April 22 2010

Approximately 2.5 hour class plan

Housekeeping

(Suggested: 10 -15 minutes)

1)      Our group presentations will take place next week (April 29)

• Status reports from the groups: Where are you, what have you accomplished so far?

• We also need to be thinking about our final papers. Let’s talk about our one-page summations and current progress.  ILL status?

Questions? Comments? Concerns?

2)      Opening Activity for the first night on Life of Pi. (Suggested: 10 minutes)

• Let’s just take a few moments to discuss our experience of the text

3)      Let’s begin with a reflective journal entry on the following topic: (Suggested: 10 minutes)

• We’ll begin with a reflection on those portions of the text we found to be the most interesting and/or intriguing in tonight’s reading. What are those portions for you? Why do think they have caught and/or frustrated your attention?

4)      Group Discussion: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

• Share your findings and observations, and then come up with a statement that relates to the following question:

The claim that a story will “make you believe in God,” says as much about you as it says about the story. For example, it assumes you don’t believe in God. If you did, the story would not need to convince you otherwise, right?

Well, okay let’s jump right into this issue. You, right now, sitting here – answer these questions to the best of your ability.

1) How do stories make us believe in things?

2) Can they make us believe in anything, including God?

3) Is there any significant difference between someone who comes to “believe in God” through a story a someone who comes to “believe in God” through some other method?

5)      Class Discussion (Suggested: 10 minutes)

Break

Analysis:

Now that we’ve had our general discussion about the reading, we can move into more specific forms of inquiry. Let’s begin with our analysis of the content:

Group Work: (Suggested: 10-15 Minutes)

Break the reading down into its major characters and events. Next construct a time line for this information. Put it up on the board when you are ready.

Class Discussion of analysis: (Suggested: 10 minutes)

Evaluation:

When we considered The Handmaid’s Tale, we talked a lot about the social implications of the text, and how they might relate to an American experience.

Tonight, we are focusing on a work that is concerned with a boy from India who is on his way to North America and who is shipwrecked somewhere in between. How might we relate this story to any of the core class concepts we have considered this semester: The Garrison Mentality, Anderson”s Nationalism Theory. Atwood’s Survival Theory, Walter Benjamin’s comments on History?  Pick one of these ideas and work with it in your journal for the next ten minutes:

Synthesis:

Tonight I want us to begin drawing some conclusion about what Canadian Literature is, as it has been represented in this class. We will focus on this for the remainder of our time.

Homework — Read Through chapter 90.

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