Discussion 7 - The Great 1984 Article Hunt

The purpose of this week's discussion is twofold.
Firstly, you'll begin to start thinking about the world you live in, and the world Winston lives in. Secondly, you'll learn how to focus a search by using specific keywords, or combinations of keywords. Consider using combinations of words rather than asking a question or typing a sentence.

Search the Internet and find a legitimate newspaper, magazine, or scholarly article that deals with the reality (social or political) portrayed in 1984. Consider articles which deal with comparing aspects of our world with that of Orwell's dystopia.

Once you've found an article, write a summary or response to the article. Your summary must follow the criteria set out for our class's blog.

Copy and paste the original article after your summary / response. Be sure to include the URL underneath your copy of the article.

NO DUPLICATED ARTICLES. ONE ARTICLE PER STUDENT.

Reserve your article by posting a comment to this thread, and state the URL, article title and author.

Search Engines of noticeable consideration:

Google - http://www.google.ca/
Google News - http://news.google.ca/
Google Scholar - http://scholar.google.ca/

Search Engine tips:

Read this amazing explanation http://www.google.ca/intl/en/help/basics.html#keywords
Use keywords
Use combinations of keywords
Do not type sentences or questions
Use quotations to force a word order
Use the + sign to force a connection
USE THE ADVANCED GOOGLE SEARCH

Keywords (I didn't think that I needed to do this, but given the responces ...)
1984
George Orwell
Orwellian

Discussion 6 - The Motive for Metaphor

We've discussed Frye's first essay / lecture, "The Motive for Metaphor", in class. Give a poetic example of how, "the motive for metaphor, according to Wallace Stevens, is a desire to associate, and finally to identify, the human mind with what goes on outside of it" (Frye).

For the poetic source, please use a song you enjoy.

• Include your poem/song in your response.
• Try to place your poem/song after your introduction paragraph.
• Explain your choice.
• Cite your poem/song, using a MLA listing.

Discussion 5 - Your Imagination

Who is ultimately responsible for your mind?

This weeks assignment is two-fold, it tackles both persuasive writing, and it starts you thinking about the larger assignment for The Educated Imagination.

Write an open letter to the Ministry of Education arguing persuasively that mythology should become part of the Secondary School English Curriculum.

Use both Frye's The Educated Imagination and the mythology package that I gave you as starting points. Secondary sources are most welcome, but must be cited.

Use at least three rhetorical devices to persuade your reader. There are three pages of rhetorical devices on the website.

Discussion 4 Bonus - Mom and Dad, meet Hamlet

Rent or borrow a copy of Hamlet. Consider a video rental store, a public library, a friend, or a family member as a borrowing source.

I think you'll have greater success finding a copy of,

Hamlet - Mel Gibson
Hamlet - Kenneth Branagh
Hamlet - Ethan Hawk
Hamlet - Laurence Olivier

If you find another version, I would like to know about it before you proceed.

Watch it ONCE, with your parents / guardian (yes, I mean together in the same room, at the same time). Answer these questions:

• What did you think of the adaptation?
• What did your parent / guardian think of the film?
• What was your parent's / guardian's reaction to the character, Hamlet?
• Is their reaction to Hamlet as portrayed in the film similar to your understanding of Hamlet from the actual play?

Explain and prove your findings using quotes from the participants.

Discussion 4 - Insight via Soliloquy

Choose any two soliloquies spoken by Hamlet in Hamlet.

Discuss how the two soliloquies give an insight to mental / emotional state of the character at two points in the play.

Discussion 3 - Writing

Consider the division between what you write about and how you proceed to write it.

Have you ever thought about your writing?

Do you want to continue writing using the same (read limited) vocabulary and sentence structure as you use now for the rest of your life?

Do you think that university will teach you to write, or that you should start university with an emerging writers voice?

Next year, regardless of your discipline, you will be judged by your writing. Consider that your ideas on a topic or subject will always be filtered by your ability to articulate your thoughts and set them down on paper. Always.

Your vocabulary and sentence structure develop by reading. Read everything: magazines, poetry, newspapers, the back of a cereal boxes, both professional and amateur writing on the internet, comic books, texts, and if all else fails, novels. When you encounter a word that you cannot define for your mom, or little brother or your English teacher, stop reading- grab a dictionary and look up the word.

