Homework!

Retyped, edited drafts of your Things Fall Apart Essays are due Tuesday (4th) and Wednesday (5th).

Preparation for Finals!

In order to prepare for the final in-class essay it would behoove you to do the following:

Choose a prompt.

Decide on a thesis statement.

Choose six pieces of evidence that support your thesis statement. (Quotes with page numbers from the book.)

Put your pieces of evidence in chronological order.

Create an outline (either your own or using the template I gave you).

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For your out-of-class project. Choose a creative project from the list (or another that you have run by me) that inspires you.

Write a 1-2 page "Critical Review" of your out-of-class book which analyzes how the author successfully revealed theme or used symbolism to create a really magical, or exciting, or successful story. This is like a book report, but more engaging because you are analyzing what the author did well (or could have done better) by paying attention to the more subtle aspects of the book.

See the example below written as someone's criticism of The Hunger Games.

         In a dystopian vision of the near future, Hunger Games is a terrifying reality TV show where twelve boys and twelve girls are forced to compete to the death. The Capitol has imposed the games on the children of the twelve districts under its control to remind them that rebellion is futile. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen steps forward to take her sister’s place, and though she sees it as a death sentence, she is determined to survive for the sake of her family.

         Author Suzanne Collins conceived the idea for Hunger Games while channel surfing between reality TV shows and news coverage of an actual war zone. It is not a particularly uplifting theme, yet Collins has many readers convinced that the book’s ethics are clear: it is a critique of the violent injustice it describes. I am not convinced.

Survival

         In the games, survival is the ultimate good and death the greatest evil; our heroine never questions this. She and the other characters do whatever it takes to survive, and for games contestants this means killing. Katniss is the good girl so she is subtle at first, dropping an insect nest on someone’s head so they swell up and die "naturally", or destroying another group’s food so they will starve. Her district companion Peeta confesses that “to murder innocent people costs everything you are”, yet indirectly and later directly, both he and Katniss still do it.

         The experience is like reading a first hand account of a Nazi soldier doing horrible things to others in order to stay alive. The fact is, sometimes survival is not the most important thing and it is necessary to be prepared to die rather than kill someone else.

           In Collins’ books, survival only loses its appeal when suffering makes death more appealing than life, justifying the suicide and mercy killing which are rife in the series. Towards the end the rebels—including Katniss—carry a suicide bomb in case they or their friends are caught. Failure to kill a captured friend is seen as a failure of friendship, and Katniss’ reluctance to use it is a sign of her weakness

            How can this series be a critique of using injury and death for entertainment when it does the same itself?! Thanks to the gratuitous graphic detail not only the characters, but the readers too, are damage

- See more at: http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/dark_themes_in_teen_literature#sthash.IxmDtKxG.dpuf

Praise Poems

If you have not performed or turned in a copy of your praise poem, be sure to do that by Tues (2nd period) or Wednesday (6th and 7th).

Genius Children

Just make sure that all of your dialogue journals are finished, the book is complete, and that you have performed your folktales and turned them in for a grade.

I look forward to our continued discussions on the book!