How Many Children Does Mrs. Loconte Have?

Today’s class began with a very small number of people and a very large number of interruptions. As most of you know, (I hope, or else your observation skills are very poor indeed) today was grade 7/8 day. Thus, for the first twentyish minutes of class we got to observe Mrs. Loconte as she was introduced to the grade 7/8s and answered many repetitive questions. However for the majority of the class it was just me, Bethany, and Mrs. Loconte so it really wasn’t that big of a deal. Together the three of us worked our way through a portion of the poem Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum by Aemilia Lanyer. In her poem she presented an agreement as to why the original in commit by Eve was really not to be blamed on females. Her arguments included: 1. In giving the fruit to Adam, Eve was really jut expressing her love to him and had no way of seeing the end result of her actions. 2. The serpent betrayed Eve and therefore all females. 3. Eve was ignorant of what the serpent had plotted. 4. Adam is really to blame because he, after all, is the stronger sex and he had much more of a chance to get to know God than Eve ever did. 5. Adam actually heard the command directly from God whereas Eve had not. 6. Adam should have known better and reprimanded Eve for taking the fruit instead of accepting it. 7. Eve was created from man, therefore all the evil in her derived from him. 8. It was man who crucified Jesus not women (Pontius Pilate let Jesus be killed even though his wife urged him not to). 9. Women have to go through pain to bear the men so they should be fairer. In essence, those are the reasons for Eve’s case that we gathered from the portion of the poem that we read. It was quite a good read and I hope you guys who missed it will read it some other time! Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can get leprosy. Weird. Pretty soon after we three had concluded with Lanyer’s poem, Kimberley joined us and then so did Joon. For the rest of the class we mostly discussed the possibility of getting lit t-shirts made. Mrs. Loconte recorded all of our ideas which I’m sure that she will share so I’m not going to write them all here. But think about it over the weekend!

Homework

·        Read The Restoration on page 348

·        Read the short biography on Lady Mary Chudleigh on page 354 and then read her poem To the Ladies on page 355

·        Read the biography of Samuel Pepys on page 358, read The Diary of Samuel Pepys on pages 359-365, and do the Reading Check questions on page 365.

Have Fun!