begin Friday Night Lights

Today in class (4th period - 3rd period was at Operation Prom), we started reading Friday Night Lights.  I read aloud most of the first chapter, and I asked you to finish that chapter and read the 2nd chapter.  As you read, think about how the narrative - particularly with all of its focus on the miserable history of Odessa - begins to make a case for the importance of football to the citizens of the town.

Also, you have three film reviews to read regarding There Will Be Blood:
from The New York Times

by Roger Ebert (of The Chicago Sun-Times)

and  by blogger Jeffery Overstreet

By Monday, please have all of this material read!  (There will be an extra credit opportunity for Friday Night Lights and a quiz on the film reviews!)

this movie is gettin' good!

Notice how the film is so artfully made - the image and music and story and dialog all contribute.  Why do you think the director decided to shoot from an extreme long shot (with the camera far away) when Daniel and HW are reunited?  What's up with all of the slapping?  Is rancher Bandy really a "man of God" or is he in cahoots with Eli to embarrass Daniel?  What do you make of the scene in the saloon, just as Daniel and HW are settling in for two big steaks?  There is a great deal to consider!  A great deal indeed ...

We finish There Will Be Blood tomorrow, and then we will jump back to a focus on Gatsby for a class period and 1/2 ... then we will jump into Friday Night Lights.

Next week we will craft our Gatsby character web pages, begin our compare and contrast essays, and read some of Friday Night Lights.

day one of our traditional post-novel-film-tie-in

Today in class we began screening Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, the 2007 Academy Award winner for cinematography and acting (male lead, Daniel Day Lewis).

I believe you will see clear connections between the oilman Daniel Plainfield and the "entrepreneur" Gatsby, as both men relentlessly pursue their version of the proverbial "American Dream."  Note how Plainfield uses his "adopted son" HW as a shield to his ruthlessness similarly to Gatsby's staged parties, put-on for the purposes of snaring Daisy.

Also, there's a wonderfully grimy feel to, especially, the opening of There Will Be that proves making "dat money" is a dirty "bidness."  Plainfield and Gatsby will stop at nothing to achieve.

Symbol alert: from today (1) notice Plainfield emerging from the deep, dark hole in the earth just before the dynamite goes off and (2) make note of the literal meaning of his name -- Plainfield.

preliminary steps to our next assignment

Ok, by the end of class today (4/3/11) students should have

1. established an EverNote account
2. used the EverNote webclipping feature to add content to a notebook (either by right-clicking or by using the handy "elephant icon" in the extensions list or simply by cutting-n-pasting)
3. added a second article for a total of two
4. added a personal note to accompany one of the clipped articles
5. accessed two Google Docs (a. .pdf copy of ACT prep. materials - practice from last week - and b. your Catcher journal)
6. used Google Docs to type a short description of their favorite character in The Great Gatsby
7. opened Google Docs and added two - three hyper-links to web content related to their description (some hints - dictionary.com, the Fitzgerald Centennial Page @ Univer. of South Carolina, pictures from Google Images or, better yet, the Creative Commons search engine)