Monday, May 17 through Friday, May 21 Musee des Beaux poem and ELA Regents multiple choice practice

May 17, 2021

Learning Targets: I can cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
I can determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text.
I can analyze the impact of the author's choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama.
I can determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful.

In class: listening / reading to W. H. Auden's Musée des Beaux Arts and responding to analysis questions.

Part 1. participation grade:

each student is to write in the private chat, one item

observed in the painting.

Part 2: Reading/ Listening to the text

Musee des Beaux Arts listening

Below is the text of the poem

Musée des Beaux Arts

W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away

Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may

Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

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Accompanying questions for Musée des Beaux Arts.

These are due by 6 pm on Wednesday,

May19

You need only repond to 4 of the 7 questions. Your choice.

For each of the following, you must weave in specific text

to support your responses. Don't forget your quotations!

1. What did the “Old Masters” understand about suffering?

2. What do the contrasting examples in the first stanza

seem to suggest about the “human position” of suffering?

Support your answer using details from the first stanza.

3 According to the speaker, how does Brueghel’s painting

depict the reaction to Icarus’ disaster? Explain using specific

details from the second stanza.

4. How does Brueghel’s The Fall of Icarus seem to reinforce

the speaker’s ideas about suffering? Support your answer

using

details from the poem and from the painting shown above.

5.. In your opinion, why did Auden write this poem? (Do

not use “I”!) In your response explain what he wishes to

convey and why.

6. How does Auden use imagery to help convey his ideas

about suffering? Give three specific examples and identify

the type of imagery. (auditory, visual, olfactory, sensory,

gustatory)

7. . Find two examples of irony and explain how they add

to your understanding and appreciation of the poem.

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Thursday/ Friday, May 20/21

English Language Arts Part 1 practice

Below is an excerpt from the directions to the ELA Regents exam:

Note that the complete exam is three hours.

Over the next two days, you will be practicing on part one of the Regents Exam, the multiple choice section. As we have worked on several literary passages with multiple choice questions, you only have one reading comprehension and one poem. The actual exam will have one additional passage. Ideally, you would organize your time to complete the three parts into three-one hour blocks.

Over the next two days, you have a comfortable amount of time to complete two reading/ multiple choice passages. Take your time and truly understand the depth of the material. Complete the multiple choice questions. I have provided an organizer for your responses.

Please submit and share by the close of class on Friday.

If you receive extended time, please only complete passage 1.

The exam begins with 24 multiple choice questions. With the following two passages, youhave only 13.