Responding to "Teacher Fired over Trayvon Martin Fundraiser"

Responding to "Teacher Fired over Trayvon Martin Fundraiser"

I've written the prompt below in the form of an SAT English essay question.

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below. 

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"There is a reason Michigan's English Language Proficiency Standards call for students to 'engage in challenging and purposeful learning that blends their experiences with content knowledge and real-world applications.' Students learn better this way. Real life is not clean. It is not clear cut. It is not safe. But it is the world our students live in and they will be required to navigate it as adults. Teachers must bring this outside world into the classroom."

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Assignment: Should teachers bring the outside world into the classroom? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

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For a general overview of the SAT essay click here.

For sample SAT essay prompts go here.

Find example essays and scoring information here.

Over Vacation

Nothing will be due on the Monday we return but there are two assignments you could work on.

1. Work on the third set of AP Language multiple choice questions. (The one that begins "With Imagination in the popular sense...") This will be due on Tuesday, April 24.

2. Work on the assignment pasted below. It will be due on Monday, April 30.

Directions:

Over the next two weeks you will read a narrative (options are listed below*) in which depictions of Gloucester -- or parts of Gloucester -- play a significant role.

While you read you will maintain a double-entry journal, which will be collected on Monday, April 30.

Read the directions carefully.

On the left side of your journal you will record quotations from throughout the book -- at least ten.

Select quotations in which some aspect of Gloucester -- people in or from Gloucester, places in Gloucester, the history of Gloucester, etc. -- is depicted or in which a direct statement about Gloucester is offered. Choose passages that seem significant in presenting a particular perspective on Gloucester and set of perceptions about Gloucester. (Note: If your book has sections that do not deal with Gloucester you may select up to five quotations that are not directly related to Gloucester people, places, history, etc. These quotations should still be significant in some way to the book as a whole.) Also, make sure you choose passages from the beginning, middle, and end of the book. You will write down each quotation and the page on which you found it.

On the right side of your journal you will respond to the quotation.

Make inferences. What does the depiction of Gloucester suggest? How is it significant? What does it seem to mean?

Respond to how the way the book is written contributes to its meaning, especially its depiction of Gloucester. Think about narrative voice, characterization, imagery, selection of detail, conflict, theme, etc. Think about the connection between the quotation and the book as a whole.

Respond personally. Do you agree or disagree with the depiction? Are you skeptical? Are you surprised? Do you have a personal or family connection to the way Gloucester is depicted in the quotation? (Show me that you are reading with your head and your heart.)

Ask and suggest answers to questions of your own.

To help generate responses remember the essential questions:
How do writers depict Gloucester? How are the differing depictions significant? What's at stake in differing projections of the polis? (How is Gloucester used by the writer? What does the writer suggest about Gloucester? Does Gloucester seem to represent something -- an ideal, an alternative, a warning, a trap, a set of values -- in the book? Does Gloucester’s identity seem static (staying the same) or fluid (always changing)?

* Some Gloucester-Related Narratives
All of these works can be found at Sawyer Free Library. Many can be found in the GHS library.

FICTION

Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling

Out of Gloucester by James B. Connolly

The Last Days of Dogtown by Anita Diamant (three copies in the GHS library)

Broken Trip by Peter Anastas

Decline of Fishes by Peter Anastas (two copies in the library)

Prologos, Gloucesterbook, Gloucestertide, or Gloucestermas by Jonathan Bayliss

The Siege of Salt Cove by Anthony Weller (in library)

NONFICTION

The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger (four copies in the library)

Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town by Elyssa East

The Last Fish Tale by Mark Kurlansky (seven copies in the library)

The Finest Kind: the Fishermen of Gloucester by Kim Bartlett (copies in the library)

Cape Ann, Cape America by Herbert Kenny (copies in the library)

Hammers on Stone (quarrying) and A Village at Lane's Cove by Barbara Erkkila

Voices  (an ethnographic study of Fiesta in the 1970s) by Richard M. Swiderski

When Gloucester Was Gloucester (a series of oral histories about Gloucester in the mid

and early twentieth century) edited by Peter Anastas and Peter Parsons

The Hungry Ocean by Linda Greenlaw (copies in the library)

Gone Boy by Gregory Gibson (one copy in the library)

At the Cut by Peter Anastas

The Lone Voyager (about Howard Blackburn) by Joseph Garland (twenty-four copies in

the library)

The Fish and the Falcon (about Gloucester's involvement in the War (formerly called

Guns Off Gloucester) by Joseph Garland (two copies in the library)

History of Gloucester by John Babson (copies in the library)

History of the Town and City of Gloucester, Cape Ann, Massachusetts by James Robert

Pringle (copies in the library)

DRAMA

New England Blue: 6 Plays of Working-Class Life by Israel Horowitz (in GHS library)

There are other books in which depictions of Gloucester plays a significant role. If you’d like to read something not on this list ask me or send me an email. I’ll let you know if the book is appropriate for the assignment.

Postscript

Here a couple collections of poetry you could read to fulfill the assignment’s expectations.

POETRY

The Maximus Poems by Charles Olson (in GHS library)

Know Fish by Vincent Ferrini (in GHS library)

Responding to "Politics and the English Language" & an excerpt from *Amusing Ourselves to Death*

Respond to George Orwell's essay. When developing your response consider the questions below. Use specific evidence from the text to support your position. Make sure your response is substantial.

Understanding
What's your understanding of George Orwell's argument?

Analysis
How does he make the argument? (Analyze his rhetorical strategies.)

Evaluation
What do you think about his argument? Is it well-made? Is he right? Are there flaws to the argument? Does he overlook anything? What modifications would you make? Is the argument still relevant?

Here's a link to a copy of the essay if you need one.

Post your comments by class time Monday, April 9

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Next week we'll continue our study of Neil Postman's use of Brave New World and 1984 in Amusing Ourselves to Death. You'll write a blog response to the questions: How does Neil Postman use the two dystopian novels to make his argument? Is Postman right?

Here is some material to familiarize yourself with.

1. excerpt from Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman

We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another—slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies meant undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account .man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.'' In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

[We also read this in class last Monday.]

2. "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Stuart McMillen (comic)
After you follow the link click on the long image on the left to make it bigger.

http://digg.com/newsbar/topnews/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death_COMIC


3. "1984" Macintosh Apple Advertisement

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhsWzJo2sN4

4. Terms from George Orwell's 1984 that might help you better understand Postman's argument.

http://www.gradesaver.com/1984/study-guide/glossary-of-terms/

5. Huxley's letter to Orwell

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/1984-v-brave-new-world.html

[You also received a copy of this in class.]