Final Grammar Practice

Put commas where necessary.

The man in the long black coat stood somberly in the corner.

Robert is a warm gentle father.

People who obtain a college degree tend to earn more money than those that don't.

Langston Hughes who was a poet during the Harlem Renaissance wrote poetry that was concerned with racial pride and social justice.




Put commas, colons, and semicolons where necessary.


The weather this week may include hailstorms sun showers and overcast skies.

I am eager to read a number of books this summer The Ministry of Bad Taste by Jonathan Franzen Wolfe Hall by Hillary Mantel and Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre.



Are the following sentences grammatically correct?  If not, fix them.

Most lions at night hunt for medium sized prey, such as zebra.

Many students graduate with debt from college totaling more than fifty thousand dollars.

Though not eligible for the clinical trial, John was still able to gain access to an experimental drug.



Identify the verbal phrases in the following sentences.

To live without health insurance is risky.


Last night we saw a play, written with profound insight into the lives of immigrants, that affected us deeply.

The girls swimming in the Atlantic were stung by jellyfish.

Rationalizing a fear can eliminate it.

Lizards usually enjoy sunning themselves.

TEWWG - 15-17

Here is a document with questions.

Final Exam Review Document

Here is a review document for your final exam.


Here is a document with reading practice.

Grammar Review Document

Here is a document to review the Q4 grammar.

TEWWG: The Tea Cake Chapter

Tea Cake is a complex character.  What are three distinct adjectives you would use to describe him?  Identify a specific incident with a direct quotation from Chapter 13 of 14 to support your claim.


What is an adjective that you would use to describe Janie and Tea Cake's life together?  Again, cite a specific quotation from Chapter 13 or 14 that supports your claim.



Do you think Janie is happy she ran off with Tea Cake?  What evidence do you have to support your idea?

IXL Work for Review

10H English IXL Grammar Work

username:  firstnamelastname651 ex: laurentarantino651

Password: 1234

Under Grade 9:

participles N1

gerunds N2

restrictive/nonrestrictive info (same as essential/nonessential) B1 B2

semicolons, colons, commas C1 C2 C3

Under Grade 10:

misplaced modifiers W1

parallel structure U1

TEWWG - Quote Analysis

Here are some quotations for analysis.

Their Eyes Were Watching God - Opening Questions

Their Eyes Were Watching God - Getting Acquainted with the Text

How do the porch sitters in TEWWG reflect society’s views at the time?  What specific social mores do they reflect?

How do Janie and her grandmother reflect different visions of women at the time?  Identify a quote that establishes each character’s view.

At the end of Chapter 3, Hurston writes, “Janie knew now that marriage did not make love.  Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman” (25).

According to this passage, what does it mean to be a woman?

What was Janie’s first dream?  Are her expectations unrealistic?

Real Life Connections

Read the following article from the New York Times that discusses real world implications for characters and themes from Othello.

Literary Essay: Intro and Conclusion

Here is a document that explains some strategies for introductions and conclusions.

Literary Essay: Body Paragraph Guide

Use the following document to help you craft the body paragraphs of your literary essay.

Grammar Practice: Misplaced Modifiers

Here is a document to help you practice identifying and fixing misplaced and dangling modifiers.

Othello Performance Packet

Click here for the performance packet.

Othello Literary Essay

Click here for the descriptor and due dates.

Reading Act 4 of Othello: Signposts

Click here for an explanation of signposts and how they help us in our reading.

Ideas for Othello Literary Essay

Click here for some note taking ideas for a literary essay on Othello.  As you complete future log entries, you may want to begin to focus your logs on some particular aspect of the play.

Close Reading of Othello 1.3

Click here for a close reading activity for 1.3.

Background Information for Understanding Othello

We will explore the following topics as a means of better understanding the conflicts and characters in Othello.

-Black Africans in Renaissance Europe
What were the stereotypes?  How many were there?  How much social/economic/job related mobility did they have?
-Turks during the Renaissance
Who were they?  What facts and details are most significant to know/understand?  What was their relationship to Europeans?  What were they like as a military power?
-Cyprus during the Renaissance
Find basic facts and images.
-Venice during the Renaissance
Find basic facts and images.  What was Venice like as a military power?
-The Moors
Who were they?  Where did they come from?  How were they received?  Images?
-Women during the Renaissance
How were women regarded?  Was there equality?  What role did women play?

Odyssey/Cold Mountain Compare/Contrast

Click here for an explanation and model for how you draw comparisons between the two texts.


Here is the rubric for the compare/contrast essay.

