Dugan's Page - Recently Updated Pages

Assignment WL

MrsDugan — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:07:46 CST

Monday

Review Vocabulary Unit 7

Tuesday

Introduction Unit 2: Sacred Texts and Epic Tales
Read Unit Introduction: pp. 168-175

Wednesday

Discuss Introduction; Translation
Read pp. 186-219

Thursday

Discuss Literary Forms

Friday

Vocabulary Quiz: Unit 7

Assignments AP

MrsDugan — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:51:51 CST

Class Assignments

Tentative Schedule – AP Literature, 3rd Quarter

Week One
Quiz: Jane Eyre
Journal Check and Discussion
Reading assignment: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Week Two
Journal/Discussion – Jane Eyre
Critical presentations – Jane Eyre
Introduce Prose Question

Week Three
Quiz: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Journal Check and Discussion
Timed Write, Prose Question
Reading assignment: Lord of the Flies

Week Four
Journal/Discussion continued – Their Eyes
Critical presentations – Their Eyes
Poetry, “Symbol, Allegory, and Irony” (p.156-182) with individual assignments

Week Five
Quiz and discussion: Lord of the Flies (No journal)
Poetry, “Sounds” (p. 183-214) with individual assignments
Timed Write, Prose Question

Week Six
Complete poetry discussions and presentations

Timed Writing, Prose Question – 2nd Hour, Thursday, March 12th
4th Hour, TBA

Announcements WL

MrsDugan — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:59:37 CST

Revised exam schedule is attached below (in pdf format). Ours is on Wednesday at 10:30 am. Sorry I didn't get those Unit 1 tests back! I have them graded. I'll hand those back first during the final so you can use them, if you want.

Purchase the following edition of Beowulf by Monday, November 17th.

Beowulf: A Verse Translation
(Norton Critical Edition)
Ed. Daniel Donoghue, Trans. Seamus Heaney

ISBN--10: 0393975800
ISBN--13: 978-0393975802

You can purchase this edition on Amazon.com

Study Notes WoL

MrsDugan — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:07:26 CST

Attached below are the powerpoints (or multimedia presentations) that were assigned last week. Enjoy!

For attachments, see below

Plagiarism Infromation

Academic Bowl

MrsDugan — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:13:21 CST

The Cascia Hall Varsity Academic Bowl team won their District Seeding Tournament to become District Champions a week ago from Monday. In this week's meet, they defeated both Pryor and Chouteau, and the Junior Varsity won two out of their three matches.

New Frontier Academic Bowl
Conference Schedule 2008-09

Date Location Time

Sept. 22 Glenpool 4:00

Sept. 29 Caney Valley 3:45

Oct. 6 Wagoner 3:30

Oct. 13 Bixby 4:00

Oct. 20 Bixby 4:00

Oct. 27 District Seeding TBA

Nov. 3 Cascia Hall 4:45

Nov. 10 Varsity Tourney 3:30
Wagoner

Nov. 15 Regionals TBA TBA

Nov. 17 JV Tourney 4:45
Cascia Hall

Jan. 17 Area TBA TBA

Feb. 7 State TBA

China Exchange Program

MrsDugan — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:09:50 CST

The tentative dates for the 2008 China Exchange Trip are June 8-21. Please see Mrs. Dugan (rm 201) for more information.

Announcements AP

MrsDugan — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:56:02 CDT

News: Journals were very well-done. Great job, guys. Discussion was also excellent; you made some very good points.

Updates: The Stranger quiz will probably be moved to Thursday of next week, since we will not meet on Monday and we're a bit behind on our C&P discussion. See revised schedule in "Assignments."

See also: The Syllabus | Assignments | Study Guides

Classroom

MrsDugan — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 08:49:56 CDT

Welcome to Dugan's wiki!

This wiki is our central meeting place to plan and discuss assignments throughout the school year. Check back regularly to review any new announcements, review the syllabus, get tips from the study guides, and ask a question for other students or the instructor. Don't forget to see who's in the Student Spotlight this week!

