The World's Greatest English Class http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/ For our English classes,which are the world's greatest en-us Nucleus CMS v3.24 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com//nucleus/nucleus2.gif The World's Greatest English Class http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/ Engines of Ingenuity: Inventing Agriculture http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/index.php?itemid=42 Houston public radio station KUHF and the University of Houston, Texas. Click here to visit the show's website.

by John H. Lienhard

Click here to listen to this program.

Today, a new look at the birth of a very old technology. The University of Houston's College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.

Scholars have been turning their lenses back on the invention of farming. We know farming began eight to ten thousand years ago in the Middle East and the Holy Land. We also know it began after certain wild wheats mutated.
The seeds of those wild grains weren't as fat and rich as modern wheat, but they blew in the wind. They sowed themselves. You could harvest them without having to plant them.

Modern wheat was a fertile mutation of wild wheat. It made much better food. But its seeds don't go anywhere. They're bound more firmly to the stalk, and they cannot ride the wind. Without farmers to collect and sow wheat, it dies. Modern wheat creates farming by wedding its own survival to that of the farmer.

In 8000 B.C. the Natufians -- a hunting-gathering people -- lived in the region around Jericho and the Dead Sea. They were first to cultivate this new mutation -- this modern wheat. They became the first farmers.

By then, the climate had been warming for 2000 years. Once the area had been fairly lush. Now it grew arid. Game moved north. The vegetation changed. But the wild grains did well in the drier climate. The Natufians began eating a lot more grain.

And here we come to a great riddle. How did modern wheat replace those wild grains? Isolated mutations died without human help. Was some human clever enough to recognize and pick out that lone stalk of fat wheat in a field of grain?

We used to think so. But maybe the drama played out in quite a different way. By 8000 B.C. the Natufians needed much more grain. They probably began doing some planting to create it. Once they did, the fat wheat had its chance. It was easier to harvest. The seeds stayed in place when you cut it. Every time the Natufians harvested seed, they got proportionately more of the mutations. They lost more of the wild grain.

It took only a generation or so of that before a single mutation took over. The result was an unexpected wedding. In no time at all, modern wheat dominated the fields. And that was both a blessing and a curse.

The Natufians unwittingly replaced the old wild wheat with far richer food. But it was a food that could survive only by their continued intervention. No more lilies of the field. From now on we would live better, but we would also be forever bound to this wonderful new food by the new technology of agriculture.

I'm John Lienhard, at the University of Houston, where we're interested in the way inventive minds work.

(Theme music)

Stevens, W., Dry Climate May Have Forced Invention of Agriculture. New York Times, SCIENCE, Tuesday, April 2, 1991, Section B.
Toward the beginning of this series, I did an episode on wheat and the invention of farming (Episode 20). In it I suggested that recognizing the modern wheat mutation, and replanting it, was a stroke of ingenuity. The case presented here stems from recent work by Frank Hole and Joy McCorriston of Yale University. If it's correct, then the act of ingenuity occured when Natufians realized they could replant wild wheat. They probably didn't know they were reinforcing a new species.


wheat

top: Modern white Gaines wheat.
middle: Emmer
bottom: A wild wheat-like grass, triticum monococcum.

The Engines of Our Ingenuity is Copyright © 1988-1997 by John H. Lienhard.]]> Senior Humanities http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/index.php?itemid=42 Mon, 6 Sep 2010 20:59:00 -0800 Another View: Invention Of Agriculture May Have Been A Step Backward http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/index.php?itemid=41
Anthropological texts have always ballyhooed the development of agriculture as one of man's greatest achievements. Not so, says Mark Cohen, of SUNY Plattsburgh. The switch from hunting and gathering to sedentary agriculture, it seems, occurred rather suddenly and was attended by a sharp drop in life expectancy. Ancient human bones reveal much more disease, fewer older people, and more violent deaths for centuries following the adoption of agriculture. Why did humanity give up the surprising degrees of security, freedom, and leisure intrinsic in hunting and gathering? Cohen claims that population pressure was the cause. Unable to stem the human population explosion, ancient humans were forced to adopt a life of toil, disease, and stress.
(Lewin, Roger; "Disease Clue to Dawn of Agriculture," Science, 211:41, 1981.)"