Odyssey Reading

Book 4 "The King and Queen of Sparta" pages 129-133,  lines 185 - 331

Telemachus, son of Odysseus, has arrived at the palace of King Menelaus of Sparta, seeking clues to his father's whereabouts.

Important thing to remember: Telemachus has grown up without knowing his father. Athena has inspired him to travel abroad to find out news of his father.  He has doubts whether he is the famed Odysseus's son; he's been bullied and disgraced by suitors who question his birthright and who seek his mother's hand in marriage.  Meeting this royal couple, hearing their stories of Odysseus, being recognized as looking like Odysseus--all make a deep impression on the young man.

In this excerpt, King Menelaus and Queen Helen (yes, that Helen) rejoice in meeting Odysseus' son. But the presence of Telemachus causes the king to grieve the many losses suffered in and as a result of the Trojan War. Notice that Helen drugs the wine to keep everyone's spirits on an even keel. She then launches on her own story about brave Odysseus.

Book 5 "Odysseus - Nymph and Shipwreck" lines 1-102
Odysseus is stranded on Calypso's island.  At this point, he has been away from home for almost twenty years.

In Book 5, we first meet Odysseus.  What state is he in?  How does his state compare/contrast to how we first find Inman?

Book 10: The Bewitching Queen of Aeaea - read in its entirety 

We readers last encountered Odysseus in Book 6. In this book, he was rescued from his nakedness and starvation by Princess Nausicaa on the island of Phaeacia, where he'd washed up after his raft was wrecked at sea. Nausicaa's father, King Alcinous, promises to deliver Odysseus back home to Ithaca; it has been 20 years since he set out for Troy.  On the eve of his homeward voyage, Odysseus recounts his adventures to his hosts: where he's been; what he's suffered; how he incurred the wrath of Poseidon; how his crew came to an untimely end. Books 9-12, then, are a series of flashbacks that enthrall his listeners. King Alcinous is so impressed with the tale that he offers to make Odysseus his son-in-law, something Nausicaa would be very much in favor of! Odysseus respectfully demurs, saying he must return to Penelope.

In Book 10, in addition to the many examples of sanguine and lethal forms of hospitality, we have Circe, who serves as temptress and then as guide. Book 10 has many parallels with Cold Mountain. Your task is to make note of them.  Please note: your book has a "pronouncing glossary" of character and place names (pp. 521-41).

Book 11: The Kingdom of the Dead - excerpts on Achilles: pp. 265-266 [lines 541-573]; and of other famous figures from Minos to Heracles: 268-270 lines 650 - end].

It wouldn't be an epic without a journey to the underworld. Here, Odysseus gleans wisdom from the dead. Parallels with Cold Mountain?

Book 23 The Great Rooted Bed: read in its entirety. 

The suitors have been slaughtered by Odysseus and Telemachus. The palace floor has been scoured of the carnage. Order is restored. But "circumspect Penelope" does not immediately embrace her long-lost husband. Why? What does she fear? Do you see any parallels with the character of Ada? What does the book offer in the way of commentary on marriage? 

Multi-Genre Project

Click here for the description and rubric for the multi-genre project.  This project is due on 3/10.

Cold Mountain Socratic Seminar Points for Discussion

Consider the following points as you prepare for the Socratic Seminar. You may also use these questions to help you think about what you may want to craft your project and literary essay around.  You do not have to prepare answers for all of these questions.  Choose at least five that resonate with you and prepare specific notes on them.  You should at least think about all of them, though.

1. How would you describe the style, or the voice, in which Charles Frazier tells his story? Do you find it realistic or stylized? What does it add to the overall effect of the story?

2. Charles Frazier seems to imply that, because of the moral barrenness of the Civil War and the crimes committed on the battlefield in the name of honor, there is no moral onus attached to the act of desertion? Do you agree with him? Why has Frazier chosen to portray the deserters as good, the Home Guard as evil?

3. How have Inman's views on secession, slavery, and war changed by the time he finds himself in the military hospital? What has he come to believe of both sides, the Federals and the Confederates, their leaders, and their motivations for fighting? Is he being overly cynical? How does the fighting and the level of blind violence in the Civil War compare with other, more recent wars?

4. Inman remembers a conversation he had with a boy he met after the battle of Fredericksburg, when he pointed out Orion's principal star. The boy replied, "That's just a name we give it.... It ain't God's name." We can never know God's name for things, the boy continues; "It's a lesson that sometimes we're meant to settle for ignorance" [p. 117]. How does this statement correspond with the lessons learned by Ada and Ruby? What point does Cold Mountain make about the nature and limitations of human knowledge?

