Making Connections (Summative Jornal)

Last Friday our lit circle spent way too long discussing a weak connection between our book, "Lord of the Flies", and the television series "Lost". We've explored that before, but only this time we realized how shallow our comparison would be due to the fact that none of us actually watched more than a few random episodes of the show, hence we could never be thorough enough when trying to explain specific similarities. Never the less we commented at least about the presence of the beast in both the book and the series. While in the book you end up with the conclusion that the beast was pure fear and the evil inside the children's hearts, which was there already just waiting for the stress of the unknown and the despair to trigger it as they start to notice that they lost everything that represented safety for them: "Grown-ups know things (...) They ain't afraid of the dark. They'd meet and have tea and discuss. Then things 'ud be all right-" p. 101; in the series "lost" the approach is much more supernatural and "real" (to the characters), the beast is not a constant doubt, it is a fact. You can see it in the form of a thick black smoke that somehow is able to kill people, and as they say in 'Lord of the Flies' grown-ups tend to be more reasonable and would not be so easily scared without any evidence that their fears are justified, so I guess it was important to have this little change to make what is hunting them concrete enough so they can feel afraid of it. In a smaller note, both stories start with a plane crash with several survivors into an island, which is highly unlikely, since this kind of accident is one of most lethal and having one single person walking out intact would be already too lucky. I could also compare this sense of longing for the adults as a form of protection and even a reassuring presence just for the fact you know they are wiser and have more experience with the book I read a couple of days ago: "Coraline". In this last book Coraline is bored with her life and she is tired of her busy parents never having time for her, even though they work at home. She finds a whole new world behind a door in her own house, where 'another mother' awaits for her. This world is much more interesting and all adults seem to give Coraline their undivided attention all the time, there's only a little unsettling detail, behind that door people have big black buttons instead of eyes. Soon Coraline discovers that she made a terrible mistake not noticing earlier that everything was just too good to be true. Both books are fictional, but Coraline tends to go further in the 'fantastic fiction', while Lord of the Flies is pretty much 'something more likely to happen' in a way because at least it's not in a parallel world. My point with all of this is that although in the specific situation the kids find themselves when stranded in the island, they seem to believe that adult world is safer, that's not always the truth. There are as many degenerated 'Jacks' that are grown-ups as there are younger ones. So when Piggy constantly talks about his "auntie" which is suppose to be the adult opinion about something, it can be just as flawed as any other opinion, of course most of the times it represents the sensible side of adulthood instead of the dark side, since the kids are pretty deep in darkness themselves: "My auntie told me not to run (...) on account of my asthma.". Unfortunately in the end Piggy's sensible voice was forever silenced by a boulder rolled by Roger on purpose, but for the other kids salvation did come in the form of an adult, a naval officer, to be more specific: "We'll take you off. How many of you are there?".Finally, Coraline wasn't so lucky, with her real parents locked away and betrayed by all adults in the 'other world' she could only rely on her own bravery and intelligence to escape, but that's a whole different story, so my comparison ends here.

Explaining Poem: The Sound of the Conch

I'll start from the most obvious (and therefore boring) and try to go deeper. The image in the end, is basically the cover of the book, which shows the head of a pig in a stick. I chose this particular image because it represents the violence and darkness that I wanted my poem to show, and also because after all the pig's head IS the "Lord of the Flies". The title refers to the shell used in the book by Ralph to summon the other kids for meetings, and thus it represents society and order, as oppose to the primitive state that some kids embraced later on, it is as I said in the poem "The sound of reason". To set the mood of the book I started my poem with the kids getting lost in the island, specifically at night (navy-blue sky), because it's usually during that period that the book goes deeper in the darkness of the human soul. I included the "scar" that the plane crash creates in the forest to show that the island was never an evil place on its own, it needed the darkness inside each individual to turn into an ugly and violent place. "Kill all innocence" refers to Simon's death, because from that moment on things went downhill and you couldn't predict what the kids would do next. The shorter verses that I repeated several times with small adaptations were meant to give some pace to the poem, like the tribal songs that Jack always sings, and they evolved following the plot of the book, showing at the end a Symbol to Piggy's death, the last one before they are rescued. I also included the "masks" that Jack and his choir use to cover their faces as they do the most terrible things shamelessly and the "stick sharpened at both ends" that impales the pig's head and later on is used to show that Jack intends to give Ralph the same treatment. All in all I think I did a good job getting the mood of the book into something much shorter, I'm very proud of how I could really feel in my poem the darkness, the doubt and the violence when people turn against each other with no better reason than envy and pride.

