Extra+Credit--you+may+choose+two

You may choose two options for Extra credit. Each option is worth up to 5 points of extra credit. Please pay attention to due dates! //A)Looking for Alaska// by John Green Read the book and join the Bookmarker discussion on May2 at contact in the EAC

From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up - Sixteen-year-old Miles Halter's adolescence has been one long nonevent - no challenge, no girls, no mischief, and no real friends. Seeking what Rabelais called the "Great Perhaps," he leaves Florida for a boarding school in Birmingham, AL. His roommate, Chip, is a dirt-poor genius scholarship student with a Napoleon complex who lives to one-up the school's rich preppies. Chip's best friend is Alaska Young, with whom Miles and every other male in her orbit falls instantly in love. She is literate, articulate, and beautiful, and she exhibits a reckless combination of adventurous and self-destructive behavior. She and Chip teach Miles to drink, smoke, and plot elaborate pranks. Alaska's story unfolds in all-night bull sessions, and the depth of her unhappiness becomes obvious. Green's dialogue is crisp, especially between Miles and Chip. His descriptions and Miles's inner monologues can be philosophically dense, but are well within the comprehension of sensitive teen readers. The chapters of the novel are headed by a number of days "before" and "after" what readers surmise is Alaska's suicide. These placeholders sustain the mood of possibility and foreboding, and the story moves methodically to its ambiguous climax. The language and sexual situations are aptly and realistically drawn, but sophisticated in nature. Miles's narration is alive with sweet, self-deprecating humor, and his obvious struggle to tell the story truthfully adds to his believability. Like Phineas in John Knowles's //A Separate Peace//(S & S, 1960), Green draws Alaska so lovingly, in self-loathing darkness as well as energetic light, that readers mourn her loss along with her friends. //- Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library//

//B)// Attend the Inklings sponsored poetry night on Friday, April 15th from 4-6 in the cafeteria. Take a favorite poem with you. After you attend, send me a summary of your experiences of the event and a favorite poem or line that you heard or discussed. Responses are due by April 22nd.

C) Read 5 poems from the Academy of American Poets website www.poets.org List the title and author for each poem. Write a 3-5 sentence response to each poem. Responses are due by May 1st.

D) Watch 3 videos from the Academy of American Poets website [] The videos are on the right hand side. For each video, write a 3-5 sentence response to the ideas presented. Responses are due by May 1st.