Anthem

In reading Anthem, you have been exposed to a world very different from your own. Choose one aspect of Equality's world and comment on it. For your post this week, include the following information:

1. Type out a quote from the book that addresses the part of the world in Anthem you wish to comment on.
2. Explain how this world impacts the characters and their lives.
3. Contrast this world with the world you live in.
4. Give your thoughts on why the government in the book would create this type of society, and what they hope to accomplish.  

Reflection

The world we live in is often forgotten because we are so busy looking at our computer screens, cell phone screens, or television screens.  Conversations get lost and we disconnect from one another.  Last week you had the opportunity to listen to the stories of others.  These stories were not prepared or preplanned.  They happened as a result of being engaged with others.  

For this week's blog, I want you to recall one aspect of the interview you participated in and tell us about it.  Once you have described this story, tell us what the story has taught you.  What do you take away from these stories.  How did the experience affect you?  I know we talked about these briefly last week.  Now that you have had time to digest it all, it is time to write about it.  

War: the Individual or family

      We have been looking at how war affects the individual, the family, the community, and the country.  Look at your world.  What songs, poems, books, movies have I not shared with you?  Choose one of those and then write about how war affects the individual or the family. 
     You need to explain a little about it so we have a context and then you can explain how war is working in the genre.

Book Passage

In looking at the book you read the last four weeks, The Things They Carried or The Yellow Birds, I want you to choose a passage that you think is significant.  In order to choose, you need to think about the following:

1. The passage should influence the entire book.
2. Your explanation should unpack the passage by looking at what is written and how it is written? (This means lit terms.)
3. It should affect the reader

Type out your passage and explain how the passage you chose fits in with the above three items and why you think it is significant.  

Family Time

We encounter people everyday who have opinion about war, ideas on courage, thoughts on heroism.  For this week's blog, I want you to conduct a mini-interview.  You will ask two people the questions provided and then record their answers.  One of them needs to be at least 20 years older than you.  The other can be any age.  

1. How do you think war affects communities?
2.  What does it mean to have courage?
3. What makes a hero?
4. You can create the fourth question.

When you post, list your questions, the ages of those you interviewed, and then your own answers.  After you have done these ideas, explain how you see these ideas show up in your book.  Maybe, someone you interviewed answered how you thought a character might? Maybe your ideas manifest themselves in your book.  This should be a solid paragraph after you have added your interview answers.  (Keep the interview answers PG.)

Connections

You are reading either The Things They Carried or The Yellow Birds.  Each book addresses a specific war.  However, the war that is addressed is only part of the story.  There is a timelessness to these books.  They capture humanity, people, ideas, emotion.  For this week's blog, I want you to make a connection.

Choose a character or scene in the book.  Explain that character or scene very clearly using quotes to back up the description.  

• For the character think about the following: What does this person look like? How do they behave? What motivates them?  What role do they play in the text?  
• For the scene, think about the following items: What does this place look like? What happens here? How does the scene change?  

Once you have described the character or scene, you need to make a connection to something in your world that is like your character or scene.  It could be a character/scene in a movie, book, television show, someone you know (do not use name), a speaker in the song.  You will describe and explain how these two are connected. 

Your post should be about two paragraphs in length.  

War in Film

War movies abound.  They are everywhere.  What is their appeal and why do we go in flocks to see them?  I have seen many movies about war over my lifetime.  I have watched war through the news in my lifetime.  To say that film captures war is not for me to say.

This week, I want you to watch two war movie clips on YouTube.  Choose from this list of films below and then you can choose the YouTube clips you can watch.  (By can, I mean you are able to watch emotionally.)

1. Unbroken
2. Lone Survivor
3. American Sniper
4. The Hurt Locker
5. Saving Private Ryan
6. Born on the Fourth of July
7. Platoon
8. Courage Under Fire
9. Band of Brothers
10. Forrest Gump

While you are watching these clips take notes on the following things:

• What is the language of war?
• What kinds of relationships develop during war?
• What conflicts or struggles are had during war?
• How are emotions dealt with during war?

When you post, briefly describe each clip you observed.  Then choose to answer the questions above about your two clips.  After you have answer the questions, explain what this tells you about war.  You are looking at about two paragraphs.  You should cite specific details about the clips to reinforce your arguments.  

Heroes

We have been taking notes the last two weeks where we have looked closely at archetypes and how they emerge within our pop culture.  This week, we will begin the analysis of Beowulf and look at the Epic Hero.  For this post, I want you to think about the heroes in your world.

Think about the heroes you watch in movies.  Choose one hero and explain to us why this person is a hero.  Include some of the following information:

• His/her name
• Describe him/her physically
• Economic status
• Personality traits that make him/her heroic
• Do he/she have any of the following archetypes: unhealable wound, shadow, nemesis.
• What is the motivation for his/her behavior?

Be sure to be as specific as possible and be sure to really explain why your hero fits the title.  Your response should be about two paragraphs long.  Be mindful of your grammar and your spelling.  Your writing is public.  

