On Tuesday/Wednesday (Lesson 4), we kick off our mini-project A Government for Xlandia. A memo from the United Nations lays out our task of recommending what kind of constitutional democracy would be best for the newly free people of Xlandia. We draft a problem statement and take an inventory of what we know and don’t know going into this project.
For Literature, we continue our exploration of the concept of world view by reading an excerpt from The Death of Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory (1485). What we don’t finish in class you must read independently outside of class.
You are given an assignment to watch parts of the Republican National Convention, which is broadcast from 5–8pm every night this week through Thursday. Take notes on the speech or speeches that you hear; then, in a two-paragraph write-up, present the following:
For Lesson 5 (Thursday/Friday), we debrief the Republican Convention as you submit the write-up of your notes on it. In a quickwrite, you express your opinion on human nature: Are human beings born fundamentally good, selfish, rational, or products of their environment? We then divide up into groups and design hypothetical governments based around these beliefs.
Our exploration of world view continues with a discussion of The Death of Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory and an introduction to the short story “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka.
Posted by Justin Wells : 09/04/2008