Announcements AP	Syllabus AP	Assignments AP
Student Spotlight	Study Notes AP	Discussion Forum AP
Announcements WL	Syllabus WL	Assignments WL
Study Notes WL	Discussion Forum WL	Academic Bowl
Asian Studies	China Exchange Program

Tips for Building a Wiki:

Rename your home page to something more specific about your classroom
Add images and widgets (like YouTube videos and polls)
Invite other students to help! (Click on "Invite others" in the Page Toolbox)
Use person-to-person messages to stay in touch with your classmates and teacher.

Need more? Add graphics and flourishes that match your wiki design (they're free from Paint Splatters)

Study Notes AP

MrsDugan — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 08:46:14 CDT

For attachments, go to bottom of page

Plagiarism information

See also: Assignments | The Syllabus | Announcements

Syllabus WoL

MrsDugan — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:59:38 CDT

Download Syllabus Below

World Literature

Instructor: Ashley Dugan
E-Mail: adugan@casciahall.org
Website: www.casciadugan.wetpaint.com
Description: This is the Senior English course at Cascia Hall School.
The objectives of this course are as follows:

To encourage an enjoyment and appreciation of literature
To foster critical thinking skills
To continue to improve writing skills

Coursework: Grades will be determined by the following:

Class Rules:

Rudeness or disrespect in any form toward anybody (including me) will NOT be tolerated.
You must ask permission before leaving the room.
Questions about grades will only be addressed by appointment after school.
You must remain in or near your seat until the bell rings.

Coursework Requirements:

You are responsible for turning in your assignments on time. If an assignment is more than a week late, you will receive no higher than a C on that assignment.
Oral presentations are due on the day assigned, NO EXCEPTIONS.
You are responsible for keeping up with the reading and assignment schedule. You will be given a class schedule at the beginning of each quarter.

Tests: There will be tests for most text units studied as well as two comprehensive semester finals. Tests will be designed to measure
students' knowledge of the text as well as their attentiveness during classdiscussions.
Quizzes: There will be frequent comprehension quizzes to encourage completion of reading assignments.
Essays: You will be assigned five paragraph essays throughout the course of the year. Essays will be worth one test grade.
Vocabulary Assignments: Each week you will be required to complete the assigned vocabulary exercises in your workbook. These will be randomly graded. There will be a vocabulary quiz every other week.
Research Projects: There will be frequent research projects assigned, both independent and collaborative. Some of this research will be done on the Internet.
Oral Presentations: There will also be frequent assigned presentations that will be mostly collaborative. These will often be associated with the research projects.
Dialectical Journal: You will be keeping a journal in which, after each assigned reading, you will choose a passage or passage and respond to them in some way. Also you will be required to generate a discussion question for each reading. For novels, you will be required to keep a list of quotations, responses, and questions, depending on the length of the text. There will also be questions posted from time to time on the board that you will be required to answer. These will be randomly checked during the week and graded at the end of each unit.
Class Participation: At the end of each quarter, a class participation grade will be assigned. This grade will do one of two things, it will either raise your quarter grade by a half of a letter grade, or it will do nothing. This all depends upon the quantity and the quality of your class participation. Consistent, constructive class participation will result in an improved grade. Unconstructive or nonexistent class participation will result in...nothing.
Participation in Online Activities: There is a website for all of my courses located at the URL www.casciadugan.wetpaint.com. You will all be invited to join the site. Particpation in the site is open to members only. You will be able to check the schedule as well as assignments, news and other information on the site. Check it regularly! I am trying to limit paper use in the class as much as possible. You will also have assignments involving the website, which will be graded. Please visit with me if you do not have a reliable internet connection.
Required Texts:

Prentice Hall World Masterpieces, Vol. I and II

Sadlier—Oxford Vocabulary Workshop, Level H
Outside Reading TBA

Syllabus AP

MrsDugan — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:56:09 CDT

Download Syllabus Below

AP Literature and Composition

Instructors: Ashley Dugan and Catherine Sims
E-Mails: adugan@casciahall.org; csims@casciahall.org
Description: This is the second Advanced Placement course in the English department. It follows the curricular requirements as described by the AP English Course Description. All students should have taken A.P. Language and Composition prior to enrolling in this course.

Objectives:

To help students grow in their knowledge and love of literature and their regard for the people who create it
To teach them to read, write about, and discuss works within and without the evolving literary canon with precision, sensitivity, energy, and imagination
To encourage them to develop a deep and abiding resonance with some literary texts
To allow them to shape their own values and preferences with respect to both the style and substance of others.

