English 12

Wow - things are moving fast. Due today is your DEJ for The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. Considering how fast the class needs to move, we're going to progress to our first composition. For our first composition, we'll be working with some simple criteria:

1. Thesis Statement: Declare your position clearly. What will you prove? Respond directly to the prompt. This belongs at the end of your introduction.
2. Body paragraphs support a point and provide evidence. See below.

There are several ways to use evidence to your advantage. One effective strategy is to use the below sentence pattern - and you can repeat it as often times as you need to make sure each point is sufficiently supported. In an essay, once you have made your point for the paragraph, you can repeat sentence 2 and sentence 3 if you feel you need further evidence.

Example of a body paragraph:

Sentence 1: Make your point.

Sentence 2: Evidence.

Sentence 3: Connect your point with the evidence (even if it's obvious).

Sentence 4: Evidence

Sentence 5: Connect your point with the evidence.

In this example, you have two pieces of evidence to support the main point. This is usually plenty for a body paragraph.

    3. Conclusion. Restate your thesis in different words. Review the findings in your composition. For your final sentence, answer this question: What have we learned about ourselves as a result of this new reading of Omelas?

    4. Writing and Grammar: Check your grammar and spelling!

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We'll be writing about allegory in Omelas. Here are a couple topics to chose from:

• Our Imagination as a vehicle for Complicity: As the narrator invites the audience to create an image of Omelas, we become complicit in the moral consequences of its greatest crime: the agreement to allow a child to continue suffering in order for everyone else to be happy. Think about what this allegory represents. Considering an allegorical reading, do you agree with Le Guin's claim?
• Coming of Age and the Loss of Innocence: All children between 8 and 12 learn about the child in the basement. At this discovery, the narrator states that everyone is disgusted and horrified at first. How might the contrast of childhood and adulthood (or at least puberty), be represented through the coming of age in Omelas?

English 12

 Today we started The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. Do these questions first:

1. How does Le Guin refute the concept of utopias and dystopias? How does the act of co-creating Omelas inform this response?
2. Why do the citizens of Omelas have to be made aware of the existence of the child in the basement?
3. What specific issues in contemporary culture do you see implicitly depicted in Omelas?

Once this is done - we're making a DEJ (for marks) for Omelas. This means a close reading, 3 short responses, and 3 questions (should be level 3 or 4) based on the DEJ guide.

English 12

Greetings all!

A few of you have contacted me with questions on our close reading assignment. I've sent out the following, and it may be helpful for those of you still with some questions:

1. Find motifs in the passage you have selected. These are patterns in language. A pattern in language may look like repeated words or phrases and/or imagery. Honestly - any kind of pattern can be a motif. Even how characters present dialogue could be a motif. Motifs are often starting points for discussion on the kinds of issues that the text is addressing. Totem addresses many issues - from First Nations acceptance, colonization and so on.
   
2. Think about how these motifs address these issues. Does it add anything significant to the conversation? In Identities (the short story I read in class) I talked about how the main character pursued chaos and perhaps some self-destructive behaviour in order to escape his "domestic grief". I started thinking about what composes domestic grief. This whole line of thinking came from the motif of decay, and how decay became a desirable destination for our main character.
   
3. In a paragraph I would identify this motif and explain first how I know that this is a motif, then connect those findings​ with an exploration of what I explained in #2. The response does not need to be absolutely conclusive, but it's a great opening to a conversation about the intent of the story's message.