English 3 - Wednesday, November 4

Hello everyone! Try not to have too much fun enjoying the SEPTA strike - here are your assignments for Wednesday.

Announcements and Reminders

1. 17 journals are due Friday, November 6! Each journal must be at least 10 sentences long. If the SEPTA strike continues, I will extend the deadline.
2. Email me the Vocabulary Quiz Project if you have not already. You can email me at ajmccartney@philasd.org OR mccartneychs@gmail.com
3. Complete your Study Island assignment for Friday. Take notes on punctuation. Write down the definitions of words you do not know. This is your first grade for the second marking report.

Assignment

1. Review your vocabulary words and definitions.
2. Finish reading Poe's "The Black Cat."
   
3. Complete the suspense chart for "The Black Cat." Find five suspenseful parts of the story, explain why they are suspenseful based on pacing, dangerous action or foreshadowing. Try to find at least one example of each.
   
4. On the back of the suspense chart, analyze the narrator of "The Black Cat." Is he reliable? Why or why not? Examine his character through his words and actions to determine whether or not you can trust him.
   
5. Answer the following questions in your notebook.
   

"The Black Cat" Reading Comprehension Questions
1. What is the narrator’s purpose in telling his tale?

2. The narrator describes his fondness for animals, stating, “There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had the frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of man.” In your own words, describe what this means. How could this statement foreshadow what will happen in the story?

• brute: (n) a savagely violent person or animal
• paltry: (adj) small or meager
• gossamer: (adj) made of or resembling gossamer (a fine, filmy substance consisting of cobwebs spun by small spiders.

3. How does the description of the cat as “sagacious” contribute to the meaning of the story?

4. What is the significance of the narrator’s change of disposition from docile and tender to “… more moody, more irritable and regardless of the feelings of others”?

5. Why does he eventually mistreat the cat?

6. Describe the narrator’s feelings after abusing the cat. Why is that significant?

7. How does the narrator define “perverseness”? Do you agree with his definition? do you agree that it is human nature?

8. The narrator explains that he hung that cat, stating he “- hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; - hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin.” What do you think the narrator means by this?

9. What happens the night of the cat’s death? How does the narrator explain the phenomenon he discovers after the fire? What does the phenomenon symbolize?

10. What is significant about the new cat and his markings? What does the cat symbolize?


11. Why is it significant that the cat will not leave the narrator alone?

12. How does the fact that the narrator kills his wife instead of the cat add to the meaning of the story?

13. Discuss the significance of the following quote. “I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole thing up as before, so that no eye could detect anything suspicious.”

14. Why is the narrator able to sleep so well after he conceals the body?

15. How do you explain the ending? Discuss the symbolism of the ending.