Lesson Plan Über Alles

Use Deep Work and So Good They Can't Ignore You in the Class

End of Week 2 you could have students take their BB test. You could alternate these prompts:

Explain the title of the book. 

Contrast passion and craftsman hypothesis. 

 

Starfish Links for Spring 2017

Faculty Access Guide

Starfish Training Guide

Counselor Videos

Starfish Student Tutorial

Teach Maggie Rowe's Sin Bravely in Critical Thinking

I love Sin Bravely. If I teach it in 1C as a replacement for The Professor in the Cage, the assignment would be this:

Develop a thesis that explains how the conflict between Maggie and her therapist Bethany speaks to one of the book's major themes. 

 

Writing Assignment and Reading Material Update for English 1C Fall 2017: Sherry Turkle and Philip Roth

Essay One

I'm thinking the first assignment would be to apply Pascal's notion of how we prefer image to substance and the resulting torment and moral dissolution and loneliness and solipsism in a comparison of the following in this order:

The Other Woman

Bartleby, the Scrivener

Winter Dreams; Also another version here. 

Students would have to address at least 2 stories. 

Have a reading quiz. 

You would need 4 lessons. 

Essay Two. Sherry Turkle's Reclaiming Conversation or The Plot Against America (if latter, than Turkle's book could be used for 1A)

Perhaps show Nosedive, or not. 

If you teach Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, perhaps do so in the context of Caleb Crain's New Yorker essay, "The Case Against Democracy." 

Essays Three and Four: Various online current events

Essay Five: This Boy's Life and "The Overcoat"

Books Needed:

One. From Critical Thinking to Argument

Two. Bartleby 

Three. Reclaiming Conversation

Four. This Boy's Life

If Muscle Is Out of Print, Use How Propaganda Works

This NYT review of How Propaganda Works would make a complement to "The Overcoat." 

Kakutani writes:

“Propaganda is characteristically part of the mechanism,” he writes, “by which people become deceived about how best to realize their goals, and hence deceived from seeing what is in their own best interests.” This is achieved by various time-tested means — by appealing to the emotions in such a way that rational debate is sidelined or short-circuited; by promoting an insider/outsider dynamic that pollutes the broader conversation with negative stereotypes of out-of-favor groups; and by eroding community standards of “reasonableness” that depend on “norms of mutual respect and mutual accountability.”

Write an essay in which you show how Akaky is a victim of propaganda so that he deceived from seeing what's in his best interests."

Paragraph 1: Summarize How Propaganda Works. 

Paragraph 2: Summarize "The Overcoat."

Paragraph 3: Develop a thesis with 4 mapping components. 

Paragraphs 4-7 support your thesis.

Paragraph 8: Your conclusion, a restatement of your thesis. 

 

Tribalism, Evil, Hell on Earth, and The Other in The Painted Bird and Night

This Painted Bird post explains a lot of the novel's background and themes. I could compare the novel to Elie Weisel's Night. This could be a 1A book perhaps? Not 1C?

If Muscle is truly out of print, then you could replace it with Lucy Grealy's Autobiography of a Face. 

For 1C, you might also consider the novel Being There. 

Add "Gooseberries" to Your Moral Bucket List and Delete Option for Assignment in English 1C

Essay Two for 100 Points (Life of Image Vs. Life of Substance)

Option One: To an audience of college students, write a persuasive essay that addresses the contention that "Bartleby, the Scrivener, "Gooseberries," "Winter Dreams" or "The Other Woman" illustrates the moral principles in David Brooks' online essay "The Moral Bucket List." You might also consult Pascal's famous Pensees:

We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our own being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavour to shine. We labour unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence and neglect the real. And if we possess calmness, or generosity, or truthfulness, we are eager to make it known, so as to attach these virtues to that imaginary existence. We would rather separate them from ourselves to join them to it; and we would willingly be cowards in order to acquire the reputation of being brave. A great proof of the nothingness of our being, not to be satisfied with the one without the other, and to renounce the one for the other! For he would be infamous who would not die to preserve his honour. 

Suggested Structure

Paragraph One: Summarize Brooks' essay.

Paragraph Two: Summarize the story. 

Paragraph Three. Frame the debate of your argumentative thesis by asking how and why the story addresses the major ideas in Brooks' essay. Then answer your question with a thesis. 

Paragraphs 4-7: Supporting paragraphs: They support your thesis' mapping components. 

Paragraph 8: Write your counterargument-rebuttal paragraph.

Paragraph 9: Conclusion: Restate your thesis with emotion (pathos) and show its broader ramifications.   

Since you may be teaching Jeff Henderson's Cooked in 1A with a comparison to "Love People, Not Things," you may want to delete the option below:

Option 2: Develop a thesis that analyzes "Bartleby, the Scrivener, "Winter Dreams" or "The Other Woman" in terms of the Faustian Bargain described in the essay "Love People, Not Pleasure," by Arthur C. Brooks. Be sure your essay at least 3 sources. You could use a structure similar to one in Option 1. 

Book Changes for 1A and 1C

English 1A

I'm going to bring Man's Search for Meaning back in English 1A starting in the summer. It will be the first assignment. 

That short story you wrote, "Critical Thinking," is too good to pass up.

So for summer, you'll have two books: Man's Search for Meaning and Acting Out Culture. 

You might include "Love People, Not Things," as a complement to Frankl's book and as an essay option. 

English 1C

I'd like to teach Dreamland and have students write argumentative thesis about opiate addiction in America. 

Professor in the Cage

Muscle and "The Overcoat"

Two more essays from online sources. 

 

Books I Need to Read

Against Everything, a collection of essays, by Mark Grief. 

Hamilton by Ron Chernow (sitting on my bedside table, unopened). 

Writing to Save a Life by John Edgar Wideman.

All the Truth Is Out by Matt Bai. 

The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu. 

Truevine by Beth Macy

Gunslinger by Jeff Pearlman

Blood at the Root by Patrick Phillips

Several Books by NT Wright. 

And When You're Done Reading . . .

Brad Jersak's two books, A More Christlike God and Her Gates Will Never be Shut, write a summary and analysis on your Leaving Anhedonia blog. 

 

 

Perhaps Replace It's Beginning to Hurt with Jeff Henderson's Cooked

Because the students are expressing dislike over my beloved James Lasdun collection It's Beginning to Hurt, I may replace with Jeff Henderson's Cooked. 

The assignment:

Show how Jeff Henderson's evolution from self-destructiveness to redemption is explained by Arthur C. Brooks' "Love People, Not Pleasure."