Invention Of Agriculture May Have Been A Step Backward]]> Senior Humanities http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/index.php?itemid=41 Mon, 6 Sep 2010 20:49:00 -0800 A list of figures of speech http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/index.php?itemid=161
The Top 20 Figures
1. Alliteration
Repetition of an initial consonant sound.

2. Anaphora
Repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses.

3. Antithesis
The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases.

4. Apostrophe
Breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing, some abstract quality, an inanimate object, or a nonexistent character.

5. Assonance
Identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in neighboring words.
6. Chiasmus
A verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the parts reversed.

7. Euphemism
The substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit.

8. Hyperbole
An extravagant statement; the use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect.

9. Irony
The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. A statement or situation where the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea.

10. Litotes
A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.

11. Metaphor
An implied comparison between two unlike things that actually have something important in common.

12. Metonymy
A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated; also, the rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by referring to things around it.

13. Onomatopoeia
The formation or use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.

14. Oxymoron
A figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side.

15. Paradox
A statement that appears to contradict itself.

16. Personification
A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities.

17. Pun
A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words.

18. Simile
A stated comparison (usually formed with "like" or "as") between two fundamentally dissimilar things that have certain qualities in common.

19. Synechdoche
A figure of speech is which a part is used to represent the whole, the whole for a part, the specific for the general, the general for the specific, or the material for the thing made from it.

20. Understatement
A figure of speech in which a writer or a speaker deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious than it is.]]> English Two http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/index.php?itemid=161 Sun, 5 Sep 2010 14:01:00 -0800 The World's Greatest Outside Reading Project - TIES for Honors English Two http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/index.php?itemid=33 UPDATED TIES materials especially developed for Honors English Two students are attached below. Click "Read More" to access the materials.





In The World's Greatest English Class, we can't do things the same ways they do them in other English Classes. That wouldn't be great. Greatness is different than mediocrity, so those who would be great must do different things.

A case in point are the "outside reading" assignments so commonly made in the run-of-the-mill English classes. While reading outside of class is of great value in learning to read well, and critical to becoming an excellent reader, the World's Greatest English Teachers have found such assignments to be too vulnerable to cheating, too consuming of class time, and not as valuable in addressing the California Language Arts Standards as they could be.

Hence, we're going to fulfill the outside reading requirement in a different way — the TIES way.

TIES is an acronym for Thematic Investigation, Exposition and Synthesis. The program is intended to get you to read an an extended written work, such as a novel, and use that as a launch pad to explore and relate the themes and subjects in that work to other works from other media — films, audio files and webpages, for examples — and from other authors. It's intended to be difficult to fake your way through.

Below you'll find links to several files you need to fulfill this class requirement.

One of the files contains the TIES "bundles," which are groups of thematically related works which, after choosing one, the student must find and examine completely before moving on to the next step, which is preparing the required essay or speech summarizing the works and "synthesizing" a response which explicates a deeper, less obvious idea which unites all the works.

Also included below is a TIES permission slip, which must be filled out and signed by a parent giving the student permission to do that bundle, an outline of what the "synthemic essay" must contain, three pages of instructions for the TIES speech assignment and a rubric for grading the TIES speech.


Ties Permission Slip

Ties Bundles - English 2
Synthemic Essay Instructions
]]> TIES http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/index.php?itemid=33 Sun, 5 Sep 2010 07:34:00 -0800 The World's Greatest English Class Rules and Grading Standards http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/index.php?itemid=159
Download a copy:
Rules and Grading Standards for English 2 and English 2 Honors. Part One

Rules and Standards Part Two

The rules that govern The World’s Greatest English Class will follow along school-wide guidelines. There will be no food in the classroom, except for water bottles with a cap. Tardies will not be ignored. Specific classroom rules and conventions will be developed by the teacher as the school year moves along. These rules will not only correspond to school-wide guidelines, but they will also never contradict our personal goals for the class, which will be discussed during the first weeks of school. These goals will essentially govern the class on all matters educational and managerial.

