Mr. Helmsing’s Backyard

I’ve heard people use the word balmy six times today to describe the weather.  I am enjoying every creeping degree of it.  Snow should fall on December 24 and 25, stay around for the 26 and 27, and melt away on the 28.  That’s what I would do if I could have a tete-a-tete with Mother Nature…that and find a way to eliminate humidity.

My voice was almost 100% normal on Sunday, but by the time I began talking on Monday it was cracking again.  I visited the rennovated Indianapolis Museum of Art Sunday with Ms. Sandberg explicitly to visit a traveling exhibit entitled “ Will Boys be Boys? Questioning Adolescent Masculinity in Contemporary Art” It “examines the nature of adolescent masculinity in recent paintings, photographs, sculptures, installations and video works by 20 artists” At times both provocative and disturbing, it will certainly come up in lectures when the Honors 9 classes read Lord of the Flies in January after Winter Break!

Today the M1 class took the objective exam over Dracula - and then we sank our teeth into some perilous practice questions preparing our pusillanimous selves for Wednesday’s in-class timed essay exam.  On Friday we will begin our new novella, The Island of Dr. Moreau.

M3 talked about the ending of The Outsiders, journaled about gang issues in Bloomington on Moodle, and practiced writing about the significance and contexts of various quotes from the novel.

M4 went over more of the growing complexities and problems Philip is facing in Nothing But The Truth.  We talked about the tone of a text and loaded words, pointing out how journalist Jennifer Stewart spins the story about Philip’s suspension for the local paper.  We responded to another reading response question on Moodle and spent the last third of class working on a new Criterion essay - the topic is loyalty.  Log onto Criterion to get started!  We will discuss our preliminary drafts on Wednesday.