W10, #11: FAIR OR NOT?

Who: ONLY periods 1, 2 & 3

Set-up: Each of you has now read “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”, a story within a story within a story within a story that attempts to disect very complex gender politics (that are as relevant today as they were in the Middle Ages when Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales).

Challenge: Was the knight punished ‘fairly’ for his ‘crime’?

Note: This is NOT as simple as you might think from a plot-level.  Anyone who chooses this option should consider the following:

• What was the actual crime?
• What does it mean that women were ‘given’ the right to ‘punish’ him?
• Was he truly ‘punished’?
• What was the lesson the wife was trying to teach him?
• Did the knight truly ‘learn’?
• Did the knight truly ‘love’ his wife?
• What lesson is the Wife of Bath suggesting by the wife’s magical change at the end of the story?
• What are we — as the reader — supposed to assume with Chaucer (male author) and the Wife of Bath (female character) co-constructing this story to have the old woman punish the knight in this unique manner?
• Should we be satisfied by what Chaucer is suggesting?
• Should we be satisfied by the Wife of Bath’s perspective and her choice in the story/outcome?
• Should we be satisfied by the wife’s punishment (and her eventual reward)?
• Should we be satisfied by the knight’s punishment (and his eventual reward)?
• What does all of this say about ‘us’ as members of society where gender issues — like this — continue to play out?
• Who’s ‘right’ (or morally ‘just’) in this story?
• How should women ‘behave’ in society?
• What does this say about how ‘men’ should behave?
• Does this story have more/less power because a woman (written by a male) told the story?

Length: 7+ sentences

W10, #10: THE BYSTANDER CHOICE

Who: All periods

Set-Up: Many would agree that Samneric is the most interesting character (or characters) on the island because they seem to resemble the typical human choice:  fit into the crowd so you don’t get hurt for trying to be a hero/leader.

Challenge:

• Take a look at Matt Langdon’s “Hero Workshop” blog where he wrote an interesting story (link to his “Please Don’t Be A Bystander” entry) about an 85 year old man in England who single-handedly stopped 2 sledgehammer-wielding thieves from breaking into a store.
• Write a reaction to the man’s own quoted explanation of why he got involved, as well as why you think he made a choice that nobody else on that sidewalk did.

Length: 7+ sentences

P.S. for Periods 1, 2, & 3 only:

Mr. Long was proud to see that that Matt wrote a greatt reaction to having a Skype video chat with you guys last week.  I think you’ll appreciate it, too.

Feel free to also leave a comment on his blog (although this is not for credit; do it if you’re simply appreciative of how impressed he was by you and your follow-up blog comments).

W10, #9: VISUAL VOCAB STORY

Who: All periods

Directions:

• Use any of the 10 words from the 2 lists found below
• Include a) definition and b) part of speech — place both in parenthesis

Length: Varies

November

• aggregate – to gather; accumulate
• astute – clever; perceptive
• bombastic – using inflated language
• craven – cowardly
• diffidence – shyness
• equivocal – ambiguous
• fastidious – hard to please
• gouge – to overcharge
• immutable – unchangeable
• quiescent – dormant; at rest; temporarily inactiv

November 1

• autonomous – self-governing; independent
• brevity – shortness in length or time
• candor – honesty
• depravity- corruption
• discordant – not harmonious; conflicting
• enervate – to weaken
• extricate – to release with difficulty
• gravity- seriousness
• mendacious – habitually dishonest
• pristine – unspoiled

Image #1: http://tinyurl.com/63n5n7

Image #2: http://tinyurl.com/694qe8

Image #3: http://tinyurl.com/6otwpf

W10, #8: WHY DOES MATT INSPIRE?

For: All periods

Set-up: All of you watched the original 2005 version of the “Where the Hell is Matt?” video (via a YouTube link), a ‘travel’ documentary, that was used as the prompt for your most recent vocabulary quiz.

Note:  Mr. Long mistakenly told you that the in-class version was the 2nd version. Oops.

Below you’ll see a link for the 2008 version which is really worth watching, too. Even cooler places the 2nd time.

But as Mr. Long said in class, the real goal of sharing this video was to explore why so many people around the world have positively responded to the quirky nature of Matt’s goofy little dance (either by joining him for a dance or simply by watching/passing the video around on-line).