In The World’s Greatest English Class, making up the work from absences is solely the responsibility of the student. We will not volunteer any missed material. The student will be expected to find out what they missed and come to the teacher to get any missed handouts or other work. An overwhelming majority of the work in this class will be presented at the beginning of each unit, so all the work is given to the student up front. All of the assignments are available from the first day of the unit on the class website. There is no reason any of it should ever be late. Also, no late work will be accepted after the completion of a unit. Once the new unit has begun, we will no longer accept work from the previous unit, and thus final, culminating assessments will not be accepted late. If you are going to be absent on one of these occasions for any reason, you must make arrangements to have your work either turned in early or by someone else acting as a proxy. Testing this rule is the primary reason many of the people who fail The World’s Greatest English Class tend to do so.

Poor, uncooperative behavior will not be tolerated. Ever. First offenses will be met with verbal warnings. Once it is determined that the warnings are ineffectual, your parents will be contacted and your offenses will be described in colorful and dramatic language that will especially damning to your character. Beyond that, a referral to your House Principal will be forthcoming. If we find a referral to have no effect, as it often does, we will defend The World’s Greatest English Class against a miscreant by any means at our disposal. Be aware that our cleverness and ingenuity for such minor warfare is quite developed. As far as behavior on the rare occasions when there will be a sub, you will receive from us a referral for every one written by a substitute. In contrast, good behavior and consistent effort will be rewarded and lauded with flourish. We would like to think ourselves fair but demanding teachers. But on matters of classroom management,we are quite draconian in our approach. We will never accept poor or disrespectful behavior from our students. We see being in The World’s Greatest English Class as a privilege, and it should be treated as such.

This class will be graded on a standard scale, 90-100: A, 80-89: B, 70-79: C etc.

The points will be divided according to the following system:
35% Writing (This may change after the first weeks of school)
24% Reading
8% Outside Reading
8% Listening and Speaking
5% Class Participation
20% Final Exam

Extra credit will be handled on an individual basis and is not guaranteed to anyone. Rounding up in the tabulation of grades is the purview of the teacher and is never done on a wide basis.

Materials: You will be expected to bring the following items to class EVERY DAY regardless of whether you think you are going to need them:
A pen and/or pencil
College-ruled blank paper
A folder to hold class materials Note: This may be a section of a larger binder, or just a small folder for this class only.
Your in-class novel or reading assignment Bring it every day!
Your outside reading novel Bring it every day!
Your Chrestomathy Materials Bring them every day!

Important Note: You will be expected to download most of your materials for this class from the class website: www.worldsgreatestenglishclass.com. If you do not have the ability to print this at home, then you are welcome to use the classroom computers, or the computer labs after school, or the media center. Not being able to print at home is NEVER an acceptable excuse for not having your materials.

There is one main idea regarding the computers in The World’s Greatest Classrooms: Using the school computers is a PRIVILEGE not a right. If you abuse this privilege, you will be barred from using them in this class. Keep in mind that practically all of the assignments during the course of the year will require the use of computers and if you are not allowed to use the ones in class, and you do not have one at home or yours is somehow not functioning, you will have to make other arrangements. You must always ask to use them.

The World’s Greatest English teachers are very concerned with accountability, especially as it pertains to academic honesty. Cheating in any form will be countered with serious penalties, not the least of which are laid out in the Student Handbook. Do you own work.

