UTOPIAN Group Project
(4 minute limit to presentations)
Utopias are pictures of an ideal world that attempt to point out the failings in our own flawed society. (Due November 21)
Directions: Explore a historical utopia that fits into your assigned time period. Investigate your group’s attempt to institutionalize or practice utopian ideals on Earth.
Pretend that you are trying to actively recruit potential individuals to move to your community to help revive your group and/or continue your current practices. Condense the following items into major at least 6 major categories (i.e. mission, pros and cons, background/history, etc.) under which you’ll put the information that relates to your utopia. Divide the following items amongst group members as evenly as possible. Create a persuasive advertisement (Brochure, PPT, prezi, Storybird, large poster, etc.) that includes responses to the following:
A) What relationship exists between the fictional account of the utopia in The Giver
and the actual utopian community that you researched?
B) What is the name of your group? What is the significance of your group’s name?
C) Where is the main location for your group members? Are you/were you worldwide? Confined to a certain area?
D) What was/is the social structure in your researched community?
E) What was/is the mission/goal of your researched community?
F) If your group failed in the past, then own the pitfalls, and explain to potentials how you intend to avoid similar pitfalls in the future in order to make a successful community. If your group is successful, then explain why. If your group is nonexistence currently because it is still in the planning stage, then how do you know that you will be successful?
G) What is your group’s motto or slogan?
H) What is it about your group that qualifies it to be fit to be called a utopia? How has your group achieved perfection?
I) What are the pros and cons to living in your researched utopia?
J) What is the economic makeup of your community? How do you support yourselves?
K) What would a typical day in your community look like?
Periods 2, 4, 6, and 7
We will begin studying Shakespeare on December 5. We will start with “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Please check Ligon’s library first for a copy of the text and bring it to class with you on Monday, December 5.
Items to include inside the paper: Eulogize a character
A) Birth dates; death dates (if dead)
B) Age; Education
C) Living relatives of the home
D) Celebration of his/her life
E) Remember at least one fond memory that you had with the deceased person
F) Favorites (hobbies, colors, etc.)
G) A poem (usually at a funeral, the poem laments the deceased person)
H) Pictures from the person’s life
I) Free choice/you choose another item to include.
We will continue focusing on nonfiction texts in conjunction with our fiction pieces.
Monday
Annotating
Guest Teacher in class
Hw: Finish The Giver; mini-project due tomorrow; one pager; movie form due Thursday
Tuesday
Collect homework (one pager; mini-project)
Read Lois Lowry’s acceptance speech
Utopian handout
Group work
Hw: do your portion of the utopian project (Final group assignment due Monday November 21)
Wednesday
Class time:
Eulogize a character in The Giver (Gabe or Jonas) due Friday
3 Column notes (groups work together)
Group work utopian community brochure (1/2 period)
Memoir-Review
"The problem with American audiences is they always want a tragedy with a happy ending." Is this true?
Angel at the Fence: The True Story of a Love that Survived, cancelled by publisher
Read some short memoirs in class
Select a memoir of your choice to read independently for I.R. due December 16 (have memoir book by 11/28- -parent approval required)
What does truth mean in creative non-fiction texts?
What obligation does the memoirist have to the truth?
What exactly is the truth when filtered through memory?
What exactly is the truth when filtered through POV and time? Are there different kinds of truth..."truthiness?”
Elie Wiesel has also been accused of "changing the truth" in his memoir Night....but does that make his memoir less credible?
-A man whose memoir about his experience during the Holocaust was to have been published in February has admitted that his story was embellished, (NYTimes Dec.2008)
Some popular YA suggestions for memoirs (Admittedly, I haven't read them all. So, please make sure you get a parent's approval if your are interested in reading one of the suggestions below):
American Born Chinese
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian
Last Lecture
Night
Hw: movie form; group utopian brochure due Monday; character eulogy;
Thursday
Collect homework (movie form)
Memoir continued
Neighborhood “walk-though”
"walk" through your childhood neighborhood labeling who and what of each spot
Brainstorm a list of "Stories" from your past, getting to a "One time. . ."
Select some stories for memoir writing; you will write a series of 1-page narratives from your neighborhood list.
Hw: 1 page (double-spaced narrative) due Monday
Friday
Eulogy due
Group work (1/2 period)
“I have a Dream” speech: is it a dream for a utopian community?
Hw: double-spaced narrative due Monday
Looking ahead to next week...
Monday
11/21
Essay in a day assigned due 11/28
logos, ethos, and pathos
Option 1 Write a persuasive “essay” to the language arts department about why or why not The Giver belongs in the 8th grade rather than 5th grade, where most of you first encountered it. Option 2: Write a persuasive "essay" about why someone would or would not want to live in the type of community depicted in the novel. Option 3: Write an "essay" that convinces/persuades the reader of your paper (me!) to believe that Lois Lowry was trying to satirize (point out) some aspect of American culture and/or society through her novel. Option 4: Persuade your audience to believe (or not) that Jonas could have live happily ever after in the community in the novel.
Share brochures for utopian communities
The Village
Tuesday, November 22
The Village
Period 5
We will begin Forged by Fire this week, the second book in Sharon Draper's Hazelwood High trilogy. Please remember it is very important to keep up with your assigned readings because reading quizzes will be given periodically. We will continue to look at nonfiction texts this week, focusing on persuasive writing. You will look at eulogies this week and will be required eulogize Andy from Tears of a Tiger.
Monday
Class Time:
Finish reading Elizabeth Stanton’s address at first women’s rights convention
Answer the questions that go with it
Hw: finish questions
Tuesday
Write a eulogy for Andy
Persuasive analysis of advertisements
PERSUASIVE ANALYSIS - ADVERTISING
1. What is the ad trying to persuade the audience to buy, do, or believe? Describe it in detail in complete sentences.
2. What are the benefits? (What need does it fulfill?)
3. IMPORTANT! Who is the audience? How do you know?
4. What evidence is there of the claim?
5. What “loaded” words or language are there? What claims are questionable? What are the logical fallacies?
6. What do the images mean?
7. Identify any bias or stereotypes.
Hw: Finish Andy’s Eulogy -neatly typed or handwritten (due Thursday)
Wednesday
3- column notes for TOAT
Persuasive Essay in a day
PERSUASIVE PROMPTS
1. Write a persuasive essay saying whether or not everyone in the
family should help with chores around the house.
2. Write a persuasive essay explaining which is better—elementary
school or junior high school.
3. Write a persuasive essay saying whether or not Physical Education
should be required.
4. Choose one class from the list below and write a persuasive essay
saying whether or not the course should be required.
• Art
• Computers
• Music (which can include chorus or band)
5. Write a persuasive essay saying whether or not dances should be
provided by the school.
6. Pick one class from the list below and write a persuasive essay
saying whether or not the class should be offered at your school.
• Foreign language
• Photography
• Wood shop
• Fitness class
• Self-defense
• Bowling
• Movie appreciation
7. Write a persuasive essay saying whether or not television was a good
invention.
8. Write a persuasive essay saying whether or not teenagers should
have a computer of their own in their bedroom.
9. Write a persuasive essay saying whether or not teenagers should
have a television of their own in their bedroom.
10. Write a persuasive essay saying whether or not helmets should be
required for skateboarders, rollerbladers, and bikers.
Hw: Begin Reading Forged by Fire
Thursday
Continue Essay in a day
Hw: Finish Essay in a day
Friday
“The Trouble with T.V.” (textbook)
