Anthem assignment

Anthem – Question Generating Assignment

You will be composing discussion questions as you read Anthem.  Discussion questions will be submitted on Monday.  From the questions submitted, I will select a variety for our class discussion.  When your question is referenced, you will be expected to lead and or moderate the discussion in a meaningful way. 

Assignment parameters:

Read and annotate Anthem

Each student must create 5 open-ended questions for use in our class discussion.  Questions must be typed and ready for submission on Monday, 12/1/14.

Questions will be assessed based on intellectual merit.  Questions should lead to thoughtful discussion and debate.

Topics to consider:

Names in Anthem:       

How does Rand name her characters?

What do the characters’ name each other?

In the end, why do the new names bear significance within the larger ideas of the novel?

Ask yourself what it means to name a person.

Why are you named the way you are?

Is the act of naming powerful?

What might persons, who change their names, consider as they ponder new ones?

What kinds of names are prevalent in contemporary American society?

Egoism and Selflessness:

How does Rand discuss these two concepts within her novel?

Why one concept is preferable over the other one, or why neither concept is preferred.

Free will and determinism:  

How does Rand depict the concepts of free will and determinism in her novel?

Will your adult life further the perpetuation of one or the other ideal?

Religion & mythology:

Politics:

The Declaration of Independence

The timeline given to you in class

The particular time period in which Anthem was written         

Specific Literary techniques & their impact:

          Allegory

            Tone

            Motif

            Characterization, etc.

11/21/14

Today we will:

• Complete the in class AP Literature Part II, essay 3 on The Grapes of Wrath
• Following the essay, we will begin talking about Ayn Rand's Anthem

Homework:

• NONE!

11/17/14

• Today we will discuss the end of The Grapes of Wrath
• What is the message you received?  How was it conveyed? (To what effect...)
• Journal # 6

Next poem in our poetry packet...

Upcoming events:

The Grapes of Wrath test Wednesday and Friday

• Wednesday - Group test, as discussed in class
• Friday - AP essay section of test, as discussed in class today

Journal # 6

1985. A critic has said that one important measure of a superior work of literature is its ability to produce in the reader a healthy confusion of pleasure and disquietude. Select a literary work that produces this “healthy confusion.” Write an essay in which you explain the sources of the “pleasure and disquietude” experienced by the readers of the work

Using The Grapes of Wrath:

1. Write the opening paragraph for this prompt.
2. Bullet out the support/content for your three body paragraphs

November 10th, 2014 Grapes work for the week...

Finish The Grapes of Wrath for Friday, November 14th.

• Finish all reading for a reading check in class on Friday
• Finish all questions for a HW check on Friday

Journal # 5

2004, Form B. The most important themes in literature are sometimes developed in scenes in which a death or deaths take place.
Choose a novel or play and write a well-organized essay in which you show how a specific death scene helps to illuminate the
meaning of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

Using The Grapes of Wrath:

1. Write the opening paragraph for this prompt.
2. Bullet out the support/content for your three body paragraphs

Today's class discussion...

Because of the interest in today's discussion, I thought some of you might be interested in reading Brittany Maynard's obituary.  It is quite touching:

Brittany's Obituary

One Day Your Life Will Flash Before Your Eyes, Make Sure it's Worth Watching

Brittany Lauren Maynard was born in 1984 and forged a brief but solid 29 years of generosity, compassion, education, travel, and humor. She happily met her husband Daniel Diaz in April of 2007 and they married, as best friends, 5 years later in September of 2012.

This past year, on New Year's Day, Brittany was diagnosed with brain cancer. She was given a terminal diagnosis for which there was no cure or life saving measures available. In the face of such terminal illness and pain, Brittany chose to live each day fully, traveled, and kept as physically active and busy as she possibly could.

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."- Theodore Roosevelt. A formula to live by, sick or well.

After being told by one doctor that "she probably didn't even have weeks to be on her feet," she was found climbing 10 mile trails along the ice fields of Alaska with her best friend in the sunshine months later. "Speak your own truth, even when your voice shakes." she would say.

Brittany graduated from UC Berkeley as an undergrad, and received a Masters in Education from UC Irvine. She believed in compassion, equity, and that people would remember most how you made them feel in life. As Faulkner said, "Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If more people all over the world would do this, the world would change."

She was an accomplished and adventuresome traveler who spent many months living solo and teaching in orphanages in Kathmandu, Nepal. That single experience forever changed her life and perspective on childhood, happiness, privilege and outcomes. She fell in love with her time in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore and Thailand. She spent a summer working in Costa Rica, and traveled to Tanzania, and summited Kilimanjaro with a girlfriend a month before her wedding. She took ice climbing courses on Cayambe and Cotopaxi in Ecuador and was an avid scuba diver, who relished her time in the Galapagos, Zanzibar, Caymans and pretty much any island she ever visited.

She loved her two dogs like family, a small Beagle and large Great Dane, and was always the one to take in lost dogs and find them homes. Brittany was a regular volunteer at a local animal rescue organization before her diagnosis.

Brittany chose to make a well thought out and informed choice to Die With Dignity in the face of such a terrible, painful, and incurable illness. She moved to Oregon to pass away in a little yellow house she picked out in the beautiful city of Portland. Oregon is a place that strives to protect patient rights and autonomy; she wished that her home State of California had also been able to provide terminally ill patients with the same choice. Brittany chose to speak out and advocate for this patient right and option, which she felt is an informed choice that should be made available to all terminally ill patients across our great nation. "The freedom is in the choice," she believed. "If the option of DWD is unappealing to anyone for any reason, they can simply choose not to avail themselves of it. Those very real protections are already in place." With great consideration, she gave personal interviews to the UK's Tonight Show prior to Death with Dignity being addressed by their Parliament, as well as participated in an American based campaign for Death With Dignity education and legislation.

She is survived by her faithful, practical, and kind husband Daniel Diaz, her loving self-less mother Deborah Ziegler and honorable step-father Gary Holmes. And by Dan's loving supportive family, parents: Carmen and Barry and brothers: David, Adrian, and Alex. All of whom she adored and loved very deeply. While she had longed for children of her own, she left this world with zero regrets on time spent, places been, or people she loved in her 29 years.

In this final message, she wanted to express a note of deep thanks to all her beautiful, smart, wonderful, supportive friends whom she "sought out like water" during her life and illness for insight, support, and the shared experience of a beautiful life.

"It is people who pause to appreciate life and give thanks who are happiest. If we change our thoughts, we change our world! Love and peace to you all." – Brittany Maynard

11/3/14- Through to the end of chapter 25

Read and answer questions for The Grapes of Wrath - Through to the end of chapter 25

For class on Friday