Hero's Journey

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/herosjourney/heros_journey.html

"The Danger of a Single Story" by Chimamanda Adichie

I'm a storyteller. And I would like to tell you a few personal stories about what I like to call "the danger of the single story." I grew up on a university campus in eastern Nigeria. My mother says that I started reading at the age of two, although I think four is probably close to the truth. So I was an early reader, and what I read were British and American children's books. I was also an early writer, and when I began to write, at about the age of seven, stories in pencil with crayon illustrations that my poor mother was obligated to read, I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading: All my characters were white and blue-eyed, they played in the snow, they ate apples, and they talked a lot about the weather, how lovely it was that the sun had come out. (Laughter) Now, this despite the fact that I lived in Nigeria. I had never been outside Nigeria. We didn't have snow, we ate mangoes, and we never talked about the weather, because there was no need to. My characters also drank a lot of ginger beer because the characters in the British books I read drank ginger beer. Never mind that I had no idea what ginger beer was. (Laughter) And for many years afterwards, I would have a desperate desire to taste ginger beer. But that is another story. What this demonstrates, I think, is how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story, particularly as children. Because all I had read were books in which characters were foreign, I had become convinced that books by their very nature had to have foreigners in them and had to be about things with which I could not personally identify. Things changed when I discovered African books. There weren't many of them available, and they weren't quite as easy to find as the foreign books. But because of writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye I went through a mental shift in my perception of literature. I realized that people like me, girls with skin the color of chocolate, whose kinky hair could not form ponytails, could also exist in literature. I started to write about things I recognized. Now, I loved those American and British books I read. They stirred my imagination. They opened up new worlds for me. But the unintended consequence was that I did not know that people like me could exist in literature. So what the discovery of African writers did for me was this: It saved me from having a single story of what books are. I come from a conventional, middle-class Nigerian family. My father was a professor. My mother was an administrator. And so we had, as was the norm, live-in domestic help, who would often come from nearby rural villages. So the year I turned eight we got a new house boy. His name was Fide. The only thing my mother told us about him was that his family was very poor. My mother sent yams and rice, and our old clothes, to his family. And when I didn't finish my dinner my mother would say, "Finish your food! Don't you know? People like Fide's family have nothing." So I felt enormous pity for Fide's family. Then one Saturday we went to his village to visit, and his mother showed us a beautifully patterned basket made of dyed raffia that his brother had made. I was startled. It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could actually make something. All I had heard about them was how poor they were, so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor. Their poverty was my single story of them. Years later, I thought about this when I left Nigeria to go to university in the United States. I was 19. My American roommate was shocked by me. She asked where I had learned to speak English so well, and was confused when I said that Nigeria happened to have English as its official language. She asked if she could listen to what she called my "tribal music," and was consequently very disappointed when I produced my tape of Mariah Carey. (Laughter) She assumed that I did not know how to use a stove. What struck me was this: She had felt sorry for me even before she saw me. Her default position toward me, as an African, was a kind of patronizing, well-meaning pity. My roommate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe. In this single story there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way, no possibility of feelings more complex than pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals. I must say that before I went to the U.S. I didn't consciously identify as African. But in the U.S. whenever Africa came up people turned to me. Never mind that I knew nothing about places like Namibia. But I did come to embrace this new identity, and in many ways I think of myself now as African. Although I still get quite irritable when Africa is referred to as a country, the most recent example being my otherwise wonderful flight from Lagos two days ago, in which there was an announcement on the Virgin flight about the charity work in "India, Africa and other countries." (Laughter) So after I had spent some years in the U.S. as an African, I began to understand my roommate's response to me. If I had not grown up in Nigeria, and if all I knew about Africa were from popular images, I too would think that Africa was a place of beautiful landscapes, beautiful animals, and incomprehensible people, fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty and AIDS, unable to speak for themselves and waiting to be saved by a kind, white foreigner. I would see Africans in the same way that I, as a child, had seen Fide's family. This single story of Africa ultimately comes, I think, from Western literature. Now, here is a quote from the writing of a London merchant called John Locke, who sailed to west Africa in 1561 and kept a fascinating account of his voyage. After referring to the black Africans as "beasts who have no houses," he writes, "They are also people without heads, having their mouth and eyes in their breasts." Now, I've laughed every time I've read this. And one must admire the imagination of John Locke. But what is important about his writing is that it represents the beginning of a tradition of telling African stories in the West: A tradition of Sub-Saharan Africa as a place of negatives, of difference, of darkness, of people who, in the words of the wonderful poet Rudyard Kipling, are "half devil, half child." And so I began to realize that my American roommate must have throughout her life seen and heard different versions of this single story, as had a professor, who once told me that my novel was not "authentically African." Now, I was quite willing to contend that there were a number of things wrong with the novel, that it had failed in a number of places, but I had not quite imagined that it had failed at achieving something called African authenticity. In fact I did not know what African authenticity was. The professor told me that my characters were too much like him, an educated and middle-class man. My characters drove cars. They were not starving. Therefore they were not authentically African. But I must quickly add that I too am just as guilty in the question of the single story. A few years ago, I visited Mexico from the U.S. The political climate in the U.S. at the time was tense, and there were debates going on about immigration. And, as often happens in America, immigration became synonymous with Mexicans. There were endless stories of Mexicans as people who were fleecing the healthcare system, sneaking across the border, being arrested at the border, that sort of thing. I remember walking around on my first day in Guadalajara, watching the people going to work, rolling up tortillas in the marketplace, smoking, laughing. I remember first feeling slight surprise. And then I was overwhelmed with shame. I realized that I had been so immersed in the media coverage of Mexicans that they had become one thing in my mind, the abject immigrant. I had bought into the single story of Mexicans and I could not have been more ashamed of myself. So that is how to create a single story, show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become. It is impossible to talk about the single story without talking about power. There is a word, an Igbo word, that I think about whenever I think about the power structures of the world, and it is "nkali." It's a noun that loosely translates to "to be greater than another." Like our economic and political worlds, stories too are defined by the principle of nkali: How they are told, who tells them, when they're told, how many stories are told, are really dependent on power. Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person. The Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti writes that if you want to dispossess a people, the simplest way to do it is to tell their story and to start with, "secondly." Start the story with the arrows of the Native Americans, and not with the arrival of the British, and you have an entirely different story. Start the story with the failure of the African state, and not with the colonial creation of the African state, and you have an entirely different story. I recently spoke at a university where a student told me that it was such a shame that Nigerian men were physical abusers like the father character in my novel. I told him that I had just read a novel called American Psycho -- (Laughter) -- and that it was such a shame that young Americans were serial murderers. (Laughter) (Applause) Now, obviously I said this in a fit of mild irritation. (Laughter) But it would never have occurred to me to think that just because I had read a novel in which a character was a serial killer that he was somehow representative of all Americans. This is not because I am a better person than that student, but because of America's cultural and economic power, I had many stories of America. I had read Tyler and Updike and Steinbeck and Gaitskill. I did not have a single story of America. When I learned, some years ago, that writers were expected to have had really unhappy childhoods to be successful, I began to think about how I could invent horrible things my parents had done to me. (Laughter) But the truth is that I had a very happy childhood, full of laughter and love, in a very close-knit family. But I also had grandfathers who died in refugee camps. My cousin Polle died because he could not get adequate healthcare. One of my closest friends, Okoloma, died in a plane crash because our fire trucks did not have water. I grew up under repressive military governments that devalued education, so that sometimes my parents were not paid their salaries. And so, as a child, I saw jam disappear from the breakfast table, then margarine disappeared, then bread became too expensive, then milk became rationed. And most of all, a kind of normalized political fear invaded our lives. All of these stories make me who I am. But to insist on only these negative stories is to flatten my experience and to overlook the many other stories that formed me. The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story. Of course, Africa is a continent full of catastrophes: There are immense ones, such as the horrific rapes in Congo and depressing ones, such as the fact that 5,000 people apply for one job vacancy in Nigeria. But there are other stories that are not about catastrophe, and it is very important, it is just as important, to talk about them. I've always felt that it is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person. The consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar. So what if before my Mexican trip I had followed the immigration debate from both sides, the U.S. and the Mexican? What if my mother had told us that Fide's family was poor and hardworking? What if we had an African television network that broadcast diverse African stories all over the world? What the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe calls "a balance of stories." What if my roommate knew about my Nigerian publisher, Mukta Bakaray, a remarkable man who left his job in a bank to follow his dream and start a publishing house? Now, the conventional wisdom was that Nigerians don't read literature. He disagreed. He felt that people who could read, would read, if you made literature affordable and available to them. Shortly after he published my first novel I went to a TV station in Lagos to do an interview, and a woman who worked there as a messenger came up to me and said, "I really liked your novel. I didn't like the ending. Now you must write a sequel, and this is what will happen ..." (Laughter) And she went on to tell me what to write in the sequel. I was not only charmed, I was very moved. Here was a woman, part of the ordinary masses of Nigerians, who were not supposed to be readers. She had not only read the book, but she had taken ownership of it and felt justified in telling me what to write in the sequel. Now, what if my roommate knew about my friend Fumi Onda, a fearless woman who hosts a TV show in Lagos, and is determined to tell the stories that we prefer to forget? What if my roommate knew about the heart procedure that was performed in the Lagos hospital last week? What if my roommate knew about contemporary Nigerian music, talented people singing in English and Pidgin, and Igbo and Yoruba and Ijo, mixing influences from Jay-Z to Fela to Bob Marley to their grandfathers. What if my roommate knew about the female lawyer who recently went to court in Nigeria to challenge a ridiculous law that required women to get their husband's consent before renewing their passports? What if my roommate knew about Nollywood, full of innovative people making films despite great technical odds, films so popular that they really are the best example of Nigerians consuming what they produce? What if my roommate knew about my wonderfully ambitious hair braider, who has just started her own business selling hair extensions? Or about the millions of other Nigerians who start businesses and sometimes fail, but continue to nurse ambition? Every time I am home I am confronted with the usual sources of irritation for most Nigerians: our failed infrastructure, our failed government, but also by the incredible resilience of people who thrive despite the government, rather than because of it. I teach writing workshops in Lagos every summer, and it is amazing to me how many people apply, how many people are eager to write, to tell stories. My Nigerian publisher and I have just started a non-profit called Farafina Trust, and we have big dreams of building libraries and refurbishing libraries that already exist and providing books for state schools that don't have anything in their libraries, and also of organizing lots and lots of workshops, in reading and writing, for all the people who are eager to tell our many stories. Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity. The American writer Alice Walker wrote this about her Southern relatives who had moved to the North. She introduced them to a book about the Southern life that they had left behind: "They sat around, reading the book themselves, listening to me read the book, and a kind of paradise was regained." I would like to end with this thought: That when we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise. Thank you.

