You can access the syllabus, calendar, and honor statement here.

Here are the flashcards for Vocabulary List 1.  Your first quiz is Thursday.  Please study.

We will work on daily MUG shots.  These are Mechanics, Usage, and Grammar corrections.  On loose leaf paper, write the date and corresponding number of the MUG set.  Copy the sentences as written, and we will make corrections at the beginning of class.  I will collect them after we have completed 20 sets (20 days) for a daily grade. If you are absent, work on the MUGs on your own and then check the corrections when you return to class.

Here's today's set:

#1
This year writing will be a major focus, its'
important to understand grammer rules, without
them you're writing is difficult to understand.

Once a week well begin class with one of these
sets of M.U.G. sentences, M.U.G. by the way is an
abbreviation of "mechanics, usage and grammer"

Today's Writing Exercise (WE #1)

Write down the first sentence of Chapter 1 of The Scarlet Letter (skip lines). Annotate (mark) the sentence with careful attention to the writer's DICTION (word choice), SYNTAX, (arrangement of words).

The writer begins with the simple subject of the sentence, identifying it as a "throng."  He wants the reader to notice this large group of people.  He points out that they are "bearded men" which emphasizes that they are a patriarchal (men) society who abide by the wisdom of their traditions (bearded).  The writer points out that they are wearing "sad-colored garments."  These men don't consider  their garments sad-colored; this is the writer's opinion.  Why sad?  Why use the word "garments" instead of "clothes"?  Then he says the are wearing "steeple-crowned hats," which indicates that they are a theocracy.  He says the group is "intermixed with women," which reinforces the patriarchal nature of this society which relegates the women to secondary citizens.  He offers little to describe them other than to say that some of them are "wearing hats and others [are] bareheaded, simply remarking on how some are married and some are not, reminding the reader that during this time period, women were only important as wives or prospective wives.  Finally, in the middle of the sentence after this long description of the throng, he tells the reader that these people are "assembled," which means they are gathered with a purpose, and not just standing around.  He says they are in front of a "wooden edifice."  It is possible that the only building material available to the early colonists would have been wood, so he might simply be emphasizing the time period but quite possibly making a symbolic connection to the forest from which the trees came which was used to build the prison, the symbol of punishment for evil/sin/crime.  The word "edifice" seems much more formal diction than building or prison (which it actual is), reinforcing the formality of their justice system.  The door of this prison, which is "heavily timbered with oak" and "studded with iron spikes" intentionally intimidates the onlookers who fear the punishment the prison represents both on earth and in the afterlife.