Seniors, Monday May 14: Project, Exam, and Extra Credit

Today in the lab you should either:

1. work on your Cuckoo Creative projects due tomorrow, Tuesday
2.  review for your exam  available on Study Wiz--do NOT print out the review sheet in the labs!
3. complete the extra credit assignment that is posted below and post your response before Wednesday, May 16


Dead Poet's Society Testament                  

"Sucking the marrow out of life doesn't mean choking on the bone"

I cannot grade you on your opinion. You will be graded on your clarity of expression and your ability to support your opinion using specific ideas and examples.

Choose any one "letter" found in any of the "parts" of the assignment as your writing prompt. For instance, you might choose to answer d in Part 2, or h in Part 3.

Part 1 People Can Change (minimum of one page, double-spaced, typed, in length)
a. Give me an example of how your opinion about something or someone changed as a result of changing YOUR point of view.
b. For you, what's the most "different" school or extra-curricular activity in which you've participated during your high school career, one that you would have never imagined yourself doing in a few years ago?
c. What person in the Class of 2012 has undergone the most positive change during his or her four years at St. Mark's? You need NOT mention a name.

Part 2 Institutions Can Change (minimum of one page, double-spaced, typed, in length)
d. What pages from what text that you had in high school what you like to rip out?
e. What's the most different, yet most powerful/significant high school class (period, activity, etc.) in which you took part?
f. What one thing would you change about St. Mark's to improve the school that would not change the basic educational and philosophical fabric of the school (e.g. in Welton, Charly wanted to admit girls)?
g. How can St. Mark's best discipline its students in order to promote proper behavior?

Part 3 "These are the things we stay alive for . . . " (minimum of one page, double-spaced, typed, in length)
h. Words ARE important. What are the nicest words that someone ever said to you? Explain. Please, be able to quote, at least partially, these words.
i. What are the last words to live by that you wrote to yourself in a journal or otherwise?
j. How does your favorite song, band, singer etc. affect you (emotionally or rationally or both) in an important way?

Part 4 Poetry as Inspiration—write about any one of the works below, all found in the Dead Poets Society movie, praising or criticizing it for its meaning or merit. No Pritchard scale ratings, though. (minimum of one page in length)

K. 

O me! O life!

O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring.
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the foolish.
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew'd.
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring -- What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer That you are here--that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

  

L. An Excerpt from "Walden"

by Henry David Thoreau

---

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion


M.   She Walks in Beauty (George Gordon, Lord Byron)
                                      1
    She walks in beauty, like the night
        Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
    And all that's best of dark and bright
        Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
    Thus mellowed to that tender light
        Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
                                      2
    One shade the more, one ray the less,
        Had half impaired the nameless grace
    Which waves in every raven tress,
        Or softly lightens o'er her face;
    Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
        How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
                                      3
    And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
        So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
    The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
        But tell of days in goodness spent,
    A mind at peace with all below,
        A heart whose love is innocent!