5. Inman has little use for conventional religion, but he liked one sermon of Monroe's: "That which shows God in me, fortifies me. That which shows God out of me, makes me a wart and a wen. There is no longer a necessary reason for my being. Already the long shadows of untimely oblivion creep over me, and I shall decrease forever" [p. 77]. What notion of "God" does this quotation endorse? What about the voice that spoke to Ruby when, as a child, she was in despair: Was this God's voice, and if so, in what does God consist? What do you conclude Frazier's ideas to be, and how do they differ from conventional Christianity?

6. How, finally, does Frazier portray the natural world: as benign, treacherous, cruel, or indifferent? Famous contemporaries of Inman and Ada--thinkers like Darwin, Wordsworth, and Emerson—were expressing new ideas, in poetry and prose, about nature. How do these ideas influence Monroe's thinking? "Monroe had commented that, like all elements of nature, the features of this magnificent topography were simply tokens of some other world, some deeper life with a whole other existence toward which we ought aim all our yearning" [p. 144]. What very different conclusions does Ada come to? How do Inman and Ruby view the natural world?

7. Remembering his friend Swimmer, Inman reflects that Swimmer's spells "portrayed the spirit as a frail thing, constantly under attack and in need of strength, always threatening to die inside you. Inman found this notion dismal indeed, since he had been taught by sermon and hymn to hold as truth that the soul of man never dies" [p. 20]. Which version of the soul seems to be borne out during the course of the book? Does Inman come to change his ideas during his journey?

8. Throughout Cold Mountain, the author works with the idea of the search for the soul. Inman, Ada, Ruby, Stobrod, Veasey, and the slaveholder's runaway son Odell are all in some way engaged upon this search. Which of them is, in the end, successful, and why?

9. Both Ada and Inman reflect, at different times, that they are living in a "new world" [p. 33].... What changes is nineteenth-century America undergoing, and how do Ada and Inman's experiences, and the people they meet, reflect those changes? How, and why, is the ideal of womanhood changing?

10. Both Ada and Ruby were motherless children from the time they were born. How has that state affected their characters and formed their ideas? How has it molded their relationships with their fathers? Do both women reconcile themselves to their fathers in the end, and if so, why?

11. Was Monroe, overall, a good father to Ada? In what ways did he fail her, and in what ways did he contribute to her strength of character? In what ways did he deceive himself?

12. Several of Cold Mountain's characters meet their death during the course of the novel. How do these characters' deaths reflect, or redeem, their lives? What points are made by the particular deaths of Veasey, Ada's suitor Blount, Pangle, Monroe, and others?

13. Stobrod claims not to be Ruby's true father; his wife, he says, was impregnated by a heron. What other mythical or animistic images does the book offer, and what is their purpose? How does Frazier view, and treat, the supernatural?

14. What is the significance of the Cherokee woman's story about the Shining Rocks? What does it mean to Inman, and why is Ada skeptical? What does her reaction tell us about her character?

15.  Consider the numerous themes that come up in the book.  Which stand out most to you?  How does Frazier develop them?

16.  Consider the multitude of characters that Inman meets along his journey.  What does he learn from each character.  What might each character represent?

17.  Inman and Ada are not able to make a life together.  How does their ending relate back to Inman's conversation with the blind man in the very beginning of the book?  What might Frazier be suggesting in terms of theme?

Art Making Ideas for CM Project

Take a look at the following document for some ideas for the multi genre project.

Descriptive Essay: Tips for Revision and Editing

As you finalize your descriptive essay for submission, consider the following points:

1. What is the dominant impression of the person/place you are describing?
-Do you have SPECIFIC, clear, vivid examples, anecdotes, and/or direct quotations that illustrate your point?
-Do you show, not tell, or do you come right out and state how you feel?
(Ex of telling: I have so many great memories of this place; if there's one person I'll always remember, it's Mr. G.)  Don't do this!


2. Have you made intentional selections about DIDLS?  How do these choices contribute to your tone?
-What connotations do your words have?
-Have you used any figurative language?  If so, to what effect?
-Have you varied sentence and paragraph lengths?  Do you italicize words, use parenthesis, dashes, and/or quotation marks?
-Do you use powerful verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs?  (Note:  powerful does not necessarily mean big and fancy.)
-Do you create images that appeal to one or more of the senses?
-Have you been selective about the details you include?  For example, if you are describing a place, you do not need to lead the reader through the place and describe EVERY detail that you see.  Only describe the ones that pertain to your dominant impression.  What you don't say can be just as powerful as what you do say.