We are endeavoring, as teachers, to excel, to create an environment well beyond what students would normally see in a high school English class. We have very high standards for ourselves, that is why we choose to call our class, The World’s Greatest English Class; we are striving, in a serious way, to be the best at what we do. This often requires us to do things in an unexpected or unorthodox manner. Do not be alarmed. However, ultimately, in order for this class to truly be the world’s greatest, it requires that we also have the World’s Greatest Students, and that is what we will be expecting of you this year.
]]> General http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/index.php?itemid=159 Sat, 4 Sep 2010 12:24:00 -0800 Prehistory Reading for Humanities http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/index.php?itemid=129 (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1904), pp. 1-12]

The Antiquity of Man.
In ages long past, when both the climate and the outline of the continents were very different from what they are at present, primitive man roamed over them with animals now extinct; and that, about 5000 B.C., when the historic curtain first rises, in some favored regions, as in
the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates, there were nations and civilizations already venerable with age, and possessing arts, governments, and institutions that bear evidence of slow growth through very long periods of time

The Prehistoric Age and the Historic Age:

The uncounted millenniums which lie back of the time when man began to keep written records of what he thought and did and of what befell him, are called the Prehistoric Age.
The comparatively few centuries of human life which are made known to us through written records comprise the Historic Age. In the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates there have been discovered written records which were made at least four or five thousand years before Christ; so we say that the historic period began in those lands six or seven thousand years ago. On the
island of Crete numerous inscriptions have recently been found that apparently were written as early as the fourth millennium B.C. These, however, have not yet been deciphered. Some written records used by Chinese historians seem to go back to the third millennium before our era.
In other regions the historic period still begins for us at a much later date.

Thus the truly historic age did not open in Greece and Italy until about 800or 700 B.C., and for the countries of Northern Europe, speaking broadly, not until about the beginning of our era.

How we learn about Prehistoric Man.--
A knowledge of what prehistoric man was and what he did is indispensableto the historical student; for the dim prehistoric ages of human life form the childhood of the race,--and the man
cannot be understood without at least some knowledge of the child.

But how, in the absence of written records, are we to find out anything about prehistoric man? In many ways we are able to learn much about him. Thus, for instance, we may regard existing [primitive cultures such as the Bushmen of the Kalahari and the Yananamo of the Amazon] as representing the prehistoric state of [humans.] As it has been put, what they now are we once
were. So by acquainting ourselves with the life and customs of these [cultures] we acquaint ourselves with our own prehistoric past and that of all other civilized peoples.

Again, the humans who lived before the dawn of history left behind them many things which witness as to what manner of people they were. In ancient gravel beds along the streams where they fished or hunted, in the caves which afforded them shelter in the refuse heaps (kitchen middens) on thesites of their villages or camping places, or in the graves where they laid
away their dead, we find great quantities of tools and weapons and other articles shaped by their hands. From these things we learn what skill these early men had acquired as tool makers and to what degree of culture they had attained. [Besides these material things which can be seen and handled, there are many immaterial things, as, for instance, language, which light up for us the dim ages before history.]

Divisions of Prehistoric Times.--
The long period of prehistoric times is divided into different ages which are named from the material which man used in the manufacture of his weapons and tools. The earliest epoch is
known as the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age; the following one as the Neolithic or New Stone Age; and the later period as the Age of Metals.

The division lines between these ages are not sharply drawn. In most countries the epochs run into and overlap one another, just as in modern times the Age of Steam runs into and overlaps the Age of Electricity.

The Paleolithic or Old Stone Age.--
In the Old Stone Age man's implements were usually made of stone, and particularly of easily chipped flints, though sometimes bones, horns, tusks, and other material were used in their manufacture. These rude tools and weapons of Paleolithic man, found in gravel beds and in caves, are the very oldest things in existence shaped by human hands.

The man of the Old Stone Age saw the retreating glaciers of the last great ice age, of which geology tells us. Among the animals which lived with him on the continent of Europe--we know most of Paleolithic man there--were the mammoth, the cave bear, the elk, the rhinoceros, the wild horse, and the reindeer; species which are no longer found in the regions where primitive
man hunted them. As the climate gradually grew warmer they either became extinct or retreated up the mountains or migrated towards the north.

