Quarter 2, Week 1 Agenda

Monday (30 min. classes because of girls state soccer tournament)
In Class: In class reading.
Homework: Ch. 59-65. Also, have an essay idea for Friday's class.

Day 2
In Class: Suffering & fishing.
Homework: Ch. 66-78.

Day 3
In Class: Animal instincts, etc.
Homework: Have an essay idea and supporting textual evidence for tomorrow's Writing Workshop.

Friday
In Class: Writing Workshop.
Homework: Life of Pi essay. Revisit the One Intelligent Page assignment handout to remind yourself what the assignment is asking of you.

So many Richard Parker's, so little time.

• In Edgar Allan Poe’s only novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, published in 1838, Richard Parker is a mutinous sailor on the whaling ship Grampus. After the ship capsizes in a storm, he and three other survivors draw lots upon Parker’s suggestion to kill one of them to sustain the others. Parker is then cannibalized.
• In 1846, the Francis Spaight foundered at sea. Apprentice Richard Parker was among the twenty-one drowning victims of that incident.
• In 1884, the yacht Mignonette sank. Four people survived, drifted in a lifeboat, and finally killed one of them, the cabin boy Richard Parker, for food.
  
• Another Richard Parker was involved in the Spithead and Nore mutinies in 1797 and subsequently hanged, but not eaten. (Lucky him.)

What says Life of Pi author, Yann Martel, of all this Richard Parker hullabaloo? “So many Richard Parkers had to mean something.”

He’s right. But what does it mean, then?

It means don’t name your kid Richard Parker.

On the Lifeboat:

Tsimtsum Explained

Tsimtsum is a Kabalistic* term. It is the first act of God (The Infinite) in the creation. It is the retraction of God’s light from a certain space and encircling it, so as to reduce its intensity and allow created beings to exist. After this contraction, a ray of His light entered this empty space and formed the first Sephirot**.

By these boundaries, He revealed the concepts of rigor and limit needed by the created beings, and gave a space for all the created to exist.

Psychologically, tsimtsum relates to the shrinking of the self and the understanding that power does not make an individual infallible or the same as God. The act of tsimtsum in an individual through meditation might bring about a zen-like state of mind, thereby elevating the mind over matter.
(Compare to the Tree of Life of Yin & Yang.)

Tsimtsum highlights how faith must be felt rather than just iterated. Many consider themselves to be religious when in reality their hearts and minds are void of true belief. On the other hand, there are just as many who steadfastly claim to be agnostic or atheist but who are full of love and compassion for other living creatures and live their lives in a way that could rightly be called “religious.”

*The Kaballah is the mystical and explanation of the Torah
** Enumeration or attribute of Kaballah. (There are ten total, through which God reveals Himself.)

Sources: realm.org.uk and kabbalah5.com.

Relevant Radio Debate

I caught the tail-end of this on MPR's "Mid-Day" program last Friday and thought it could be useful.

Intelligence Squared Debates Presents: Is Islam a Religion of Peace?
Is the rise of terrorism and violence justifiably traced to the teachings of Islam, or is this call to war a twisted interpretation of the true Muslim faith? Most of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims are moderates who see Islamic terrorism as a violation of their sacred texts. Is it wrong to let a radical minority represent authentic Islam? Has fear blinded us to its lessons of tolerance and peace?

Listen to the full hour-long program here: Is Islam a Religion of Peace?

Quarter 1, Week 9 Agenda

Monday
In Class: From the Tsimsum ship to the lifeboat.
Homework: Ch. 44-50

Day 2
In Class: "[A] terrible, selfish hunger for survival."
Homework: Ch. 51-56

Day 3
In Class: "[D]etails that become lifesavers."
Homework: Ch. 57 & 58, plus address the questions below.

If:

• “[Pi] felt like a prisoner being pushed off a plank by pirates” (154).
• “[Pi] had fled the lifeboat to save [his] life” (154).
• “Compared to the raft the lifeboat now seemed a haven of comfort and security” (155).

