In literature class we remain thoroughly engaged in our reading of David Copperfield. We are nearly halfway finished and practically every student has become deeply interested in the unfolding events of the book. There is nothing so gratifying to a teacher as to stop reading at the end of a class period and be met with protests and pleas to keep reading! This is especially wonderful because David Copperfield is written with very complex, rich language and we are reading the unabridged version. The style and vocabulary of the book posed a challenge for many students at the beginning of the school year, and I am very pleased with how they have adapted!
The majority of our writing assignments are drawn from our reading. Currently the students are writing essays entitled Good and Bad Angels, which is the name of a chapter in David Copperfield where David, as a young adult, struggles with the conflicting influences of his peers. In their essays the students are exploring how people in their lives influence them both positively and negatively. When we finish these essays we will have a lesson on common verb errors and then identify and correct any verb errors in the rough drafts.
The students have previously learned to add exordium to the beginning of their essays as a way to create interest. The five types of exordia are challenge, question, quotation, statistic, and anecdote. The most popular choice is usually quotation and we have had a lot of fun finding relevant quotes and making sure that those quotes are connected and referenced later in the essays. Some of my favorite quotations that the students have found for the Good and Bad Angels assignment so far include:
"There is no such thing as a good influence. Because to influence someone is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him."
~Oscar Wilde
"A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example."
~Niccolo Machiavelli
"One who is righteous is a guide to his neighbor, but the way of the wicked leads them astray."
~Proverbs 12:26
