Monday, February 13

Announcements

• Honors: Let’s meet this Thursday.  If you have not done so, please grab a copy of A Tale for the Time Being. Book Club meeting scheduled for March 2.
• Honors: Turn in The Stranger!!!
• Slight Change….Lit Circle on Thursday 2.16: Let’s finish this thing!  You will not have to do the usual pre-write, but instead just answer the three essential questions on the study of this book:

1. What can we learn from Chris McCandless’ story about the human quest for happiness and meaning? 
2. What does it mean to live deliberately?  What does it mean to be self-reliant?  (Relate to Into the Wild!)
3. How can the path toward meaning be shaped by BOTH the natural world AND by our civilization?

Literature Circle Meeting #3: Start a new document!

• Groups: A little shaken up

The Questions:  Humans and Planet Earth

• How do we characterize the human relationship with Earth and its other species and resources?
• How do you characterize your (ethical) relationship with the Earth and its other species and resources?

Journal 2.13:  How would you answer either or both of these questions at this point?

Environmental Ethics:  the discipline in philosophy that studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and also the value and moral status of, the environment and its nonhuman content…”(From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Watch: The Overview Effect

Rachel Carson “Man and the Stream of Time”

Read and annotate with this question in mind: How does Rachel Carson answer this week’s question?  (How does she characterize the human relationship with Earth and its other species and resources?)

Thursday, February 9th

4th/5th

Welcome, Jess Adams, to college counsel y’all!

2nd/6th

 WORK TIME: Journal 2.9 and Read Into the Wild (plus pre-write for Monday’s Lit Circle)

JOURNAL 2.9: CHRIS AS TRANSCENDENTALIST?

Read Keiran Eagen’s intertextual email exchange with Nick Jans

*Note: Nick Jans is the author in Chapter 8 (p.71-72) who criticized Chris and Krakauer’s coverage of him.

Reader Response: Do you agree with Keiran or with Nick Jans?  Was Chris McCandless less competent than a boy scout?  Or was he on a transcendental path that is worthy of our study?


HONORS: A Tale for the Time Being

Wednesday, February 8

Happy Wednesday, my students!  Work hard and be your best selves!  Do the following today:

1. Transcendentalist Principles and Response to Walden

You can confer on parts of this, but everyone should do their own work.  Turn it in to basket when you are finished.

2. Read Into the Wild and work on pre-write for Monday's literature circle.  (Guidelines)

3. Catch up on starters and journals if you have missed any.  (Table of Contents)

4. Optional:  Write philosophical poetry AND/OR do an art piece to process your thoughts.

Tuesday, February 7

SLC Announcement: SLC’s (March 1) will only be required if you have a C- or lower in any class and do not yet have an internship lined up.

Starter 2.7: Write a haiku that attempts to capture one thought snapshot of your personal relationship with nature or another philosophical perspective.

(5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables)

Maybe next lifetime

I could be a butterfly

Who glides through this fog

Discuss: What are our takeaways from the forest bathing article and the lit circle questions? What are humans getting out of their time in nature?  How might our culture impact our personal relationships with nature?  How does this play out with Chris?

Lesson:  Transcendentalism

Reading Assignment: Excerpts from Walden

JOURNAL 2.7 Thoughts on Transcendentalism:  
How does transcendentalism speak to you personally?  Which pieces resonate and which do you reject?  Why?  Choose at least one quote from the Thoreau reading OR the Powerpoint lesson and react to it in the context of your response.

Monday, February 6

Starter 2.6:  What might human beings find in the wild that they do not find in civilization?  (Relate your answer to the assigned chapters and/or to your own personal outdoor experiences.)

Into the Wild Literature circle meeting #2

Start a fresh document:  Make a copy of the protocol, share with all group members and Jessica.

GROUPS

For next Monday: pp.103-171 (Ch. 11-16)

The Human Connection to Nature: Spiritual or Scientific?

1. Watch this video

2. Read "Take Two Hours of Pine Forest and Call me in the Morning"

(Printable version, hard copies in my room)

3. Journal 2.6

React to the content of the article and relate it to the bigger questions of our project and/or your own personal experience and/or philosophies.  What connections might you see between the scientific worldview and spiritual belief systems.

-OR-

Tell a story about an experience that you had in nature that had healing powers.

Friday, February 3

Starter 2.3: What is the difference between religion and spirituality?

In pairs:  Come up with a short list of phrases, words, sentences, quotes that you associate with each word:  RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• Chalk talk

Read Vonnegut, "Yes, We Have no Nirvanas"
Meet Maharishi:)

JOURNAL 2.3:  "Yes, We Have no Nirvanas"

a. What do you think of the idea of Transcendental Meditation?

b. What is Kurt Vonnegut's take on it?  Make an interpretive claim.

WORK TIME/HOMEWORK:

Lit circle on Monday!  Read and do prewrite.

Thursday, February 2

Starter 2.2: Belief Quiz  

What were the results?  Did the quiz tell you what you already knew?  Did it surprise you at all?

5th hour: 10th grade exhibition!  Dooley’s room for 10-15 minutes.  Starting the film at 1:15.

Historical Context of the Religion/Science Struggle:  

BBC Documentary:  The End of God?  A Horizon Guide to Science and Religion

Take notes on the film.  Note major events in the historical ideological struggle between religion and science.  Jot down questions.  Think about where are now in this struggle as a species and where you are as an individual.

Journal 2.2:  Synthesize the content of the  film.  What did you find striking, interesting, disturbing, questionable?  What do you think about the bigger question the film is asking?