Career Project II -- Mentorship

Researching a career is one thing, but actually getting your hands dirty with some experience is altogether different. For the next portion of this project it will be necessary for you to find a professional in the field in which you are interested (I can help you find someone if you need). Once you have found someone who agrees to have you work with them, you should have them contact me at the school so I can confirm their interest and explain the project to them.

Once you make your contact, you should plan to meet with this person in their place of work for a total of five hours. I am not suggesting that you do all five hours in one visit. You should make a specific schedule with the person who has agreed to work with you.

You should keep journals of each of your visits. If you need an example of what these might look like, you can find one here. Each journal should represent one hour. If you had a two-hour visit, for example, your journal should be twice as substantial.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls p 1-230

This is a memoir of a young girl growing up in a very disfunctional family. It is an amazing story of how a young person had to fend for herself against very challenging odds: a father who is beyond the point of alcoholism, a mother who refuses to work and support her family, moving houses several times to avoid bill collectors, having to eat thrown-away food from her school trash cans . . . only the beginning.

Jeannette Walls tells the story in a way as if she is telling readers not to feel sorry for her. She is proud of what her past helped her become. This is not to say that I believe she would not have changed all the awful details of her childhood.

She does a great job describing her parents and siblings -- so well that they seem to leave the book and become real people you can empathize with or hate their guts. I would recommend this one.

Jeannette Walls is now the gossip writer for www.msnbc.com

Career Project I -- Reserch Paper

You have probably thought of your career goals to pursue after you graduate from Classic City High School, or you may still have no idea. This career project should help you with your goals no matter which case in which you might find yourself.

This project will have four parts:
I. A research paper
II. A mentorship with a professional in the career you have chosen to research
III. A reflective piece of writing
IV. Your complete resume

For the first section of your career project you will need to conduct some research about your career. You should look to on-line and print sources alike. Once you have completed your research, you should compile your findings in a short (4-5 page) research paper. You should also include a bibliography that lists all the sources you used to write your paper.

Your paper should address the following topics:

What schooling or training is required to enter the career you chose? Are certificates or licenses necessary? What kinds of grants, scholarships, or loans are available to those who seek this kind of training?

In what ways can someone specialize in the career you chose? Research one of the specialties you might like in this career field.

What is the opening salary for someone who wants to start the career you’re researching? What are some of the ways that someone can affect the amount of money they are paid?

Research some of the job openings for your career. What qualifications do potential employers look for.

Your paper will be assessed as follows:

A score of 90-100% will be awarded to papers that meet the required length, address all the above topics, have research from at least eight sources, and have so few grammatical and mechanical errors that the writer’s ideas are not clouded.

A score of 80-89% will be awarded to papers that meet the required length, address at least three of the above topics, have research from at least six sources, and have grammatical and mechanical errors that may cloud the writer’s ideas.

A score of 70-79% will be awarded to papers that do not meet the required length, address at least three of the above topics, have research from at least five sources, or have so many grammatical and mechanical errors that it is hard to understand the writer’s ideas.

A score of 0-69% will be awarded to papers that are incomplete or do not meet any of the above requirements.

Here are some good examples to view before you begin:
Journalism -- by Carmen Judy
Becoming a Lawyer -- by Ryann Runyan

A Place on Earth by Wendell Berry p 329 - 504

In short, I am glad I finished this book even though I did not care for it very much once I started. The end was very eventful: Franklin Roosevelt dies, the war ends, Nathan Coulter comes back home, and Mat Feltner begins to come to terms with the death of his son.

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Wendell Bery wrote several more books about the inhabitants of Port William, and I plan to read more of his work in the future. I will probably wait a few months to a year before doing so.

The Renaissance -- Sonnets

The sonnet was the most accepted form of written art during the Renaissance. People loved them then, but today they can leave us scratching our heads. I was often confused by sonnets and their flowery language, but once I learned how to read them, they became much easier to understand.
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IF YOU PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THIS POST, SONNETS WILL BE EASY FOR YOU TOO.

