January 25 - 29

January 25

Lamb
"Old China"

Email me a Vocaroo or VoiceGem that comments on the theme and structure of "Old China"

January 26

Skype meeting at 8pm

Byron
"On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year"
"She Walks in Beauty"

Bonus Opportunity
Write a four stanza "romantic" poem using the same rhyme scheme used in Byron's poems. Post it to your blog using the subject line "Byron Poem" and explain how it is "romantic" in one of the following ways:

1. Individual over group perceptions
2. Imagination and feeling over reason
3. The natural over the artificial

"Truth is stranger than fiction" (Canto 14)

January 27-29
Spiritual Emphasis Week

Resources
Lord Byron, 19th-Century Bad Boy

January 18 - 22

January 18
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

January 19
Skype meeting at 8pm
Blake

Bonus Opportunity
Create a video response (2-4 minutes) to one of the ideas listed below. Please embed or link it to your blog with the subject line "Blake Video Response"

"The Lamb" and "The Tyger" - Dualism of good and evil
"The Tyger" - What deity would fashion such a creature?
"The Clod and the Pebble" - Selfishness
"London" - Tyranny, Religion, Family, Freedom, Civil Authority, or Monogamy
"The Garden of Love" - Repression
"Proverbs" - Humanism

"Pure Imagination" - How does this song relate to Blake and/or his writings?

"To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour."

January 20
Wordsworth

"Expostulation and Reply"
"The Tables Turned"
"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
"The World Is Too Much with Us"

Create a piece of art with an original picture and a photo editor of choice.  Title it "Common Things in an Uncommon Light" and post it to your blog by 11pm.  Please make sure that the creation truly is something common in an uncommon light (e.g.  I took the picture of a jellyfish and played with the effects to show something common with a different perspective).  Include a brief explanation (please include the photo editor you used as well as what you thought about Wordsworth), and use the subject line "Common Things in an Uncommon Light" 

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: 
Little we see in Nature that is ours; 
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!....

January 21

Coleridge (author introduction and reading selection introduction)

SparkNotes' The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Write a short story that conveys one of the ideas listed below.  Don't sweat the conventions in this piece as I'm primarily interested in your storyline (consider it a rough draft).  Post it on your blog and make your subject line (the story's title) based on your selection:

1. "Its immediate end is pleasure (the story entertains) but its ultimate end is truth" (Horton, 535)
2. Imagination trumps reason ["Coleridge's criticism is romantic in exalting the imagination over the reason, 'organic' over 'mechanic' form (the unity of a living thing over that of geometric design), and bold contrast within a work rather than bland harmony.] (Horton, 534)
3. The uncommon appears believable
4. Circular, solitary journeys
5. The Christian journey of sin, punishment, repentance, forgiveness, and restoration

January 22

Hanalani Writes

Resources

William Blake
An Introduction to "The Tyger"

An Introduction to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Playfic

January 11 - 15

January 11
Goldsmith
Compare Goldsmith's work to your life. Create a copy of the suggested outline and fill it in with your comparisons. Share the document with me and use the subject line "Goldsmith Comparison"

January 12
Skype meeting at 8pm
Cowper

"The Castaway"

Bonus Opportunities

Browse through "Mental Illness" and select one to explain using Storify. Be concise and discreet, include two related resource links, and use proper MLA format. Please also include a biographical link on Cowper and embed your Storify collection on your blog with the subject line "Cowper and Mental Illness"

Read or listen to John Piper's "Insanity and Spiritual Songs in the Soul of a Saint - Reflections on the Life of William Cowper." Email me your reaction by 11pm

January 13
Burns

"To a Louse: On Seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet at Church"

"A Red, Red Rose"

"John Anderson, My Jo"
Write a love poem modeled after one of Burns' works. Post the original Burns' poem and your own using the title "Modeling Burns" by 11pm

January 14

Romantic Introduction

January 15
Hanalani Writes

Resources

NAMI Hawaii

NIHM
Robert Burns: A Career in Verse

Into the Wild - New York Times Movie Review

The Story of Stuff

January 6 - 8

January 6

Johnson and Boswell (introductions only)
Record a biographical moment about an adult you admire. Use an audio or video recording tool of choice and hyperlink it to your blog. Use the subject line "A Biographical Moment"

Bonus Opportunity
Listen to a story or two at StoryCorps and "Record & Share Your Story Here" with StoryCorps DIY. Take a screen shot of your piece and email it to me with the subject line "StoryCorps DIY" by 11pm

Samuel Johnson: "As the Spanish proverb says, 'He, who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.'" J. Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson

As a reminder, please read the bio and following selection(s) whenever you see the author's name 

January 7
Gray
Write your own elegy on one of the themes from the author introduction or poem (solitude, the need to be remembered, men that die without wealth or fame, etc.). Make the theme your title and post it to your blog with the title as the subject line

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:

Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

January 8
Hanalani Writes