Why Read Spring 2020

For Thursday's class, please answer the following questions in 2-3 pages (double-spaced) and post your concept proposal to the forum on Moodle. You may write your concept in the style of a paper with paragraphs, or you can reply question-by-question. Please use complete sentences. The more information you provide, the better, but try not to go over 3 pages out of consideration for your peer who will respond to your ideas in the workshop.   *There is no Works Cited page required for your concept proposal. OVERALL QUESTIONS: What primary issue did you decide to focus on, and why? (Ex. homelessness, a shift in attitudes toward capitalism, etc). Tell us about your main character. Give as many details about them as you can in one paragraph (no more than 200 words). Who are they? Age, gender, species, race, home, goals, personality, family, vocation/job, skills, etc. *Note you may wish to not have a main character or take a different approach to this element of the project.

  Reality TV, Entertainment Culture, and Cruelty Scene from The Hunger Games film - televised reaping in District 12 When Suzanne Collins wrote The Hunger Games trilogy back in 2006-2007, she could not have predicted that ten years later, Americans would elect their first reality TV star as President. However, just as Ray Bradbury inadvertently predicted reality TV's rise with his parlor families in F451 back in the 1950s, Collins had her pulse on something in the early 2000s zeitgeist: the fact that reality TV was a big form of entertainment. She saw the rise in certain early forms of social media (such as Myspace), that how these social media platforms were merging with our "real, offline lives" in all kinds of complicated ways that made the line between "reality" and "digital performance" very blurry. With the rise of social media, the idea that "life is a surveillance style performance" for an audience became more and mo

DIRECTIONS:  Please answer in complete sentences and take time and care in responding, as you will be graded on your answers. Remember to give constructive criticism, and not to simply praise the work. You will want to give at least one fully formed suggestion for each question. :-) 1)  Is the essay's thesis clear? Point out any areas where it could be clearer. Is it arguable? Is it well-qualified (specific)? Even if the thesis seems to be specific enough, suggest a way for the writer to make it even more specific and narrow (i.e. do they list the topics they plan to discuss in the body paragraphs?). Also note any awkward grammar or unclear word choice. (Note: the thesis should not just be a list of topics with no indication of why they matter and what ties them together). 1.5) Does the introduction introduce the book(s), the year published, and a brief summary with relevant details? If not, point out what is missing. 2) Does the writer incorporate research from schol

Describe/create a dystopian future for the United States of America, centered around the banning of one important thing. Just as books are banned in F451, something vital to our society will be banned in your dystopia. Make an argument for how banning that one particular thing restructures society and shows what they value. Additionally, please make sure what you ban is something that is central enough to our existence that removing it will reshape society significantly. Banning beanie babies might not do that, but banning electricity probably would. Describe how people's lives have changed and how society has changed in big and small ways as a result of the ban. Why was the ban enacted in the first place? Be as specific with all of this as possible. Write 1 page total (double-spaced is fine). If you get inspired and want to keep going, feel free! Submit your assignment on Moodle under the Assignment "Ban Dystopia Exercise."

Questions 1-6 directions: For these first six questions, pick three to answer (they can be any three you like). You should write 75-100 words per answer, providing specific examples from the novel to support your ideas. These examples need not be direct quotations, but they do need to have accurate information, and describe specific scenes, interactions, and use proper names. If I cannot tell you read from your response, you will receive a 0. 1) Consider Mildred's experience at the hospital. What is wrong with the healthcare system in the novel? It's effective, but it's also lacking certain things. What are those things that are lacking? Do you see any parallels between their healthcare system and ours? 2) What is Clarisse ’s role in the narrative? Why is she important to Montag? 3) Why does the woman who refuses to leave her house and her books allow the firemen to burn her? What do you think she finds so valuable about the books that she is wil

Please write down your answers for these, providing specific examples from the novel in your response. 1) Why do the firemen burn books in the novel? What effect does this have on society? Why is it seen as a good thing? p.56 2) What forms of our technology do the wall families resemble? What is the effect on the people of the Farenheit world, interacting with the wall families all day? Do we have any similar effects in our society, due to the types of technological, social media, and mass media interactions we experience in our daily lives? How have TV, email, and social media changed the way we interact with one another? 3) What role does conformity play in the society of the novel? 4) What parallels can you see between this world and the world of Nosedive? What about Stepford?

How does the narrator invite the reader (“you”) to imagine the utopian city of  Omelas ? Why does the narrator want the reader to co-create this utopia? What purpose might it serve in the context of what happens later in the text?   Why does the narrator keep asking the readers if they believe him/her? How have things changed in the story (and the readers’ perception of it) by the time the questions are asked the second time around towards the end of the story?   Discuss the characterization of the child in the room. Why does everyone in the city have to be aware of the existence of the child?  Is it possible to have a happy/good/just society at the expense of someone else?   Is ignorance bliss? Would the people in the story be better off not knowing of its existence? What would be gained from this ignorance? What would be lost?   Can you think if any analogy of the child in the room in our society? If so, who is the child, and who suffers

A utopia is a fictive ideal society based around notions of equality, social harmony, economic prosperity, and political stability.  The word came from novel by Thomas More about a completely planned community based upon controlling individual impulses that could be destructive to the public good. In a utopia there is no private property, and everyone wears the same clothes, so there’s no envy of wealth or social status, no poverty, hunger, violence, no bars or hiding places.  There is always a concept of slave labor in a utopia. The word comes from two Greek words that mean "no place." When pronounced in Latin it means "good place."  A utopia is an ideal place we can create, that does not yet exist.  Utopias often include the following elements: • Information, independent thought, and freedom are promoted (at least in theory.) There is still a level of conformity however (such as everyone wearing the same clothing). • A figurehead or

What kind of society must those who leave Omelas envision?    To understand the story requires the labor of one’s moral imagination as well as one’s political imagination – how ought we treat one another, and what does a just society provide? W hat would it take to put communities and societies, our cultures and institutions, in the service of ending suffering and restoring the dignity of the brutalized? What would we organize if we cared about liberation as much as normative ethical treatment and rational political justice, all three as mutually reinforcing? Describe - much as Le Guin does - a society that takes all of these things into account. You can describe their laws, the set-up or organization of their cities, their technologies, their stance on war and healthcare, their education system, and more.