Making Connections

Last Friday our lit circle spent way too long discussing a weak connection between our book, "Lord of the Flies", and the television series "Lost". We've explored that before, but only this time we realized how shallow our comparison would be due to the fact that none of us actually watched more than a few random episodes of the show, hence we could never be thorough enough when trying to explain specific similarities. Never the less we commented at least about the presence of the beast in both the book and the series. While in the book you end up with the conclusion that the beast was pure fear and the evil inside the children's hearts, which was there already just waiting for the stress of the unknown and the despair to trigger it as they start to notice that they lost everything that represented safety for them: "Grown-ups know things (...) They ain't afraid of the dark. They'd meet and have tea and discuss. Then things 'ud be all right-" p. 101; in the series "lost" the approach is much more supernatural and "real" (to the characters), the beast is not a constant doubt, it is a fact. You can see it in the form of a thick black smoke that somehow is able to kill people, and as they say in 'Lord of the Flies' grown-ups tend to be more reasonable and would not be so easily scared without any evidence that their fears are justified, so I guess it was important to have this little change to make what is hunting them concrete enough so they can feel afraid of it. In a smaller note, both stories start with a plane crash with several survivors into an island, which is highly unlikely, since this kind of accident is one of most lethal and having one single person walking out intact would be already too lucky. In conclusion I think that now that most of the group has finished the whole book we can finally go to the most interesting connections that can be found near the end, and we'll try to do that in the next opportunity we have to share our thoughts in class.

The Mind Behind The Mind Map

In order to start my mind map I had to first brain storm in a separate piece of paper, and write down all the words I could relate to darkness. In my second step I started to look for words that had stronger connections than the others, and for terms that were more general and essential to make direct paths between them and my main topic: Darkness. In the end I decided that my key words would be enclosed in boxes, and that for the connections I would use five different types of arrows, to represent each layer as I went deeper and deeper into the concept, they were: 1) Gray Blurred Arrow; 2) Blue Blurred Arrow; 3) Black Wavy Arrow; 4) Dashed Arrow; 5) Blue Open Arrow. Also my quotes from the book were usually used as examples for a final layer inside a determined part of the map.

Response

You have good insight about the biguns and the litttlusns and the literal level and the mental level. I am glad that you were enjoyuing your group. Now in your writing can you also bring in quotes to back up what you are saying to support your points and you also want to try adn make connections to help develop and add insight. You are on teh right path.

Mind-maping Lord of the Flies (Summative Choice)

On the last class of this past week we had a lesson based on the concept of creating mind maps: a visual aid to organize your idea. The class was planned in a way that all the groups had the chance to contribute with what they knew about the theme. One of the groups went a little further and their members were asked to complete the gaps that were left, including one example of a well done mind map by Jenessa, who showed us how the use of different colors and shapes can go a long way on getting your attention to what's important and keep you focused on the main idea. After our usual 15 minutes for silent reading the discussion in our 'Lit Circle' tried to follow the organization of a mind map: we decided that the topics were Darkness & Evil and kept going deeper in them and how they relate to the beast on the island of Lord of the Flies. We ended up deciding that the night period had a lot to do with the kids fears, as in the dark it's hard to tell what is real and what is imagination. We also came up with the conclusion that although the "littluns" started the stories about the beast, the "biguns" had fears of their own, the main difference is that out of pride and shame they kept it to themselves ("But that's littlun's talk. We'll get that straight. So the last part, the bit we can all talk about, is kind of deciding on the fear." - P. 88), while the "littluns" weren't old enough to understand the deceiving game that was going on in the fight for power and therefore could speak sincerely of what bothered them: "He wants to know what you're going to do about the snake-thing" - P. 34. In our quest to understand how the beast might actually be the darkness in all of us ("You knew, didn't you? I'm part of you? Close, close, close! I'm the reason why it's no go? Why things are what they are?" said by the Lord of the Flies on p. 158) , we started having fun with our discussion, but we were interrupted and told that we were "having too much fun" with our assignment and that kind of killed the whole moment, I hope that won't happen in the future, because I believe that our conversation was much richer when every member of the group was actually having a good time and willing to give their opinions and speak without being recriminated. If our discussions can ever go back to being as lively as they were seconds before this unfortunate event I think we will all get new ideas to reflect on and add to our own opinions of the book so far. Furthermore we can already see connections between this book and the television series 'Lost', where a group of people also survived a plane crash in a desert island, where soon enough the fear of an unknown beast and the rivalry between two leaders (one of which is called Jack in the series) starts to be motive for aggression and division inside the group. Although this two creations are material for interesting comparisons, the most important comparison is between the book and the darkness in ourselves. Because who among us can answer without a doubt that we would never hurt someone or do immoral things if our own lives or the ones that we love were at stake? None; at least not without being big fat hypocrites.