This will come in handy since you will be writing one of your own.

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First, it would be important to define a sonnet as a fourteen-line poem composed in iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter is the beat of the poem, and it essentially means that each line is made up of five pairs (penta) of syllables -- the first one unstressed, and the second one stressed. Here is an example of a line of iambic pentameter from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet:

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

But soft! - What light - through yon - der win - dow breaks?

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Now imagine you are a poet writing a sonnet, and if you were a poet in the Renaissance, sonnets and plays (also written in a certain meter) were the only accepted forms of literature. Imagine how dificult it would be to choose words with exactly the right stress as well as number of syllables. You see, these poems weren't written the way they were just to give you a hard time.

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Next, we need to talk about rhyme scheme. This is pretty simple. Check out my example below; it is one that may also help you with geometry:

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Pythagoras had a good ruse (A)

With a rule just for triangles to use (A)

"Add the squares of each side," (B)

He said with some pride," (B)

That's the square of the hypotenuse!" (A)

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The rhyme scheme of this poem is AABBA. All you have to do is look at the last word on each line. I start with ruse, and since it is the first line, I assign it an A. Then I look at use, and see that it rhymes with ruse, and so it is an A as well. Then I look at side, and see that it does not rhyme with ruse or use, so it is a B. Pride rhymes with side, so it is a B as well. At the end, when I see hypotenuse rhymes with ruse, it is an A. That makes the rhyme scheme ABBA.

It is important to understand rhyme scheme when reading a sonnet. If you pay close attention to the rhyme scheme, it can help you divide the poem into sections which will make it much easier for you to comprehend.

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Let's look at an example of a sonnet from the two most popular sonateers, William Shakespeare and Edmund Spencer. These poets use two different rhyme schemes in their sonnets. Shakespeare uses a ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme, and Spencer uses ABAB BCBC CDCD EE. I will draw lines to show how the rhyme scheme divides the poem into four sections.

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Sonnet 18

William Shakespeare

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Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (A)

Thou art more lovely and more temperate. (B)

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, (A)

And summer's lease hath all to short a date. (B)

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Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, (C)

And often is his gold complextion dimmed, (D)

And every fair from fair sometimes declines, (C)

By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed. (D)

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But thy eternal summer shall not fade, (E)

Nor lose possesion of that fair thou owest, (F)

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade (E)

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st. (F)

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So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, (G)

So long lives this, and gives life to thee. (G)

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Sonnet 30

Edmund Spencer

My love is like to ice, and I to fire; (A)

How comes it then that this her cold so great (B)

Is not dissolved through my so hot desire, (A)

But harder grows the more I her entreat? (B)

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Or how comes it that my exceeding heat (B)

Is not delayed by her heart frozen cold, (C)

But that I burn much more in boiling sweat, (B)

And feel my flames augmented manifold? (C)

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What more miraculous thing may be told (C)

That fire which all thing melts, should harden ice, (D)

And ice which is congealed with senseless cold, (C)

Should kindle fire by wonderful device? (D)

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Such is the power of love in gentle mind, (E)

That it can alter all the course of kind. (E)

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Post responses to the following questions on your blog:

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1. Examine the difference between the rhyme scheme Spencer uses and the one Shakespeare uses. Explain the difference. Which one do you prefer? (If you are unable to give a good answer to this question, it is time to come talk to me.)

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2. The rhyme scheme divides sonnets into four sections. The first section is a question asked from one point of view, the second is the same question asked from another point of view. The third section is called the turn. The turn is a shift in focus or the thoughts of the first two points of view. The last section is the conclusion. Use this method to explain the message in each of the four sections of the two poems above.

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3. Choose one more of Shakespeare's sonnets as well as another one of Spencer's sonnets. You can find these all over the Internet. Post each poem on your blog then: a. Label the rhyme scheme like my examples; b. explain the message in each of the four sections like you did in question #2.

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4. Come get an amatuer sonateer form from me, and then complete both sides.

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5. When you have finished, post your completed sonnet on your blog.

SELF-EVALUATE YOUR WORK!