Kite Runner Reflection #2

     The seminar influenced my thinking by opening up a wider range of topics for discussion. Being able to hear the opinions of my classmates made it easier for me to understand the text. The discussion truly made me put myself into the shoes of the characters, and try to imagine just what it would have felt like to be them. Much of the discussion focused on the relationship between Baba and Amir, as well as the dramatic changes they endure when they immigrate to the U.S.  A particularly interesting question that I had not thought of in depth before was whether or not refugees should be seen as cowardly for leaving their countries in a time of war. While reading the book, I had not thought much about the this concept of cowardice, and I though it was an interesting question that sparked some very diverse responses.

     The statement that I agreed with the most was that Amir would probably never be able to forgive himself for what he let happen to Hassan. Many of my classmates agreed with this statement, and added on that Amir may constantly try to make up for his actions, but life without regrets is an impossible feat. The statement that I least agree with is that refugees can be considered cowards because they fled their countries in times of war. I personally believe that if a person is placed in a dangerous, life threatening situation, it is only logical and fair that they be allowed to leave. Refugees are often innocent people, who have been caught up violence, which in many cases, seems impossible to stop. I think it is unfair to deny refugees the change to move to other countries and try to make better lives for themselves, and even their families. If there had been more time for discussion, I would have liked to further discuss the life of Hassan, and how it compares to that of Amir. I am still puzzled by Hassan’s unfaltering loyalty, the fact that he would drop anything to help Amir, the fact that he wore black for 40 days in mourning for Baba. I think it would have been very interesting to discuss the idea of loyalty, and see if my classmates valued it, gave it, and to what extent.

     I think that the group did very well at being courteous and allowing those who were speaking to finish their thoughts before sharing their own opinions. This particular seminar group was composed of those who tend to dominate the discussions, which I was the discussion leader for. A great thing about this discussion was the number of different ideas people had. I felt like each individual person had adequately prepared, which made it easy for the discussion to flow and cover a wide range of topics. Because everybody in the group was courteous I felt comfortable speaking and knew that I would not be interrupted by anybody, and took care not to interrupt anybody. The combination of everybody sharing their ideas whenever they could, as well as allowing others to speak created a stimulating discussion, that was able to dig deeper into a lot of the themes of The Kite Runner.

     A particular area that could use improvement would be the amount of time spent on each topic of discussion. I felt that the discussion lingered on some topics and ideas, namely the relationship between Baba and Amir, as well as how they were faring in the U.S. While these topics are complex, and have many areas that can be analyzed, the discussion got to the point where it seemed like people were repeating others, or themselves. Avoiding this would make discussions less redundant and open up other important topics and themes for discussion.

Kite Runner Reflection #1

     The seminar influenced the way I thought about Amir’s relationship with Baba and Hassan.  While completing preparation for the seminar, I realized that Amir’s relationships with Baba and Hassan were almost opposite because while Amir tries hard to please Baba but maintains a distant relationship, he is very close with Hassan but tries not to give him too much credit.  One thing that was said which I hadn’t thought of in depth was how Assef might not actually be a good son of Baba’s despite their friendliness displayed in the book.  This might be true because Assef’s tendency to manipulate others and prove himself superior might clash with Baba’s manliness and duty as leader and protector.

      The statement made by one of my peers that I agree with the most is that Amir is not a very likeable character due to his bullying of Hassan.  I found this statement to be true because in the story, Amir is constantly doing little things to prove himself superior to Hassan, like giving him the wrong definitions of words, or making fun of him.  Although there were small points that I may have disagreed with, I generally agreed with every statement made in the seminar, maybe because the story evoked the same emotional responses from my peers.  If I had the opportunity to add anything to the seminar, I would have mentioned that Amir’s belief that he should be superior to Hassan because Hassan is his servant.

      Surprisingly, some things that worked really well for the seminar were the use of emotional appeals.  On the surface, The Kite Runner is a story of social conflict, political turmoil, and new life in the USA.  However, beneath the surface, there is an entire dimension having to do with the relationships between Amir and Hassan, notably, Amir’s torturous guilt of never confessing the rape.  These emotional relationships in the books made up the majority of the conversation during the seminar, and therefore, the use of emotional appeals was a success for the first time.

      Some things that needed improvement in the seminar were the separation of people for the groups and lack of preparation.  The groups were split up by chance, and therefore, the first group ended up having many more people than the second one.  This was a problem because it changed the amount of speaking time people had in each group.  Another improvement that could be made was the lack of preparation.  Many people were very well prepared, but there were others who had clearly not studied the subject material beforehand.  This made it very difficult to include everyone I the seminar. 