"Superman and Me" by Sherman Alexie

http://api.ning.com/files/in-eQbD2U6Gi2OJfiGbO3uWVOdzPea5OqTD5TUsvQbP3izvh2DmW8j7D8KXc6Dy4CiHhAiMLc9xi-diC3seBMu0KoQbYFqD7/SupermanandMe.pdf

Coming of Age Essay

Coming of Age Narrative Writing Prompt: Recall a time in your life when a particular event changed the way you thought about a certain concept. Use the following texts in addition to any other readings as a guideline for using figurative language in “coming of age” stories. Write a personal narrative that includes figurative language and concludes with a reflection on your coming of age experience. Directions: Read “Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie and “The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Adichie. Both are posted on our class website: BrightonHighEnglish10.blogspot.com. Use the graphic organizers for narrative outline and figurative language to help draft your narrative.

Outside Novel Assignment

Outside Novel Assignment Your outside novel assignment is to go to a local library or bookstore and find a book that is interesting to you. You can choose any genre as long as it is a minimum of 200 pages and is on your reading level. Don’t choose something that you will have extreme difficulty understanding (and then lose interest and don’t want to finish) or something that is much too easy for you. It cannot be a book that you read for your summer reading assignment or something that you have read before. After you have made your selection, you must inform your parents of this decision, and have them sign this permission slip so I know they are informed of your choice and approve of it. You will have an assignment for this book, so read it carefully! Student’s Name_______________________________ Book Title:______________________________________ Parent Signature: _____________________________ Date________________Period___________________

Hero Service Learning Assignment

Hero Service Learning Assignment Philanthropy: The effort or inclination to increase the well-being of humankind, as by charitable aid or donations, love of humankind in general or something, such as an activity or institution, intended to promote human welfare. Assignment: Collect five newspaper articles, announcements, websites or requests that come in the mail that detail philanthropic opportunities. Neatly organize them into a scrapbook or three-pronged folder. Write an explanation next to the article, announcement or request to tell how they relate to philanthropy. You can choose from these five OR another of your choice actually do and become involved in philanthropy. Write about which one you chose and why. Write a 2 page essay (double-spaced, 12 point font, 1 inch margins) about your experience and include answers to the following questions: • What did you learn about the agency/organization staff, those persons served by the agency/organization and their similarities or differences to you? • What impact does/did your service have on your everyday life? • What insights did you gain through your service that might assist you in your career or in selecting a career? • What did your service teach you about community involvement, citizenship, and civic responsibility? • What is the relationship of your service to the “real world”? • How were you able to contribute to the agency/organization goals? • What do you feel was your main contribution to the agency/organization? • What did you do during your volunteer work that made you feel proud? • What was the most difficult part of your work? • If you were to start at the beginning of this project again, what would you do differently the second time around? • How does your experience relate to Beowulf and A Christmas Carol? Please include a signature and contact information from the organization where you volunteered and the date(s) of your service. Due Date____________________________________________. ******************************************************************************************************** I have read the service learning assignment and understand the requirements. __________________________________________________________________________________ Printed Student name Period __________________________________________________________________________________ Parent Signature Date __________________________________________________________________________________ Student Signature Date

Plagiarism Policy

Brighton High School’s English Department Plagiarism Policy Dear Parents and Students: In keeping with our desire to help students develop a sense of academic integrity, the Brighton high School English Department has established the following policy concerning plagiarism. The definition of plagiarism is to take ideas, writing, or concepts from another source and pass them off as one’s own. Plagiarism includes, but is not included to: • Printing off or downloading information from Internet websites and turning it in as if it were your own. • Buying essays from the Internet and turning them in as your own. • Accepting information and/or essays or other written work from former and current students and submitting it as your own. • Using ideas, information, or working from Cliff’s Notes, SparkNotes.com, or other academically oriented supplements without citing (giving credit to) the source. • Using quotes, statistics, or other information in your writing without citing the source. • Paraphrasing another person’s ideas, i.e. reading information, and while changing a few words, using it as your own ideas without giving credit to the source. In other words: taking another’s writing or ideas and using the writing, style, main ideas, or information without citing the original source, or simply putting your name on another’s writing, style, main ideas, or information, is plagiarism. Please note the following policy and procedures of Brighton High School’s English Department regarding plagiarism: 1. A student who is found cheating on a test or assignment will be given “0” for the assignment. There will be no opportunity to “redo” the test or assignment. They may also lose the opportunity to do extra credit for the class. 2. A student whose major writing assignment—essay or research paper—seems to have been intentionally plagiarized as outlined above will be given a “0” without opportunity to rewrite the assignment. 3. If the student is part of the Honors program, and has cheated or intentionally plagiarized, he or she will be recommended for removal from the program. 4. Students are encouraged to keep all of their writing process—drafts, notes, sources, copies of sources, peer editing sheets—as evidence of their original work. 5. A committee made up of community and faculty members will be in place to review decisions regarding plagiarism and the subsequent consequences, and students may appeal to this committee. Please sign and date below to indicate that you understand this plagiarism policy. ____________________________________________________________________________________________Printed Student Name _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Student Signature Date _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Parent Signature Date ________________________________________________________________________

