ELA 12 Mods 5,6 Wednesday March 10, 2010

PERKS TEST

Task:  In Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chblosky uses multiple levels of context to develop and present a complex network of characters, settings, and plot points that turn into a case study of the main character, Charlie.  Part of that context is provided through a series of references to pop music.  Your task is to discuss, analyze, and evaluate Chblosky’s use of three songs from the mix tape that Charlie makes for Patrick, and which you were provided at the beginning of this unit.

Directions:  You will have three class periods (today through Friday) to complete this task.  You may use your book and song lyrics.  You may listen to the songs as you work.  You can also work on this outside of class.  Your answer should be at least 500 words (two pages).

Ways to approach this task:  Here are some ideas for things to write and think about in completing this task.  A good piece could focus on one of these or several.  In other words, there is no right way of approaching this task.

• Discuss the overall meaning of each song and find parallel meanings in the book.
• Discuss how the songs deepen the meaning of the text.
• Discuss how the songs add to Charlie’s Hero’s Journey.
• Discuss songs that you knew before reading the book and how they may have helped connect you own experiences to the book.
• Use the songs to discuss the larger use of context in the book.

A good paper will present a main idea of thesis and then develop it with organized ideas and details from the book.

ELA 12 Mods 5,6 Monday March 8, 2010

PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER

Homework: Please use the comment feature below to give me a paragraph that chooses one detail form the book and describes how you see that detail differently now that you have the context of Charlie being abused by his Aunt Helen.

I would also recommend any rereading that you would like to do as many of the details in the novel take on more meaning in hindsight.

ELA 12 Mods 5,6 Thursday March 4, 2010

PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER

Homework: Please finish the book over the week-end (pg 53 – the end).  Also, please re-read any of the book that you missed, or with which you might have had trouble.

ELA 12 Mods 5,6 Wednesday March 3, 2010

PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER

Homework:  Please read from the May 21st letter on the bottom of page 49 through the June 5th letter, which ends on page 52.

ELA 12 Mods 5,6 Friday February 12, 2010

PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER

Homework:  For next Monday, please read the rest of Part Three , which goes to page 30.  Reread any parts that you are not understanding, or reread all of it.

Nick Drake

ELA 12 Mods 5,6 Friday February 5, 2010

PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER

Homework: On Monday please be read through the October 14th letter on page 7.

Essay Due Friday: Two pages that present your thoughts on and reactions to The Unbelievable Truth.  Feel free to write a review of the movie, talk about specific scenes, or characters, relate it to the book, or seek out online reviews from others to use as a starting point.

ELA 12 Mods 5,6 Tuesday, February 2, 2010

PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER

Homework: Please read the first letter dated August 25, 1991 and ending on page 2. Use the comment feature to relate what you learn about the narrator, Charlie. Please include any information you see as implied as well as things he states directly.

Today we will begin The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. The book describes the freshman year of a Pittsburgh area high school student named Charlie. The book is written in the form of a series of letters from Charlie to the reader.

During the reading of Perks, we will be focusing on a couple of big ideas:

Context: The following materials will be used to provide some greater context for this book. Please keep in mind that even with this information, you’re own experience and background knowledge will meld with the content to create a context that will be your own and may not correspond with the way others see the book. Here are some of the things we will look at.

1. Perks of Being a Wallflower Mixed Tape with lyrics (on cd and in your network folders) – These are the songs on a mixed tape that Charlie makes for another character.
2. A movie called The Unbelievable Truth which is one of a list of movies that Charlie is assigned to watch. I use this movie because most of you will have seen or heard about the other movies on the list.
3. Some short video’s from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s that deal with some of subjects that this book deals with like sex, drug use, and suicide. They will give us some insight and allow for a discussion of how attitudes towards “taboo” subjects have changed, and how they haven’t.

The Monomyth/Hero’s Journey: As with all of our books we will continue to use the pattern of the Monomyth as a way of analyzing the book and to compare and connect it to the other literature we have read.

Catcher In The Rye: In the December 23, 1991 letter from Charlie he says:

Bill gave me one book to read over the break. It’s The Catcher in the Rye. It was Bill’s favorite book when he was my age. He said it was the kind of book you made your own.

I read the first twenty pages. I don’t know how I feel about it just yet, but it does seem appropriate to this time.

One can approach this story, as one of my former students stated, as “Holden Caulfield if he were around today and had friends.”  We will use last year’s book to look at this year’s book.

Alumni: One of the issues about which the book speaks is learning from those who have gone before.  As we have been working with former students at NHS this year, we will take this opportunity to think about the process of learning from others with more experience.

 

ELA 12 Mods 5,6 Monday February 1, 2010

PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER

Homework: Please look up and define the term “wallflower”. Using the comment feature, describe how you are or are not a “wallflower”.

In addition, I have posted a couple of videos for you to watch. We will be discussing the idea of context throughout this novel and these videos will be part of a multitude of stuff that I will have you look at to add to your depth of understanding. The connect of these videos to this book may not be clear to you at first, but try to be patient until we get into the book a bit.

The first is a clip from The Rocky Picture Show, a cult movie that plays a big part in the novel’s plot:

This next clip is from the Drew Carey Show and references Rocky Horror and another move, Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

The last clip is an Alvin and the Chipmunks version The Time Warp.