College Presentations, The Depression & the Great Gatsby

College Presentations are today.  Please e-mail me your powerpoint as soon as you arrive in class

Please turn in you homework from Wednesday regarding the Dust Bowl and other issues Americans faced during the depression.  Today we will look at the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and his new deal to fight the depression.  Your assignment will be due Monday (4/14).

Today we begin our reading of The Great Gatsby!  Not only is it a tragic love story, but a commentary on America in the 1920's and the American Dream.  I'm sure you're excited to get started after the pre reading questions I asked on Wednesday.  Also, before you begin reading think back to our presentations you all gave on the 1920's and the attitudes during this time.

1. What was the role of women during this time?  How did this change from previous generations?
2. What did people think about changing morals?
3. What was happening to business and wealth?
4. Why was this generation considered the "Lost Generation"?
5. What was prohibition?  What did it give rise to?

Please read chapter 1 before you enter class on Monday

On Monday, you will have a quiz on the vocab and reading.  This quiz will same as all the subsequent quizzes you will have after each chapter.  Quizzes will contain 4-5 vocab words from anywhere in the chapter.  You will be given a sentence or so from the text with the word underlined.  You may look at the sentence for context clues.  Then you must describe to the best of your ability what the word means.  For example:

"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since."

Make sure you look up any words you come across that you do not understand or know the meaning of.  Even if you are unsure about a word take the few minutes to look it up.  Since many of you are reading the book online it will be easy to simply copy and paste any words into google or dictionary.com you can have open in another tab.  If you do not like to stop in the middle of your reading perhaps make a note of any words you dont understand and look them all up at once when you are finished.

After vocab you will have about 5 questions about the text.  These could be questions about larger themes or smaller simple questions that may not come up on things like sparknotes.  If you have read the chapter in detail you should have no trouble.  These will be a good opportunity to improve your grade in English before the semester; or possibly lower it if you do not keep up with the reading.