Challenge:

• Explain why YOU think Matt’s dance (and his ensuing travel adventure) causes people to respond so positively.
• Optional:  Go watch the 2nd (2008) video (via YouTube) he did for the British chewing gum company who paid him to once again travel the world doing his quirky little dance.
• Optional: Go to Matt’s website and see what else you can discover.
• Optional: Watch Matt’s lecture at a Vermont college about a) why he did this, b) how he designed the trip, c) how he got people to dance with him, etc.  Part 1.  Part 2.  Part 3.  (all via YouTube)

W10, #7: UNIVERISTY OF CHICAGO MENTAL YOGA

For: All periods

Set-Up: 2 different times before, you’ve been given a college admissions essay that you might find in a future application you’ll may write your senior year.

The following are application essays that the University of Chicago asks its high school applicants. Obviously you’ll be able to tell that these are pretty unique questions, thus you can tell that they are seeking only unique/clever students to apply to their school.

Challenge: Pick ONE of the following 3 questions to answer.  Be creative.  Truly — be creative!

Length: 7+ sentences:

The Questions:

Essay Option 1.

The short film Powers of Ten begins with an aerial shot of a couple picnicking in a Chicago park. The camera zooms out ten meters. It then zooms out again, but the degree of the zoom has increased by a power of ten; the camera is now 100 meters away. It continues to 1,000 meters, then 10,000, and so on, traveling through the solar system, the galaxy, and eventually to the edge of the known universe. Here the camera rests, allowing us to examine the vast nothingness of the universe, black void punctuated sparsely by galaxies so far away they appear as small stars. The narrator comments, “This emptiness is normal. The richness of our own neighborhood is the exception.” Then the camera reverses its journey, zooming in to the picnic, and—in negative powers of ten—to the man’s hand, the cells in his hand, the molecules of DNA within, their atoms, and then the nucleus both “so massive and so small” in the “vast inner space” of the atom.

Zoom in and out on a person, place, event, or subject of interest. What becomes clear from far away that you can’t see up close? What intricate structures appear when you move closer? How is the big view related to the small, the emptiness to the richness?

Essay Option 2.

Chicago author Nelson Algren said, “A writer does well if in his whole life he can tell the story of one street.” Chicagoans, but not just Chicagoans, have always found something instructive, and pleasing, and profound in the stories of their block, of Main Street, of Highway 61, of a farm lane, of the Celestial Highway. Tell us the story of a street, path, road—real or imagined or metaphorical.

Essay option 3.

Argonne National Laboratory and Fermilab (both national laboratories managed by the University of Chicago) have particle accelerators that smash bits of atoms together at very high energies, allowing particles to emerge that are otherwise not part of the everyday world. These odd beasts—Z bosons, pi mesons, strange quarks—populated the universe seconds after the Big Bang, and allow their observers to glimpse the fabric of the universe.

Put two or three ideas or items in a particle accelerator thought experiment. Smash ‘em up. What emerges? Let us glimpse the secrets of the universe newly revealed.

W10, #6: WHAT PROJECT WILL YOU DO?

Who: ONLY periods 4 & 7.

Set-Up: Now that we have finished the novel, you will start the Lord of the Flies project.  Given the wide range of ways that each of you can creatively ’solve’ this assignment, I’m curious how you are applying your knowledge and imagination.

Options: You will pick one of the following ideas:

1. Idea: Write an ‘new’ (‘alternative’) ending to the story starting on page 200 at the following line:  “Then he was done, rolling over and over in the warm sand, crouching with arm to ward off, trying to cry for mercy.” Details: 3+ pages (double-spaced) that starts at that point.  8+ quotes from the story must be used.
2. Idea: Interview one of the boys 20-40 years later to discover what impact the experiences on the island had on them once they were rescued, returned to society, and eventually became an adult.  Details: 3+ pages (double-spaced).  Pick any character other than Piggy or Simon (for obvious reasons).  8+ quotes from the story must be used.
3. Idea: Create a ‘missing’ journal/diary written by an ‘unnamed’ boy on the island.  Details: 3+ pages (double-spaced).  There should be multiple entries covering multiple days.  8+ quotes from the story must be used.

Challenge: Answer the following:

1. What project do you think you will do?
2. How will you uniquely combine your own knowledge & creativity (including enough of a summary to help us ‘get it’)?
3. How will your project will ‘teach’ your audience even more about the novel (and its themes)?

Length: 5+ sentences

W10, #5: THE STORY IN A SINGLE LINE

For: ONLY periods 4 or 7

Set-up: By this point in time, all of you have completed Golding’s Lord of the Flies (including taking a test and seeing the original film version).  The test will be heavily focused on key quotations taken directly from the novel (in order to see if you are able to tell who said the key line(s)).