What we know of Paleolithic man may be summed up as follows: he was a hunter and fisher; his habitation was simple; his implements were in the main roughly shaped flints; he had no domestic animals save possibly the dog and the reindeer; he was practically ignorant of the art of making pottery; he had no belief in a future life, at least we have no evidence that he buried his dead after the manner of those folk who have come to hold such a belief.

Before the end of the age man had learned the use of fire, as we know from the traces of fire found where he lived, and had invented the bow and arrow, as is evidenced by arrowheads of flint and of bone which have been discovered. This important invention gave man what was to be one of his chief weapons in the chase and in war down to and even after the invention of firearms late in the historic age.

Humans of this epoch possessed a sense of form and beauty and made art.

Thousands of specimens of drawings or carvings, chiefly of animals, onbone-or on ivory , or on rock walls and cave walls, have been discovered.

The Neolithic or New Stone Age.
The Old Stone Age was followed by the New.

Neolithic man in Europe was in many respects much advanced overPaleolithic man. He had learned to cultivate the soil; he had learned to make pottery, to spin, and to weave; he had domesticated various wild animals; he built houses and constructed great earthen forts; and he buried his dead in such a manner--with " accompanying gifts "--as to show that he had come to
believe in a future life.

Chipped or hammered stone implements still continued to be used, but what characterizes this period was the use of ground or polished implements.

The Age of Metals.
Finally the long ages of stone passed into the Age of Metals. This age falls into three subdivisions, --the Age of Copper, the Age of Bronze, and the Age of Iron. Some peoples, like the [sub-Saharan] African[s] ..., passed directly from the use of stone to the use of iron; but in most of the countries of the Orient and of Europe the three metals came into use one after the other and in the order named.

Speaking broadly, we may say that the Age of Metals embraces the five millenniums preceding the opening of our era. This means that for some peoples, as for instance the Egyptians and the Babylonians, these epochs or stages of culture fall within their historic period, while for others, as for instance the Greeks and the Romans, they begin in their prehistoric and
overlap their historic age.

[The use of copper seems to have begun among the peoples of the Orient before 5000 B.C. It is a soft metal, and tools and weapons made of it were not so greatly superior to the stone ones then in else as to put them out of service. But either by accident or through experiment it was discovered that by mixing about nine parts of copper with one part of the a new metal, called bronze, much harder than either tin or copper, could be made. So greatly superior were bronze to stone implements that their introduction caused the use of stone for tools and weapons to be discontinued, and consequently the Age of Bronze constitutes a well-defined and important
epoch in the history of culture. Bronze seems to have been used by the first kings of Egypt, about 4500 B.C. From the East the metal was carried into Europe. Iron was already in use among the Asian peoples about 1500 B.C., and was gradually introduced among the European tribes.]

The history of metals has been declared to be the history of civilization. Indeed, it would be almost impossible to overestimate their importance to man. Man could do very little with stone implements compared with what he could do with metal implements. It was a great labor for primitive man, even with the aid of fire, to fell a tree with a stone axe and to hollow out the trunk for a boat. He was hampered in all his tasks by the rudeness of his tools. It was only as the bearer of metal implements and weapons that he began really to subdue the earth and to get dominion over nature. All the higher cultures of the ancient world with which history begins were based on the knowledge and use of metals.

The Origin of the Use of Fire.--
In this and following paragraphs we shall dwell briefly upon some of the special discoveries and achievements, several of which have already been mentioned, marking important steps in man's
progress during the prehistoric ages. Prominent among these was the discovery of fire.

The origin of the use of fire is hidden in the obscurity of prehistoric times. That fire was known to Paleolithic man we learn, as already noted, from the traces of it discovered in the caves and rock shelters which were his abode. No people has ever been found so low in the scale of culture as to be without it.

