Things Due Monday, October 29, 2012

1. First draft of Synthesis Essay (See page 20 in TCITR packet).

2. Read and annotate chapters 1 - 10. 

3. Complete as much of TCITR character chart as is feasible (See page 3 in the packet).

4. Complete as much of TCITR Hero/Heroine chart as is feasible (See page 7 in the packet).

5. Be sure that parts C (pages 8 - 9) & E (pages 10 - 12) are complete. 

6. Read and write a 1 page critical analysis of this article (typed, MLA format). 

Animal Farm Final: October 11 & 12

a.     Negative Liberty: is the absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints. One has negative liberty to the extent that actions are available to one in this negative sense. In other words, negative liberty is freedom from certain negative circumstances.

                                          i.    Example: When I am at school, I am free from my mom who nags me about cleaning my room.

b.     Positive Liberty: Positive liberty is the possibility of acting — or the fact of acting — in such a way as to take control of one's life and realize one's fundamental purposes. Positive liberty is the freedom to do some act.  

                                          i.    Example: When I am at home, I am free to dress in any what that I want.

c.      Polyarchy is the system of government in which power resides in three or more persons. In the United States, those that rule are from sectors of privilege.

d.     Democracy: a method of group decision making characterized by a kind of equality among the participants at an essential stage of the collective decision-making.

e.     Tyranny:: arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power or authority.

f.      Ms. Abronson’s list of Animal Farm terms.

g.     What is an allegory? How is it related to the novel?

h.     The incident with the milk in chapter 2.

i.      Know the final commandment: “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”

Synthesis Essay (ROUGH DRAFT) due November 1st

Les étudiants,

Dans tes Animal Farm packets, you will find a synthesis essay prompt on page 51. A rough draft of this essay is due Thursday, November 1st, 2012. Be apprised that we will not have finished The Catcher in the Rye by then; do not be alarmed. You may thus choose The Sunflower, Animal Farm, and V for Vendetta in your composition.

Should you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact me at daniel.y.me@gmail.com

Avec Mes Sentiments Distingués,

d

Critical Analysis Due Mon. Oct. 1

Critical Analysis 

1. Read the quote below: 

"Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

2. Think about all the events that have occurred in the novella. 

3. Now that you have completed the book, think about the "so what?" question in regard to the quote above. What do you think Orwell wants his readers to think and/or feel by the end of the book? What do you feel? Think? What larger idea/theme/theory enters into your mind when you read the quote above. 

4. Remind yourself that a Critical Analysis (CA) is not a summary of the book. It is not a contextualization of the quote. It is a creative inquiry into some aspect of the quote that you see as being relevant to your own life and/or the society in which you live. 

5. Use the documents that I gave you to help guide your CA. C'est tout. Bon chance mes petites fromages. 

Homework for the week of September the 17th, 2012

A. Read and annotate chapters 7 - 11.

B. Final draft of speeches due (typed, MLA format, OR very neatly composed in blue or black ink). 

C. One page critical analysis on something that you find interesting in chapters 7 - 11. After reading the assigned chapters, think about an idea/concept/theory/theme that you find interesting. Take, say, in chapter 8, how a few days after the bloody executions, the animals discover that the commandment reading "No animal shall kill any other animal" now reads: "No animal shall kill any other animal without cause." You may take the previous quote, for instance, and discuss how people with privilege and power can tweak, change, and/or completely alter certain laws/rules/regulations to benefit them, to the detriment and suffering of others.

Or, using the same quote, you may, in your critical response, reflect on the connections between and differences in morality and law. For example, are there moral absolutes? Do these absolutes find their way into American law? Why or why not? If there are no moral absolutes, then who or what determines what is and is not considered morally good in a particular society? Can one's moral perspectives be altered? How? As you can see, this sort of writing can get complex real fast, but be not alarmed.

What I am looking for is a thoughtful engagement with the topic of your paper that is at once clear and rational; what I am not looking for is a cute, weak rendering of something that you heard on the Internet. I am not looking for generalities or superficial conversations. I am looking for curious, imaginative declarations of thought and judgement, articulations of the intrinsic in ways that wake me up. Look at the following example written by a former student to guide your own responses (Note that this is not Daisy's first critical analysis; it took one academic year, including hundreds of hours spent after school on multiple drafts and engaging in writing conferences with me to get her essay pared down to what you see below. And even as is, her writing is not perfect, and many of her ideas can more be more clearly articulated.)

............................................................................................................

Daisy Lopez-Ruiz
English 10b
September 11, 2009

A Few Thoughts On Race

To me the origins of racism remain relatively unclear. From what I have read, "the evidence suggests that the roots of racism lie intertwined with more general repressive attitudes toward nature and the body, and with concomitant associations of dark skin color with filth, death, and radical evil generally" (Drinnon xxvii). In reading both Drinnon and Orwell, I have been thinking about how Anglo-European settlers first defined natives as nonpersons within the settlement culture and was in a real sense the enabling experience of the rising American empire: Indian-hating was closely tied with republic’s Manifest Destiny.

Orwell’s Animal Farm dovetails with Drinnon’s take on racism in that power structures take on an imperialistic presence in that they enslave, repress, and abuse the “lower” forms of life. The “elite” animals (i.e., pigs) of Manor Farm, for instance, trick the “stupider” animals into believing in the legitimacy of their (the pigs’ power). And in so doing, the pigs get all the apples and the milk, and slowly become the tyrants that they once protested in the beginning. These issues of power challenge me to ask a very unsettling question: Is it human nature to become tyrannous if afforded enough power? If it is not in our nature, then what are the ways in which we as a culture can unlearn this abusive tendency so that we may live in a free and just society.