The Great Gatsby

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Figurative Language Chapter Four

Monday, October 17, 2011

Friday, October 14, 2011

Figurative Language CHAPTER TWO

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

As a Romantic author, Fitzgerald uses amazing imagery, similes, metaphors, etc. Post a comment that leaves a direct quote from the novel that you liked. Tell us what type of figurative language the quote is and what the quote is saying.

What to look for:

* symbolism
* descriptive imagery
* metaphors
* similes
* personification
* epigram

This is required for every chapter we read.

New Vocabulary

Post a comment that gives the definition of one word you read in The Great Gatsby that you were unsure of. If you feel as if you did not come across any words you did not already know the definition of, then post a definition of a word that you think others may not know. This is required for every chapter we read.

Monday, October 3, 2011

World War I and the Lost Generation

By David Sedano, Crystal Blue, Kenneth Hill, and Stephanie Watson

*World War I
Causes:
World War One occurred from a complicated series of alliances and trust between European nations.
The two main alliances were:

The Dual Alliance - An alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary to protect themselves from Russia. They later made the Triple Alliance with Italy so it wouldn't take sides with Russia.

The Triple Entente - A pact between Russia, Britain and France to counter the increasing threat of Germany

The chain of events that led up to the Great War was begun by the murder of the Archduke of Austria-Hungary Franz Ferdinand. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, believing that they were supporting the assassins. Russia, who was the traditional ally of Serbia, stepped in to help Serbia, forcing France into war as well. As a result, Germany stepped in to help Austria-Hungary. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium to attack France, which then forced Britain into the mosh pit. Later, Italy went to the ally side as well as the U.S. jumped in.

Consequences:

Germany - After the war, Germany was severely crippled, economically and militarily. As a result of the peace treaty signed to end the war, Germany was not allowed to reach its full militaristic potential. Germany also lost a small portion of land to France. The loss of the war left the German people low on morale and money, giving rise to the Nazi party which would later start the Second World War

Austria-Hungary - After WWI, Austria-Hungary was divided into two different nations, Hungary and Austria. However, Austria was divided even further into the nations of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia, greatly reducing its size. Hungary, on the other hand, became independent but lost a large portion of its population after losing Transylvania to Romania, due to the treaty.

Russia - Once the war has ended, Russia begins to become a communist nation. The Russians also attempt to retrieve all the territories they had lost prior to the war. These included Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Belarus and Ukraine. Of these, Belarus and Ukraine were the only two they regained control over.

Britain/UK - the United Kingdom won vast tracks of land from the war, mainly in the Middle East due to the Ottoman Empire's later involvement in the war on Germany's side. However, the war left England struggling due to the loss of many troops, as well as the loss of money. This made it extremely difficult for Britain to govern its territories overseas, eventually leading Ireland to its independence in 1921.

France - As victors of the war, France won territory along the French-German border, territory that they had lost during the first years of fighting. Although they were victorious, the French land was heavily riddled with reminders of the war, as much of the fighting was done on French soil. Some territories that it gained were German colonies in Africa, as well as territories of the Ottoman Empire.

**Lost Generation
During the 1920's, Gertrude Stein coined the term "Lost Generation." This term refers to a group of author's that were "lost in the values that its members were being taught didn't fir the reality of life after the brutal war." It seemed as if World War I had destroyed the idea of good things happen to the virtuosos. These authors often wrote about and criticized American culture by giving it themes of self-exile, care-free living and unworldly separation. These "lost" authors were often characterized
by these traits:
- Youthful Idealism
- Sought the meaning of life
- Drank a lot
- Numerous love affairs
- Many masterpieces were written
- Rejected modern American materialism
- Lived in Paris
- Made writing styles that are still used today
- Came of age during World War One
These authors often tried to live normal lives, ignoring the tragedy of the war that had just occurred.
These authors were:
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ernest Hemingway
John Dos Passos
Sherwood Anderson
Kay Boyle
Hart Crame
Ford Maddox Ford
Zelda Fitzgerald
Video link:

Citations:
1. http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/worldwar1/a/ovww1.htm
2. http://americanhistory.about.com/od/worldwari/tp/causes-of-world-war-1.htm
3. http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/harrachmemoir.htm
4. http://www.historyonthenet.com/WW1/causes.htm
5. http://www.historywiz.com/alliance.htm
6. http://www.worldology.com/Europe/world_war_1_effect.htm
7. http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/hpolscrv/jbolhofer.html
8. http://1920sgirls.tripod.com/lostgeneration.html

Thursday, September 29, 2011

The Great Depression

Ben Dibble, Nikki Ruest, Anthony Bristow, and Tommy Smith

The Great Depression was a time in American history, starting in 1929, when the stock market crashed and everyone went broke. The great depression started on October 29^th, 1929. This day is also known as Black Tuesday. On Black Tuesday, the stock market crashed and stock prices plummeted.