SS#3 Reflection

     The seminar influenced the way I thought about the fictional society of Oceania as a whole. While talking about the three superstates, Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia, I developed a better since of the fictional world Winston lives in, and how it came to be. One thing said during the seminar which I hadn’t thought of in depth was a question concerning the possible nonexistence of Eurasia and Eastasia, meaning that Oceania would be the sole world power. I thought that this could be true since there is evidence to support this. For example, In Book Two, Julia says that she thinks the bombs dropped on Oceania are really bombs dropped by the Party to scare the citizens.
     The statement made by one of my peers that I agree with the most is that the world of the Hunger Games would be a better society to live in than Oceania. I agree with this statement because there is no constant surveillance of people in Panem, while in Oceania, the citizens are constantly watched. The statement made by one of my peers that I agree with the least is therefore that the world of Oceania would be a better than Panem because in Panem, you have a chance of dying. I disagree with this statement because although there is a chance of dying in the games, this chance is very slight. If I had the opportunity to add anything to the seminar, I would have pointed out that it is ironic that we are watched and assessed during the seminars just as the citizens of Oceania are supervised by telescreens.
Some things that worked really well for the seminar were the use of emotional and logical appeals. When talking about the love between Winston and Julia, there was a strong emotional feeling in the room, especially during a debate concerning the legitimacy of their love. As always, logical appeals were also frequently used because they are by far the easiest of the three rhetorical devices.
     Some things that needed improvement were ethical appeals and participation. Unfortunately, my prediction that ethical appeals would be more frequent did not come true. Very few ethical appeals were made and in my opinion, these rhetorical appeals are not harder than emotional appeals. Another issue in the seminar was participation. Although most people participated, a select few clearly dominated the conversation while other were not left much time to contribute meaningfully.

SS #2 Reflection

     As per usual, the second Socratic seminar on 1984 helped me see the different perspectives that my classmates had about the book. It was incredibly interesting to see that although we all read the same section of the book, different people interpreted it in very different ways and took different things away from it than I had. For example, I had never anticipated the conversation about marijuana that took place in the seminar because when I first read the chapters, I had focused on the government's restrictions of privacy instead of their restriction of consumer goods. Hearing what my classmates had to say about what had taken place, especially the conversation about legalizing marijuana and other illicit substances compared to legalizing chocolate in the world of 1984, was illuminating.
     I agreed most with Victoria's statement that the government of Oceania used language to control the relationships between its citizens. I had also written about this in my preparation sheet, and had concluded that Big Brother wanted the Party members to be loyal to him above all others, even their spouses. For this reason they must call each other comrades, while Big Brother alone is given a familial, kindly name. During this Socratic seminar, I did not find any statements that I disagreed with as it seemed as though everyone was in agreement with each other, and most of the discussion was spent using historical examples and evidence from the text to back up the popularly held opinion. In fact, I think that something we should work on is ensuring that there are more "controversial" topics brought up during the seminar in order to provoke meaningful discussion where we can learn from each other, instead of reiterating the same information and points of view that everyone already agrees on. For example, I was hoping that some people would have differing opinions on my question about whether the government should be able to restrict privacy under certain circumstances, because I know that some people believe that in situations such as the war on terror it is a necessary evil to increase surveillance and government interference in the lives of their citizens, while others agree that there is no rational reason to restrict a person's freedom of privacy, no matter what. One thing that I think could have been discussed more during the seminar was the relationship between the government surveillance portrayed in the novel and the current scandals with the NSA and wiretapping going on today. The fact that this book is so relevant to the modern world, particularly the United States, in terms of the current measures of security being used definitely deserves a more detailed discussion so that we can relate Orwell's ideas of the future to the future that we are currently experiencing.
     I think that everyone always brings very interesting ideas to the table, but I was especially impressed by the depth and amount of thought-provoking questions that were discussed in the seminar. I thought that the questions that my classmates asked led to some very interesting conversation. For example, I thought that Laura's question about why the government of Big Brother promoted consorting with prostitutes but not Party members led to a very interesting discussion about the importance of interpersonal relationships in the novel. 
     One of the things that most needed improvement during the discussion was the fact that everyone agreed on most points. I really liked Lina's idea about having one person be a designated devil's advocate, so that the discussion is more than just everyone agreeing with each other. However, I think that the person who was chosen to disagree on some points would have to use appropriate, well-thought-out responses as opposed to just blurting out contradictions in order to move along the conversation. I also think that it is important that the person remains anonymous and is as subtle as possible, and that their overall goal is to create more interesting conversation and not just to make everyone else in the class laugh by throwing out absurd ideas about every topic.

