Thursday, January 28th and Friday, January 29th

STARTER 1.28 SURVEY: Feedback on our first literature circle

Lit Circle Make-up Assignment

• Copy and paste your prewrite into your group's doc where it goes. Be sure to label it with your name.
• Respond to the notes in the group discussion doc with at least 6 comments. You can answer your peers' questions, interpret their passages, or respond to anything in the discussion notes.
• Answer Jessica's questions in writing at the bottom of the doc clearly labeled with your name.

Let's talk about the questions!

• How is Into the Wild an “intertextual” work?  How does its intertextuality aid us in interpreting the meaning?
• Why do you think Chris (Alex) is yearning so strongly for this Alaskan adventure?
• Why does Franz lose his religion (p.60)?  Why might anyone?  

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND TO-DO

1. No class meeting tomorrow! Instead you should take the time finish the Stranger than Fiction film analysis, read about our new philosophy (Background on Aristotle's Eudaimonia), and think about what it means to live a "life well-lived" (see JOURNAL #8).

2. Be sure to get on our Google Classroom and do the starter for ATTENDANCE tomorrow! 

3. If you finish with all of that, keep reading Into the Wild and get ready for our next literature circle, now moved to NEXT Friday, Feb 5th. 

4. HONORS: Let's check in really quickly about the essay assignment!

5. Yoga @ 3:30. Happy Full Moon!

Tuesday, January 26th

Literature Circle Group Meeting #1

GROUPS and MEET links

Monday, January 25th

Starter 1.25: Vocabulary fun: "Transience" and "Entropy"

OMG, you guys. It actually is. Mind blown....

Some of you did not complete Friday's assignment to make an interpretive claim about "The Summer Day"! Please still do so. This type of claim is central to many assignments moving forward. Here are some good ones from a few of you:

• In "The Summer Day," Oliver distills a striking revelation that the beauty of the natural world in the present moment is a significant purpose to life itself.
• In the "The Summer Day", the reader is prompted to realize that the purpose of life is nothing more than the beauty of now.
• In "The Summer Day," Oliver expresses how she feels like life doesn't have specific meaning to it, so you need to make your own meaning through the beauty of your experiences.
• Mary Oliver's poem "The Summer Day" highlights the importance of appreciating the small beauties of life so that we do not waste the fleeting time that we have to experience it.
• Mary Oliver's 'The Summer Day' is an ode to the freedom that one can experience when they come into contact with the absurd; she speaks to the mindset of enjoying the pure existence that you embody.

Your Life on Earth JOURNAL #7: Transience and Jason Silva's "Existential Bummer"

Where does Jason Silva's message hit you? Respond how you will or freewrite on one of the following options:

1. As you are working through your own meaning-making, how do the concepts of "transience" and/or "entropy" factor in for you? Does it fill you will melancholy? Nostalgia? The will to "love harder" and try to hold on to the moment?

OR 

2. SPICY OPTIONAL EXTENSION:Read Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night" and reflect on its meaning and impact. Do you agree with the poem's message? Or do you tend to agree more with Macbeth's bleak outlook? (Or perhaps you just want to laugh at the cosmic joke like the botanist in "Mold of the Earth"?)

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND TO-DO

• If you forgot on Friday, please do the interpretive claim for the Mary Oliver poem.
• Journal #7 DUE WEDNESDAY
• Read the assigned chapters for Into the Wild and get ready for tomorrow's literature circle meeting. See the assignment description for the prewrite guidelines.
• Stranger than Fiction deadline extended until Friday! See assignment description for instructions and writing prompt. The goal here is to make an interpretive claim that (hopefully) connects the film to existentialism.
• HONORS: We will check in this Thursday after the whole class Meet.
• Come to the regular Meet tomorrow and we will break out into smaller groups to discuss the literature!

Friday, January 22nd

 

Starter 1.22: Interpret Macbeth's soliloquy

What does Macbeth mean?  INTERPRET the passage.  Do you agree with Macbeth?  Why or why not?

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing.

— Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 19-28)

DISCUSS the texts from yesterday: Sagan and Angelou

What are our interpretations?

How are these two pieces intertextual?

Making Interpretive Claims about Literature Mini-workshop

Mary Oliver, The Summer Day

  Who made the world?

  Who made the swan, and the black bear?

  Who made the grasshopper?

  This grasshopper, I mean--

  the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

  the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

  who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--

  who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

  Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

  Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

  I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

  I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

  into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

  how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

  which is what I have been doing all day.

  Tell me, what else should I have done?

  Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

  Tell me, what is it you plan to do

  with your one wild and precious life?

Please watch this video as I look over your claims: Jason Silva's Existential Bummer

Thoughts? Reactions?