Hamlet

The story of Oedipus: The king and queen of Thebes were desperate for a child and, after numerous failed attempts, went to an Oracle to receive advice about their problem. The Oracle told them that any son that was born to the king and queen would eventually kill the king. Soon, the queen (Jocasta) became pregnant with a boy (naturally) and so, in order to prevent the prophecy from becoming fact, the kind and queen gave their son to a servant to kill. The servant, however, gave the child to a shepherd who raises the child with his wife. Years later, the son (named Oedipus) was made aware of a prophecy about him that would cause him to kill his father and marry his mother. In an effort to prove the prophecy wrong, Oedipus fled home and headed to nearby Thebes. On the way, he encounters: a man whom (through circumstances) Oedipus kills and a sphinx (which has been causing a problem for Thebes) that Oedipus successfully defeats which allows him to become king of Thebes thereby marrying the queen. Though he did not know if immediately, through trying to prove the prophecy wrong, Oedipus did in fact kill his father and marry his mother. He later went on to blind himself using a pin, is exiled, and wanders in the woods for many years; but that’s a different story.

Hamlet is often analyzed as having Oedipal undertones (Oedipus being Hamlet and Jocasta being Gertrude). Can you analyze Hamlet is this way/see this as being at all likely? Why or why not?  

Reflection

Whenever we embark on a journey that feels all uphill or one that engulfs us, it is easy to quit.  This research paper is a challenge.  It asks you to do so much that you are not use to doing or have not done in a while.  For this week's blog, I want you to use this to reflect on this process and paper.  Use the questions below to guide your thinking. 

1. What did you learn about yourself as a writer?  How do you write, what is hard about writing, and what works for you as a writer?
2. What did you learn about yourself as a reader?  How do you read, gather information, process information?
3.  What did you learn about yourself as a student?  What are your work habits, how do you do at meeting deadlines, what motivates you, how much effort do you give the work you produce?

Write this like a letter to me telling me your thoughts on all of these things.  Be specific.  

A Change

We have been thinking purely from the point of view of analyzing our texts.  This week, we will take a turn for different.  

Using the picture on this page explain what this place use to be and why it looks the way it does now.  Be creative.  This is an opportunity for you to use those literary devices: similes, metaphors, alliteration, anaphora, etc.  Make the story so interesting your classmates want to read it.  

Disclaimer: please remember this is a school blog.  Keep it school appropriate

Misconceptions

Read the following poem by Muriel Rukeyser. When you are done, answer the prompt below.

Myth

Originally published in Breaking Open (1973)

Long afterward, Oedipus, old and blinded, walked the
roads.       He smelled a familiar smell.       It was
the Sphinx.       Oedipus said, “I want to ask one question.
Why didn’t I recognize my mother?”        “You gave the
wrong answer,” said the Sphinx.      “But that was what
made everything possible,” said Oedipus.     “No,” she said.
“When I asked, What walks on four legs in the morning,
two at noon, and three in the evening, you answered,
Man.      You didn’t say anything about woman.”
“When you say Man,” said Oedipus, “you include women
too. Everyone knows that.”       She said, “That’s what
you think.”

Prompt: Using this poem as your evidence, make a statement about the misconceptions about men and women.  Think about what we assume are traits of women and traits of men.  What happens if someone chooses to defy the societal expectation? 

Rebellion and Conformity

I am a loophole person.  As a teenager, I would always look for the hole in directives given by my parents.  If someone told me, that I could not do something because I was a girl, or because I was not strong enough or for whatever lame reason they came up with, I would rebel.  I would defy them out of spite.  To live in the world of 1984 or A Clockwork Orange would give me fits.  I would struggle with the lack of freedom or the expectations imposed on me by the government. 

So, how do our characters conform or rebel in the books we are reading?  Cite specific examples of where you see them rebelling or conforming and the impact that their actions have on them in the text.  Then think about your own life.  Could you live in that world?  Why or why not?  

Innocence and Experience

In our two books, A Clockwork Orange and 1984, the idea of Innocence and Experience is present.  As you read this week, think about how our characters see the world.  How are they innocent--naive, young, unknowing?  We all go through the world with blinders on and then something happens that those blinders are removed.  In this removal of the blinders, we come to see the world, the people, and ourselves differently.   

This is like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.  The wizard was the great and powerful until Toto pulled back the curtain and revealed that this man everyone heralded as a "deity" was in fact just a man.  Dorothy realized that the power to get home belonged to her and her alone.  She went from innocently giving her power to others, to realizing she was the all powerful.  Our faith should be in ourselves and not in others.  

Your assignment is to examine how innocence and experience appear with the text you are reading and to explain what happens when innocence is lost.

Government and the individual

As you are reading A Clockwork Orange and 1984, think about the government.  For this week's blog, describe the government depicted in your book and think about the individuals ruled in that government.  How are they impacted by the government: daily lives, personal interactions, free will, and personal freedoms. 

Explain what you are seeing so far in your book.  Please do this in a solid paragraph with specific references to the text.