1. Today’s Agenda
December 9, 2009

2. Harried (adj.) – harassed or beset by disturbing problems (page 91)
Take out your binder and copy these words and definitions onto page 23, the vocabulary section of your binder. Chapters 8-11:
Harried (adj.) – harassed or beset by disturbing problems (page 91)
Lucrative (adj.) – producing wealth; profitable (page 111)
Ire (n.) - intense and usually openly displayed anger (page 125)
Acrid (adj.) – sharp and harsh’ unpleasantly pungent in taste or odor; irritating, deeply bitter (page 132)

3. Chapters 12-14: Queried (v.) – to question (page 147)
Amiable (adj.) - being friendly, sociable, and congenial (page 150)
Ominous (adj.) – foreboding or foreshadowing evil; inauspicious (page 155)
Palliative (adj.) – something that reduces or abates the violence of a disease (page 156)
Reticence (n.) – the quality or state of being reserved, silent, or restrained (page 157)

4. Chapters 15-20:
Incessant (adj.) – unceasing; continuing without interruption (page 195)
Pragmatic (adj.) – relating to matters of fact or practical affairs often to the exclusion of intellectual or artistic matters; practical as opposed to idealistic (page 201)
Proverbial (adj.) – resembling something that has become a popular proverb, adage, byword, or maxim (page 212)
Ruminate (v.) – to go over in the mind carefully and repeatedly; to contemplate or ponder (page 231)
Arduous (adj.) – hard to accomplish or achieve (page 233)

5. Use Your Time Wisely:
For the remainder of the block, you will be working on two written pieces. You will need to use your laptop to complete both assignments.
First, you will need to finish your work yesterday, page 59 in your binder. You will be using your responses to write a one-paragraph blog post on a theme related to guilt in The Kite Runner.
Second, you will use your Cultures Project packet (page 57 in binder, pages 4-6 in the packet) to write a 1-1 ½ page proposal for your research on an issue currently affecting India.
Directions for both assignments follow.

6. BLOG POST ON NING: due 12/10
Find the directions and grading rubric for this assignment on our Ning.
Having read Chuck Gallozzi's article "Coping with Guilt" yesterday and completed the questions on how Amir fits with some of the Gallozzi's forms of guilty behavior, you will write and explain a theme statement about guilt. What is it that guilt does to human beings?
You will use some of the examples and passages that you explained on their "Amir's Unresolved Guilt" sheet as support for a theme statement that you construct about guilt. Each student will post a paragraph response as a blog post on our Ning. The post is DUE before class begins on THURSDAY, DEC. 10.

7. CULTURES PROJECT: Proposal
You also will use class time today to write a formal proposal for your research project (page 57 in your binder). The outline and directions for writing their proposal is included in the packet (pages 4-6). READ ALL DIRECTIONS CAREFULLY.
Not sure what to research? Try looking at these sites:
The United Nations website:
BBC News Coverage of India (be sure to look at menu on the right): m
The CIA World Factbook:
Amnesty International – Human Rights Issues:
Oxfam.org:
Your proposal along with a related article from a scholarly source is due tomorrow (either printed or the include the url on your proposal).