Seminar: Montana 1948

Seminar Rubric

Post-seminar writing (Due Friday Sept 2):

1.  Reflection/Self-Assess

·         Reflect on the outcome of the seminar.  Consider your own performance and the seminar overall.  How did you do personally and how did the group do collectively?   Based on the rubric, what grade do you deserve on the seminar? 

·         React to your peers’ ideas (be specific) and the meaning you all constructed together.  Was there anything that enlightened you?  Something you particularly disagree with?  How did your thinking about the text change as a result of this seminar? 

2.  Synthesis

·         Make an interpretive claim about the text and support it with evidence.  Your claim may be something you develop further from your seminar prep, or it may be a new idea that you acquired during the seminar.  In some way, it should address the key question of the seminar:  What commentary does Montana 1948 make about life in America? 

Seminar Prep

Key Question:  What commentary does Montana 1948 make about American life?

Required Prep  (make some claims!  find some evidence!)

1.  Choose one character from the novel and explore his or her moral dilemma.  How does this character evolve (or not) over the course of the novel?   

–OR-

Discuss how one character could be thought to represent something fundamental about America.

2.  What is the significance of the setting of this novel?

3.  Is justice served at the end of the story?

4.  What does this novel seem to imply about history?

5. Choose a theme from the list and explore how the novel treats the theme. 

·         Privilege/disadvantage

·         Racism

·         Social Class Structures

·         Power

·         Loyalty/betrayal

·         Justice/injustice

·         Maturity (Coming-of-age)

·         American values

·         Other?

Optional Prep

6.  What would you have done in Wesley’s shoes?

7.  What does Wesley mean at the end when he says “Never blame Montana!”?

8.  Was Frank still a good person despite his actions?

9.  How does the novel’s point-of-view (narrated from his memories of childhood) contribute to meaning?

10.  Choose another theme from the list above (#5) and discuss how the novel treats that theme.

11.  At what point would you feel the need to turn in a close friend or family member that had committed a crime?

12.  Why did Frank commit suicide?

13.  Why did Frank kill Marie?

14.  How could the jars breaking be a metaphor for something bigger?

15.  How was Frank able to get away with his crimes for so long?

16.  Why did David cry for his horse and nothing else?

17.  How can we connect this story to other events in American history?

18.  How is Montana 1948 like a traditional story of the American West and how does it differ?

19.  Do you think the US will ever outgrow racism?  What would have to happen?

20.  How would this story be different if it were written today?

Historical Research (optional)

Investigate the history of white/Sioux relations.

(Possible subtopics:  Little Big Horn/Custer; Ghost Dance Movement; Red Cloud; Sitting Bull; Crazy Horse; Wounded Knee Massacre; Indian Boarding Schools; the Sioux today)

Binaries/Seminar Prep

"The Creation" by Eduardo Galeano
1. Read, listen, read again, annotate.
2. Illustrate
3. Discuss
4. Find the binaries
5. Interpret


A binary (in textual analysis) is a pair of ideas in semantic opposition  (opposing meanings).
ie. war and peace, empty and full, etc.


Did we deconstruct it?  (Did it deconstruct itself?)

Group Seminar Prep, Montana 1948

1.  Reaction:  Discuss your individual experiences reading this book.  What was your emotional reaction?

2.  Clarification:  Help each clear up any confusion that you have about the plot, characters, resolution, etc.

Choose a scribe for the group to write up or type the following:

3.  Questions:  Share your seminar questions with each other.  As a group, evaluate each one on its merit as a seminar question.  Eliminate or revise those that do not meet the standard.  Compile a list of questions.  Write the two strongest questions on the board.

4.  Universal themes/Binaries:  Make a List.  Discuss as a group how this novel addresses each of these binaries.  Where do the binaries get complicated?  Where do they dismantle themselves?

At the end of the hour, turn in one piece of paper (electronic or physical) with:

·         everyone’s name

·         list of questions

·         list of universal themes/binaries

 

Pink Houses lyrics 

 

Starter #2:  Pink Houses

1.  Do you think that John Cougar Mellencamp’s tone is more patriotic or cynical?  Explain why you think so.

2.  Make an interpretive claim about this song using evidence. (1 paragraph) What is he saying?  What is the message?

 

Post your claim to Edmodo!

 

 

 

What are good seminar questions? 

 

Independent Work Time
Please use your time to do all of the things on this week's TO DO list.  (See yesterday's post)



Turn in TODAY to my inbox (physical or electronic):

• Starters 1 & 2
• Info Card
• Tell Me About Yourself

 

Weekend Homework:
Finish Montana 1948.  Write 5 good seminar questions about this novel.

Welcome to 11th Grade Humanities!

Let's deconstruct America!!!

Starter #1

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. "
-Henry David Thoreau, Walden


1.  What did you learn in the woods about yourself or about life?
2.  How is this quote uniquely "American"?

Business and Syllabus


Tell Me About Yourself

Edmodo group #'s:

AM:  8dbstw

PM:  ronp7b

"America Is..."

Post your best one to edmodo!

Montana 1948

To Do this Week:

Read syllabus and get questions answered

Tell me about yourself

Info cards

Edmodo account

1^st Edmodo post

blog set-up

Begin reading Montana 1948 (Write 5 seminar questions)

Welcome back Ospreys!