iPad Policy

Brighton High School iPad Policy, Procedures, and Information iPad Program The focus of the iPad program at Brighton High School is to provide tools and resources to the 21st Century Learner. Excellence in education requires that technology be seamlessly integrated throughout the educational program. Increasing access to technology is essential for that future, and one of the learning tools of these twenty-first century students is the iPad computer. General Precautions The iPad is school property and all users will follow this policy and the Brighton acceptable use policy for technology. • Cords and cables must be inserted carefully into the iPad to prevent damage. • iPads must remain free of any writing, drawing, stickers, or labels that are not the property of the Canyons School District. • Care should be taken to avoid placing too much pressure and weight on the iPad screen. Screensavers/Background photos • Inappropriate media may not be used as a screensaver or background photo. • Presence of guns, weapons, pornographic materials, inappropriate language, alcohol, drug, gang related symbols or pictures will result in disciplinary actions. • Passwords are not to be used. Sound, Music, Games, or Programs • Sound must be muted at all times unless permission is obtained from the teacher for instructional purposes. • Internet Games are not allowed on the iPads. If game apps are installed, it will be with Brighton staff authorization. • All software/Apps must be district provided. Data Storage will be through apps on the iPad and email to a server location. • Saving to the iPad/Home Directory Students may save work to the home directory on the iPad. It is recommended students e-mail documents to himself or herself for storage on a flash drive or District server. Storage space will be available on the iPad—BUT it will NOT be backed up in case of re-imaging. It is the student’s responsibility to ensure that work is not lost due to mechanical failure or accidental deletion. iPad malfunctions are not an acceptable excuse for not submitting work. Originally Installed Software The software/Apps originally installed by BRIGHTON must remain on the iPad in usable condition and be easily accessible at all times. From time to time the school may add software applications for use in a particular course. The licenses for this software require that the software be deleted from iPads at the completion of the course. Periodic checks of iPads will be made to ensure that students have not removed required apps. Inspection Students may be selected at random to provide their iPad for inspection. Acceptable Use The use of Brighton technology resources is a privilege, not a right. This policy is provided to make all users aware of the responsibilities associated with efficient, ethical, and lawful use of technology resources. If a person violates any of the User Terms and Conditions named in this policy, privileges may be terminated, access to the school district technology resources may be denied, and the appropriate disciplinary action shall be applied. The Brighton Student Code of Conduct will be applied to student infractions. Violations may result in disciplinary action up to and including suspension/ expulsion for students. When applicable, law enforcement agencies may be involved. Students are Responsibilities for: • Using computers/devices in a responsible and ethical manner. • Obeying general school rules concerning behavior and communication that apply to iPad/computer use. • Using all technology resources in an appropriate manner so as to not damage school equipment. This “damage” includes, but is not limited to, the loss of data resulting from delays, non-deliveries, mis-deliveries or service interruptions caused by the student negligence, errors or omissions. Use of any information obtained via Canyons District’s designated Internet System is at your own risk. Canyons District specifically denies any responsibility for the accuracy or quality of information obtained through its services. • Helping Brighton protect our computer system/device by contacting an administrator about any security problems they may encounter. • Monitoring all activity on your account(s). • Students should always turn off and secure their iPad in the mobile lab after they are done working to protect their work and information. • If a student should receive email containing inappropriate or abusive language or if the subject matter is questionable, he/she is asked to print a copy and turn it in to their respective assistant principal. Student Activities Strictly Prohibited: • Illegal installation or transmission of copyrighted materials • Any action that violates existing Board policy or public law • Sending, accessing, uploading, downloading, or distributing offensive, profane, threatening, pornographic, obscene, or sexually explicit materials • Use of chat rooms, sites selling term papers, book reports and other forms of student work • Messaging services-EX: MSN Messenger, ICQ, etc • Internet/Computer Games • Use of outside data disks or external attachments without prior approval from the administration • Changing of iPad settings (exceptions include personal settings such as font size, brightness, etc) • Downloading apps • Spamming-Sending mass or inappropriate emails • Gaining access to other student’s accounts, files, and/or data • Use of the school’s internet/E-mail accounts for financial or commercial gain or for any illegal activity • Use of anonymous and/or false communications such as MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger • Students are not allowed to give out personal information, for any reason, over the Internet. This includes, but is not limited to, setting up internet accounts including those necessary for chat rooms, Ebay, email, etc. Participation in credit card fraud, electronic forgery or other forms of illegal behavior. • Vandalism (any malicious attempt to harm or destroy hardware, software or data, including, but not limited to, the uploading or creation of computer viruses or computer programs that can infiltrate computer systems and/or damage software components) of school equipment will not be allowed • Transmission or accessing materials that are obscene, offensive, threatening or otherwise intended to harass or demean recipients. • Bypassing Canyons School District web filter through a web proxy Legal Propriety • Comply with trademark and copyright laws and all license agreements. Ignorance of the law is not immunity. If you are unsure, ask a teacher or parent. • Plagiarism is a violation of the Brighton’s Code of Conduct. Give credit to all sources used, whether quoted or summarized. This includes all forms of media on the Internet, such as graphics, movies, music, and text. • Use or possession of hacking software is strictly prohibited and violators will be subject to punishment. Violation of applicable state or federal law will result in criminal prosecution or disciplinary action by Canyons School District. Student Discipline If a student violates any part of the above policy, he/she will be lose iPad privileges. iPads Left in Unsupervised Areas Under no circumstances should iPads be left in unsupervised areas or removed from room 322. REPAIRING OR REPLACING YOUR iPAD COMPUTER Students will be held responsible for ALL damage to their iPads including, but not limited to: broken screens, cracked plastic pieces, inoperability, etc. Should the cost to repair exceed the cost of purchasing a new device, the student will pay for full replacement value. Lost items such as covers and cables will be charged the actual replacement cost. Student Name (Please Print): _____________________________________________________ Student Signature:___________________________________________Date:_______________ Parent Name (Please Print): ______________________________________________________ Parent Signature: ___________________________________________Date: ______________

Disclosure

English 10 Honors Disclosure Mrs. Larson Karen.Larson@canyonsdistrict.org This course covers grammar and vocabulary study along with selected literature from novel, drama, tragedy, short story, and poetry. Students will write in journals and respond to readings. Emphasis will be on the multi-paragraph writing unit. Expectations • Each student is required to bring a steno pad to class every day for journal writing and be prepared with a pencil and pen, paper and material that we are working on in class. • Cheating, whether on assignments, quizzes, or tests is totally unacceptable. Anyone found cheating will receive no credit. If an assignment has been copied from another student, this will also apply to the person who “lent” the work to the student. All work required for this class is to be done by the student. • Homework is to be turned in at the beginning of class. Any work not turned in at the proper time is considered late. Work turned in after the deadline will receive half credit, with a full grade mark-down each day after the deadline. • Please keep all of your graded work until the end of the trimester. If there is an error in a grade, the work will be used to help make the correction. • No food, pagers, phones, hats, electronics, (iPods, MP3 players, etc.) are allowed in class. • Any students seen doing work from another class will have that work confiscated and will receive a zero on the English assignment for the day. • It is expected that all students will treat each other with respect, especially during class discussions. Anyone who shows disrespect to either the teacher or any classmate, either verbally or through physical gestures, will be asked to leave and must resolve the matter with school administration. There will not be any rude, hurtful, harmful comments, nor any swearing, crude language, or anything inappropriate in the classroom. • Students are allowed to use the hall pass three times a trimester. • Any student who does not maintain a B- (80%) average will be removed from the Honors program at the end of the trimester. If you have any problems or concerns, please contact me. I am available before and after school Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Please feel free to email me at Karen.Larson@canyonsdistrict.org or call at (801) 826-5800. Student Materials: Students are required to have a steno pad that is brought to class each day for journal writing. Another requirement is submitting a “marked” book. The book must start clean at the beginning of the unit. Therefore, each student will need to purchase the required reading book (Macbeth). Please pay $________to the main office by __________. Grading Policy In this class, grades are earned by the student, not given by the teacher. Grades are based on in-class work, assignments and homework, quizzes and tests, projects and preparation. Grades are based on the following scale: 94-100% A 83-80% B- 67-69% D+ 93-90 A- 79-77 C+ 66-64 D 89-87 B+ 76-74 C 63-69 D- 86-84 B 73-70 C- 59 and below F 50% Assignments 30% Writing 20% In-Class Work Students and parents can monitor grades and attendance by checking Skyward. Any student who discovers an error on his/her grade when viewing Skyward should speak with me. Mid-term grades will be issued to each student and progress and attendance notices will be sent throughout the trimester as needed. For questions concerning plagiarism, please see the attached English Department Policy. Attendance Policy and Make-Up Work This class follows Brighton High’s attendance policy. As per Brighton High School’s attendance policy, failure to attend class may result in a loss of credit for this course. After an absence, it is the student’s responsibility to obtain make-up work. All make-up work, including tests and quizzes, must be completed within five days of the absence. Tests and quizzes may need to be made up before or after school. Occasionally, I will have students in the class correct the work of other students. I will also hang students’ work (poems, projects, etc.) in the classroom. Students will also peer edit each other’s papers. This practice has an important educational purpose in that it allows students to review assignments and consider opinions that may be different than their own. Videos and Internet Your signature of the disclosure statement also indicates that you are allowing your student to watch a few PG or PG-13 rated videos in class. If your student does not wish to watch a film, the student will need to make alternate arrangements with me before the class views the film. At least once during each trimester, there will be Internet work. Parent signature on this form indicates that the student has parental permission to use the Internet in class on classroom assignments. Please return this portion to the teacher. The signature indicates that you have carefully read the disclosure and are aware of the classroom procedures and policies and realize the resulting consequences. It also gives parental release for your student to view movies and use the Internet. _____________________________________________________ _____________ Student name—PLEASE PRINT Period _____________________________________________________ ______________ Parent/guardian signature Date ____________________________________________________ Student signature Parent/Guardian Contact Information: Father: Home Phone: Cell: Work: Email: Mother: Home Phone: Cell: Work: Email: Guardian: Home Phone: Cell: Work: Email:

