The Multi-Genre Research Project (MGP)

What is a multi-genre research project?

A MGP is a project in which you do research and write about your topic in a variety of different genres. This allows you to capture different aspects of your topic, rather than only one. Think about it…how does a song differ from an advertisement? Each genre presents a new opportunity to capture something unique about your topic.

Goals:

• Learn how to cite sources in the text of an essay
• Write a proper works cited page according to MLA standards
• Familiarize yourself with one aspect of Shakespeare’s life or plays
• Practice expository writing AND other forms of written expression

Requirements

• 1-page informative essay on your topic
• 4 other pieces of different genres
  • Options:
    • Story
    • Letter
    • Dialogue (as if you are writing a play)
    • Cartoon
    • Drawing
    • Story photos ( a photograph or picture that you narrate, or tell the story of)
    • Poem
    • Biography
    • Monologue
    • Song
    • Advertisement

• Pre- and Post-notes for each piece
  • These are notes written before and after you write each piece.
  • PRE-NOTES– Before you write, ask yourself what your intentions are with this piece. What do you hope to accomplish with your poem, for example, and how do you think that will be accomplished. What do you most want to SHOW about your topic with the piece you are about to write?
  • POST-NOTES— after you finish your final draft of the piece, assess yourself on your work. Did you do what you wanted to do? How is this piece is successful in showing something you wanted to show your reader about your topic?

TOPIC OPTIONS:

• Queen Elizabeth I
• Shakespeare’s education
• Shakespeare’s marriage to Anne Hathaway
• Shakespeare’s sonnets
• Shakespeare’s tragedies
• Dance in Elizabethan England
• The Plague in England
• religion in Shakespeare’s time
• arranged marriages
• astrology (contemporary may be included but must also cover Shakespeare’s time)
• Petrarch’s poetry

A REALLY GREAT RESOURCE: GO TO MS. A’S WEBSITE AND CLICK ON ELIZABETHAN TIMES. OR GO DIRECTLY TO THE ELIZABETHAN TIMES SITE. YOU WILL FIND INFO THERE ON MOST OF THESE TOPICS!

This week we are re-visiting some of the basic elements of poetry, which we reviewed at the beginning of the Odyssey unit. The following are the terms you will need to be comfortable with in order to proceed to the research and Shakespeare stuff!

• Imagery-
• Imagery can be difficult to discuss because it is, by definition, taking feelings that are wordless–smells, sounds, sights, the feeling of a cool breeze on the skin–and making the reader sense those feelings because of the words in the text. Imagery is poetry. It evokes one (or more) of the senses. Sometimes it can make you think of something unrelated, a little secret hint from the author to you, adding additional significance to the scene.
  • example: when Romeo and Juliet first meet, they converse with each other using religious terminology: sacred vs. profane, proper decorum for a pilgrim (someone who has traveled to a sacred place for religious purposes), saints, sin.  This type of imagery is meant to make you think of the church, and of religious ceremonies.  This would have resonated particularly with Shakespeare’s audience.
    • ROMEO: [To JULIET]  If I profane with my unworthiest hand
      This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
      My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
      To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.JULIET: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
      Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
      For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
      And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.

      ROMEO: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

      JULIET: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

      ROMEO: O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
      They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

      JULIET: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.

      ROMEO: Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.
      Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.

      JULIET: Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

      ROMEO: Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
      Give me my sin again 

• In addition to a general use of vivid sensory detail, imagery is also used very often in similes and metaphors.  The comparison is made to help add description to an object, and a good description most often uses vivid imagery.  Check out this example from “The Space,” by Gary Soto (p. 467 in your book)
  • “…where the javelina
  • lies on its side
  • Like an overturned high heel.
  • I say it is enough
  • to be where the smells
  • of creatures
  • braid like rope
  • and to know
  • if the grasses rustle
  • it is only
  • a lizard passing.
    it is enough, brother,
  • listening to a bird coo
  • a leash of parables,
  • keeping an eye
  • on the moon,
  • the space between cork trees
  • where the sun first appears.”