In this terrible time, many people had to go to homeless shelters and stand in bread lines just to survive. Many homes foreclosed and a lot of people lost all of their lifes savings. For people who experienced the Great Depression, it was very devastating and they never lived quite the same, afterward. The Great Depression was a horrible time in American history and will never be forgotten

http://www.gusmorino.com/pag3/greatdepression/index.html

Scott Fitzgerald

Shyam Patel, Heidi Duarte, Rachel Sellars

Mr. Pyon

English 3

29 September 2011

F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, was born September 24, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Born to a Catholic couple, father Edward and mother Mary McQuillan. The mother was the daughter of an Irish immigrant who became a wealthy wholesale grocer. And his Father was from Maryland, but had an allegiance with the South and its values. His parents gave Fitzgerald his name to show the pride in his father’s ancestry. When Fitzgerald was younger

his father took their family to New York to become a salesman for Procter & Gamble, and before Fitzgerald was twelve their family moved back to St. Paul. When he was thirteen his first published story appeared in a school newspaper, it was a detective story. In 1911, Fitzgerald attended Newman School, a Catholic school in New Jersey, where he met the man who encouraged him to be who he wanted to be, and keep writing. Scott Fitzgerald attended St. Paul Academy from 1908 to 1910. From 1911 to 1913 he attended Newman School; because of his enthusiasm he was unpopular. Later he attended Princeton University in Princeton he became really close to coming a brilliant student of which he dreamed of. He became a person that people looked up to in college. In college he became really good friends with Edmund Wilson and John Peale. Even though he had a good social life at Princeton he dropped out and joined the army in November 1917. Fitzgerald’s life changing point was in 1918 when he met Zelda Sayre. In 1920 they got married and later had their first child. Fitzgerald’s literature work is mostly descriptions of his relationship with his wife Zelda. Their romance was even published in a small series in a local newspaper called the Scribner’s and the Saturday Evening Post. Along with his small love writings, Fitzgerald, has had some luck, his novel The Romantic Egoist was rejected three times before being published in 1920 as This Side of Paradise. His next major work was a small collection of stories Flappers and Philosophers added to his already enormous wealth. Fitzgerald’s third hit was his novel The Beautiful and The Damned; which was later made into a movie. One of Fitzgerald’s greatest short stories is his The Diamond as Big as The Ritz. This caused him to gain much fortune along with an alcoholic effect on his mind and health. Fitzgerald‘s last healthy writing was his greatest hit The Great Gatsby published in 1925. The book The Great Gatsby is about a man named Jordan who goes to France and meets the Gatsby. And he loses the relationship with his wife along with two of his friends. Following this was his literature works that reflected his failing marriage and a rotting brain, some of which include The Last Belle published in 1929, Trouble in 1937 and many more. Fitzgerald’s death was a very sad one. Once he came back to America he had an affair with a local writer his marriage failed the cause of his death was the result of two heart attacks on resulting in him recovering the second he died from at the home of his lover.

Video Documentary on Fitzgerald:

Resource Links:

Picture Resources:

The Jazz Age/Roaring 20s

About the Jazz Age/Roaring 20s

The Jazz Age/Roaring 20s was an amazing time in America's history. It was a time of great prosperity and great optimism along with many advances and accomplishments. It seemed like everybody had money, everybody was working, and everybody was enjoying life. The "Roaring 20s" is often viewed as the period of great advance as the 100 plus year old country became urban and commercial.

(Happy Couple)

American Culture During the Jazz Age/Roaring 20s

The "Roaring 20s" is known for the decade of great inventions and changes such as the bath tub gin, the model T, the $5 work day, the first transatlantic flight, and the movie. Among the good things about the time, the decade is also seen as a period of rising intolerence and isolation after the first world war. The 1920's saw a break with the traditional set-up in America as the old percieved social conventions were put away and new ones were developed.

(1920 Ford Model T)

The young set themselves free especially, the young women. The new generation of young women shocked the older generation with their new styles such as the new hair style, a short bob, and the new clothes that exposed their legs and knees. These young women were known as Flappers that went out without a man, went to all-night parites, drove motor cars, and even smoked in public.