Challenge:

• Identify what YOU believe is the most important quotation in the entire novel (in terms of supporting Golding’s main argument/ideas).  Add the chapter and page #.
• Explain why this is so vital to a reader fully understanding what Golding is trying to accomplish.

Length: 5+ sentences.

W10, #4: ONE OF CHAUCER’S TRAVELERS

For: ONLY periods 1, 2 & 3

Set-up: Each of you have read all of the “Prologue” of Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”.  As you’ve come to discover, the 20+ page segment serves to a) introduce each character (30, including the narrator) and b) introduce the ‘framework’ for a collection of stories told by each character.

Challenge:

• Select one of the 29 characters described by the narrator that most intrigues you.
• Explain why this character grabbed your attention.
• Use key descriptions (yes, line #’s are expected, too) to make your point.
• Finally, help the rest of us figure out what Chaucer is trying to say by his description.  This should come in a final thesis (of sorts).

Length: 7+ sentences

W10, #3: THE WRITTEN WORD

Who: All periods

Set-up: While we spend a great deal of time on the ‘techniques’ of writing, we must never forget that writing is as much an ‘attitude about life’ as it is a set of skills.

Challenge: Pick one of these quotations about writing that catches your eye.  Offer a reaction.

Length: 7+ sentences:

Option 1:

“It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.” — Vita Sackville-West

Option 2:

“The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.” — Vladimir Nabakov

Option 3:

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” — Anton Chekhov

W10, #2: 6 DEGREES OF SEPARATION

Who: All periods

Set-Up: There is an expression — “6 degrees of separation” — that suggests how connected we individuals are as collective humanity, no matter how big a world it may be.  In short, it means that:

if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is an average of six “steps” away from each person on Earth.

Playing off of this concept, we’re going to play a weekly game called “6 Degrees of Separation” where we are given 2 topics (that seem to have nothing in common) which we must figure out a creative way to connect.  The trick is that we have to use a logical set of connections to show how the 2 items are related in “6 steps”.  Additionally, we will also offer a bit of trivia about each new step to showcase our knowledge and imagination.

Example: Let’s take 2 random topics — Ancient Egypt and “Lord of the Flies” — and figure out how to connect them in “6 steps” with some added trivia to show our knowledge:

Step 1: When someone in America thinks of ancient Egypt (1), he/she can’t help but think of legendary pharaohs given that everything one can easily think of from that period of Egypt’s history — from golden statues to the Great Pyramids — are remnants of these god-like leaders. It’s particularly interesting that pharaohs were often buried with everything they owned, gifts for them for the afterlife, and even their living servants.

Step 2: The most famous pharaoh (2) that I can think of is King Tut (1) which was one of my favorite stories growing up.  Even though the amazing amount of gold discovered and the identity of the “boy king” were supposed to be the important parts of the story, this wasn’t what captured my attention at first. As a young kid, I actually daydreamed a lot about the idea of a curse placed on all of the people involved in finding the original tomb, especially given that the spirit of the pharaoh may have been angry that they disturbed his eternal slumber. This led me to study a range of curses and superstitions when I was in elementary school.

Step 3: King Tut’s (2) exhibit just arrived in Dallas (3) — as a major art exhibit called “King Tut and the Golden Age of Pharoahs” being held at the Dallas Museum of Art — for several months.  Hundreds of thousands of people (paying up to $32/ticket) are expected to attend the show, including some of our own art and archeology students who will go there on an upcoming fieldtrip.

Step 4: On Elm Street in Dallas (3), specifically near the Texas School Book Depository (4), was the location of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.

Step 5: The Texas School Book Depository (4) was “a multi-floor warehouse for the storage of school textbooks and related materials” (according to Wikipedia) that shut down in 1970 when the business moved out.  It was also in the year 1970 that the American Library Association awarded the first Coretta Scott King Award was given to African-American writers/illustrators who focused on the creation of books specifically for children and young people (5).

Step 6: One of the most famous school books ever taught in the United States, Lord of the Flies (6), appears to be about children and young people (5). Clearly, however, it is not “just a book about kids on an island”.  Golding’s book was ranked by Time Magazine as one of the 100 best English language books published since 1923 (and was also ranked by the American Library Association as one of the most “challenged” books between 1990-2000.)

Challenge: Using these 2 random ideas, connect them in “6 steps”:

• “Don’t Mess with Texas” (hint — do you know the original ad campaign? — hint)
• The United Nations (the UN)

Length: Varies