Maus: chpts 1 & 2

1. Check journals & share with partner. Please share paragraphs with each other and compare chosen panels. What stands out in your partner's panel? Comment on the perspective, the background and the text (if any)

2. Let's create an outline of the Holocaust using the following terms. List dates, countries involved, significant events.

• Rise of Nazi party
• Nazification
• The Ghettos
• The Camps
• Resistance
• Rescue and Liberation
• Aftermath

3. The graphic novel. Review FOCUSS & other vocabulary handout

Discussion

Chapter One

1. This is a graphic memoir. A graphic memoir tells a person’s life through text and drawings. Why does Art Spiegelman use mice instead of people to portray the characters in the story? What do the mice represent?

2. On page 13, Spiegelman tells us that his father’s second wife Mala was a survivor too, like most of his parents’ friends. Why does Spiegelman call Mala a survivor? What does he mean?

3. What kind of relationship does Art Spiegelman and his father, Vladek have? Use specific pictures and text to support your answer.

4. Why is the chapter called “The Sheik”?

5. Why does Vladek choose Anja over Lucia? What do you think of his choice?

6. Why does Vladek ask Art not to write about Lucia in his book? Why doesn’t Art listen to his father? Do you think it is right for Art to break his promise?

Chapter Two 

1. Why does Ms. Stefanska go to jail? What role did Anja play in Ms. Stefanska’s going to jail?
2. On page 33, Vladek says that he left Anja and their new baby to go to Bielsko to run his new factory and find an apartment for them to live in. How does Anja respond? Have you or members of your family ever had to separate in order to start a new job or new life? How did it feel for the people who moved on? How did it feel for the people who were left behind?
3. When do Vladek and Anja realize that the war is coming? How do they know? Use specific pictures and text to support your answer.
4. What happens after Vladek and Anja return from Czechoslovakia? What are they afraid of?
5. Why does Vladek consider taking Anja and Richieu to the town of Sosnowiec? Do they eventually go to Sosnowiec? Where does Vladek go?
6. Why doesn’t Vladek tell the doctor in the hospital about his glass eye? What does this say about Vladek’s character?

Maus: we begin

The graphic novel & the Holocaust

1. Ethical Dilemmas

2. Let's create a meaningful outline of the Holocaust using the following terms. List dates, countries involved, significant events.

• Rise of Nazi party
• Nazification
• The Ghettos
• The Camps
• Resistance
• Rescue and Liberation
• Aftermath

3. Review of FOCUSS
4. Review of nightly journal expectations

Frankenstein: Vol 3, Chpts 1-3

1. Free write

Must a person experience desperation to know the true meaning of joy? Must a person know hunger to really understand the concept of being full? In other words, must we experience opposite emotions to truly understand life?

Discussion Questions

1. Where does Victor travel in Chpts 1-2? In what way does the journey further develop Victor's character? Clerval's?

2. Close reading p. 168-169. What is the tone created on these pages? What is the mood? Remember, when we talk about tone we use adjectives. Mood is a feeling created by the language as well.

3. At the close of Chpt 2 Victor says, "I looked towards its completion with a tremulous and eager hope, which I dared not trust myself to question, but which was intermixed with obscure forebodings of evil, that made my heart sick in my bosom" (169). Remember that Victor is telling a story. Using only this passage, what does Victor want the listener/reader to think of him?

4. At the start of Chpt 3 the creature says, "Shall each man ... find a wife for his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone? I had feelings of affection, and they were requited by detestation and scorn" (172). Is the creature's argument a reasonable one? If so, in what way does this develop Victor's character and the creature's?

Frankenstein: Vol 2, Chpts. 8&9

1. Check books & vocab & architecture

Discussion
Let's look at the creature and Victor through the lens of Erikson. Some basic info on the guy.

Big question to answer:
1. At what stage is Victor?
2. At what stage is the creature?
3. At what stage did Victor encounter struggles?
4. At what stage did the creature encounter struggles?

As time permits ...
Empathy versus sympathy. What's the difference?

Personal responsibility ...

Frankenstein: Vol 2, Chpts. 5-7

1. Check books & vocab

2. Vocab review

Let's do a close examination of the creature. We've heard his story and know the path he took to meeting up with Victor again. Now it's time to dissect him a bit.

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to write the Creature's "Where I'm From" poem. There's one catch, all of your evidence and all of the details you fill in must be connected to and sourced from the text. Have some fun with your poem, but really dig into who the creature is and where his identity comes from. Please work in pairs, and follow the structure of the original.