Responsibilities of Citizens in a Democracy Essay

Citizens in a Democracy Prompt: What are the roles and responsibilities of citizens in a democracy? After reading Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” “Citizen Responsibilities” and Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience,” write an essay that addresses the question and supports your position with evidence from the texts. Be sure to acknowledge competing views. Give examples from past or current events or issues to illustrate and clarify your position. Article #1 “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King, Jr. In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: 1) collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive; 2) negotiation; 3) self-purification; and 4) direct action. We have gone through all of these steps in Birmingham … Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of police brutality is known in every section of the country. Its unjust treatment of Negroes in the courts is a notorious reality. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any city in this nation. These are the hard, brutal, and unbelievable facts. On the basis of these conditions Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation . . . You may well ask, "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in your calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue . . . My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals . . . One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.” Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority . . . Source: King Jr., Martin L. “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” Letter to My Dear Fellow Clergymen. 16 Apr. 1963. Web. 11 June 2012. Article #2: Citizen Responsibilities The duties or responsibilities of a United States citizen can be separated into two groups: mandatory responsibilities, such as paying taxes, and duties not demanded by law, such as voting. Mandatory: Obeying Laws Laws are the rules under which a society or community is governed. Everyone who lives in the United States, regardless if they are citizens or not, must obey federal, state and local laws. Laws are necessary because no society could exist if all people did just as they pleased, without respecting the rights of others. Police officers and courts make sure that laws are obeyed. If a person breaks a law there is a penalty or punishment. The penalty for breaking a law depends on the law. For example, the punishment for not shoveling your sidewalk after it snows is less steep than the punishment for stealing a car. Take a moment to search or browse through the current United States Code and the Utah Code. Mandatory: Paying Taxes Taxes are required payments of money to the government. You may be wondering why we pay taxes. Taxes are necessary because they pay for things that most individuals could not possibly purchase for themselves, such a fire protection, schools, roads and much more. There are many different types of taxes: federal income tax, state income tax, property tax, excise tax (tax on tobacco, alcohol, gas), social security tax and sales tax. Each type of tax pays for different public programs and services. For example, federal taxes pay for F.B.I. agents, Medicare doctors, federal judges, national park rangers, veterans benefits, federal prisons and much more. Some of the things that state taxes pay for include state highways, universities, public schools, state parks and police officers. Mandatory: Jury Duty The right to a trial by jury is the privilege of every person in the United States, whether citizen or not. This right is guaranteed by both the United States and Utah Constitutions. However, it also requires that citizens give of their time to serve as jurors, and thus do their part to protect this American right. A jury consists of 12 people who are selected to hear the evidence in a civil or a criminal trial. After the jurors hear the evidence presented during the trial, they must try to decide if the defendant is guilty or not guilty. While being called to jury duty can be viewed as an inconvenience, many citizens also find it to be a learning process and a rewarding experience as well as a civic responsibility. Jurors' names are selected at random from lists of registered voters and individuals who have a driver's license issued by the Utah Department of Motor Vehicles. If an individual is chosen for jury duty, he or she must stop work and attend the trial as long as he or she is needed. Every American of legal age is subject to jury duty, unless he or she can show that such service would constitute a severe personal hardship. Mandatory: Serve as a Witness If you are subpoenaed or summoned to serve as a witness you must comply. A witness is someone who is called to testify under oath in a court trial or hearing about information or knowledge he or she might have about the case. Mandatory: Register for the Draft Virtually all males living in the United States are required to register with Selective Service within 30 days of their 18th birthday. Currently, women aren't required to register because the Selective Service law refers specifically to "male persons" in stating who must register and who would be drafted. Congress would have to amend the law for women to be required to register with Selective Service. Registering does not mean a man will automatically be taken into the military. During times of crisis or war, the government may decide that they need larger military forces than they feel they could get through voluntary enlistment. If this happens the Selective Service will: • Conduct a lottery to determine the sequence for selecting registrants for examination and induction. • Assign each registrant the Random Sequence Number (RSN) drawn by lottery for his date of birth. • Select and order registrants for examination and induction, beginning with RSN 001. Those selected are examined for mental, physical and moral fitness. Today, males can register online at the Selective Service web site or at their local Post Office. Voluntary: Voting The right to vote is a duty or responsibility as well as a privilege. It is important for all citizens to vote in every election to make sure that the democratic, representative system of government is maintained. Persons who do not vote lose their voice in the government. Before voting in an election, each citizen should be well informed about the issues and candidates. For more information about voting, go to the Elections section of this web site. Article #3 “Civil Disobedience” Henry David Thoreau spends most of "Civil Disobedience" in a sea of ambivalence, wavering between respect and admonition for the State. (Example: at one point he asserts, "the best government is that which rules not at all"-- later he makes a point to distinguish himself from "no-government men", saying that what he wants is not no government, but "at once better government".) In the following passage, Thoreau provides us with a mini-manifesto on the 'powers' of the State: "Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They only force me who obey a higher law than I. They force me to become like themselves. I do not hear of men being forced to have this way or that by masses of men. What sort of life were that to live? When I meet a government which says to me, "Your money or your life," why should I be in haste to give it my money? It may be in a great strait, and not know what to do: I cannot help that. It must help itself; do as I do. It is not worth the while to snivel about it. I am not responsible for the successful working of that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and spring and grown and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man." (10)

