Link to Documentary

Here is the link to the 2 part Frontline documentary The United States of Secrets. If you miss a day this week make sure to make it up by viewing it independently.

Test: Pick one of the following. Due by Wednesday May 20

A. Watch the PBS presentation of the film 1971 this week (it is currently streaming) and answer the following questions from PBS Talkback:

As we’ve become more technologically advanced and dependent, is it worth the potential trade-off in privacy? And if you felt your privacy was being exposed, what lengths would you go to fight it?

Minimum Length 300 words. 

or

B. The Reauthorization of Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act is scheduled to be voted this week. Write an email to our representatives with your approval or opposition to Section 215. You may forward or print out a copy of the sent email. 

Find your house representative here.

Contact our senate representatives here.

1984 Part One

Link to 1984 Summary

We started reading the summaries for each chapter last Friday. Please have all of Part One read by Wednesday, May 13th.

The Hours - Film Response

Choose one of the following prompts. Write an essay response (minimum 2 pages) Due date: 5/5/15

A. Virginia and Laura are both, in a sense, prisoners of their eras and societies, and both long for freedom from this imprisonment. Clarissa Vaughan, on the other hand, apparently enjoys every liberty: freedom to be a lesbian, to come and go and live as she likes. Yet she has ended up, in spite of her unusual way of life, as a fairly conventional wife and mother. What might this fact indicate about the nature of society and the restrictions it imposes? Does the film imply that character, to a certain extent, is destiny?

B. What does the possibility of death represent to the various characters?  Which of them loves the idea of death, as others love life?  What makes some of the characters decide to die, others to live? What personality traits separate the "survivors" from the suicides?

C. The film plays with the notions of sanity and insanity, recognizing that there might be only a very fine line between the two states. What does the novel imply about the nature of insanity? Might it in fact be a heightened sanity, or at least a heightened sense of awareness?  Would you classify Richard as insane? Does insanity (or the received idea of insanity) appear to be connected with creative gifts?
 

Homework

Read "The Duchess and the Jeweller" by Virginia Woolf. It can be found in our class folder.

T.S. Eliot

On Monday, April 27th, you will take a quiz on the 3 T.S. Eliot poems we read in the textbook: "Preludes," "The Hollow Men," and "The Naming of Cats."

In addition, a test grade will be given on the packet of questions pertaining to "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" that will be due on Monday. Check out this video!

April 15, 2015 The Daily Show Satirical Journal Entry

Explain what is being satirized and how humor helps in understanding the more serious topics. (The Video Can be Found Here.)

On the News Media and News Coverage:

• The urgency to cover insignificant news.
• The methods in which serious, graphic, news is covered.
• The use of language censor versus graphic censor

Questions to Discuss "The Future of Christianity" Segment

• Do you agree/disagree with either one of the people interviewed regarding the future of faith?
• Can AI (Artificial Intelligence), once it becomes aware of itself,  convert to a faith?

April 14, 2015 The Daily Show Satirical Journal Entry.

Explain what is being satirized and how humor helps in understanding the more serious topics. (The episode can be found here.)

• Constitutional authority regarding making treaties and declaring war.
• News coverage of Marco Rubio's announcement as a candidate for president versus Hilary Clinton's lunch.

Interview with Fareed Zakaria and his new book In Defense of a Liberal Education.

• Do you think our educational system needs to be changed? If so, why?
• Is the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) a better alternative to 'traditional' classroom education?

April 13, 2015 The Daily Show Satirical Journal Entry.

Explain what is being satirized and how humor helps in understanding the more serious topics. (The Episode Can be Found Here): 

• Hilary Clinton’s announcement for her candidacy for president and the response from political opponents.

• The NRA spokesman’s comment on 8 years of a “demographically” chosen president and the accompanied skit.

• The Interview with the Mid East correspondent.

Quiz Questions Due Tomrrow

Below are a list of 10 quiz questions. Please choose 2 from each of the Acts and answer them. The answers need to be complete and concise (paragraph length or more.) They will be due tomorrow.

Act One

1. Why does Jack Worthing call himself "Ernest" instead when he is in "town"

(London)?

2. How does Wilde satirize the attitudes and lifestyles of the British

aristocracy in Lady Bracknell's interview with Jack?

3. What is the essence of such Wildean aphorisms as the following?" "[Women

flirting with their own husbands] looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean

linen in public."

4. What point is Wilde making about journalism in general and reviewers in

particular when Algernon remarks, "You should leave that [literary criticism] to

people who haven't been at University. They do it so well in the daily papers"?

5. What tools of satire –irony, juxtaposition, understatement, paradox –are

apparent in this opening act? CITE SPECIFIC LINES FROM THE PLAY.

Act Two

1. "Gwendolen and Cecily are not so much opposites as complements." Explain

this remark by reference to their speeches and actions.

2. Early on in Act One Jack Worthing articulates the difference between city life

and country life. Show three ways in which the life of the country (as

exemplified by the Manor House, Woolton, Herfordshire) is very different from

the bachelor life of The Albany, London.

3. Like Jack, Algy leads a double life, utilizing an escape mechanism when

necessary to free himself of a life of social obligation and lead a life of

unrestrained pleasure. Explain their differing motivations, but how both are

"confirmed Bunburyists," nevertheless.

4. The comedy of mistaken identity is a very old dramatic form – as old, in fact,

as comedy itself – which Wilde manages to revitalize in The Importance of Being

Earnest. The key mistaken identity in this play, of course, is that of “Ernest”

himself. What comic consequences result from Algernon’s assuming the role of

Ernest Worthing?

5. What role does food have within the play? (Notice how Jack and Algy are

eating muffins at key points – and then those pesky cucumber sandwiches in

Act I…)