HOMEWORK:

• Read Into the Wild Chapters 1-6
• Watch Stranger than Fiction?
• Netflix: If you answered the survey that you need to use the class account, I will send you the info by email.
• Book needs? Please be in touch today about whether you want to meet me in town later or use the pdf or audiobook for these first chapters.

Thursday, January 21st

 Starter 1.21: Take data survey real quick! Please and thank you:)

Announcements and TO-DO:

• First Lit Circle Meeting now TUESDAY! Let's look at what this entails: Into the Wild Literature Circle 2021
• A Note on the Philosophy Journal: My expectation was that you would be keeping your journals all in one doc, whether a physical journal or ONE Google Doc, to be shared with me once. I keep these docs in a folder and read them from time to time. I realize that Google Classroom makes them feel like all separate assignments, and that is the nature of the platform. I am going to continue to post them how I have been so the proper due dates show up in your To-Do lists. If you have been doing them separately, please compile them into one Google Doc. Share it with me by email. And each time you complete the assignment, just "Mark as Done." I am returning all the disjointed ones to you so that you can do so.
• February 8th! WOO-HOO! Are there questions about the shift back to hybrid?
• HONORS: Your essay assignment is now posted in the Google Classroom. Please check it out when you have time. We will meet about it next week.
• Please make sure your lecture notes on existentialism concepts are complete. We will be applying these to our interpretation of various texts, so make sure you understand!
• OPTIONAL Q&A/discussion after class about existentialism, Sartre, Sisyphus and/or anything else you want to work out or philosophize about!
• TODAY: Journal #6
• Carl Sagan and Maya Angelou: Interpretation and Intertextuality
• See Google Classroom for details.

Definitions

Interpretation: 

1. the action of explaining the meaning of something. (source: Oxford Languages)
2. the act of explaining, reframing, or otherwise showing your own understanding of something. (source: vocabulary.com)

Intertextuality:

1. the relationship between texts, especially literary ones. (source: Oxford languages)
2. "Intertextuality refers to those interrelationships among texts that shape a text’s meaning. The recognisable echoes of other texts in a text intensify the experience of the text by adding layers of meaning." (source: English Textual Concepts)
3. Read first paragraph of Wikipedia's explanation.

TASKS FOR TODAY

• Watch Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot
• Read Maya Angelou's "A Brave and Startling Truth"
• Complete Journal. Interpret and make Intertextual Connections!
• Optional Q&A on Existentialism
• READ Into the Wild! Keep the prewrite in mind!

Tuesday, January 19th

Starter 1.19: Unmute or react in the chat!

Can you make any "intertextual" connections between this reading and the other content from last week?  Draw conclusions about common threads of meaning you might see.  

What do you think about Taylor’s claim that “The meaning of life is from within us, it is not bestowed from without, and it far exceeds in both its beauty and permanence any heaven of which men have ever dreamed or yearned for.”

Existentialism Lesson: 

• Existentialism Lecture
• Take Notes!

Announcements/TO-DO

1. I will go to school tomorrow to hand out books one more time (unless weather makes this hard).  I am thinking from 10-12, but if that window doesn't work for you, let me know! Your first due date for Into the Wild will be next Monday, January 25th. Chapters 1-6 (through page 60).

2. JOURNAL 5 due Thursday, along with notes from today's lecture

3. Take learning deeper? Check out the optional assignments in Google Classroom.

• Read Existentialism is a Humanism (Sartre)
• Watch Jim Holt's TED talk

Friday, January 15th

 

Starter 1.15: FOUR CORNERS

• Humans are at the center of the great cosmic mystery.
• Everything happens for a reason.

GROUP DISCUSSION: "Shades" & "Mold of the Earth"

YOUR LIFE ON EARTH JOURNAL #4

Journal on your personal response to one or both of the Prus stories. ("Shades" and/or "Mold of the Earth")

AND/OR

Journal on your thoughts about where humans belong in the great cosmic mystery.

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND TO-DO

• Our first Lit Circle group meeting will be Monday, January 25th. Please make sure you procure the book or access the pdf or audio with enough time to prepare yourself. Review the Lit Circle Guidelines for dates and expectations.
• THIS WEEKEND: Read "The Meaning of Life" by Richard Taylor. Optional to also read "Existentialism is a Humanism" by Jean-Paul Sartre.

Thursday, January 14th

Starter 1.14: 4 Corners! (OR shall we call it Green Thing, Red Thing?)

• Pursuing meaning is more important than pursuing happiness.

• In order to have a better life, we should focus on the "now."

Journal #3

TED talk: There’s more to life than being happy

After watching the TED talk:

• How are you cultivating the 4 pillars of meaning that Smith discusses in her TED Talk? Which of these ideas resonates with you (or not)?
• Choose at least two of the pillars to discuss in your response. (Or 3? Or 4?)
• The 4 pillars: BELONGING, PURPOSE, TRANSCENDENCE, and STORYTELLING.