response

You have come to truly understand teh difference of denotation adn connotation. Now how do you think this is going to help you understand your text as you work through your novel. Have you encountered blood in you novel so far? what for m was it in? try and bring in more examples to go deeper into the layers of the novel as you look into the layers of the word and why the author chose to use that word.

Also as you write your response tell me about you and your group and yoru participation in it. I am looking to see how involved you are and your growth as well. Are you contributing to the discussion, how so etc. Overall a good explanation of your coming to terms aboout the terms.

Denotation & Connotation

This past week we spent some time working in our Lit Circles, reading our books and finding connections with evil and darkness, which is what we've been working with for a couple of months now. That, however, was not all we've learned. We have also worked with denotation and connotation, seeing not only the meanings of these words but also comparing examples and coming to our own conclusions. In order to remember what denotation means, you can observe that it starts with a "d", same letter that starts the word dictionary. So the denotation of a word is its actual meaning, the description we could find for the word in an official dictionary. The connotation leaves part of the reason behind and is the meaning for the word that you can find in between the lines, it's what the word brings to us when we read it in a context, based in our culture and emotions. One example could be the word "Blood". Its denotation is: "the red liquid that is sent around the body by the heart, and carries oxygen and important substances to organs and tissue, and removes waste products" (By Cambridge Dictionary: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/blood_1). But when we look at this same word, it may also bring us a sense of danger, pain, and violence that is not contained in the "official" description, but we were taught to know because of our experiences and reflections.

please add

HI,
Could you please add to your write up what you presented in class. You needed to include that piece as well.
thanks,
Mrs. C

Response

How true that we do need a balance. Unfortunatley that is what are society since the beginning of time has created the need for. That is all we know. We have never known a society that is all pure. It is something sometimes that one would like as an ideal do you not think.
You have raised many good points in your reflection. Can you think of any specific examples to further develop your writing next time?

Why is there darkness in humanity?

If you really think about this question you will see that it is open to many interpretations, we could simply say that it doesn't have a reason to exist, it just does and it's impossible to imagine humanity without it, but that would be way to easy and not such a satisfactory answer. So we can go deeper in the many concepts that can be represented by the word darkness and come up with something a little more creative. Darkness can be found in humanity to make everything that is good, actually feel good. If life was a series of endless happy events, people would never appreciate when something great happened, because they just wouldn't have anything else to compare the feeling with, making it less intense and not as interesting. So you could say that humanity needs a balance, in order for us to understand the state of happiness there must be something that we can experience and see as the complete opposite of it, in order for us to understand what we want, we need to understand the alternatives and decide that we don't want them. To sum up, darkness is present in humanity, because not only the positive things, but also the negative are necessary for us to become who we are and feel alive.

Macbeth on Wordle

Oral Presentation Reflection

1) Macbeth is a very interesting play, because it introduces us to characters with strong personalities and opinions, and also shows several different values that are important in human relations (or the lack of those values). "How far is one willing to "go" to get what they desire most?" If someone could answer this question perfectly, this person is Lady Macbeth. She might be, in many aspects, a terrible person, but she's definitely a great character. She is basically willing to do whatever it takes to be queen, from lying to the king himself to make him feel welcome at her castle: "Your servants ever//Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt,//To make their audit at your highness' pleasure,//Still to return your own." saying that they are all there to serve him, to convincing Macbeth, at that same night to kill Duncan, using all her skills to manipulate her own husband: "I have given suck, and know//How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me://I would, while it was smiling in my face,//Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,//And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn//As you have to this." telling him that she would never let someone down even if she had promised to do something as terrible as killing a baby. "How do we deal with conflicting elements within our personalities?". Macbeth had a really hard decision to make, one that made him question all his values and think about wrong and right. He is sure that his destiny is to be king, because he blindingly believes in the witches prophecies and in the existence of fate; but on the other hand he prizes his honor and have learned to love and respect King Duncan, who he truly considers a good king. Such a heavy decision affects Macbeth deeply, he becomes very unquiet and confuse: "We will proceed no further in this business://He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought//Golden opinions from all sorts of people,//Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,//No cast aside so soon." Says Macbeth, giving up on the assassination plan just moments before changing his mind for: "I am settled, and bend up//Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.//Away, and mock the time with fairest show://False face must hide what the false heart doth know.". This very contrasting opinions show that trying to make a decision that goes against your beliefs can make you very unstable and therefore more likely to be manipulated by someone else, in this case Lady Macbeth, who is exceptionally talented at playing with people's minds. I think this two characteristics are very important, thus they can be seen during almost the whole play. Lady Macbeth's "determination" and Macbeth's conflicting nature are among many other values that are explored by Shakespeare and help to shape the way the play goes on, but they are specially important to understand this two main characters, their actions and reactions throughout the story.

