Asking the Big Questions: August 28, 2017

Focus: What foundational ideas do you need to guide your year in A.P. Lit?

1. Warming up with three good things

2. Indulging in some terrifying Greek myths and understanding hubris

• Read your myth together (Icarus, Phaethon, Arachne, Niobe, or Tantalus).

• Discuss the nature of the error that the human made.

• Use your bodies to create a sculpture/tableau that captures the moment of downfall in your myth; leave out one person to summarize the myth and read a line or two aloud from the myth that captures this moment.

• As you watch other's sculptures, think about what the downfalls have in common.

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• After presenting the tableaus, journal on the following questions:

• In what ways did Oedipus exhibit hubris? To what extent did this contribute to his downfall?

• What questions does this play raise that are central to us as humans? In other words, why is this tragedy heralded as the tragedy?

3. Setting up your Big Question Blogs (links are also on class website)

List of possibilities
Mike's Sample Blog
Mara's Sample Blog

• Please make sure give yourself a unique blog title that includes your first name.
• Include your big question in the header.

4. Using Oedipus Rex to start composing your first blog post; feel free to spend a little time simply freewriting on your topic before you try using it to understand Oedipus Rex.

HW:
1. For Wednesday: Reread the rest of Oedipus Rex by Wednesday; compose a Socratic ticket full of questions to bring to class. We will have our first graded Socratic that day.

A thought: Choose five important moments from the play and ask a good question about each.
Or, try to uncover some patterns in the play (what kinds of things repeat?). Ask questions about those.
Or, delve into character analyses. Or deep, deep philosophical questions. Or all of the above.

2. For Friday: Continue working on your first blog post; please finish by this Friday (but you may want to wait to finish it until we've discussed Oedipus in class--up to you).

3. All of this week: 

• Bring Oedipus and How To Read Literature... to class each day.

• Come see me for a conference on your college essay! Keep working on it!