I will remain on the Meet until the end of the hour if you want to discuss the TED talk further or get clarification about anything!

Read for tomorrow

2 Boleslaw Prus stories: “Shades” and “Mold of the Earth”

(I recommend reading these twice) Interpret the stories!  Annotate your thoughts, questions, and confusions in the margins.  What could the author be suggesting about the #meaningoflife?

*A note about interpreting literature:  There is not ONE right answer that we are looking for when we analyze literature.  There are many theories about how to approach literary criticism, but for now, open yourself up to whatever the lit might be saying to you, rather than trying to find some predetermined, absolute meaning.

Announcements:

• I will be at school again today from 1-3 to hand out books or other materials.
• Please make a plan to procure Into the Wild! Here is a free audiobook version. See deadlines here: Into the Wild Lit Circle.

Tuesday, January 12th

Starter 1.12: (In the chat or unmute yourself)

How do we define happiness? What does it mean to live a happy life? How is that different from a meaningful life?

WRAP JIGSAW DISCUSSION

• SHARED DOC
• Look over the big questions and ideas
• Always an option to freewrite in your journal on any of these questions at any time! They are at the core of the philosophical "problems" we are dealing with in this project.

PHILOSOPHY JOURNAL #2

Read the article about the Stanford research on happiness and meaning.

Do you agree with the Standford researcher's classifications of happiness and meaning? In other words, are they as separate as Aaker makes them out to be?  Can they exist without each other?  Which do you feel is more dominant in guiding your choices and thoughts in your current phase of life?  Explain your thoughts thoroughly and give examples. 

OPTIONAL EXTENSION JOURNAL #2B

Watch the documentary Happy  OR just read this concise graphic summary. Respond in your journal as you will. Think about how some of the factors mentioned might play into your own happiness.

NOTE ABOUT OPTIONAL EXTENSIONS:

HONORS! I expect you to be taking the optional extensions about 75%-100% of the time to achieve your A.

EVERYONE ELSE: As you will!

Who is coming tomorrow for books? Please email me if you want me to print the next few big readings for you as well.

Wednesday 10-1

Thursday 1-3

Monday, January 11th

 

Starter 1.11

(In the chat thread or speak): What are some possible answers to the question: What is the meaning of human life on Earth?

The Meaning of Life (Rachels) JIGSAW

INSTRUCTIONS

Your Life on Earth Journal #1: Happiness and meaning

Watch Alan Watts' "What do you desire?" and freewrite on one or more of the following questions:

• What is the purpose of your existence?
• What gives your life meaning?
• How do you define happiness?

LOGISTICS ANNOUNCEMENTS

• MATERIALS PICK UP: Come pick up Into the Wild, the Honors novel, and/or print copies of significant readings on Wednesday 10-1 or Thursday 1-3.
• PLEASE PROCURE: Green and Red items for 4 CORNERS. Get clever! Green agrees. Red disagrees. Let's try this. Or pick up laminated cards from me when you get your book?

Friday, January 8th

Announcements:

• College Days with Jess on Mondays
• LINK with Janae on Tuesdays
• Zoom on Monday for breakout discussions. Look out for the link before class. Come to class having read "The Meaning of Life" by James Rachels

Agenda

Starter: Share out a lingering question that you have about the siege at the capital.

Mini-seminar! 

1. How did we get here? What are the main causes of this event?
2. What lessons should we be learning from this?
3. What implications might this have for the future of the republic?
4. How do we prevent this from happening again?
5. How might we move forward? What should our elected officials do?

After the discussion: Answer ONE of the above questions in writing.  (ONE solid TEA paragraph)

Optional Continuation @ 1pm! Follow Ashley's link if you are enthralled in the conversation. Multi-grade level discussion!

For Monday: 

Read and annotate "The Meaning of Life" by James Rachels

Be ready with Philosophy Journal

Thursday, January 7th

 I know I said we were changing the subject....

...but I would be derelict in my duties as your US History teacher to ignore the events unfolding in your nation's capital. So officially, your philosophy reading is postponed until Monday. We are going to take the next few days to consume news and process the unprecedented history that is transpiring in your democracy. Thanks in advance for your critical thinking as students of democracy and rhetoric!

Please use this document to record your thinking and prepare for further discussion tomorrow.

Tuesday, January 5th

Starter (in the chat or unmute yourself): Roses/Thorns/Buds

Use this LINK to get to class today.

AGENDA AND ANNOUNCEMENTS:

1. Welcome New Crew!
2. Project Overview
3. Student Feedback Survey
4. Get a journal/sketchbook OR create a Google Doc journal by Thursday.
5. Office Hours? 2-3 today. Please use the new Meet link. Email me by 2pm if you need to meet with me today.
6. Honors Meeting: Thursday, second half of class