2) What did you learn about working in groups? Explain.
It can be harder than working on your own because you have different opinions to deal with, and that makes some steps longer than they would be if made individually. But it can also be helpful to have support and someone to talk to about your ideas, because sometimes other people may add a lot to your initial thought.

3) Overall, something important that I have learned is... Because.
It is extremely important to be in the right group, and that makes a lot of difference in the final product. Having someone that you can trust that will do their share of the work just makes you feel more relaxed and that sometimes even lead to fun breaks and jokes during the time you are working on the assignment, making it easier to feel good about what you are doing instead of wishing you were somewhere else, and it's really noticeable in the presentations who enjoyed working on their project and who didn't.

4) Something that I noticed that I need to work on for next time is... Because.
I need to make it clear that I'm not only available but also that I actually want to help, because some members of our group (including myself) are really perfectionist and tend to try to do as much as they can by themselves so that it can be exactly the way they imagined it which may sometimes result in a great work, but not always in a fair division of the tasks.

5) Overall something that I am proud of is... Because.
I'm really proud of how we turned something that could have been boring (we had to work during the weekend) in something that was fun and not so serious, but at the same time we dedicated enough time and effort to make it the best it could be. That way we felt like the task was easier and at the same time I believe we will get a good mark for our video.

6) If you were to divide a pie with the % work each group member contributed, how would you divide up your pie, including yourself.
I would have to say that Katie ended up with most of the work (the project was in her computer) so I would give her 35%, Yuki have helped a lot making the puppets, so 25%, Maddy and I have basically had the same amount of work, therefore 20% for each one of us.

Macbeth - Scenes 1.6 & 1.7

My understanding of the scenes so far and why we have planned to use the EQ's that we have chosen.

The first scene we are presenting is scene 6 in act one, it's a very short scene, but it's also very important to the play because it shows that Lady Macbeth is completely capable of lying to the king without any remorse. When they meet in the castle where she lives with Macbeth, she is very graceful and respectful, exactly what the king would expect from his hostess, but in her mind the plan to kill him is very clear and welcoming him so nicely is just the first step to it. For this act we choose the EQ: "What is integrity?" because Lady Macbeth's lack of it is just absurd.
Our second is scene 7 still in act 1 and it's by itself a pivotal moment in the story, is in that scene that Macbeth is so confused that he has to leave a banquet in honour of the king to take some air and think of what he's about to do. After a moment thinking about Duncan, how he is a great king and trusts Macbeth, he decides not to proceed with the plan, and the story would have been completely different if Lady Macbeth hadn't interrupted him. She comes to check on him and as soon as she understands that he is getting cold feet, she accuses him of cowardice and unmanliness, with some strong arguments she finally convince him of stick with the plan. Because of Macbeth's confusion and how nervous he is, plus the fact that "his" final decision is not even his decision at all, we selected the EQ: "How do we deal with conflicting elements within our personalities".

comment to conflicting...

You have many good examples on how M deals with confilicting emotions with regards to the situation. I would like to see you further develop these points by bringing in actual quotes from the play to support what you are saying. I like the insight you have and the depth of understanding you as you write about the situation.

Response to Macbeth - First Act

How do we deal with conflicting elements within our personality?

