Hopkins

2007-2008

Overview: This year we read the following:

· Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

· The Crucible by Arthur Miller

· The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

· Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

· Into Thin Air by John Krakauer

· The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger

· Where are you going? Where have you been? by Joyce Carol Oates

· The Outsider by H. P. Lovecraft

· The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

· The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe

· A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner

· Secret Observations on the Goat Girl by Joyce Carol Oates

· Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce

Situation: One of the reasons for reading narrative texts (stories) is to learn more about ourselves. Narratives can work as a mirror when we recognize ourselves or our experiences in the work. As a final experience for English 11, please explain where the literature we read this year intersects with your own story.

Task: Please choose at least three of the stories above and for each discuss how the characters and plots parallel your own life or experience in some way.

Guidelines:

• Identify a character that you feel is similar to you or someone you know and explain that similarity in detail.
• Identify a scene or monologue/dialogue or other plot structure that you feel is similar to your own experience.
• Piece should be between two to three pages.
• You will have three class periods to work on this. Paper is due at the end of Thursday’s class.
• We will share them on Monday.

Over the last four weeks of school you will independently read Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea and complete a final paper for the class. The paper will count as the final grade for the fourth quarter and a final exam grade worth a full marking period.

Essay Question:
What is the nature of perseverance within the pattern of the Monomyth/Hero’s Journey as seen in The Old Man and the Sea, Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Inherit the Wind? If you need copies of either of the previous books, ask. Remember you have Kurzweil versions in your network folders.

Paper should be five pages long and is due by Friday June 20.

You can read with me or preview/review with me. I am here to answer questions. I encourage you to run paper drafts by me for comment and review.

You may use outside sources.  You must cite all sources of outside information.  See http://citationmachine.net/ for citation formats. A work cited list and parenthetical citations are required if outside material is used.

Each person will receive the book on paper, as a Kurzweil file, and as an HTML file.

I suggest you develop a work schedule for reading the book and the completing the paper. If you need help with this, please see me.

Update on our project: New due date will be Monday, June 9th. We will view the animations as a class that day. This gives us some time to get through some more stories and makes up for some of the class time we have missed.

The goals of the project are as follows:

Each student will respond to the short stories from The Things They Carried by creating a self running Power Point Story between two and three minutes in length that:

• Tells a story about one or more of the characters from the book
• Builds on what is already about the character
• Take the character in a new direction, but stays in the tradition of the stories we read.

Please remember to save ALL IMAGE AND SOUND FILES into a single folder that holds the PowerPoint file as well.  This will insure that all of your slides work as they are supposed to.

We will begin the Vietnam Power Point project today in ELA.  It will due on Friday, May 30th.  The goals of the project are as follows:

Each student will respond to the short stories from The Things They Carried by creating a self running Power Point Story between two and three minutes in length that:

• Tells a story about one or more of the characters from the book
• Builds on what is already about the character
• Take the character in a new direction, but stays in the tradition of the stories we read.

I spent a couple of class periods showing those of you who were not on Pack, Paddle, Ski some tricks.  I will rely on you to show what you have done to the rest of the class on Monday when they return, and I am in Quebec with the Seniors.  You will have the week I am gone to work on your animations in class, and then a week of your own time while we read some more of the short stories.

Please remember to save ALL IMAGE AND SOUND FILES into a single folder that holds the PowerPoint file as well.  This will insure that all of your slides work as they are supposed to.

Read Chapter 10 for tomorrow, and in a paragraph describe Siddhartha’s problem with his son using the comment feature below.

From Chapter 9, I want to focus on two quotes:

But out of all secrets of the river, he today only saw one, this one touched his soul. He saw: this water ran and ran, incessantly it ran, and was nevertheless always there, was always an at all times the same and yet new in every moment! Great be he who would grasp this, understand this! He understood and grasped it not, only felt some idea of it stirring, a distant memory, divine voices.

and

“Did you,” so he asked him at one time, “did you too learn that secret from the river: that there is no time?”

Vasudeva’s face was filled with a bright smile

“Yes, Siddhartha,” he spoke. “It is this what you mean, isn’t it: that the river is everywhere at once, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains, everywhere at once, and that there is only the present time for it, not the shadow of the past, not the shadow of the future.”

“This it is,” said Siddhartha. “And when I had learned it, I looked at my life, and it was also a river, and the boy Siddhartha was only separated from the man Siddhartha and from the old man Siddhartha by a shadow, not by something real. Also, Siddhartha’s previous births were no past, and his death and his return to Brahma was no future. Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has existence and is present.”

Two questions for tomorrow’s homework:

1. What is the significance of Siddhartha’s revelation to his journey?
2. What is the significance of Siddhartha’s revelation to you?

Please answer the question for Document #3A in the January ‘08 US History Exam using the comment feature below for tomorrow’s homework.

In Chapter 8, Siddhartha says to himself, “Things are going downhill with you!”  What are the possible meanings of this statement.  Is he talking only of himself?  Please use the comment feature to complete this homework.

 Also, please read Chapter 9, The Ferryman.

Today we began looking at the US History DBQ.  In class we worked through the Historical Context, the Task, and Document One.  DBQ students should have an answer submitted using the comment feature below for the first Document and its question for tomorrow.

In the blog a buddhist perspective, the blogger makes the following distinction between detachment and non-attachment:

Question: I was talking to a friend and she told me “she tried” Buddhism but the following was her reason for not pursuing it further: “I don’t think that it is a good thing to detach from the body and all emotions.  I believe that passion and emotions are part of the best part of being human.  So… pure detachment leaves me feeling un-human.”

Response: I imagine “pure detachment” would leave any reasonable person feeling un-human. But Buddhism does not teach pure detachment.

In Buddhism, the opposite of attachment is not detachment but rather non-attachment. Detachment is unresponsive and removed from emotions. Non-attachment allows us to feel the emotions but not become trapped by them.  When we are non-attached, we still care but we no longer discriminate, feeling love for this person and aversion for another. When we practice non-attachment, we are letting go of worries and expectations. We are fully engaged in what we do, but we realize the act of doing is all we control. As Master Kuang-ch’in said, “Non-attachment does not mean indifference or carelessness, but rather you should do your best and not worry about the results.”

Neither do we “detach from the body.” We wisely realize it is not permanent and that it is not our true self. It is a temporary dwelling for this lifetime. But we still need to take care of it and treat it with respect as we try to find the balance between hedonism and asceticism. 

Those I know who excel at non-attachment are some of the most engaged, hard-working, and cheerful people I know. Practicing as the Buddha taught, they are a joy to be around. Just thinking of them makes me smile.

Is the first sentence of Chapter 7, that we discussed yesterday, about detachment or non-attachment as discussed in the quote above?  Explain your answer using information from the book.  You should submit your five to seven sentences using the comment feature below.