Commit the following to memory, "Writing is a cyclical process". It usually is not a linear process. Understand now that authors, textbook writers, and poets all start and write / rewrite their work until they begin to see that their words stand alone.

Start by reading the resources that I will post in the Writing section of the course website.

To help you sort out my resources (not the Writing Process examples) start with 'Writing' on the website.

For this week's assignment, choose a structure and explain it to me in this week's posting. The due date for this weeks blog is Monday at 12:00 pm.

Discussion 2 - You say solid, I say sullied

You have 3 choices for this weeks blog. Please respect the limit if 10 replies per topic as explained in the blog's instructions.

1. Read the entire article for The Prince at Wikipedia. The article is here. How do the ruling characters in Act 1 of Hamlet act in accordance with the principals set forth by Machiavelli?
2. What does the Hamlet's first soliloquy reveal about the him? How does it affect the mood in Act 1? How does this effect you? I am looking for a close reading. If your next question is "close reading?", please read this. It will help. Be careful of the sources that you find explaining close readings; they can be discouraging.
   
3. Poetry is living language. Find lines that speak to you in Act 1. Quote them fully and explain them as best you can. Why do you love these lines? What do they reveal about the characters that speak them, what do they reveal about you- the person that likes them?
   

Discussion 1 Bonus - The Dead

Read Joyce's The Dead. Isolate and discuss the theme of this short story.
A copy of this story can be found on the course website.

Note this bonus is indicative of most of the blog bonuses- not for the faint of heart.

Discussion 1 - The Matter of Theme

The first three short stories that I've assigned deal with the central character experiencing an epiphany. Reread Indian Camp, Araby and Soldiers Home.
Articulate your own themes.
Be original by developing your own ideas- not ones found haphazardly on the internet or, God forbid, a book.
Once you have developed your themes, compare the theme of any two of the stories.
Please note that posting expectations have been outlined in the April 2006 post, Welcome.
These short stories can be found on the course website.

The End is the Beginning

I've promised to start a non-course related reading checklist.

In the event that you are marooned on a south seas island, it might just make those long days meaningful.

The list will eventually show up on the course web site, not the blog.

It will be:

• predictable
• oh so grounded in the western tradition
• trite
• a reason to say "i likes books"

Polls and Highlights

Blogger.com has added poll functionality, so I decided to experiment with it. I also stumbled across text highlighting! Yeah!

ENG4U1-07 June 2007

Class,

Last year I wrote the following:

Thank you for participating in my pedagogical experiment. Your writings, will remain here. In the years to come, other students will contribute to what you've helped to create. Like you, they will struggle and hopefully, grow.
Others still, will eventually come across these writings, and because of your words, they'll see the world through your mind. The mind of a beginner.

Ovid said this better than I could have:

Adde parvum parvo magnus acervus erit. - Add little to little and there will be a big pile.

Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi, sed saepe cadendo. - The drop hollows out the stone by frequent dropping, not by force; constant persistence gains the end.

This year, I want to send the same message.

Godspeed,

-liconti

Student Gen: The Educated Imagination: The Imagination in Our Lives

In The Educated Imagination Frye discusses the human imagination. Frye claims that the imagination plays a role throughout literature, as well as in everyday life. Where is the human imagination present in society?

Frye uses Nineteen-Eighty Four as an example to state that “the only way…to create a literal hell on earth, is deliberately to debase our language by turning our speech into automatic gabble.” (92) If successful this destruction of language will control the actions of humanity. If this is true, how does the imagination influence action?

Student Gen: The Educated Imagination: Why Study Literature?

In The Educated Imagination Frye argues, Wherever illiteracy is a problem, it's as fundamental a problem as getting enough to eat or a place to sleep. The native language takes precedence over every other subject of study: nothing else can compare with it in usefulness” . Frye also explains that without literature math and science would not be able to exist. If this is true then our society is built on literature and everything else is built on top of it. However one could counter this argument by explaining that literature is a tool used to explain the math and science’s.
Using Frye's The Educated Imagination and other research discuss:
What good is the study of literature?
Is the study of literature as important as math and science in constructing the society we live in?

