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Our Lady Help of Christians Academy
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7th and 8th Boys' Literature - Archive (through 3rd Quarter)
8th Literature - Archive (4th Quarter)
Assignments for March 18th-20th – Due Thursday, March 19th
Read Chapters XXI, The Captured Keep and XXII, The Fight in the Courtyard by Thursday, March 19th.
When you have finished reading both chapters, click on the link below to take the quiz.
Continue studying your poem "Daffodils." You will recite it on Monday, March 23rd, in a Zoom class.
Assignments for March 23rd-April 3rd
Due Thursday, March 26th
Read Chapters XXIII, Secret Entrance and XXIV, Surprise and Flight by Thursday, March 26th.
Due Monday, March 30th
Read Chapters XXV, Peace at the Castle and XXVI, Ralph Refuses by Monday, March 30th. (Quiz will be posted here by Monday morning.)
When you have finished reading through Ch. XXVI, click the link below to answer the following essay question with 3 well-written paragraphs.
Who had the better death? Odo or Ralph? Explain your answer.
Assignments for March 30th - April 6th
Due Monday, March 30th
Read Chapters XXV, Peace at the Castle and XXVI, Ralph Refuses by Wednesday, March 30th.
QUIZ: You may answer the following questions on your own lined paper, or you may answer them by taking this quiz online here.
1. Aymar said that he would crush Conan when they met in battle the following day. Conan responded, "It will not be you and I who fight!" Who did Conan say would actually be fighting the next day?
2. Bernard, the Duke's counselor, advised Conan about how he should prepare for the next day's battle. Bernard had a "high seriousness" and "lofty devotion" when he counseled Conan, which made both Conan and Anne hold him in higher regard. What did Bernard say Conan should do to prepare for this battle?
3. When Dizier offered to kill Ralph for the Lady Anne, Conan responded, "Hush, Dizier! The man is her prisoner, not mine or yours. Trust her, and save yourself the blood-guilt." What do you think Conan meant by "blood-guilt"? How could trusting Lady Anne relieve it? Have we seen this consideration with Conan before, regarding "blood-guilt"? Explain.
When you have finished reading through Ch. XXVI, click the link below to answer the following essay question with 3 well-written paragraphs.
Who had the better death? Odo or Ralph? Explain your answer.
Discussion Questions for Zoom class: (Thursday, April 2nd, at 3:00 p.m. An invite will be sent to you by email.)
From the end of the previous Chapter XXIV, Surprise and Flight, the Duke enters the scene at last. Conan sees the young man Hugh, whom he had met outside the Red Keep just the day before. At that time, Conan didn’t know he was the Duke, so Conan spoke very frankly about the failure of the Duke to bring justice to Burgundy.
Now they are face to face, and Conan remembers their conversation. He says to
the Duke, “My Lord duke, you want peace in this country?” Hugh, the Duke,
responds, “Yes, and I shall have it!” The author tells us that "in the light in
his eye and the ring of his voice, Conan saw in him something that was not there
yesterday, the awakening of manhood.”
What change do you think Conan saw in Hugh? How was Hugh different now than he
was the day before, when they were discussing the goings-on in Burgundy? What
caused this “awakening of manhood”? What would you say allowed Hugh to become a
“man” in this story? Do you see the same thing in Conan, over the course
of the book?
Due Monday, April 6th
New Poem: "Solitude" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. We'll discuss this poem in our Thursday Zoom class. If you have a chance to read it over, that'd be helpful! (The language itself is pretty easy, look up any words you don't know.)
Finish reading The Red Keep - Judgment of God and Judgment of the Duke. Write THREE good discussion questions per chapter (remember, we're not looking for vocabulary questions, or simple plot questions, we're looking for thinking questions!) Answer ONE of them, completely, with at least a paragraph or two. We'll have a wrap-up discussion on the book in our second Zoom class this week (Friday, April 3rd, at 3:00 p.m. An invite will also be sent to you by email for this class).
Turn in your questions and answers, written neatly and in pen, on your own lined paper, on Monday, April 6th.
END OF 3RD QUARTER
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BEGINNING OF 4TH QUARTER
Assignments for April 20th - 24th
Due by Wednesday morning, April 22nd:
A new book was included with the pick-up material for Monday, April 20th: "The Trumpeter of Krakow." Please read the following (up through page 31):
"Ancient Oath of the Krakow Trumpeter" (just before page 1)
"The Broken Note"
After you read this story, watch this short video: The Story of the Krakow Heynal
Chapter 1 (The Man Who Wouldn't Sell His Pumpkin)
Chapter 2 (Krakow)
Find this spot in Chapter II, Krakow.
Starting here and continuing through the rest of the chapter, read as though you have been studying this book in class with your own class of 5th grade students.
Imagine that you will be reading the rest of Chapter II aloud with your students in class. To prepare, you study the chapter carefully and write down some questions you might ask your students as they read with you, much like we do when we read together in class.
These questions should be designed to help them see any interesting things in the story that they might not notice on their own, or to help them understand anything unusual that might be in the chapter. If it is interesting to you, or if it makes you curious, it would be something you could point out to your students by asking them a question about it, for example.
(For the above paragraphs, you might ask them something like this: “What does it mean that the king has made ‘plans against the military order of the Knights of the Cross – for he seeks there in the North peace at all odds’? What does that tell you about the Knights of the Cross?” Answer – that they are enemies of the king, and that they are causing unrest in the north, etc.)
Perhaps you will need to look up a word or two if you are not sure what it means yourself, so that you can explain it to your students. Be sure you are able to answer your own questions, so your students don't catch you off-guard!
Your questions are due Wednesday morning, before our 9:00 a.m. Zoom class. I will read through them and select questions to ask the class (no worries, I won’t say who wrote them), so be sure to make them good, thoughtful questions!
This assignment will take some real thinking, I am eager to see your questions!
Assignments for April 27th - May 1st
Read the text we discussed last week, "Garden Recreation," carefully, and answer the questions provided as if they were essay questions on an exam.
You may write out your answers, neatly, on your own lined paper. The printed version of the text and the questions were included with the pick-up materials on Monday, April 27th.
You may also view and/or download the text and questions here.
If you prefer, you may type out your answers and submit them through the online form here.
Take the quiz on The Trumpeter of Krakow, Chapters 1 and 2. The printed version of this quiz was included with the pick-up materials on Monday, April 27th.
You may also take the quiz online here.
Assignments for May 4th - May 8th
Continue reading Trumpeter of Krakow. By Friday, May 8th you should be finished with the first eight chapters - (through Chapter VIII, Peter of the Button Face).
We will be discussing the book in our Zoom class next week (Wednesday, May 13th).
For Wednesday, May 6th, read the following text (paper copy included with the pick-up materials on Monday, May 4th; downloadable copy here) and write it out as a copy dictation.
Be sure to use your best penmanship! We will discuss this text in our Zoom class Wednesday.
When We Build, Let Us Think That We Build Forever
When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone; let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held as sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, "See! This our fathers did for us."
For, indeed, the greatest glory of a building is not in its stone, nor in its gold. Its glory is in its age, in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy, yes, even of approval or condemnation, which we feel on walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity.
- John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture
Discussion Questions:
1. What do you think the author is trying to express with his
use of the word “sacred” in this text? What is it that would be considered
“sacred”? Why, would you say?
2. What might be meant by “voicefulness” in a building?
3. How do you think these considerations might address a kind of “building” that
isn’t simply physical construction? Explain.