Assessments:

Journal: A notebook in which students include the names and brief descriptions of all the main characters in a work, a concise summary of the work, at least five high-level, challenging vocabulary words with their correct definitions as used in the text, and at least five significant passages from every main section. Students should examine the relevance of these passages to the work’s characterization, conflict, setting, point of view, symbols, and/or theme or generate a discussion question pertaining to the passage. The journal for each text should include 10 to 20 passages. This major project will be utilized for class discussions in which the students will lead the discourse by reading aloud passages and presenting their informal analysis as well as sharing their findings on literary elements in the text. The class will also talk about some of the vocabulary noted in the journals; in addition to learning new words, students will have the opportunity to discuss the author’s use of diction. This journal also will serve as an excellent study aid for the A.P. examination. It will be reviewed at the end of the year, at which time students will choose at least three works which they will review in depth.

Quizzes: Quizzes will be composed of a series of quotations and analytical questions about each work studied. Each question will be answered in a paragraph format. This will aid students in composing well-structured and cohesive paragraphs with abundant and relevant textual support. Instructor’s grading and comments will encourage sophisticated and varied sentence structure and apt word choice. This is excellent preparation for the essay portion of the AP Exam.

Discussion: Class discussion is our primary classroom activity. All students are expected to take part in the dialogue of the classroom. Discussion will be centered on the student-generated questions and observations from student journals with teacher input. Students are encouraged to question and challenge others’ comments in order to support deeper textual analysis. Further, students should be ready to defend their interpretation of the text if necessary. This promotes precision and research. Finally, we will focus on the themes of the works, and students will compose a variety of themes for discussion, with emphasis on the fact that themes are not one-word subjects, but statements that reflect the author’s ideological purposes for composing the work.

Timed Writings: These are essay responses written in forty minutes during class. These will be taken from previous Advanced Placement exams and will prepare students for the spring Advanced Placement exam. The focus will be on Question 3 during the 1st quarter, Question 2 during the 2nd quarter, and Question 1 during the 3rd quarter. For each Question 3 essay, the text chosen will be one we have studied in class so that students will be able to practice both composition and evaluation and demonstrate their grasp of the content of class discussions. Students are encouraged to craft a thesis statement that follows the guidelines set forth during discussion. They should answer the question in the prompt, and each essay should point to a thematic element of the text in question. The essay will also include references to either the literary strategies used to reinforce the theme, the social/historical context of the work of literature, or both.

During each quarter, students are given the opportunity to revise one timed writing for an improved grade. Using the instructor’s written feedback on the original essay and verbal feedback from conferences, students will revise their essays so that they are improved in the areas of clarity, organization, sentence structure and style, use of vocabulary, and supporting evidence. The instructor will also provide the class with positive and negative models of essays so that students may have a better understanding of effective organization, use of detail, voice, sentence structure, phrasing, transitioning, and word choice.

Formal Paper: During first semester, students will compose an extended essay from a list of suggested topics. Many students decide to complete a comparative analysis of several of the poems from the Bedford anthology. After conferencing with the instructor about topic selection, students will complete an outline before writing and revising this essay. It is expected that this analysis will use many examples of textual support in its focus on the selected structure and literary elements of the chosen poems. Examination of these elements will lead to a greater elucidation of theme.

Critical Presentations: During each unit, students will be divided into groups of approximately three students and will research a critical article pertaining to a text currently being studied. Students will write a précis of the critical article in their journals and then present the main points of the article to the class. These articles are to be fairly recent publications, and the study of these articles will allow students to become increasingly familiar with the various critical approaches and vocabulary widely used in academic discourse today.

Online discussion: Students are expected to contribute on a weekly basis to the Cascia Hall A.P. Literature web log. Comments may relate to the work currently being studied or to works read in the past. Students may choose to extend a point of discussion that originated in class or they may introduce new ideas. This blog gives students from both sections of this course the chance to communicate about our studies.

*All of the formal and informal writing detailed above should be completed with an emphasis on demonstrating the writer’s best skills. Every assignment is an opportunity to practice and improve upon one’s skills, and all assignments will be judged, at least in part, on the quality of the writing.

Grading Scale:

All assignments are evaluated on a nine-point scale.