As to the way in which early man came into possession of fire we have no knowledge. Possibly he kindled his first fire from a glowing lava stream or from some burning tree trunk set aflame by the lightning. However this may be, he had in the earliest times learned to produce the vital spark by means of friction. The fire borer, according to Tylor, is among the oldest of human
inventions.

Only gradually did primeval man learn the various properties of fire and discover the different uses to which it might be put, just as historic man has learned only gradually the possible uses of electricity. By some happy accident or discovery he learned that it would harden clay, and he became a potter; that it would smelt ores, and he became a worker in metals; and that it
would aid him in a hundred other ways. "Fire," says Joly, " presided at the birth of nearly every art, or quickened its progress." It is difficult to conceive
how without fire primitive man could ever have emerged from the Age of
Stone.

Animal Husbandry and The Domestication of Animals.
The most of the work of inducing the animals of the fields and the woods to become as it were members or dependents of the human family, to enter into a relationship with man and to submit to his use, was done by prehistoric man. When man appears in history, he appears surrounded by almost all the domestic animals known to us to-day. The horse was already his willing
servant; the dog was his faithful companion; the sheep, the cow, and the goat shared his shelter with him.

The domestication of animals had such a profound effect upon human life and occupation that it marks the opening of a new epoch in history. The
hunter became a shepherd, and the hunting stage in culture gave place to the
pastoral. [It is of Interest to know that most of the wild stocks whence have
come our domestic animals are of Old World origin. It is thought by some

bone-or on ivory , or on rock walls and cave walls, have been discovered.
The Neolithic or New Stone Age.
The Old Stone Age was followed by the New.
Neolithic man in Europe was in many respects much advanced over
Paleolithic man. He had learned to cultivate the soil; he had learned to make
pottery, to spin, and to weave; he had domesticated various wild animals; he
built houses and constructed great earthen forts; and he buried his dead in
such a manner--with " accompanying gifts "--as to show that he had come to
believe in a future life.
Chipped or hammered stone implements still continued to be used, but what
characterizes this period was the use of ground or polished implements.
The Age of Metals.
Finally the long ages of stone passed into the Age of Metals. This age falls
into three subdivisions, --the Age of Copper, the Age of Bronze, and the Age
of Iron. Some peoples, like the [sub-Saharan] African[s] ..., passed directly
from the use of stone to the use of iron; but in most of the countries of the
Orient and of Europe the three metals came into use one after the other and
in the order named.
Speaking broadly, we may say that the Age of Metals embraces the five
millenniums preceding the opening of our era. This means that for some
peoples, as for instance the Egyptians and the Babylonians, these epochs or
stages of culture fall within their historic period, while for others, as for
instance the Greeks and the Romans, they begin in their prehistoric and
overlap their historic age.
[The use of copper seems to have begun among the peoples of the Orient
before 5000 B.C. It is a soft metal, and tools and weapons made of it were
not so greatly superior to the stone ones then in else as to put them out of
service. But either by accident or through experiment it was discovered that
by mixing about nine parts of copper with one part of the a new metal,
called bronze, much harder than either tin or copper, could be made. So
greatly superior were bronze to stone implements that their introduction
caused the use of stone for tools and weapons to be discontinued, and
consequently the Age of Bronze constitutes a well-defined and important
epoch in the history of culture. Bronze seems to have been used by the first
kings of Egypt, about 4500 B.C. From the East the metal was carried into
Europe. Iron was already in use among the Asian peoples about 1500 B.C.,
and was gradually introduced among the European tribes.]
The history of metals has been declared to be the history of civilization.
Indeed, it would be almost impossible to overestimate their importance to
man. Man could do very little with stone implements compared with what he
could do with metal implements. It was a great labor for primitive man, even
with the aid of fire, to fell a tree with a stone axe and to hollow out the trunk
for a boat. He was hampered in all his tasks by the rudeness of his tools. It
was only as the bearer of metal implements and weapons that he began really
to subdue the earth and to get dominion over nature. All the higher cultures
of the ancient world with which history begins were based on the knowledge
and use of metals.
The Origin of the Use of Fire.--In this and following paragraphs we shall
dwell briefly upon some of the special discoveries and achievements, several
of which have already been mentioned, marking important steps in man's
progress during the prehistoric ages. Prominent among these was the
discovery of fire.
The origin of the use of fire is hidden in the obscurity of prehistoric times.
That fire was known to Paleolithic man we learn, as already noted, from the
traces of it discovered in the caves and rock shelters which were his abode.
No people has ever been found so low in the scale of culture as to be without
it.
As to the way in which early man came into possession of fire we have no
knowledge. Possibly he kindled his first fire from a glowing lava stream or
from some burning tree trunk set aflame by the lightning. However this may
be, he had in the earliest times learned to produce the vital spark by means
of friction. The fire borer, according to Tylor, is among the oldest of human
inventions.
Only gradually did primeval man learn the various properties of fire and
discover the different uses to which it might be put, just as historic man has
learned only gradually the possible uses of electricity. By some happy
accident or discovery he learned that it would harden clay, and he became a
potter; that it would smelt ores, and he became a worker in metals; and that it
would aid him in a hundred other ways. "Fire," says Joly, " presided at the
birth of nearly every art, or quickened its progress." It is difficult to conceive
how without fire primitive man could ever have emerged from the Age of
Stone.