Student Gen: 1984: Hope begins in the dark

Ostensibly there appears to be little in Nineteen Eighty-Four to suggest that ‘man is indestructible because of his simple will to freedom’. Winston Smith’s will to freedom can be seen, instead, to directly bring about his destruction. Little hope seems to be offered that this destruction is anything other than complete, an effect implied in part by a shift in the tone of the free indirect discourse which has established the narrative viewpoint of Nineteen Eighty-Four. The questioning, reflective language Winston employs throughout most of the text is replaced by the ideological cant of the Party: ‘it was alright, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother’

Taken from: http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/articles/col-hopebegins.htm

It is mentioned in the novel that the hope of the society lies with in the proles, for they have boundless political liberty, proving that man is indestructible for he has the human spark and the simple will to freedom. Discuss how humanity can lead to its own downfall and how a prole-like environment can be the last potential hope to deliver its salvation.

Student Gen: 1984: "The Last Man in Europe"

Originally Orwell titled the book The Last Man in Europe, but his publisher, Frederic Warburg, suggested a change to assist in the book's marketing. Orwell did not object to this suggestion. The reasons for selection of this particular year are not known. Orwell may have only switched the last two digits of the year in which he wrote the book - '1948' became the distant and yet not unimaginable '1984'. Alternatively, he may have been alluding to the centenary of the Fabian Society, a socialist organization founded in 1884. The allusion may have also been to Jack London's novel The Iron Heel (in which the power of a political movement reaches its height in 1984), to G. K. Chesterton's The Napoleon of Notting Hill (also set in that year), or to a poem by his wife, Eileen O'Shaughnessy, called "End of the Century, 1984". A final supposed explanation is that his original re-titling was to be 1980; however, with his illness the book was taking a long time to write, so he felt obliged to push the story further and further into the future.

Taken from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

The original title for George Orwell's 1984 is "The Last Man in Europe". With this thought in mind, why do you think Orwell would want to go with this title? Use examples from the novel with at least one example from each part.

Student Gen: 1984: the Blank Slate Theory-" Tabula Rasa"

“How is it that human beings can know anything? And how should they try to live?” These were two outstanding questions, philosopher, John Locke addressed in his intellectual life. One of his theories, the Blank Slate Theory, is the theory in which an individual human being is born with no innate content. He even illustrates this theory by saying, “Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper void of all characters; without any ideas… Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, for experience”. Do you believe that this theory is evident in 1984? If so, how does it relate to 1984? Is it that the Party tries to narrow the mind to only a blank slate?

Student Gen: 1984: Becoming Winston

In George Orwell's 1984, Winston Smith's fate is predetermined and he is well aware of the consequences of his actions against the Party. After reading 1984, you are also aware of how Big Brother works. Knowing what you know now...

Imagine yourself as Winston Smith, from the beginning of 1984 until its ending. What would you do to undermine the Party? What would you do similarly or differently than Winston? And lastly, how would you avoid the fate that awaits you?

Student Gen: 1984: Dislocation of Eloquence

George Orwell creates a ‘fictitious’ society, one that is under constant surveillance and ruled over by a totalitarian political regime called the Party. In this society, the English language is slowly diminishing and becoming Newspeak, a language that is constantly decreasing its vocabulary. In Educated Imagination by Northrop Frye, Frye mentions “Orwell’s Nineteen eighty-four … Orwell even goes as far as to suggest the only way to make tyranny permanent…is [to] deliberately debase our language by turning our speech into automatic gabble.” (91-92). How does the Party use the Newspeak language as a control mechanism over the Inner and Outer Party members?

Discussion 13 - Driving 1984

For Discussion 13, I would like 10 students to create 5 blog entries. The rest of the class is responsible to respond twice (250 words each), anywhere they see fit.

1. Yes, 10 / 5 = 2.
2. Yes, 2 means a pair.
3. Yes, I mean work in groups of 2.
   
4. Yes, I mean a blog entry, not a comment.
5. Yes, I mean in our class blog.
   
6. Yes, If you're not part of a pair writing the blog entry, you are writing 2 250 word responses to any of the 5 student generated blog entries.

This opportunity will present itself again until all students have been given a chance to create entries for other units.

Topic: 1984