Friday September 13, 2013

Today we started off class talking about our "Who Are You" essay that is due on Wednesday. Mrs. Smith did emphasize on showing not telling in the essays.
Then we did a reality check which is just a hand written page of  answering these questions:
How's it going? Really, hows it going? 
What is one thing that is going well for you? Tell me about it. 
What's one thing that is really challenging you? Tell me about it 
How can I (Mrs. Smith) help?

After we were finished writing the reality check she gave us sometime in class to start reading our homework: chapters 60-66.

We did have a discussion connecting hope in fear, we talked about if we need hope and fear to be human, or any other contradicting concepts like hatred and love etc.. We talked about how Pi might need both moments of fear and hope to be able to survive, that way he won't be over reliant on hope and be too confident but he won't be so afraid to try to survive. There was also a discussion  about Richard Parker giving Pi a purpose, and how that may have helped him survive. This idea will be brought up again next week when we start really defining who we are.

Lastly, we watched a clip from Shawshank Redemption to show us the power of hope, and discussed how in the end hope and fear do balance each other out.