9 = 99% 4 = 74%
8 = 94% 3 = 69%
7 = 89% 2 = 64%
6 = 84% 1 = 59%
5 = 79%

Advanced Placement Exam:

The AP Exam is divided into two parts and will be taken in the fourth quarter at the beginning of May. Part One requires the student to write essays about selected poems, a selected passage of prose, and finally, a work of literary merit based on a specific thematic question. Part Two consists of 70 multiple choice questions concerning literary analysis. All Cascia Hall A.P. Literature students are required to take this exam.
Course Units:

Unit One: Alienation and Society

Sometimes an individual’s moral precepts are decided by society’s institutions: churches, families, laws. These guidelines can provide comfort and direction; however, many works of literature challenge these boundaries and explore the concept of people who, intentionally or not, exist outside of institutional paradigms. Understanding the fate of characters who transcend the limits of cultural and religious morality helps readers to recognize the limits of our society and whether those limits should be challenged.

Texts:

Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Stranger Albert Camus

Unit Two: The Movement from Innocence to Experience

In this unit, we examine texts that follow the individual transformations that occur as protagonists move from youth to maturity. As they mature, these characters face internal and external conflicts that impact their moral, social, and psychological development and shape their adult personas. The journey is rarely easy, and the protagonist often follows the quest pattern typical of many of these coming of age tales.

Texts:

All the Pretty Horses Cormac McCarthy
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain

Unit Three: The Realities of War – The Realities of Human Nature

As an unfortunate ever-present occurrence in human history, war has been at the center of much of literature. This literature has presented the realities of being a soldier as well as war’s effects on those who are innocent victims and those who are left behind on the “home front.” War has the capacity to bring out both the best and worst in humanity, and the texts we study in this unit reveal the realities of human nature in times of crisis.

Texts:

The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien
Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut
Lord of the Flies William Golding

Unit Four: The Tension Between Society and Feminine Self-Determination

In this unit, we examine the journeys of women in very different historical moments. These women are struggling against the boundaries of cultural femininity, socioeconomic status, social expectations, and, in some cases, race, to solidify their sense of selfhood and to negotiate the balance of power in male-female relationships. The protagonists are attempting to access power and self-actualization in communities whose inherent social structures marginalize and invalidate them. We examine the choices and compromises they make, and examine how these characters negotiate the obstacles presented to them.

Texts:

Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston

Unit Five: “All the world’s a stage…”

Arthur Miller said about drama, “By whatever means it is accomplished, the prime business of a play is to arouse the passions of its audience so that by the route of passion may be opened up new relationships between a man and men, and between men and Man. Drama is akin to the other inventions of man in that it ought to help us to know more and not merely to spend our feelings.” In this unit, we will take a closer look at how both comedy and tragedy help us to know more about what it means to be human.

Texts:

King Lear William Shakespeare
The Crucible Arthur Miller

Other Texts

Poetry: an introduction Michael Meyer Bedford / St. Martin’s

Note: While not specifically mentioned above, students in this course can also expect to prepare for the A.P. examination by answering multiple choice questions based on short passages. This material will be taken either from released exams from previous years, or similar material will be created by the instructors based on the texts that we discuss in class. These exercises are intended to familiarize students with the kinds of questions they will encounter on the exam and heighten their awareness of these elements (inference, use of detail, vocabulary in context, diction, sentence structure, etc.) in prose and poetry.

Asian Studies

MrsDugan — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 17:58:22 CDT

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

Discussion Forum WoL

MrsDugan — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 17:57:46 CDT

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

Discussion Forum AP

MrsDugan — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:51:57 CDT

Suggestions:

Encourage students to post questions and answers to questions related to particular topics.

Student Spotlight

wetpaint — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 17:13:27 CDT

This is how a spotlight page could look: Use it "as is," modify it, or delete all the text and start over with your own idea. It's a wiki page, so you can change it any time you want.

Student of the Week

Name:
Grade:
Why he/she is being honored:

Send a shout-out!

[Use this section to say "way to go" to this week's student! Add photos, videos, or words of congrats. Or, send them a message by going to their profile page...]

Nominate a classmate for Student of the Week!

Enter their name here, and describe why they should be recognized.

See also: Announcements | The Syllabus | Assignments | Study Guides