Based on our reading of The Great Gatsby, I would like us to have a real world discussion based on the text's values and messages. You can respond to my story or start your own rant but I expect you to challenge each other's thinking and use a line of inquiry to keep the thread of discussion moving.
First, you must each individually write about what this text made you see, ponder, or reflect. W hen you are done I want you to ask a strong critical level question and begin responding to others from there. Challenge each other's line of thought and keep the discussion going.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Monday, April 28, 2014
Dreamer Mentality
Please respond to ALL of the following questions-make sure to give a thorough response, end with a question and respond to at least one other person's comment.
Idealism has always been a way for people to escape reality, or to pursue a reality that isn't quite tangible. Having dreams for something more has many effects.
If you are a dreamer, do you have to be more careful? Nick says to Gatsby, "You can't repeat the past." What do you think? Are there repercussions? Are people more apt to not get what they desire?
Characterize Gatsby's dreamer mentality and what you see in his idealism (try to use textual support to back up your opinion)
Idealism has always been a way for people to escape reality, or to pursue a reality that isn't quite tangible. Having dreams for something more has many effects.
If you are a dreamer, do you have to be more careful? Nick says to Gatsby, "You can't repeat the past." What do you think? Are there repercussions? Are people more apt to not get what they desire?
Characterize Gatsby's dreamer mentality and what you see in his idealism (try to use textual support to back up your opinion)
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Money, Money, Money...
Please answer the following prompts in a detailed, fluent response. Make sure to comment on other people's views within your own response. Take your level of thinking higher. Make sure you are being thorough and honest.
What are your perceptions of material wealth/money? What is "wealth"? Do we see too much excess today? If your financial status a reflection of how successful you are? What is success to you? Are we always wanting more? Do we "want" too much? Is being content or fulfilled enough? When is enough, enough?
Commentary over Gatsby (the initial chapters)
Please respond in a reflective writing over the following prompt; I do not want to see you copying other people's ideas. Think for yourself. I expect you to have an original thesis, 3 pieces of textual evidence and you must explain the data you use. Follow the subsequent prompt:
Fitzgerald wrote a 1938 letter: "that was always my experience-a poor boy in a rich town; a poor boy in a rich boy's school; a poor boy in a rich man's club in Princeton...However, I have never been able to forgive the rich for being rich, and it has colored my entire life and works."
Just to think about: What is Fitzgerald saying here? Is he assuming that rich and poor are different?
Are they? Is it even possible to cross class boundaries and still fit in? How might Fitzgerald works be criticizing notions of class, wealth and privilege?
This is your question to answer: Where in the first two chapters do questions of class, wealth and privilege come into play? What is their effect?
Fitzgerald wrote a 1938 letter: "that was always my experience-a poor boy in a rich town; a poor boy in a rich boy's school; a poor boy in a rich man's club in Princeton...However, I have never been able to forgive the rich for being rich, and it has colored my entire life and works."
Just to think about: What is Fitzgerald saying here? Is he assuming that rich and poor are different?
Are they? Is it even possible to cross class boundaries and still fit in? How might Fitzgerald works be criticizing notions of class, wealth and privilege?
This is your question to answer: Where in the first two chapters do questions of class, wealth and privilege come into play? What is their effect?
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Prufrock and MIP Socratic
Please answer the following questions on your own; then you can start a discussion thread with others based on your questions and responses. Be thorough, give SPECIFIC textual support if referencing the poem and challenge one another.
1. How is T.S. Eliot's poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" a quintessential modernist poem? (Hence, what is Eliot criticizing through this narrator's voice?)
2. Characterize the speaker in this poem. How does this characterization mirror the feelings of modernism?
3. In the poem, which line stood out to you the most? Explicate its meaning and tell me why it resonates with you.
4. How does Woody Allen's film, Midnight in Paris, reflect modernist values and tenets?
When you are finished, please ask a question that would spark some conversation about either the poem or the movie or the synthesis between them.
Please have a discussion with your classmates regarding your questions, and as you respond to one another, at the end of your responses, try to write another question to keep conversations moving forward.
1. How is T.S. Eliot's poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" a quintessential modernist poem? (Hence, what is Eliot criticizing through this narrator's voice?)
2. Characterize the speaker in this poem. How does this characterization mirror the feelings of modernism?
3. In the poem, which line stood out to you the most? Explicate its meaning and tell me why it resonates with you.
4. How does Woody Allen's film, Midnight in Paris, reflect modernist values and tenets?
When you are finished, please ask a question that would spark some conversation about either the poem or the movie or the synthesis between them.
Please have a discussion with your classmates regarding your questions, and as you respond to one another, at the end of your responses, try to write another question to keep conversations moving forward.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Race, Class and Gender
Please answer the following questions? Use textual support to back up your responses.
Did this reading give you any new ideas or make you think differently? Make sure to use specifics from the chapter, “Shifting the Center” to support your ideas. How might you change your perceptions based on this reading? This is a very open response, but it requires you understand its ideas and to discuss what they mean to you.
Also respond to how you view the power of words. What do they do? Why are they powerful? What effect do they really have when it comes to what we say and how we perceive?
Also respond to how you view the power of words. What do they do? Why are they powerful? What effect do they really have when it comes to what we say and how we perceive?
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