The Demon Lover

Read Elizabeth Bowen's "The Demon Lover" (you can find the text online, or check out a lit book from the school library). Answer the following questions. “The Demon Lover” 1. What kinds of details seem to bring a setting into sharpest focus? Give three examples from the text with page numbers. 2. Where does this story take place? What are the details that stick out? Give examples. Make sure to include page numbers. 3. What kind of feeling do the descriptions of the settings give the reader? This is the atmosphere. How is atmosphere developed in this story? 4. How does the character in this story feel about the settings where they are situated? How do they interact with them? 5. How could you say that Mrs. Drover's empty house is actually a character in this story? How is this place personified? 6. What can we infer about the larger historical moments during this story? What do these settings tell us about the world outside them? In what ways are these conditions depicted in these settings? 7. Imagine this story set in another time and place. Imagine Mrs. Drover in a well- furnished and lively metropolitan apartment. How would it affect the story? How could the atmosphere be preserved even if the location was changed? 8. How would this setting change interact with the characters and events in the story? Are there any other settings possible for this story? 9. What other questions do you have about this story?

Lord of the Flies Final Project

Directions: Choose one of the final options for your final project on Lord of the Flies. Projects will be graded on creativity, how well you demonstrate your understanding of the novel and how well you complete all facets of the project you choose. Variations of any of these options must be pre-approved. You will be required to present your project to the class. All projects should be mechanically sound and indicate a high degree of effort. Due Date: November 15. No late work accepted. The Soundtrack: Make a five song CD for each song or musical piece, write out the lyrics or describe the music; then, write an in-depth analysis/explication which explains its connection to the novel. Use literary evidence such as: symbols, themes, motifs and situations that the novel explored. You should use text based evidence (quotes from the novel). Create a case cover for the CD. Be artistic! The CD should look like something you would purchase at the store. Newspaper: Create a newspaper for major events of the novel. Your newspaper must include at least four of the following: a news story, a review, an editorial, a feature story, a commentary, a cartoon, and/or a profile piece. All must be linked to the novel. You should choose quotes from the book to act as your interviews , although you may embellish a bit. Graphic Novel/Comic Book: Recreate the story in a graphic novel (comic book) format. Choose what you think are the most important scenes and tell the story of Lord of the Flies. The quality of your project will be determined by the following: a) the extent to which your graphic novel includes the entire story of the novel, b) the quality/effort of the artwork, and c) the inclusion of an introduction in which you explain what you tried to capture in your recreation of the novel. You should use some quotes from the novel to narrate your story, as well as in your introduction (foreword) or (conclusion). The Lord of the Flies Game or Video Game: Take your close reading of the novel and turn it into a game. Be sure to use text based evidence. The purpose of this project is to share your knowledge with others and test them on theirs. While you may have superficial questions, the bulk of your questions should explore deeper levels of analysis. You may model your game on an existing game or create your own. The game should help others learn in an innovative way. Lord of the Flies: The Motion Picture: Choose a scene/montage of significant events in the novel and turn it into a screen play. (You might also turn the whole novel into a short film- serious or humorous). You should use text based evidence. Requirements: an 8 page script that follows movie script format including setting, camera shots and cast descriptions—typed. Video tape the scenes and edit. You may work with other students to produce this film. Write a Eulogy: You were a friend of Simon’s or Piggy’s in England before he went on the trip from which he never returned. His parents have asked you to participate in a memorial service for your friend. Prepare a eulogy which you will deliver at the service. Be sure to include qualities of the character and recall times you spent together. This eulogy should be at least two to three pages in length. Taking Part in a Trial: You are a member of a hung jury trying Roger for Piggy’s death. All of the jury members accept the factual material provided by eyewitnesses and agree that in fact Roger did push the rock that killed Piggy. Some of the jury members contend that Roger is Jack’s pawn and should get a light sentence; others hold that he is fully responsible for the murder. You hold a strong opinion. Prepare a speech to give your fellow jurors to persuade them of your judgment concerning Roger’s guilt.

"The Danger of a Single Story" by Chimamanda Adichie

I come from a conventional, middle-class Nigerian family. My father was a professor. My mother was an administrator. And so we had, as was the norm, live-in domestic help, who would often come from nearby rural villages. So the year I turned eight we got a new house boy. His name was Fide. The only thing my mother told us about him was that his family was very poor. My mother sent yams and rice, and our old clothes, to his family. And when I didn't finish my dinner my mother would say, "Finish your food! Don't you know? People like Fide's family have nothing." So I felt enormous pity for Fide's family. Then one Saturday we went to his village to visit, and his mother showed us a beautifully patterned basket made of dyed raffia that his brother had made. I was startled. It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could actually make something. All I had heard about them was how poor they were, so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor. Their poverty was my single story of them. Years later, I thought about this when I left Nigeria to go to university in the United States. I was 19. My American roommate was shocked by me. She asked where I had learned to speak English so well, and was confused when I said that Nigeria happened to have English as its official language. She asked if she could listen to what she called my "tribal music," and was consequently very disappointed when I produced my tape of Mariah Carey. She assumed that I did not know how to use a stove. What struck me was this: She had felt sorry for me even before she saw me. Her default position toward me, as an African, was a kind of patronizing, well-meaning pity. My roommate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe. In this single story there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way, no possibility of feelings more complex than pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals. What if my roommate knew about my Nigerian publisher, Mukta Bakaray, a remarkable man who left his job in a bank to follow his dream and start a publishing house? Now, the conventional wisdom was that Nigerians don't read literature. He disagreed. He felt that people who could read, would read, if you made literature affordable and available to them. Now, what if my roommate knew about my friend Fumi Onda, a fearless woman who hosts a TV show in Lagos, and is determined to tell the stories that we prefer to forget? What if my roommate knew about the heart procedure that was performed in the Lagos hospital last week? What if my roommate knew about contemporary Nigerian music, talented people singing in English and Pidgin, and Igbo and Yoruba and Ijo, mixing influences from Jay-Z to Fela to Bob Marley to their grandfathers. What if my roommate knew about the female lawyer who recently went to court in Nigeria to challenge a ridiculous law that required women to get their husband's consent before renewing their passports? What if my roommate knew about Nollywood, full of innovative people making films despite great technical odds, films so popular that they really are the best example of Nigerians consuming what they produce? What if my roommate knew about my wonderfully ambitious hair braider, who has just started her own business selling hair extensions? Or about the millions of other Nigerians who start businesses and sometimes fail, but continue to nurse ambition? All of these stories make me who I am. But to insist on only these negative stories is to flatten my experience and to overlook the many other stories that formed me. the single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are iincomplete. They make one story become the only story. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity. The American writer Alice Walker wrote this about her Southern relatives who had moved to the North. She introduced them to a book about the Southern life that they ahd left behind: "They sat around, reading the book themselves, listening to me read the book, and a kind of paradise was regained." I would like to end with this thought: That when we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.