3. Have you considered the way you begin your essay.  You may want to begin by:
-Reflecting back:
Ex: The other day I was reading through some essays that I was going to use with my 10th grade classes; one of them got me thinking about Mrs. Goulette--my second grade teacher--and her unconventional teaching tactics.  Here it is more than twenty five years later, and I still have vivid images of our backwards spelling bees standing on top of our desks.  It prompted me to google her, to no avail.

-Jumping right into your description:
Mrs. Goulette's classroom was not your typical elementary school classroom.  First of all, it was split between accelerated second graders and struggling third graders, something that probably wouldn't happen today.  In fact, most things about Mrs. Goulette's style of teaching wouldn't fly in our modern day.  She constantly singled kids out and embarrassed them.  She used to dump the contents of our desks on the floor if they were messy; the unlucky student who had this happen to her (yes, I suffered this fate once) not only had to face the humiliation of watching the entire contents of her desk being spilled on the floor in front of her classmates, but she also would have to stand at recess.  Kids would be lined up along the wall of the school at recess, wantonly watching as the other students played kickball and dodgeball.

-Reflect on a specific anecdote:

One of my clearest memories of Mrs. Goulette is when she told us about finding cigarettes in her daughter's purse.  She spoke openly with us about her own struggles with smoking--how much she wanted to quit and how difficult it was for her to do so.  Mind you, I was in second grade at the time. She had such devastation in her voice as she relayed the tale to us, laboring over each word as she recounted finding the pack of cigarettes.  Her response, though, is what has stuck with me over the years.  She made her daughter sit down and smoke the entire pack at once, causing her poor daughter to throw up repeatedly.  Cruel as this may have sounded to our seven year old ears, the message rang true.  Her daughter, who was by then an adult, had never smoked another cigarette again.

This story was pretty indicative of Mrs. Goulette's style of teaching.


4. Have you considered how you end your essay?
Notice how both of the mentor essays end in specific moments in time.  They also end with very short sentences.
Ending in a specific moment in time prevents you from making broad generalizations and cliche statements.
Consider a final appeal to the senses that might capture your dominant impression.
Consider something you do now or a thought you have now that reflects back on your person/place.
Consider using a very short sentence to end.

Ex:  As I look at my own son, I think about whether I'd want him to be in Mrs. Goulette's classroom--whether I'd want him to have to deal with the desk dumping, the cigarette story, the backwards spelling bees.  But then I think of everything else, and I decide.  Absolutely.

5.  Have you edited for comma rules, punctuation, capitalization, subject/verb agreement, apostrophes, spelling, etc.?

DIDLS: The Tone Acronym

When establishing or determining the tone of a piece of writing. readers and writers should consider five key elements.

Diction - the connotations, or associations, of word choices

Different words for the same thing often suggest different attitudes toward that thing.  For example, what is the difference between happy and content?  How about happy and ecstatic?

Imagery - vivid appeals to understanding through the five senses

The images a speaker/writer chooses to present suggest her attitude toward her subject.  For example, if a narrator visiting a farm describes the awful smells rather than the beautiful countryside, her description would tell us something about her attitude.

Details - specifics that are included or omitted

Details are most commonly the facts given my the author or speaker as support for the attitude or tone.  The speaker's perspective shapes what details are given.  For example, how might child's report of details from a car accident differ from that of a parent or a police officer?

Language - 1) the overall use of language such as formal, colloquial, clinical, or casual, etc., or the use of dialect or jargon

An ambassador speaks differently than a teenager who speaks differently than a farmer who speaks differently than a soldier from the Civil War.  The type of overall language contributes to the tone.

Language - 2) figures of speech such as metaphor, simile, personification, metonymy, synecdoche, etc.

A figure of speech names on thing in terms of another.  The way in which a speaker compares something to something else can tell us something about the speaker's attitude.  For example, if I compare her black hair to soot or to onyx, the connotation would be very different.

Syntax - sentence structure and the use of punctuation

Long, flowing sentences give the reader a different feeling than short, choppy sentences.  If the narrator uses awkward sentence structures or grammatical errors, we might think that he is uneducated.  The use of dashes, italics, run on sentences, short sentences, capital letters, etc., all contribute to how we read and process the information in a passage.

Descriptive Essay

Here is the product descriptor and rubric for the descriptive essay.

Cold Mountain Reading Schedule

Here is the reading schedule for Cold Mountain.

Midterm Study Guide

Here is a study guide for the midterm.

Glossing Sheets

Here are the new glossing sheets.

Cold Mountain Text

Here is the full text of Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier.