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I meant to say this with the assignment. Let's try posting your responses and discussin via blogging. If I feel we have enjoyed a useful exchange of ideas in this medium, we go a little faster through the series. So....post your answers.

Pre-reading Tocqueville

Here are the prereading questions. Choose one and answer it in essay form if you can. If you feel the answer lends itself to a paragraph, then you may do that, instead. Then read How an Aristocracy May Be Created by Industry.

1. How would you define "aristocracy"? "Noblesse oblige"?

2. What obligation do rich people have to help those with less money?

3. In America, can we become whatever we want, or are we limited by circumstance?

4. How might it be a threat to our democracy for some people to be better off than others?

5. Have you ever had to stay with a job you didn't like?

6. Are the president of a large corporation and his or her employees like a monarch and his or her subjects?

homework for this friday

Hi Guys!

Second Reading of Chelkash
Mark places where you respect or pity either Chelkash or Gavrilla.

Mark places where Chelkash tries to corrupt Gavrilla, and places where he shows that he cares for him.

For our textual analysis we will examine an exerpt from page 95 beginning with "Nice, the sea, isn't it," and ending, "and gives birth to great dreams."

Then we will do some dramatic reading! I know! Exciting!! (and dramatic)

We will read pages 113-116 and pages 116 - 188 with feeling :) and then do a textual analysis.

And here are the post-discussion writing questions for the FOLLOWING week. I'm just going ahead and posting now them because I am sitting here and it is convenient.

1. Does a thief like Chelkash emjoy more freedom than someone who follows the law?

2. Do you admire people who refuse to live by any rules other than their own?

3. Is Gavrilla right when he claims that money is the key to "honor, comfort, and pleasure"? (pg 112)

4. Do you think you would make a good professional thief?

5. Why do people become outcasts like Chelkash?

6. Does your world make you choose, like Chelkash, between being a "slave" or being free?

I THINK THESE ARE SOME GREAT QUESTIONS! I look forward to hearing what you guys have to say.

Carol

Post-Discussion Writing on Concerning the Division of Labor

Below are the post-discussion questions for Concerning the Division of Labor. Before you begin to write, let me quote from our teacher's guide:

Having students write essays based on interpretive or evaluative questions related to the selection they have discussed enables them to assimilate new ideas and measure them against their own experience and opinions. Such writing can be an opportunity to return to questions not fully resolved in discussion, or to investigate unexplored avenues of inquiry. It is also a satisfying closure for students to articulate their own points of view carefully and thoroughly in written form.

In the Great Books program, writing is a natural extension of interpretive work on a selection. During the week's work with a text, students experience and important part of the writing process as they continually formulate, revise, and refine their ideas, draw inferences and reasoned conclusions, and order their thoughts. Having done so, they will be better prepared to present a thesis clearly and forcefully, and to develop a significant contest for their ideas - when they write. In their final essays, students should explain the importance of the ideas they are developing, support their points with convincing arguments and evidence from the text, and consider other possible points of view - all important elements of effective writing, and of shared inquiry as well.

1. do you agree with Smith that habit, custom, and education account for almost all the differences in people's talents?

2. Is it irrational to act in a manner that does not promote self-interest?

3. How could the division of labor promote or discourage creativity and individuality?

4. What problems does the division of labor cause in our society?

5. Should a basketball player and a construction worker be paid the same amount if they work equally hard?

6. How does the division of labor operate in your school or family? How could you improve the efficiency of your school or family by increasing (or decreasing) the division of labor?

Defn.

Hi, it's me.
Teacher in the most high, would you mind posting the definitions of the words you explained to us?
thanks!
-bob

intro

Yeah Bobby, post your answer! Lol.
Here's the introduction for my essay, the thesis being "A human being and a piece of music share many things in common".

Music is the one place where versatility and consistency coexist. Or is it? Within the notes of a song, there lie many differentiating ways for the notes to be interpreted, therefore creating multiple sounds, textures, and emotions all stemming from just one piece. Within a single person, the multitude of thoughts, feelings, and opinions that that person is able to experience results in one amazingly diverse human being. A human being and a piece of music share many things in common.

Bob??

Hey Bobby - post your answers, too. They were really good. And thanks, Juliana! I love thunderstorms, too! One time I fell asleep during a storm and it was a humongous storm. It was before Jules was born. As I slept the wind was just howling (you know how it can howl out here) and I dreamed I was sleeping in a cabin in the woods and a storm was raging. Suddenly I was enveloped in strong arms. I felt so peaceful. The little cabin was literally shaking in the wind yet I was safe, warm, and held. When I woke up the storm continued outside. I was cozy in my bed but I could not get back the feeling from the dream. Whenever it storms I am reminded of that dream and wish I could re-visit it : )