Independent Reading Project - Problem/Solution

“Society, man! You know, society! Cause, you know what I don't understand? I don't understand why people, why every […] person is so bad to each other so […] often. It doesn't make sense to me. Judgment. Control. All that, the whole spectrum.”

– Christopher McCandless in Into the Wild

“[Siddhartha] saw merchants trading, princes hunting, mourners wailing for their dead, whores offering themselves, physicians trying to help the sick, priests determining the most suitable day for seeding, lovers loving, mothers nursing their children--and all of this was not worthy of one look from his eye, it all lied, it all stank, it all stank of lies, it all pretended to be meaningful and joyful and beautiful, and it all was just concealed putrefaction. The world tasted bitter. Life was torture.”

– Siddhartha from the chapter “With the Samanas”

Both Siddhartha and Chris McCandless looked at the world around them and saw its imperfections. Their solution to the problems of this world was to withdraw. Both Siddhartha and McCandless sought enlightenment alone and away from this world’s evils.

Well, I suppose becoming a hermit is one way to deal with this world’s issues. But how about looking at another perspective. What if a disenchanted soul looked at this world’s problems and instead of withdrawing threw himself or herself headlong into working towards an actual solution? With this assignment, that is precisely the scenario we’re going to examine.

The Assignment:

Choose and read one of the books we will preview in class. Read on for further details about the assignments that will accompany your reading.

The Books:

1. Night Circus (Morgenstern)

2. **Divergent (Roth)

3. *Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (Levitt and Dubner)

4. 1984(Orwell)

5. **Butter (Lange)

6. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (Riggs)

7. Frankenstein (Shelley)

8. **The Curious Incident of the dog in the Nighttime(Haddon)

* = Nonfiction

** = Content warning; must get parent/guardian approval

You are of course welcome to purchase the books, adding to your personal collections of reading material, but another option is this place called a library where you can borrow books, amazingly enough.

Groups:

Part of the assessment of this project is going to be your involvement in discussions, a kind of “Literature Circle” or “Reader’s Club.” For this reason, I am asking that you be a part of a group of 3 to 4 people. Obviously this means that others in class will be reading the same book that you are reading.

Assessments:

  1. Participation in Sustained Silent Reading (SSR)
  2. Completion of an independent response journal
  3. Participation in Small Group “Literature Circle” Discussions
  4. Completion of anindividual Problem/Solution paper and a speech.

*** Stay tuned for further details***