Woden’s Day, Oct. 17: WWOS?

EQ: How can the Debates be evaluated Orwell would?

  • Welcome!
  • SaturdaySchool
  • Review: Orwell andIntellectualIntegrity
  • Student Groups review and teach the Orwell essays they read:
  • Politics and the English Language
  • Propaganda and Demotic Speech
  • The Prevention of Literature
  • The Second Debate
  • Students quote Orwell to comment on the second Presidential Debate

One has to think fearlessly, and if one thinks fearlessly one cannot be politically orthodox.

ELACC12RL-RI2: Analyze two or more themes or central ideas of text

ELACC12RI3: Analyze and explain how individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop

ELACC12RL4-RI4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in text

ELACC12RL6: Distinguish what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant

ELACC12RI6: Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text

ELACC12RI8: Delineate and evaluate the reasoning in seminal British texts

ELACC12RL10: Read and comprehend complex literature independently and proficiently.

ELACC12W9: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis

ELACC12SL1: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions

This weekend ModelHigh School once more holds “SaturdaySchool.”

Any missing grades (“M” = 0) incurred between the last SaturdaySchool (September 22) and now can be made up for 70% credit through the weekend – but as of Monday, October 22, that “0” becomes permanent.

Please check your grades to see what you are missing and what is eligible for makeup.

Integrity

The Pantheon in Rome (Italy!) has stood for 2,000 years because its parts work together to distribute stresses, giving it what engineers call “structural integrity”

(photo by Corbin Saunders)

Existential (Personal) Integrity

(Remember your Kierkegaard!)

A Self is strong because of harmony between thinking, words, actions

seeking and serving Truth

A Self is weak – literally, lacks integrity – because noharmony; disconnect between thinking, words, actions

which thereby avoidTruth

Let the words of my mouth

and the meditation of my heart(thoughts)

be alwaysacceptable in thy sight, O Lord(Truth)

(Psalm 19:14)

John Milton: Right Reason

Rational, logical, ethical thought seeking Truth, resulting in proximity to Good and God

  • Areopagitica
  • Right Reason strengthened by vigorous “trial by what is contrary” (reading/rejecting Evil)
  • Words must be judged in terms of Right Reason
  • Paradise Lost
  • Satan’s words do not connect to Truth (“from the terror of this arm doubted his empire”)
  • Satan’s words do not even connect to histhoughts (“Vaunting aloud, but rack’d with deep despair”)
  • Satan’s thoughts do not seek Truth (“The mind is its own place, and in itself/Can make a Heaven of Hell”), creating “Wrong Reason” = Sin = Hell

Philosophical (Rhetorical) Integrity

A thinker/speaker/writer is strong

because thinking, words, actions

in harmony, seeking and serving Truth

Eric Blair, a.k.a. George Orwell (1903-1950)

  • Journalist, Essayist, Novelist (Animal Farm, 1984)
  • “A power of facing unpleasant facts”
  • “Civilized” life depends on brutal, shameful truths we rarely see or admit
  • These truths often hidden by imprecise, cloudy language – sometimes intentionally
  • Job of writers/thinkers is to discover, expose truth
  • Three Essays
  • Politics and the English Language
  • Propaganda and Demotic Speech
  • The Prevention of Literature

Now – YOU teach Orwell to US!

  • Pick up your work from the front of the room
  • Gather in essay groups:
  • Politics and the English Language
  • Propaganda and Demotic Speech
  • The Prevention of Literature
  • 15 minutes – prepare to teach the essay to the class!
  • Teach 3 quotations that are most important for the class to “get” Orwell’s point
  • Every group member must speak to get credit
  • 30 minutes – Orwell lessons
  • Propaganda and Demotic Speech (1944)
  • The Prevention of Literature (1945)
  • Politics and the English Language (1946)
  • 30 minutes – Watch and evaluate
  • Use a quotation from Orwell

Five minutes from now,

YOU teach Orwell to US!

  • Each group stands at its desks and presents
  • Group teaches 3 quotations that are most important for the class to “get” Orwell’s point
  • Every group member must speak to get credit
  • EVERYBODY follows on her/his own sheet of essays, marking and taking notes on passages being taught
  • Propaganda and Demotic Speech (1944)
  • The Prevention of Literature (1945)
  • Politics and the English Language (1946)

Then, we will watch a bit of debate.

  • As you watch, connect something you see/hear to something Orwell wrote; freewrite 100 words connecting Orwell quote to a specific debate moment.

Now, we will watch a bit of debate.

  • As you watch, connect something you see/hear to something Orwell wrote in one of the three essays:
  • Propaganda and Demotic Speech (1944)
  • The Prevention of Literature (1945)
  • Politics and the English Language (1946)
  • Freewrite 100 words connecting a quote from Orwell to a specific debate moment.

Today You Will Turn In:

  • The three Orwell essays, with your notes
  • Freewrite connecting an Orwell quote to debate