Response to Politics of Fear

• How would you respond if you heard politicians encouraging people to fear other racial, ethnic, or religious groups? What would you do if your friends, family, and neighbors echo these fears?

• How will you respond when a race or religion that you identify with is targeted?

Write at least one full paragraph (5-7 sentences) responding to both of these questions.

Responses to this post will be shared in class next week.

Current Events Connections

In class we analyzed each of the following quotes from 1984

1. If there is hope, wrote Winston, it lies in the proles.
2. It was not desirable that the proles should have strong political feelings. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working-hours or shorter rations
3. Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.
4. Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.

Use your analysis to make a connection between one of these quotes and a current event article. Be clear about the connection you are making. Include a link to the article describing the current event or use the story about the president's recent twitter activity found here.

Requirements: One paragraph of at least seven sentences

EXTRA CREDIT: Making Connections

Read the article, "Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?"

Respond to the following prompt in one to two full paragraphs (5-7 sentences each) by 8:00am on Thursday, 11/16 for up to 5 points extra credit (effort)

Based on the information in this article, how is the way technology impacts society today similar to the way technology impacts the Hadley family in Ray Bradbury's "The Veldt"?

Their Eyes Were Watching God Film Review

About the 2005 film, Wright State University English Professor, Sharon Lynette Jones wrote, "While the film remained true to some aspects of the plot, major omissions involving characters and events cause the film to ignore much of the social and political commentary in the novel. As a result, while the film introduced Hurston's landmark novel to a wide audience for the first time, the film version does not come close to illustrating the complexity and innovation of Their Eyes Were Watching God."

Do you agree that the film version does not compare to the novel?

What key differences and omissions did you notice while watching the film version?

How did these differences change the original source material's political and social commentary, Hurston's message on gender, race, and class relationship to power and voice.

Write a detailed response in at least one full paragraph (minimum five sentences) as a comment below.

Is Their Eyes Were Watching God a feminist novel?

Consider the following:
Evidence that the book has a feminist message

• Janie chooses the man that she wants
• Janie is a female who gains power throughout the story
• The men trying to control her meet bad ends
• She makes her own decisions

and yet

Evidence that the book DOES NOT have a feminist message

• Janie is the hero, but there are few other significant female characters. 
• She is most influenced by the men in her life. 
• She becomes more independent through the freedom granted to her from Joe Starks’ money. 
• Tea Cake teaches her to play checkers, drive a car, and shoot a gun. 

In the end, what is the novel’s message? is it really a feminist text?

Choose either that the novel is or is not a feminist text and write one paragraph (5-7 sentences) defending your stance. How is your point right despite the evidence to the contrary?

Class Debate Reflection

After defending your point and listening to classmates defend theirs, who won? Which point do you think is most convincing?

Was Janie too hard on Joe?

Did Joe get what he deserved?

Tell me what you believe and defend your stance with evidence from the text.

Responses should include no fewer than five sentences.

Writing in Dialect

Today in class we read "We Wear the Mask" and "When Malindy Sings," two poems, by Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Write a comment responding to any or all of the following: 

Why might the same writer choose to use dialect for “When Malindy Sings” and standard English for “We Wear the Mask”? Who is speaking in the poems? Who is the audience for the poem? Would the poems be as effective if they were written in standard English instead of dialect, and vice versa?

Your response should be at least five complete sentences. Remember to include your name and class period.

How Others See Us vs How We Really Are

Copy the template below. Record your name and period and answer each of the four questions in a google doc, then paste your response as a comment to this post.

Name:

Period:

Imagine a stranger that you might see at a bus or subway station. Just by looking at you, what might that person think they know about you? What assumptions would they have?

How right or wrong would they be about you? How would you want them to think of you?

What do other students at Freire think they know about you?

What would you like your classmates to know about you that they may not already know?

School Segregation Article and Response

Today in a couple of English IV classes we began a fascinating discussion on what segregation in schools looks like today.

I found an article that gives a lot of background on the subject

For extra credit, read the article and respond with a comment stating your name and class period, what you learned, how segregation today is different from before Brown vs. the Board of Education, how it is the same, and your reaction to the article