"Superman and Me" by Sherman Alexie

I learned to read with a Superman comic book. Simple enough, I suppose. I cannot recall which particular Superman comic book I read, nor can I remember which villain he fought in that issue. I cannot remember the plot, nor the means by which I obtained the comic book. What I can remember is this: I was 3 years old, a Spokane Indian boy living with his family on the Spokane Indian Reservation in eastern Washington state. We were poor by most standards, but one of my parents usually managed to find some minimum-wage job or another, which made us middle-class by reservation standards. I had a brother and three sisters. We lived on a combination of irregular paychecks, hope, fear and government surplus food. My father, who is one of the few Indians who went to Catholic school on purpose, was an avid reader of westerns, spy thrillers, murder mysteries, gangster epics, basketball player biographies and anything else he could find. He bought his books by the pound at Dutch's Pawn Shop, Goodwill, Salvation Army and Value Village. When he had extra money, he bought new novels at supermarkets, convenience stores and hospital gift shops. Our house was filled with books. They were stacked in crazy piles in the bathroom, bedrooms and living room. In a fit of unemployment-inspired creative energy, my father built a set of bookshelves and soon filled them with a random assortment of books about the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, the Vietnam War and the entire 23-book series of the Apache westerns. My father loved books, and since I loved my father with an aching devotion, I decided to love books as well. I can remember picking up my father's books before I could read. The words themselves were mostly foreign, but I still remember the exact moment when I first understood, with a sudden clarity, the purpose of a paragraph. I didn't have the vocabulary to say "paragraph," but I realized that a paragraph was a fence that held words. The words inside a paragraph worked together for a common purpose. They had some specific reason for being inside the same fence. This knowledge delighted me. I began to think of everything in terms of paragraphs. Our reservation was a small paragraph within the United States. My family's house was a paragraph, distinct from the other paragraphs of the LeBrets to the north, the Fords to our south and the Tribal School to the west. Inside our house, each family member existed as a separate paragraph but still had genetics and common experiences to link us. Now, using this logic, I can see my changed family as an essay of seven paragraphs: mother, father, older brother, the deceased sister, my younger twin sisters and our adopted little brother. At the same time I was seeing the world in paragraphs, I also picked up that Superman comic book. Each panel, complete with picture, dialogue and narrative was a three-dimensional paragraph. In one panel, Superman breaks through a door. His suit is red, blue and yellow. The brown door shatters into many pieces. I look at the narrative above the picture. I cannot read the words, but I assume it tells me that "Superman is breaking down the door." Aloud, I pretend to read the words and say, "Superman is breaking down the door." Words, dialogue, also float out of Superman's mouth. Because he is breaking down the door, I assume he says, "I am breaking down the door." Once again, I pretend to read the words and say aloud, "I am breaking down the door" In this way, I learned to read. This might be an interesting story all by itself. A little Indian boy teaches himself to read at an early age and advances quickly. He reads "Grapes of Wrath" in kindergarten when other children are struggling through "Dick and Jane." If he'd been anything but an Indian boy living on the reservation, he might have been called a prodigy. But he is an Indian boy living on the reservation and is simply an oddity. He grows into a man who often speaks of his childhood in the third-person, as if it will somehow dull the pain and make him sound more modest about his talents.

Narrative Writing Assignment

Prompt: Recall a time in your life when a particular event changed the way you thought about a certain concept. Use the following texts in addition to any other readings as a guideline for using figurative language in “coming of age” stories. Write a personal narrative that includes figurative language and concludes with a reflection on your coming of age experience. Directions: Read “Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie and “The Danger of a Single Story” by Chimamanda Adichie. Use the graphic organizers for narrative outline and figurative language to help draft your narrative. The typed, rough draft is due on _____________________________. The final narrative is due on __________________________.

Registration

Sophomore registration begins today, and is due on Friday. Please make sure you get teacher signatures on your schedules so you are placed in the correct classes your junior year. If you have questions or concerns, please see me or stop by and talk to your counselor.

CAUTION!!

Sophomores, please check your class schedules CAREFULLY! First and third period schedules are different. Check the blog frequently to make sure you are prepared for your class period.

We're Being Tested

Just a quick reminder that the testing schedule is as follows:
1st PeriodTuesday, February 14: Practice Test in room 222
Wednesday, February 15: Begin MyAccess in room 222
Thursday, February 16: Finish MyAccess in room 222
Friday, February 17: Begin CRT testing in room 222
Monday, February 20: No school
Tuesday, February 21: CRT testing in room 222
Wednesday, February 22: Last day for current events. 1984 study guide due. Book 3 quiz. Return 1984 book to library.
Thursday, February 23: Final CRT testing day in room 222
DISCLAIMER: All dates are subject to change without notice.

3rd PeriodTuesday, February 14: Last day for current events. 1984 quiz Book 3. Check out Pygmalion in library. 1984 study guide is due FRIDAY, February 17. No late work will be accepted.
Wednesday, February 15: Practice CRT in room 219.
Thursday, February 16: Begin MyAccess essay in room 219.
Friday, February 17: Complete MyAccess essay in room 219.
Monday, February 20: No school
Tuesday, February 21: Begin Pygmalion. Read Act I.
Wednesday, February 22: Pygmalion, Act II.
Thursday, February 23: Pygmalion, Act III.
Friday, February 24: Begin CRT testing in room 219.
Monday, February 27: CRT testing in room 219.
Tuesday, February 28: Final day of CRT testing in room 219.

DISCLAIMER: All dates are subject to change without notice.

"Privacy" Questions

Name___________________________Period___________Date________________

“Privacy is Overrated”

Read the article and answer the following questions.