Animal Husbandry and The Domestication of Animals.
The most of the work of inducing the animals of the fields and the woods to become as it were members or dependents of the human family, to enter into a relationship with man and to submit to his use, was done by prehistoric man. When man appears in history, he appears surrounded by almost all the domestic animals known to us to-day. The horse was already his willing servant; the dog was his faithful companion; the sheep, the cow, and the goat shared his shelter with him.
The domestication of animals had such a profound effect upon human life
and occupation that it marks the opening of a new epoch in history. The
hunter became a shepherd, and the hunting stage in culture gave place to the
pastoral. [It is of Interest to know that most of the wild stocks whence have
come our domestic animals are of Old World origin. It is thought by some]]> Senior Humanities http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/index.php?itemid=129 Fri, 3 Sep 2010 09:05:00 -0800 Cyrano De Bergerac Chrestomathy Materials http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/index.php?itemid=140
The first is the Table of Contents for the unit. This will be the first page of the completed chrestomathy. It shows what pages will be needed and in what order the materials will be presented.

The second is the Unit Specifics sheet for the unit. This sheet will not ultimately be included in the chrestomathy but is essential for knowing which options are available on each assignment. For example, included are the words available for the Word Quest and the topics available for all the types of writing in the unit, Narrative, Persuasive, and Response to Literature. The student will be refering to the sheet often.

The final sheet is the rubric that The World's Greatest English Teachers will be using when grading the chrestomathy. The student should print out a copy of this rubric so they will have a good idea how they will be graded, but it will not be included in the chrestomathy.
CyranoTableofContents
CyranoUnitSpecifics
CyranoRubric]]> Cyrano de Bergerac http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/index.php?itemid=140 Thu, 2 Sep 2010 10:15:00 -0800 The World's Greatest Outside Reading Project - TIES for English Two http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/index.php?itemid=32 The World's Greatest English Class, we can't do things the same ways they do them in other English Classes. That wouldn't be great. Greatness is different than mediocrity, so those who would be great must do different things.

A case in point are the "outside reading" assignments so commonly made in the run-of-the-mill English classes. While reading outside of class is of great value in learning to read well, and critical to becoming an excellent reader, the World's Greatest English Teachers have found such assignments to be too vulnerable to cheating, too consuming of class time, and not as valuable in addressing the California Language Arts Standards as they could be.

Hence, we're going to fulfill the outside reading requirement in a different way — the TIES way.

TIES is an acronym for Thematic Investigation, Exposition and Synthesis. The program is intended to get you to read an an extended written work, such as a novel, and use that as a launch pad to explore and relate the themes and subjects in that work to other works from other media — films, audio files and webpages, for examples — and from other authors. It's intended to be difficult to fake your way through.