Every individual has a single personality, some have a very strong well defined one and others have a more malleable kind that can sometimes be adjusted to fit the situation or other people around, this malleability can be good or bad. Its good when the person uses it to fit in and be able to help someone or get something out of it, but it can be dangerous when the person's lack of personality let this person susceptible to being controlled by others. Particularly in Macbeth, he had a really hard decision to make, he could kill the king to become the next one or he could choose not to have blood in his hands. In the beginning of the play I think Macbeth was a pretty loyal and honourable man, so I believe that the person who was corrupting his mind was his wife Lady Macbeth, who was really ambitious and wanted power for her husband and herself. Even though Macbeth was controlled by his wife I don’t think this means his personality was not strong or that he wasn’t noble, the problem here is that he really loved his wife and thus tried to do what she desired the most. In the end this conflict inside him was so big, so strong that it led him to madness, but before that we could notice that he couldn’t sleep anymore or concentrate in anything. That shows how dangerous playing with other people’s feelings and values can be.

About Loyalty

-Definition: firm and not changing in your friendship with or support for a person or an organization, or in your belief in your principles.

-Reasons for the existence of the term: we needed a word to express a noble feeling that we have towards our friends and things that we love or find important.

-Ways to get it: being a good friend and treating others well, having a lot of power, having a lot in common with someone. You can actually buy it, but when acquired like that it is much more fragile and fake.

-Ways to maintain it: you can maintain it being loyal yourself and always being in contact with people who you would like to keep a strong bond.

-Ways one could use it: loyalty can be used to create groups to make it easier to achieve common goals, like in a team, or an organization.

-Ways one could lose it: loyalty is hard to get, but very easy to lose. If you don't demonstrate interest in the relationship and don't show that you are just as loyal as the other person you are possibly going to get more distance between you two.

-How it affects people: it feels great to find that someone is really loyal to you because you know that you can always trust that person, so we always seek loyalty. It's also good to be loyal to someone, feel that a person needs you, feel helpful.

-Anything else you can think of: there are cases of unconditional loyalty, specially with pets.

-How your term is connected with another: as I have mentioned it, power can bring you the loyalty from a lot of people very easily, but then again this kind of loyalty is much more fragile than the one that is mutual and between friends.

Response to "The Charmer"

How does what I know about the world shape the way we view ourselves?

The Charmer begins introducing us to two young siblings Winnifred and Zachary, and at this time our little main character knew so little about life that she could not understand how manipulative her brother was. Later on everyone starts to slowly notice who Zack really was and Winnifred feels like she has been her brother's slave without knowing it, which shows us how her knowledge changed her point of view about someone she used to worship. After a tragedy that happens in the family it becomes evident that the boy is too spoiled and selfish and he has to leave the house and follow his own way. Years after all of that our leading character has already had children of her own and one of them starts to show some resemblance to how Zack used to behave to get whatever he wanted, but now, knowing exactly how terrible can the consequences be for not imposing some limits to your kids Winnifred can take a stand and handle the sitution better than her mother did back then. Her mother could not deal with what she had lost and started getting senile earlier than it would be consider normal and kept saying "Too late, too late" in the end when our main character is about to make a mistake she changes her mind because now she knows better after all she witnessed " I looked at her, listened to her, and longed to hold her in my arms and whisper consolation. But somewhere in the back of my head, I could hear a voice shouting, 'Too late, too late!' ".

Response to "Just Lather, That's All"

How do our personal experiences shape our views of others? Ourselves?

In this specific short story we had a lot of elements to answer this question, the barber for instance have witnessed what the man that came to his shop did to his allies, he have watched they being killed and mutilated therefore he could not have any simpathy for that man, on the other hand his job showed him that he should always be professional no matter what and never discriminate his clients. Deep down he also knew he was not a killer. The man that came to his shop also have had some important experiences and learnt to consider the rebels as being the villains in that situation, so he probably didn't think that what he was doing was wrong at all, but all his experience in chasing and killing people made him brave enough to go and face the barber that he knew from what he had heard around the town, could potentially kill him.

Sharlene identity + connection.

Bernice Friesen created an identity to her character Sharlene by showing us her dream of running away to Europe and being independent for a while before going to University, also by showing us her problems with her father that would never allow her to do that sort of travel. But the best way of making a strong identity for Sharlene was by her relationship and actions towards her brother, because even though as a little sister she likes to annoy him, in the very end she shows that she would support him no matter what, which is a very nice attitude that shows her values. I could really connect to her in a very interesting way because of her dream of going to a different country and living new experiences before start building an actual career because that is exactly what I am doing here in Canada and thus I could truly understand why she felt like that.