Grammar Rodeo

Wow, an entire podcast devoted to grammar....heaven for an English teacher. iPodders - download here: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/

Vocab (Train2)

Rheum
Turbid
Despondently
Intermittently
Rapt
Gesticulations
Implicit
Tumultuous
Intrinsically
Pursed

Vocab (Train1)

Kismet
Falsetto
Communal
Buttress
Adjutant
Antimony
Censorious
Charpoy
Precipitated
Extricated

VOCAB (TFA3)

parsonage, callow, prestige, desecrated, approbation, desolate, blasphemes, breadth, guttural, esoteric

Editorial on the Nigerian Civil War

Here is a link to an editorial in the British newspaper The Guardian.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/rosa_davis/2007/09/biafran_lessons.html
It discusses the Biafran War (sometimes called the Nigerian Civil War) and how this conflict, 40 years ago this year, is emblematic of the way European-drawn borders have encouraged conflict between ethnic groups in Africa. Several of the responses to the editorial raise the question of why do we call African groups like the Ibo "tribes" and not apply that term to European groups like the English, French, etc.

African Anglicans Try to Transform US Church

An interesting article in today's Boston Globe that really highlights something we will be discussing while reading our first novel, Things Fall Apart. This quote is especially relevant:

All these people brought Christianity to us, but now the church is growing here [in Africa] like wildfire, it's spreading everywhere, while the church in England is withering, the church in the States is going completely, and there has been a cry, 'Why don't you come? You should have come here a long time ago to evangelize,' " said Archbishop Bernard A. Malango, the Anglican primate of Central Africa. "We need to send missionaries, even to Britain; we need to send missionaries to the United States, and we need to send missionaries to Canada, because those who brought the church here have lost what their intention was, and the same Bible they brought to us is being misinterpreted. We find it very odd.

This might give you some insight to the kind of struggles and conflicts that are at work in this novel The whole article is here.

Mr Morey is on the calendar!

My homework and other assignments are now on the 20th Cent. calendar.

Welcome!

Welcome to the 20th Century team!