Along with this growth of an new generation of Americans, was the growth in jazz music lead by the new instrument: the saxophone. This new type of music lead to new dances such as The Charleston, One Step, and Black Bottom. This combination of new music, new dances, and new fashions outraged many members of the older generation.

(Typical Jazz Band)

Bussiness and Economy During the Jazz Age/Roaring 20s

Bussiness was booming in the 1920s as new inventions and discoveries became the foundation of thriving bussiness. New business and production methods allowed manufactur's to make large profits. Increased incomes, along with the introduciton of credit and no savings, caused a big increase in consumer spending. The Share Market climbed to unprecedented heights as speculators bought on margin, and following well publicized successes, the general public joined in looking for easy money.

(The Stock Market)

To see a video about the Jazz Age/Roaring 20s go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJSdk44gWIE

Resources
http://webtech.kennesaw.edu/jcheek3/roaring_twenties.htm

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/1920s_America.htm

http://www.1920-30.com/

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Lvl1O1dx0PkzEJKAKvNDWz0npltdX3naKJ2XRf11NUJcbp7Na7Q11R9Y_8WgM4DgooRvJAJsiEV1xFLokTHCVK3X-6BxnaqWN8Bm5Aa3531CuQqJYINjnMVXj1X5G4_ddrsqlvE_Rq9F/s400/202.bmp

http://www.oldwoodies.com/img/truck/20ford_mod-t_hercules_co.jpg

http://images.quickblogcast.com/94060-86797/RoyEldridge1939.jpg

By: Conner Hutchinson, Ben Jones, Ruby Perkins, Savanna Pettet, and Hunter Smith

Author Information- Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald

http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/fitz.jpg

Picture Source

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul Minnesota on September 24, 1896. His name is inspired by his second cousin removed several times from his fathers side. Also known as the one and only Francis Scott Key that wrote "The Star-spangled Banner". As a young child he was a very respectable young man and the pride of his family. Fitzgerald attended St. Paul Academy however when he turned 15 years old his parents transferred him from St. Paul's and enrolled him into a Catholic school called The Newman School. It was there where he met the very person the saw his talent as a gifted writer and encouraged Francis to keep writing. After graduating from Newman School in the year 1913 he went on to Princeton University to perfect his writing skills. He wrote many different types of articles for Princeton's vast amount of writing clubs and activities. Although in 1917 he was placed on acedemic probation and soon after dropped out of school in order to enroll in the Army. Fitzgerald was so scared that he would die while going into World War I that he wrote a book named The Romantic Egotist because he felt as if his literary skills had not been put to proper use. It was rejected by the publishers but they soon after encouraged him to write something else and or perfect his rejected book. Francis was a second lieutentant assigned to a camp out of Montgomery, Alabama. It was there that he fell in love with a young woman named Zelda Sayre, the daughter of a local Judge. After the war ended in 1919, Fitzgerald moved back to New York City in order to rewrite his novel and convince Zelda to marry him. And about one week after his books publication he married Zelda Sayre and they had one daughter named Frances Scott Fitzgerald who was born in 1921. With his newly found literary popularity, Francis began to 'soak up the attention' and began drinking excessive amounts of alcohol and in the process earned the nickname of a 'playboy' which effected his title as a writer. In 1924 Fitzgerald moved to France as an attempt for a newly found spark of writing creativity. It was in France that he wrote his said to be greatest novel, The Great Gatsby. His book was said to define the Jazz age. The Great Gatsby was published in 1925 but sadly he wasn't fully recognized for it until after his death on December 21, 1940 from a heart attack in Hollywood while attempting to revive his career by writing Hollywood scripts.

By: Jessica Hernandez, Zandy Chappell, Courtney Gibson, and Brendan White

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHTIyg8Pg5M&feature=related

Information sources:

http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/biography.html

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Scott_Fitzgerald

http://http://www.biography.com/people/f-scott-fitzgerald-9296261

http://kirjasto.sci.fi/fsfitzg.htm

The Jazz Age : Roaring 1920's

By: Quatey Brown, Kayla Pressley, and Justin Duncan

The jazz movement took place during the 1920's from which jazz music and dance emerged. Jazz was born in New Orleans. It originally started as a mixture of blues and marching band music and was played by African Americans and creoles on old U.S. army instruments. The tewenties, was known as the jazz age. During this time, expirements and new jazz styles were discovered. Jazz bands started the musical revolution using for the first time, the saxaphone. It is used to provoke dancing wich many people were shocked by the loud and extroidanary sound of the saxaphone.Even though the jazz movement was taken over by the middle class white population, It fadliated the mesh of African American tradition and ideas with the white middle class society. In urban areas, African American jazz was played on the radio more often than the suburbs.

