scene from "Gift of the Magi"Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
The Burglar's Christmas by Willa Cather
A Christmas Dinner Won in Battle by Stephen Crane
The Twelfth Guest by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
The Christmas Banquet by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Christmas Dinner by Washington Irving
Dear Editor:
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon
The Editor replies: Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood. -- Francis P. Church
"It's a digital camera," Gary said helpfully, as Deena stared down at her birthday present.Go to episode 2...
"So I see." Deena pointed out, rather gently she thought, that she'd been angling for a holiday in Paris, something romantic. She'd rather hoped she'd be unwrapping a Eurostar ticket, quite frankly.
Gary shrugged. You had to take photos in Paris, hadn't you? But after buying the camera he couldn't afford the holiday as well. "Look, it's got telescopic zoom!"
That evening, she gave in and installed it on her computer. "Welcome, Deena!" flashed the screen in colourful writing, and in spite of herself, she was impressed. "Click here for your photos!"
Of course she knew the gallery would be empty, but she clicked anyway. And blinked. There it was, a picture of herself and Gary, smiling and waving. Over her shoulder she could see the Eiffel Tower.
Dazedly she scrolled through the album. Notre Dame. Montmartre. Gary joking around with a baguette. Happy pictures. Impossible pictures, of a holiday they hadn't taken.
And then Deena froze. Gary filled the screen again, but no longer clowning; instead, blood trickling from his mouth, eyes staring out at her vacantly. It was a picture of his death.
crèche of penguinsaerie of eaglesSee the whole list...
ascension of larks
band of jays
bevy of doves
bouquet of pheasants (when flushed)
brace of ducks
brood of chickens
cast of hawks
chain of bobolinks
charm of finches
colony of vultures
company of parrots
conspiracy of ravens
crèche of penguins
murder of crows
mustering of storks
parliament of owls
plump or waterfowl
raft of ducks
rafter of turkeys
sedge of bitterns
Feathertop takes a bow
1. Is the subject line helpful?See the whole thing at Grammarphobia.com
2. Did you get right to the point?
3. Is the language clear?
4. Did you say too much?
5. Are your facts right?
6. Did you say what you're replying to?
7. Were you polite?
8. Were you discreet?
9. Is there a greeting and a closing?
10. Is the attachment welcome?
11. Did you use the shift key? Capitalize properly!
12. Did you break for paragraphs?
13. Will the reader get the shorthand? Avoid "slanguage"
14. Will the joke fall flat? Don't forward jokes!
15. Does this look like spam?
16. Do all these people need copies?
17. Should you sleep on it? Never e-mail in the heat of anger.
18. Does it have to be an e-mail?
19. Did you read it again?
20. Did you check the grammar, spelling, and punctuation?
Analyzing literature is a learned skill and a process you can master. As you gain more practice with this kind of thinking and writing, you’ll be able to craft a method that works best for you. Until then, here are seven basic steps to writing a well-constructed literary essay:
1. Ask questions*
2. Collect evidence
3. Construct a thesis
4. Develop and organize arguments
5. Write the introduction
6. Write the body paragraphs
7. Write the conclusion
* Read the "ask questions" section carefully.
The prison door
The rose bush
The beadle
Pearl
Pearl's clothes
The scarlet letter
The scaffold
The A-shaped meteor
Dimmesdale
The red mark on Dimmesdale's chest
Chillingworth
The Black Man
The forest
The Indians
The governor's decaying garden
The governor's armor
Hester
Hester's cap
The brook
The sun and sunlight
The moon and moonlight
Mistress Hibbins
The verb, used across several social networking sites, has been defined by the dictionary as: "To remove someone as a 'friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook."
Christine Lindberg, a language researcher for Oxford's US dictionary, said: "In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for Word of the Year."
There had been some debate across blogs and Twitter, about whether 'defriend' was the more commonly used term, especially on Facebook. However, Oxford spokesman Christian Purdy said researchers found 'unfriend' was more common.
Other tech-related words which made the short list were: 'hashtag', the way Twitter users tag their material; and 'intexticated', being distracted by texting while driving.
Wed., Dec. 9: Vocab test #1And, looking ahead to the rest of the semester:
Thu., Dec. 10: Class discussion + Question Set 2 due
Mon. , Dec 14: Encapsulation script due + Vocab test #2
Wed., Dec 16: Scarlet Letter Essay due
Thu., Dec 17: Question Set 3 due
Mon., Jan 4: Vocab test #3
Tue., Jan 5: Encapsulation presentations
Wed., Jan 6: Scarlet Letter exam and data sheet
Mon., Jan 25: Presentations of 1st book, Term+data sheet
GargantuaThe bun-sellers or cake-makers were in nothing inclinable to their request; but, which was worse, did injure them most outrageously, called them prattling gabblers, lickorous gluttons, freckled bittors, mangy rascals, shite-a-bed scoundrels, drunken roysters, sly knaves, drowsy loiterers, slapsauce fellows, slabberdegullion druggels, lubberly louts, cozening foxes, ruffian rogues, paltry customers, sycophant-varlets, drawlatch hoydens, flouting milksops, jeering companions, staring clowns, forlorn snakes, ninny lobcocks, scurvy sneaksbies, fondling fops, base loons, saucy coxcombs, idle lusks, scoffing braggarts, noddy meacocks, blockish grutnols, doddipol-joltheads, jobbernol goosecaps, foolish loggerheads, flutch calf-lollies, grouthead gnat-snappers, lob-dotterels, gaping changelings, codshead loobies, woodcock slangams, ninny-hammer flycatchers, noddypeak simpletons, turdy gut, and other suchlike defamatory epithets; saying further, that it was not for them to eat of these dainty cakes, but might very well content themselves with the coarse unranged bread, or to eat of the great brown household loaf.Favorites?