When you click "read more" below, you'll find links to several files you need to fulfill this class requirement.

One of the files contains the TIES "bundles," which are groups of thematically related works which, after choosing one, the student must find and examine completely before moving on to the next step, which is preparing the required essay or speech summarizing the works and "synthesizing" a response which explicates a deeper, less obvious idea which unites all the works.

Also included below is a TIES permission slip, which must be filled out and signed by a parent giving the student permission to do that bundle, an outline of what the "synthemic essay" must contain, three pages of instructions for the TIES speech assignment and a rubric for grading the TIES speech.





Ties Permission Slip
TIES Speech Rubric
Ties Bundles - English 2
Synthemic Essay Instructions
TIES Speech Instructions - Part One
TIES Speech Instructions - Part Two
TIES Speech Instructions - Part Three]]> TIES http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/index.php?itemid=32 Thu, 2 Sep 2010 08:30:00 -0800 Artist Project:Humanities http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/index.php?itemid=9 DUE October 22, 2010

Your assignment is to research the life of a prominent artist, chosen from the list I provide. The list is first-come, first-served, one-student-per-artist. From your research, prepare a five minute oral presentation which tells the story of the artist’s life and career. You must have visual aids to support your presentation, in the form of an electronic slideshow I’ll show you how to make. You must also prepare a multi-page written report on the artist, which includes a bibliography prepared in according to the guidelines taught in social science classes. Links to formatting and citation conventions are available on the main page in the links section.

You must be ready to proceed with your oral report and turn in your written report by a date to be announced. You must receive a passing grade on this assignment if you want to receive credit for passing this course.

At the very least, your report should include the following information about your artist.

Name
Dates of Birth and Death
family background
social standing
education
period of career as an artist
speed of work
media worked in
methods used
artistic style
contemporaries in same style
popularity of work while alive
recent prices of work
analysis of style
genres of work
historical context of work
size of work
examples of work
Length of presentation
Other

Your oral report will be graded on the presence of the above information, the length of your presentation, your ability to answer questions about the artist after your presentation, and how well you present your information.


These websites might be useful:

www.artcyclopedia.com
Google Image Search]]> Senior Humanities http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/index.php?itemid=9 Thu, 2 Sep 2010 08:03:00 -0800 Senior Humanities Grading Policy http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/index.php?itemid=22 The points will be divided according to the following system:
43% Writing and Project (This may change after the first weeks of school)
24% Reading
8% Listening and Speaking
5% Class Participation
20% Final Exam

Extra credit will be handled on an individual basis and is not guaranteed to anyone. Rounding up in the tabulation of grades is my purview and is never done on a wide basis.

Materials: You will be expected to bring the following items to class
EVERY DAY regardless of whether you think you are going to need them:
  • A pen and/or pencil

  • College-ruled blank paper

  • A folder to hold class materials Note: This may be a section of a larger binder, or just a small folder for this class only.


    • Important Note: You will be expected to download most of your materials for this class from the class website: www.worldsgreatestenglishclass.com. If you do not have the ability to print this at home, then you are welcome to use the classroom computers, or the computer labs after school, or the media center. Not being able to print at home is NEVER an acceptable excuse for not having your materials.

    Computers: There is one main idea regarding the computers: Using the school computers in my classroom is a PRIVILEGE not a right. If you abuse this privilege, you will be barred from using them in this class. Keep in mind that there will be several assignments during the course of the year that will require the use of the computers and if you are not allowed to use the ones in class, you will have to make other arrangements. You must always ask to use them.

    Advice: Keep Everything. Believe it or not, I am, as are most teachers, human. I make mistakes. Keep all of the work, handouts, and other materials you receive in this class because you may need it later.
    ]]> Senior Humanities http://worldsgreatestenglishclass.com/index.php?itemid=22 Wed, 1 Sep 2010 14:22:00 -0800