Homework

F Block Grade 12 Honors
Accept Blog Invitation
Read and Annotate Plato's Allegory of the Cave

G Block - Grade 11 Honors English
For tomorrow's class be prepared to share your connection (gossamer thread) with your group members.
Group Work: The Awakening Questions
In a well developed paragraph, answer the question for the group you were assigned.

A.  Why did Edna marry Leonce?  Did she ever love him?  Did she ever love anyone else before Leonce? 

B.  Identify a specific moment in which Chopin uses bird imagery to develop a theme in the novella.  Explain how the imagery ehances the theme.

C.  Identify a specific moment in which Chopin uses sea imagery to develop a theme in the novel.
Explaine how the imagery enhances the theme.

D.  What role does music have in the story?  Identify a specific moment in which music plays a great role in the story.  What is the effect of the music (singing)?  Does it develop a conflict?  Help to shape a character?  Help to develop a theme?

E.  Discuss the role of flashbacks in the story.   How do they function?  For what purpose does Chopin use flashbacks?  Do they shape Edna's character?  In what fashion?  Identify one specific moment in which Edna has a flashback and discuss its significance.

A Block - College Prep English
For tomorrow's class be prepared to share your connection (gossamer thread) with your group members.
Group Work: Into the Wild Questions
In a well developed paragraph, answer the question for the group you were assigned.
A.  Think about the circumstances of Chris's death in Alaska. How did we learn about it, and what did you as a reader feel at that point in the story? Why does Krakauer decide to go to the location of Chris's death? Was Chris McCandless’ death a “foolish, pointless, death” (71)? Did he lack “the requisite humility” to go into the wild (72)?

B.   Each chapter opens with 1-2 epigraphs (quotations/ excerpts from other sources, interviews, or Chris's writings). What do these epigraphs do to focus our reading? Identify one of these quotations and discuss how it was used to introduce the chapter and prepare the reader to focus for reading the chapter.

C.  What are the different versions of family in the story? Discuss both Chris's biological family and the families he creates for himself along the road.  Use specific details from the text to support your opinion.

D.  “Alaska has long been a magnet for dreamers and misfits, people who think the unsullied enormity of the last frontier will patch all of the holes in their lives” (4). What are the holes people are trying to fill? Why do we believe the frontier will save us?  

“(Chris) soon discovered…what Muir and Thoreau already knew: an extended stay in the wilderness inevitably directs one’s attention outward as much as inward, and it is impossible to live off the land without developing both a subtle understanding of, and a strong emotional bond with, that land and all it holds” (183). What do you think Krakauer meant by this statement?

E.  In a letter to Ronald Franz, McCandless wrote, “nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure” (56). Was Chris right? Why or why not? 

  In reference to Chris’s mother, Billie, learning about Chris’s death, Krakauer wrote, “such bereavement, witnessed at close range, makes even the most eloquent apologia for high-risk activities ring fatuous and hollow” (132). However, Krakauer also wrote, that to him, climbing was one of the only things that really mattered when he was young. What draws people to high risk activities? Is it fair to the loved one of the individuals who participate in high-risk activities? 

C Block - Grade 11 Honors
Accept Blog Invitation
Bring Copy of The Awakening to class on Friday