A Christmas Carol

We will begin reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens on Friday.  You're probably already familiar with the premise, but you will find that Dicken's prose style can be intimidating and difficult to read at times.  For this reason, a majority of the text will be read together in class so we can address any unfamiliar vocabulary and historical terms.  I attached a link that provides a dramatic reading of the text, as an accompaniment to our reading.  I also included the trailer to the most recent film interpretation of the novel.

http://www.wiredforbooks.org/carol/content.htm

Free Write!

We will start doing more of these in class very soon.....

Listen to Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a Changin"  and answer one or both of these prompts:

1.How is your generation's identity different from that our your parents'/teachers'?

2. Is our nation/world changing in good ways or bad, and what is your individual role in that change?

Grammar

We've started our grammar unit, and I know many of you are having trouble remembering certain parts of speech.  Here are some quick tips to help you when analyzing sentences.

                      nouns
                       /    \
           common    proper
                  /            \
         general          specific
             /                       \
       state                    Florida        

Direct Objects:  what the verb, or action, of the sentence is doing     Mike eats apples
Indirect Object:  who or what the the direct object is being done for      He gave the boy a candle.
(always comes before the direct object).  

Predicate Nouns and Predicate Adjectives: rename the subject, and are often preceded by the verb to be.       I am funny.  P.A.                                               They are preachers.  P.N.

Prepositions: these are always tricky, and require a bit of memorization, but remember that they often show a physical or abstract relation between two objects or people.
He was on the car.   I ran to the store.  They are full of witty jokes.  The house sits upon the hill.  

Also, the object of the preposition is the noun that follows the preposition.