“Where I’m From"
by George Ella Lyon

I am from clothespins,
from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride.
I am from the dirt under the back porch.
(Black, glistening
it tasted like beets.)

I am from the forsythia bush,
the Dutch elm
whose long gone limbs I
remember
as if they were my own.

I’m from fudge and eyeglasses,
from Imogene and Alafair.
I’m from the know-it-alls
and the pass-it-ons,
from perk up and pipe down.

I’m from He restoreth my soul
with a cottonball lamb
and ten verses I can say myself.

I’m from Artemus and Billie’s Branch,
fried corn and strong coffee.
From the finger my grandfather lost
to the auger
the eye my father shut to keep his sight.

Under my bed was a dressbox
spilling old pictures,
a sift of lost faces
to drift beneath my dreams;
I am from those moments -
snapped before I budded
leaf-fall from the family tree

In-class

1. What makes a good discussion question good?

• Engages in the morals and ethics of the novel
• Specific but relatable to big picture
• Not too abstract
• Arguable/debatable/invites opposition

2. What are the components of a good discussion?

• Freedom to express opinion/contradict others
• No domination from one person
• Speak AND listen
• Articulate opinion before you voice it (think before you speak)
• Textual evidence to support ideas
• Stay on topic
• Everyone gets involved
• Be engaged
• Stay open-minded
• Build off each other rather than repeating
• Have fun

Questions for now ...

1. Who is the real monster in Shelley's Frankenstein: Victor or the creature?

2. How did the creature's rejection by Felix and Agatha enforce the ideas that were introduced by the books he read?

Questions for later ...

1. Why do you think the creature gave humans a second chance after his unfortunate experience with the villagers?

2. What does it say about society when the creature is rejected by Felix & Agatha for his outward appearance?

3. In what ways has the creature's encounter with the old man taught him about humanity?

4. Should the creature be known as human or animal and why?

5. In what way has the cottagers' attack on the creature altered his views of humans and himself?

6. How does the creature's connection with the DeLacey's inform his identity?

Frankenstein, Vol 2, Chpts. 1-4

Pre-writing practice

Is Victor's thirst for knowledge an honorable pursuit? Why or why not?
How is Victor a sympathetic character?
In what ways does Victor's guilt affect his health? What is Shelley's purpose in this recurring plot device?

1. Check books and vocab

2. Review vocab and architecture

Discussion questions

1. At the close of chapter 1, in what ways has Victor changed? How does Shelley use Victor's fascination with nature to remind us of his actions against nature?

2. Close reading: p. 100 ("The ascent is precipitous, ...) — how does the tone express Victor's remorse for his actions?

3. "You accuse me of murder, and yet you would, with satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice of man!" (103). Victor believes in an eye-for-an-eye. Is that justice or revenge?

4. How does the tone and language change from chapter 3 to chapter 4? What does this reveal about the creature's development?

NOTE: track the language of the creature. Pay close attention to when it is overtly negative and overtly positive. What's the correlation between his language and his sense of self? And the correlation between nature and Victor's sense of self.

Frankenstein: Vol. 1, Chpts 4-6 & 7-8

1. Check books, review vocab, complete architecture
2. Free write for five minutes: Looking at the passage on p. 54 ("Learn from me ... than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.) In what ways does Victor's warning relate to all mankind?

Discussion questions Chpts. 4-6

• Romanticism
• Victor and God: p. 54
• In what ways does Shelley display Victor's hubris? Look particularly at the contrast in Victor's desire to conquer nature yet ignore its beauty.
• Chpt. 5: Close reading of passage on pp. 58-59 beginning with "How can I describe". Review connotation (an idea or feeling that a word invokes in a person in addition to its literal/primary meaning) and denotation (the literal/primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests).

• Step 1: read passage out lout.
• Step 2: read silently and circle/underline all words with negative connotations/denotations.
• Big question: What kind of tone is Shelley trying to create around the the Creature's creation and creator?

• Chpt. 6: Contrast with prior chapter. Nature.
• What Gothic and Romantic elements have we seen thus far?

Discussion questions 7-8
What discussion questions do you have? Think theme, gothic/romantic elements, characterization, etc ...
Step 1: Generate five discussion questions alone.
Step 2: Working with a partner, whittle list to 3 questions.
Step 3: Share with class.