Scribalicious for per 5-alicious

Hello marvelous period 5!!!!!!

Today is April 20, 2007 and it’s Friday!!! Unfortunately it is also the anniversary of Columbine, a memorable day for the nation. Rumors are flying around about threats at schools all over the state, but what is true? Here is a link to an article from Denver Post


To begin our exciting wonderful class, Smith explained our homework and reminded us of the t-shirt projet on Mon. Homework is in purple at the bottom.

We started off by recieving a take home quiz from Ben and Hannah. Ben said it is totally open book because there is no way for him to stop us :)

Fishbowl from Ben, and Hannah:

In this section of the book, Winston got tortured and was forced to see O’Brien’s reality. So what is reality? Your reality depends on who you are, how you behave, who you are around and the truths you believe in.

So how do we define truth? What if you are tortured to believe in something else. Smith said it could be how you are raised, how your parents teach you, and what you learn early on. She related it to Blood Diamond, how the little boy almost murdered his father because he had been separated. But should children be obligated to turn in their parents? Parents are obligated to turn their children in, so why shouldn’t it go both ways? The society in 1984 operates on an absence of love, but it might be harder to betray parents in our society.

What is the difference between truth and reality? Truth is something you can back up with facts, but what does that make reality? How do we know O’Brien was holding up four fingers? All we have is Winston’s word, how do we know that is true? We decided that this book drives us crazy because it’s about Winston being stripped from his humanity.

But our views on this book are based on how we live. What if O’Brien was our protagonist, then would Winston and Julia seem bad? And children turning in parents? Isn’t that the right thing to do? So what else does this society lack besides love?

The Party is trying to change Winston’s mind, but they can’t change his heart. But isn’t the heart partly mental? Like if you told yourself over and over again that you hated history, you will probably eventually start to hate history. The thing about Appearance Vs. Reality is that eventually one has to become the other.

Ultimately, we decided it came down to this: Change isn’t necessarily wrong, it’s just extremely difficult for us as humans beings to get used to.

Smith, being as wonderful as she is, and because of how much she loves the golden number 5, gave us little homework for the weekend ahead:

--Finish 1984!!! (pgs 274-297)
--Bring in a plain white T-shirt, one per group, for designing!
--Blog on the lovely discussion from today
--Grammar is due next Thursday, so please keep up with that!!!

Also, coming next week:
Monday—T-SHIRTS!!!!!
Tuesday—Grammar day, fishbowl of pgs 274-297
Wednesday—Approve thesis in class, take home essay
Thursday—Collect grammar packets, grammar test, semester project, watch video?
Friday—Semester project
The next Monday—Semester project

Whoo hoo period 5, thanks for the fantabulous Friday and have an awesome weekend! Remember to relax, take a deep breath and try not to get too stressed out.

Cheers!
~Maria

P.S. ONLY 23 DAYS OF SCHOOL LEFT!!!!!