Artist's rendering of "The Birth-Mark"
Artist's rendering of Georgiana
Enduring the barrage of smelly eggs and rotting vegetables, dead cats or animal offal, sticky mud and human waste...
When we were reading The Crucible, I mentioned the various modes of public punishments used by the Puritans. The pillory, in particular, as described vividly on page 50 is important to The Scarlet Letter. Note, however, that Hester is sentenced only to "stand a certain time upon the platform, but without undergoing that gripe about the neck and confinement of the head." Here's the beginning of a brief illustrated history of the pillory:
Although Puritans left England to escape religious persecution, people living in the Massachusetts Bay Colony were expected to conform to strict, autocratic standards established by the community’s leaders. All of the leaders, of course, were men.
Seeking to remain essentially British, as they tried to purify the Church of England from within, the Puritans carried on with certain customs they had known before The Great Migration. One of those traditions was punishment in the pillory.
Tracing its history to the 12th century, the pillory was a common sight in towns throughout Britain and on the continent. It consisted of an upright board with a hole in the middle where a person's head was set. As often as not, a person's ears were nailed to the board. Usually there were two openings for hands.
Also known as a neck-stretcher, the pillory's purpose was to publicly punish (and humiliate) people for all kinds of offenses. Frequently, a pillory could be rotated, so members of the public could get a good look at the person on display, as depicted by William Pyne in The Costume of Great Britain (1805). The most famous pillory in London was at Charing Cross.
Sometimes people locked in a pillory had bricks, or other heavy objects, thrown at them. Not a few died as a result, since they were unable to protect themselves with their hands.
Others, like Daniel Defoe (the author of Robinson Crusoe) who spent three days in the Charing Cross pillory (beginning July 31, 1703) for writing a pamphlet (The Shortest Way with Dissenters), were showered with flowers by a sympathetic crowd. Most, however, endured the more usual barrage of smelly eggs and rotting vegetables, dead cats or animal offal, sticky mud and human waste.
http://www.7gables.org/
http://www.7gables.org/tour_countinghouse.shtml
The following are the approved proposals. The book in bold-face is the book on which you will be making a presentation on January 25. Your data sheet for that book will be due at that time.
On the evening of Thanksgiving day, John Inglefield, the blacksmith, sat in his elbow-chair, among those who had been keeping festival at his board. Being the central figure of the domestic circle, the fire threw its strongest light on his massive and sturdy frame, reddening his rough visage, so that it looked like the head of an iron statue, all aglow, from his own forge, and with its features rudely fashioned on his own anvil. At John Inglefield's right hand was an empty chair. The other places round the hearth were filled by the members of the family, who all sat quietly, while, with a semblance of fantastic merriment, their shadows danced on the wall behind then. One of the group was John Inglefield's son, who had been bred at college, and was now a student of theology at Andover. There was also a daughter of sixteen, whom nobody could look at without thinking of a rosebud almost blossomed. The only other person at the fireside was Robert Moore, formerly an apprentice of the blacksmith, but now his journeyman, and who seemed more like an own son of John Inglefield than did the pale and slender student.
I was just commenting to Voice of Reason earlier today that it would be a real romp of an exercise to diagram that sentence. Lo, I find that someone has actually done this. Click here or onto the diagram above to enjoy the full-size diagram.
"In my native town of Salem, at the head of what, half a century ago, in the days of old King Derby, was a bustling wharf--but which is now burdened with decayed wooden warehouses, and exhibits few or no symptoms of commercial life; except, perhaps, a bark or brig, half-way down its melancholy length, discharging hides; or, nearer at hand, a Nova Scotia schooner, pitching out her cargo of firewood--at the head, I say, of this dilapidated wharf, which the tide often overflows, and along which, at the base and in the rear of the row of buildings, the track of many languid years is seen in a border of unthrifty grass--here, with a view from its front windows adown this not very enlivening prospect, and thence across the harbour, stands a spacious edifice of brick."
I am pleased to announce ISI's annual National Founding Fathers Essay Contest for high school students. Students are invited to compete for scholarships prizes ranging from $250 to $1,000 and for a library of ISI titles. Essayists are asked to consider the life and character of the Quaker general, Nathanael Greene, and to discuss why his legacy as a military strategist, leader, and patriot should be remembered by contemporary Americans. Essayists are encouraged to consider all aspects of Greene's life in addition to his military career.
Participants must register by December 4, 2009; all registrants will receive a free copy of the biography, "Rise and Fight Again: The Life of Nathanael Greene". Essays are to be between 1,200 and 1,500 words long and will be judged on the basis of scholarship, imagination, and quality of writing. All essays must be postmarked or emailed to ISI by January 22, 2010.
For more information about the contest, please visit:
http://www.isi.org/programs/essay/greene0910/index.html
If you have questions about the contest please contact me by email or by phone (302) 524-6132.
Sincerely Yours,
Michelle Huntley
Please note that the website says the deadline for registration is November 20. However, since I received the notice about the essay contest on the 20th, I can only assume they are still accepting registrations.