SS Reflection

     The socratic seminar influenced my thinking about the book 1984 by George Orwell by showing different sides of the narration. One thought from the seminar that I had not thought about before in so much depth was a comment made by one of my peers. They said that when Winston was writing in his diary he was taking a risk of losing his life or losing his mind. I thought that this was an interesting concept because the more I thought about it the more it made sense. If Winston had or hadn't started writing in his diary eventually he would loose his life anyway because he would loose his mind from not being able to express his feelings.   

     During the Socratic Seminar, a statement said by Ryan brought up a lot of emotional appeals. She talked about todays sensitivity to violence versus the people in 1984. We were all able to build off of that and we had a nice discussion on that. I didn't find a statement I disagreed with, which could be a possible readjustment to the socratic seminar. 

     One thing that worked well during the seminar was utilizing a discussion leader.  I was the discussion leader for my group and I think that it really worked. I tried to make sure that people were able to talk and make appeals and I tried to keep the discussion on track. Another part that worked efficiently was having a half time. Although my partner was rarely there, the half time break seemed to be beneficial to the other students in the seminar.

A way in which the seminar needs improvement is the amount of questions that each person gets to ask.  I felt as if some people got to ask two or three of their questions while some people did not get to ask any.  Some of the people I talked to had really good questions that I think they would have liked to share but they were not given the time to share those questions because other people took up time by asking more than one of their questions.

Othello Dramatic Reading Found At https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNlG-3gwP9s&feature=youtu.be

I chose to perform Desdemona's monologue from Othello. Othello is angry because he thinks she is being unfaithful. is getting prepared to kill his wife, Desdemona. This particular monologue is filled with emotion and conflicting feelings which helped me to determine where tone, emphasis, and pauses, should be. During this scene, Othello is very angry with Desdemona because he was tricked into thinking she was unfaithful to him, but he is also overcome admiration of her beauty and the love that they shared. In her monologue, I decided to put an emphasis on phrases such as, "I know not how I lost him," and, "Here I kneel" because I felt she said them to convince herself that she feels she is responsible for his anger. I felt a sense of urgency in these lines where she wanted Iago to go to him. After saying, "What shall I do to win my lord again?," I paused before reciting, "Good friend, go to him," in order to put an emphasis on her sense of urgency. When delivering the line, "For by this light of heaven, I know not how I lost him," I used a gentle, sweet, and loving tone to portray how Othello still adored Desdemona and her sorrow that she knows hes mad at her. After "becoming" Desdemona for two minutes, I learned how hurt he was by the idea that Desdemona had cheated on him and how he suffered from the conflicting feelings of love, anger, and jealousy all at once. Before I had prepared for this dramatic reading, I solely thought of Othello as an overpowering man who made rash decisions based on questionable information, and put myself in her shoes. While part of that is true, I have now recognized Othello's true love for Desdemona and the grief and rage that he felt after being tricked into thinking she cheated on him. After finishing the dramatic reading, I realized how dangerous and detrimental jealousy can be. I also found that people really need to analyze important pieces of information judiciously before making a decision. This particular soliloquy really defined Desdemona's emotions and it defined her as a character. This scene was not the climax or the resolution, but the audience gets a better understanding of Desdemona's struggle and her confusion, all laced with her overwhelming love.

Title Justification Essay Chapters 7-8

    In the book, The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore the author's purpose is to examine the lives of two men who come from similar, difficult backgrounds and how they make different decisions that change the outcome of their lives.  The collection of chapters called, Paths Taken and Expectations Fulfilled, develops many issues related to the authors' purpose.  These chapters describe how each Wes Moore took a different path in his life, the factors that effected each man's life and how each man lived up to the expectations of those around him.

     In the series of chapters Paths Taken and Expectations Fulfilled the author examines the influences that have had an impact on each man's path in his life and how peoples' expectations effect the direction each man took.  For the author Wes Moore his life could have led to a path of destruction but it didn't because his mother removed him from a drug infested neighborhood that was effecting his life negatively.  Once his mother placed him in the military academy the direction of his life changed because he had many role models who had high expectations for his future.  Wes became influenced by these role models and began to realize his life could be different than he first expected.  The other Wes Moore had great difficulty in changing his life's direction.  He continued to deal drugs and did not envision a better future for himself.  At one point he tried to change his path but he wasn't successful. The expectations for a person like Wes in his neighborhood were very low, with most young men becoming drug dealers or ending up in jail.  After a while, even his mother's expectations for him became very limited.

     The author's purpose is to demonstrate how two men from similar backgrounds can end up with such different lives.  This connects to the collection of chapters Paths Taken and Expectations Fulfilled because each man ended up taking a different direction in his life.  Furthermore this influenced each man's expectations and his family and friends' expectations for what he could accomplish.  The book demonstrates how difficult it is for a person to change his direction if life and break free from the difficulties he faces growing up.