sentences—choose one)
“The narrative impulse is always with us; we couldn’t imagine ourselves through a day without it.”
-Robert Coover

“If God didn’t want them sheared, he would not have made them sheep.”
(from The Magnificent Seven)

“The only paradox, if there is one, is that language has shaped our expectations so extensively that real reality has become the most detached and incomprehensible one of all.”
-Cesar Aira The Literary Conference page 41

First Day Survey part 2

37. What is a noun?
38. What is a verb?
39. Write a sentence using the word “walk” as a noun. And a sentence using the word “house” as a verb.
40. What is an adjective?
41. What is an adverb?
42. Complete the following sentence. Then write two more sentences that support the first. I think I was most ______ when . . . .
43. Write three sentences describing the portrait by Lucien Freud (who died last week) that appears in the next (above) blog post.
44. Write three insightful sentences about one of the quoted prose sentences that appear in the next blog post.
45. Write three insightful sentences about the poem by W. S. Merwin that appears in the next blog post.
46. Write three insightful sentences about the book you’ve chosen to read for independent reading.

First Day Survey: if you don't know it, look it up.

First Day Survey

1. Write the name of the President of the United States of America.
2. Write the name of the Vice-President.
3. Write the name of the current speaker of the House of Representatives.
4. How many members are in the House of Representatives?
5. Write the name of the current Senate majority leader.
6. Who is the current mayor of San Diego?
7. Who is the current mayor of Imperial Beach?
8. What is the name of the new principal of Mar Vista High?
9. Write the names of the three assistant principals of MVH.
10. Who is the current ASB president at MVH?
11. What does ARC stand for here? AEC?
12. Name three community colleges in San Diego county.
13. Name three universities in San Diego county.
14. Briefly explain the difference between a college and a university.
15. The A-G requirements are requirements for what? For whom?
16. What does the “compact for success” require of students?
17. Who is the current governor of California?
18. Name a Republican candidate for President for 2012.
19. Who is the Prime Minister of the UK?
20. Who is the Prime Minister of Canada?
21. Who is the President of Mexico?
22. Name a composer of classical music.
23. Name an established American visual artist.
24. Name an American film director.
25. Write the name of a famous film made before 1960.
26. Name a famous American poet.
27. Name a famous American poem.
28. Name a famous American play.
29. Name a famous American novel from before 1950.
30. A woman named Casey has been in the news recently. Why?
31. Who is Rupert Murdoch? Why is he in the news?
32. What is meant by the phrase “Arab spring”?
33. Name a country that might be discussed in terms of the “Arab spring.”
34. Why are the “gang of six” in the news?
35. Who is Elizabeth Warren? Why is she in the news?
36. What is Fukushima?

Summer is not over.

Repeat after me: summer is not over.

School starts tomorrow at Mar Vista High school, but please don't give up on summer. Summer is not over. See you in room 205.

a provocative link for those thinking about the final exam

The wikipedia entry for simulacrum might be useful. Link, contents and some passages pasted below:

wikipedia: simulacrum

Contents
1 Simulacra in philosophy
2 Simulacra in literature, film, and television
2.1 Artificial beings
2.2 The work of Philip K. Dick
2.3 Simulated environments
2.4 Other uses
3 Simulacra and recreation
4 Caricature as simulacra
5 Simulacra in iconography
6 Word usage
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

Simulacra and recreation

Recreational simulacra include reenactments of historical events or replicas of landmarks, such as Colonial Williamsburg and the Eiffel Tower, and constructions of fictional or cultural ideas, such as Fantasyland at The Walt Disney Company's Magic Kingdom. The various Disney parks have by some philosophers been regarded as the ultimate recreational simulacra, with Baudrillard noting that Walt Disney World Resort is a copy of a copy, “a simulacrum to the second power.”[10] In 1975, Italian author Umberto Eco expressed his belief that at Disney’s parks, “we not only enjoy a perfect imitation, we also enjoy the conviction that imitation has reached its apex and afterwards reality will always be inferior to it."[11] This is for some an ongoing concern. Examining the impact of Disney’s simulacrum of national parks, Disney's Wilderness Lodge, environmentalist Jennifer Cypher and anthropologist Eric Higgs expressed worry that “the boundary between artificiality and reality will become so thin that the artificial will become the centre of moral value.”[12] Eco also refers to commentary on watching sports as sports to the power of three, or sports cubed. First, there are the players who participate in the sport, the real; then the onlookers merely witnessing it; then, the commentary itself on the act of witnessing the sport. Visual artist Paul McCarthy has created entire installations based upon Pirates of the Caribbean, and theme park simulacra, with videos playing inside the installation itself.


Caricature as simulacra

An interesting example of simulacra is caricature. Where an artist draws a line drawing that closely approximates the facial features of a real person, the sketch cannot be easily identified by a random observer; the sketch could just as easily be a resemblance of any person, rather than the particular subject. However, a caricaturist will exaggerate prominent facial features far beyond their actuality, and a viewer will pick up on these features and be able to identify the subject, even though the caricature bears far less actual resemblance to the subject.

History transformed into nature: A passage from Roland Barthes

Does this have something to do with the old man's final exam?

"We reach here the very principle of myth: it transforms history into nature. We now understand why, in the eyes of the myth consumer, the intention, the adhomination of the concept can remain manifest without however appearing to have an interest in the matter: what causes mythical speech to be uttered is perfectly explicit, but it is immediately frozen into something natural; it is not read as a motive, but as a reason."

-Roland Barthes Mythologies