• Simile-
• Yes, we can all repeat what we learned in fifth grade, “a simile is a comparison using like or as,” but can we discuss why a poet or playwright would use a simile? It is important to understand that by comparing A to B, the author is taking important qualities of B and attributing them to A.
• “Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like a thorn,” sighs Romeo as he pines for his love, Rosaline. One aspect of love is like the thorn, though love and the thorn are not the same in other characteristics.
• “O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear;Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!” Again, Romeo, the romantic, uses simile to express his feelings, comparing Juliet’s beauty to “a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear.” Now, he is not saying that Juliet is an earring, but that she moves delicately and brightly, “hangs upon the cheek of night,” like a bright diamond earring dangling from a dark complexioned woman’s ear. So he is not comparing the earring to Juliet, but more her presence in the room, the way she lights up the space and captures his attention.
• Metaphor-
  • Like simile, metaphor associates qualities of B with a description of A. What’s the difference? “Metaphor doesn’t use like or as,” AND metaphor usually is more comprehensive. It is save to say, I think, that metaphor is more likely to associate ALL of the qualities of B with A. (ex: ALL of the qualities of an abandoned puppy to a lost child. ) A is B.
    • “Arise, fair sun and kill the envious moon, for she is envious that thou, her maid, art far more fair than she,” exclaims Romeo as he sees Juliet standing in her window. Because this is a metaphor, not a simile, Romeo is able to expand his initial comparison of Juliet to the sun into a battle between celestial objects (or goddesses). He has compared her to the sun, and can then go on to explore the relationship of the sun to other things (the moon).
    • “Oh happy dagger, here is thy sheath,” Juliet cries right before she stabs herself over Romeo’s body. This is a metaphor comparing Juliet’s body to the sheath of a dagger. Not that it is like a sheath to the dagger, but that it is the sheath. A simile in this situation would never carry the same feeling of permanence that the graceful metaphor does.
• Hyperbole
  • Hyperbole is an exaggeration of something for the purpose of achieving an effect.
    • “ROMEO: Commend me to thy lady.
      Nurse: Ay, a thousand times.”
      • Here, Romeo is pestering the Nurse (Juliet’s nanny, asking her over and over to “commend my to thy lady,” or to put in a good word for him with Juliet.  The Nurse responds, “Ay, a thousand times,” expressing exasperation at his repeated requests.  Did Romeo actually ask her a thousand times to mention him to Juliet? NO, but the nurse’s reply shows that she feels as if it were a thousand times.

The first three weeks of our 101 word vocabulary acquisition project.  We will have vocab quizzes every Friday, and they will cover ALL the words we have done so far!

Week 1

Week 2

WEEK 3

Week 4

Week 5

I am excited that we are finally reading To Kill A Mockingbird. This novel is a classic, and it is a great idea for students to have their own copies of the book if possible, so they can make notes in the margins as they read. Below, you will find a copy of the handout that will be distributed in class today. This covers a few procedural issues and grading for the novel unit. Each night, students will have chapters assigned to read. As they read, they will complete a reading journal and answer reading questions provided in class. You will also find those daily reading questions here!

Novel Unit

To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

9^th grade lit/comp

Avery/Flowers

Primary Goals:

v Students will be able to recognize and discuss literary elements as they are used throughout the novel

v Students will be able to discuss and write knowledgably about the themes of the novel as they function within the story and in relation to the historical context

Procedures:

We will follow our usual procedures during class time during the TKAM unit (journals, portfolios, etc.). We have only three and a half weeks to spend on this novel, so NO time should be wasted!

v STARTING CLASS- when you arrive in the classroom, quickly take a seat and begin the journal for the day. As usual, you will have only a few minutes once the late bell rings to complete the journal for the day. Journals for the TKAM unit should be a full paragraph in response to the prompt on the board. If you are in the classroom when the late bell rings but you are socializing instead of starting the journal, you are LATE. You will also be counted tardy if you come to class without your book. Every day is very important!

v READING- You have homework every night! We will read this novel at a steady pace. Every night as you read, you will keep a reading journal including, but not limited to, responses to several reading questions. Every day, after the journal time is over, several students will be asked to share something from their reading journals. Each student in the class will be called on at least once a week. When you are called on, you will read something from the previous night’s reading journal. This can be a response to one of the reading questions or something else you wrote down…anything you want to share. This is how your reading journal will be graded. Your responses will be graded for effort and completeness, and your grades will be averaged with your reading quizzes and other assignments to form one of your formal (summative, 60%) grades for this unit.

Resources:

Many resources exist for helping students read this novel (Sparknotes, Cliffnotes, etc.). Some of these resources can be helpful for readers as a SUPPLEMENT to reading the novel. Chapter summaries and study questions can help students think about what they have read. DO NOT use any of these resources as a replacement to reading the novel.