Wednesday, 4/1/2009

AP

"Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell

We talked about people's questions and observations as follows:

• Yes, Orwell and Eric Blair were the same person.  :-)
  
• Yes, even though he was born in India, he was still a British citizen.
  
• British imperialism--a lot of us didn't understand their power and reach as a colonial power prior to WWII.
• Orwell's style is blunt, honest, straightforward.
• Orwell didn't want to kill the elephant--we talked about the reasons he ended up killing it anyway.  
• We talked about South Africa--people were making some connections between the British rule in Burma (and India), and South Africa under apartheid, so we talked a bit about what it is to colonize a country, and rule it as a minority party.

Group Work

We got into our philosophy groups to discuss the metaphor questions over "Elephant" (p. 46, #11-15) and to complete the connotation/denotation sheet on page 47.

Death Sentences

• We talked, again, about what the writers are saying about death, dying, life suffering, and grief.  People suggested ideas for the three prose pieces we've most recently read.
  

Random Acts of Racism

• Yesterday (as a result of some discussion we had regarding the language in "A Rose for Emily") I asked people to be on the look-out for -isms of any kind.  Today a couple of people shared things that they had witnessed in the last twenty-four hours (racism, sexism).
  
• This lead to a significant discussion of particularly loaded words--slurs--which we'll continue tomorrow and Friday, I'm sure.
  

Homework

• Read Jack London's "To Build a Fire" on pages 48-87.  You'll take a quiz over it tomorrow.
  
• Work on your villanelle--it is due on FRIDAY (one-day extension).
  

MODERN PROSE

• There were no major announcements or discussions.
  
• People got right down to reading or working on their book reports, or both.
  

EARTHBOOK

• Lauren finished most of the typing during first block.  She has also done a lot of the formatting for pieces voted in thus far.
  
• In fourth block, we read and selected quite a few pieces.
• Art met to look through more submissions.
• Layout met to consider paper color.
• Publicity met to create an art thank-you letter for distribution next week.
• WE GOT THE T-SHIRTS!  WEAR YOUR T-SHIRTS TOMORROW!  :-)