The women during the 1920's were suffering at its peak. The flapper women began to make a statement within society, and the jazz age was not immune to these new ideals. Ideals like equality and free sexuality were very popular during this time and women seem to capitalize during this peroid. Famous women musicians during the jazz age included Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and Janis Joplin. Bessie Smith gained attention because she was not only a great singer, but also an Affrican American woman. The era ended in 1930's with the begining of the Great Depression, but it has lived on in American pop culture today.

Louis Armstrong and The Hot Five- West End Blues:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?V=13KfEZqhHv4

Hyper Links For Essay:

http://www.outg.de13_arbeit/englisch/gatsby/jazz_age.html

http://www.jazzage1920s.com

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

The Lost Generation & World War I

Natalie Watts

Emily Smith

Ariana Lynch

Tyler Robson

THE LOST GENERATION & WORLD WAR I

The Lost Generation is the generation of soldiers that died, leaving an age gap in the population. The Lost Generation also focus on a group of writers from the 1920's. Some of the most famous writers include F. Scott, Fitzgerald, Ernest, Hemingway, & John Dos Passos. The writers wrote novels about the life style that these soldiers lived, including their families. Some of the characteristics included the meaning of life, drinking, and love affairs.

Some of the authors

http://1920sgirls.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/.pond/council.jpg.w300h326.jpg

________________________________________________________________________

World War I began on August in 1914, it was triggered by the association of the Austrian archduke, Franz Ferdinand & his wife on June 28, 1914 by Garilo Princip.The Austrian government blamed the Serbian government for the assassination and declared war on Serbia. Germany was blamed because they invaded Belgium when Britain had promised to protect Belgium. BY 1914, Europe had divided in to two camps. France was suspicious of Germany because they had a huge Army, but a poor Navy. Britain had the world's most powerful Navy and a small Army. France and Britain joined together to cover each other's weaknesses. This starterd the Battle of the Marne. During the war the French Army managed to increase the gap between the German's first & second armies; this caused communication to shut down for the Germans. The German's dug trenches in the area of the Aishe River. Little did the German's who the dug the trenches know that this would come to dominate the war for years.

One survivor of the War once wrote: "If you have never had trench foot described to you, I will explain. Your feet swell to two or three times their normal size, and go completely dead. You can stick a bayonet into them and not feel a thing. If you are lucky enough not to lose your feet and the swelling starts to go down, it is then that the most indescribable agony begins. I have heard men cry & scream with pain and many had to have their feet & legs amputated. I was one of the lucky ones, but one more day in that trench and it may have been too late."

-Harry Roberts-
____________________________________________________________________

http://www.harris-academy.com/departments/history/Trenches/GillianR/layout.jpg

http://mardissonoah.edublogs.org/files/2009/02/trench-foot.jpg

World War I

http://www.firstworldwar.com/diaries/graphics/trenchmortar.jpg

WORLD WAR I VIDEO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3Cog9Zk3J4
http://youtu.be/-HMeQ1T6cuV

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Research Blogging Project

In the next upcoming weeks, we will be reading and exploring F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. To prepare us for the novel's themes and issues, you will be engaged in a research blogging project before we start reading the book. This will be a group project (each group will be announced in class), and the topics you will be researching in your groups are:

1. Biographical Information on the author F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. the Jazz Age / the Roaring 20's
3. the Great Depression
4. World War I and the "Lost Generation"

Your job is to be thorough and detailed in the research of your group's topic - this will be a test grade. More information is better than less information. Find all you can about the topic you have been given. Once you have accumulated information on your topic, your group's task is to create a post on this blog. On your post you will....

A. Give a report on the topic you have been assigned. This must be in FORMAL writing. Points will
     be deducted from your grade for sloppy, improper grammar usage.
B. Provide hyperlinks to the websites you have researched for information on your topic. Although
     Wikipedia can be a start for your researching, it is NOT an acceptable source. An automatic zero
     will be given for posts with no sources listed through hyperlinks.
C. Provide both a picture and a video in your post that reflects your topic. Be wise in your choice of
     picture and video. This will also play a large part in determining your grade.

This should not be a 2-3 sentence post - it should be lengthy. Title your post the topic you have been assigned. As usual, your final grade will be a reflection of the time and effort you put forth in the project. Select one person from the group to do the actual posting on the blog (somewhere on your post, list your group members). If you have any questions, ask! This will be due first thing this FRIDAY, the 30th. You will have time in class to work.