Then:

• Is an enclosure the road to freedom?
• Is freedom a “prison”?

Friday
In Class: "Plan Number Seven" and enclosures/freedom.
Homework: Ch. 59-65 for day 2 of next week.

Quarter 1, Week 8 Agenda

Monday
In Class: "I Love You & Buddha Too": lyrics, audio/video
Homework: Pi, ch. 23-33

Tuesday
In Class: The "Three Wise Men" and Mr. & Mr. Kumar
Homework: Pi, ch. 34-43

Wednesday & Thursday
Conferences; no class.

Friday
MEA; no school.

Help with Hinduism

• Atman: Spiritual life principle of universe.
• Brahman: Ultimate reality underlying all phenomena; a culturally superior person; member of highest caste in India.
• Krishna: One of the most popular gods,the eighth most important incarnation of Vishnu.
• Vishnu: Supreme deity and savior.

Quarter 1, Week 7 Agenda

Monday
In Class: Enclosures.
Homework: Life of Pi, ch. 6-13, pp. 24-44 (21)

Day 2
In Class: More on zoos (science) and religion.
Homework (for Friday): Pi, ch. 14-22, pp. 44-64 (21)

Day 3
In class: Field trip to Masjid An-Nur mosque.
Homework: Same as above.

Friday
In class: Stories--with a capital S.
Homework: Address the questions below. Each answer should be a solid paragraph.

1. What is the role of religious stories in your reading for today?
2. What affect do they have on Pi? (What does Hinduism / Christianity / Islam provide for him?) Consider the following quotations: “With its notion in mind I see my place in the universe” (49), “The answer was always the same” (56), and “Why Islam is nothing but an easy sort of exercise” (60).
3. What, then, might Pi mean when he suggests that an agnostic on his deathbed, “beholden to dry yeastless factuality, might try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying, ‘Possibly a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain,’ and to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story” (64)? What’s bread without yeast? (Inhabit the metaphor.) What’s a story without “that spark that brings [it] to life” (VIII)?
4. Revisit the Author's Note: "I have a story that will make you believe in God" (X). Wait up, though. Blake is a non-religious school, right? So it wouldn't make sense that an English class would be trying to convert you to any one (or three) religion(s). And it wouldn't make sense that an English class would get too caught up in science, either. (I have a story that will make you believe in science? No, that doesn't work.) So what's the point then? "I have a story that will make you believe in what?" Make an assertion based on what you know of the book so far.
   

Flash Announcement

Flash is the Upper School Literary Journal. The first editors' meeting will be Friday, October 15 at 3:00 in the Northrop Alumnae Room.

Persepolis Project Example

Check out the Persepolis Project Example, in PDF format. Sorry for not posting it sooner; it was a more complicated process than I anticipated. The seams aren't perfect, but you can at least zoom in and read the text. It's a large file (4 MG), so it might take a while to download.

Quarter 1, Week 6 Agenda

Monday & Tuesday
In Class: Persepolis project work time in library.
Homework: Persepolis project. See assignment sheet for deadlines.

Wednesday
In class: Persepolis presentations in AVA Room.

• William & Emma F. – The Veil
• Ryan & Sully – The Bicycle
• John & Grace – The Party
• Coleman & Alex – The Heroes
• James & Bryan - Moscow
• Meghna & Eric – The Sheep
• Luke & Jess – The Trip

Homework: Persepolis project didactic statements.

Thursday
In class: Persepolis presentations and unit wrap up in AVA room.

• Hanad & Noah – Persepolis
• JR & Amanda – The Letter
• Preston & Christopher – The F-14s
• Jake & Sage – The Jewels
• Grant & Molly – The Key
• Tyler & Taylor – The Wine
• Nina & Maddy – The Cigarette
• Charlie & Emma M. – Kim Wilde
• Teddy & Anne – The Shabbat
• Danny & Henry – The Dowry
  

Homework: Persepolis project didactic statements.

Friday
In class: Begin Life of Pi.
Homework: Read through ch. 5 of Life of Pi, including the Author's Note.