1. What is the author’s main idea?


2. What is his most convincing argument?


3. Do you agree? Why or why not?


4. When should the right of privacy be limited?

Privacy is Overrated by David Plotz

Is privacy overrated?
They're watching your every
move. Big deal.
BY David Plotz FROM GQ
Let’s start by invading my privacy. I own a three bedroom house at 2922 Cortland Place in Washington, D.C. I have a mortgage from National city Mortgage Co. I am married to Hanna Rosin. We have a two-year old child. I drive a 2001 Volkswagen, D.C. license plate BE 6981.

1 have no criminal record. I have never been party to a lawsuit. I have no tax liens against me. I have never declared bankruptcy (unlike 2 of the 11 other David Plotzes in the United States). I have no ties to organized crime, though I do hold stock options in Microsoft.

The James Mintz Group, a leading. corporate investigation firm head quartered in New York City, learned all this about me in a few hours with computer, an Internet connection and a single phone call-and without even, bending the law.
If you spent a bit more time, you would discover that my Social Security number is 577-86-4300, that I paid $812,000 for the house in October, 2002, and that I bank at Bank of America. You could have my listed home telephone number in two mouse clicks and my unlisted-cell phone number if you paid the right data broker.
Corporations, meanwhile, are recording my every move. I don't watch what I eat,. but Safeway does; thanks to my club card. Telecoms can pinpoint where I am when I make my cell phone calls. Clothing stores analyze my purchases in detail, recording everything from the expansion of my waist (up to 35 from 32) to my recent infatuation with three-button-suits.

The credit reporting agencies know every time I have made a late payment to my Citibank MasterCard (number 6577… I’m not that stupid) and every time I have applied for credit. This is all going on my permanent record._
Surveillance cameras are watching me in malls and sometimes on public streets. Even my own computer is spying on me. A scan of my hard drive turns up 141 cookies, deposited by companies that track me around the Web. I recently surfed a porn site (just because a high school friend runs it, I swear). The cookies may know about it. My employer probably does too. After all, my employment contract permits the boss to track all my on-the-job Web surfing, and read all my work e-mail too.
If my company isn't watching, perhaps the FBI is: Its Carnivore program rafts through vast rivers of e-mail flow in search of criminal activity.
They-a they that includes the feds, a thousand corporations, a million telemarketers, my employer, my enemies and maybe even my friends know all this about me, and more. And unless you are a technophobe hermit who pays for everything in cash, they know all this about you too.

To which I say, "Hallelujah!"

I’m in the minority. Privacy paranoia has become a national obsession. Since last November, pundits, politicians and privacy activists have been shouting about the latest government intrusion
on privacy. The Defense Department's office of Total Information Awareness plans to collect massive quantities of information about all Americans-everything from what you buy to where you travelin gigantic databases, and then sift through the information for clues about terrorism. Total Information Awareness has been denounced as Orwellian, and there are efforts to stop the program.
You could fill a library with privacy alarmism books (The End of Privacy; Privacy: How to Protect What's Left of It). Congress and the state legislatures are awash in proposals to protect privacy. Horror stories fuel the fire of anxiety. The sailor the Navy tried to boot out after he used the word “gay” in a supposedly confidential AOL profile. The stalker who bought his target's address from a Web information broker, tracked her down and murdered her. The sale of Social Security numbers by LexisNexis.

You can more or less distill the essence of the privacy-rights movement to this idea: Big Brother and Big Business observe us too often, without our consent. The most intimate details of our lives are being sold and used secretly to make judgments about us, and we have no control over it.
It sounds appalling. But, in fact, the privacy crusade is built on a foundation of hypocrisy, paranoia, economic know-nothingism and bogus nostalgia.
The first flaw of privacy: People care a great deal about their own, but not at all about anyone else's. We figure, why should anyone get to review my real-estate records or read my divorce proceedings?

My life is my own business.

But I bet you want to know if your baby-sitter has ever been convicted of child abuse, if your business partner has a history of bankruptcy, if your boyfriend is still married. When your husband flees the state to duck child support payments, wouldn't you use his Social Security number, driving records, real estate filings and whatever else you could get your hands on to track him down?

You don't want the Total Information Awareness office to know what you bought at the hardware store or where you take vacations. But if your neighbor is stockpiling fertilizer and likes to holiday in Iraq, don't you want the government to notice? If government had been using even basic data-mining techniques before September 11, at least 11 of the hijackers might have been stopped, according to a report by the Markle Foundation. Wouldn't that be worth letting the feds know you bought an Xbox last month?

Hysteria is growing that companies are shadowing us constantly. They are. But here, too, privacy is a silly value, both because "protecting" it is enormously costly and because. it's not really being violated. Ignorant companies are bankrupt companies. A recent study found that restricting marketing data would raise catalog clothing prices up to 11 percent, costing shoppers $1 billion per year. By buying address lists and consumer profiles, Victoria's Secret knows to send a catalog to my house, and International Male knows not to bother. Their marketing costs plummet. We get less junk mail, lower prices and catalogs for clothing we might buy.

Your father probably shopped with a clothier who knew he wore a 44 long suit and preferred a faint pinstripe. Such friendships are extinct, murdered by megastores and armchair shopping, But today, when I log on to Amazon.com, I am pitched another book about privacy, because Amazon has learned that I am the kind of guy who buys books on privacy. They are saving me time (which is money) by delivering what 1 like.
INFORMATION SHARING is also an engine of entrepreneurship. Thanks to cheap mailing lists, upstarts can challenge titanic businesses, lowering prices and bringing clever products to market.

Losing privacy has made it much cheaper to use a credit card or buy a house. Credit card and mortgage companies collect and share information about who pays, who doesn't, etc. Because- they have an idea who will default, they offer significantly lower rates to people with good records and make credit much more available to poorer customers.

It's true that identity theft has become easier. On the other hand, credit card fraud, a much more common crime, is harder. Companies often catch a thief before a customer even notices her card is missing. (Their observant computers notice that her buying habits have suddenly changed.)
Similarly, surveillance cameras reduce shoplifting and stop ATM robberies, while cameras in police cars reduce incidents of police brutality. Lack of privacy actually tends to fight crime, not cause it.

There is one notable exception to the argument for transparency, however. If medical records are unsealed, especially to employers, people may avoid treatment, fearing they will be stigmatized or fired for their health problems. PHILOSOPHICALLY, many people don’t like the idea that a soulless corporation records that they buy sexy underwear, subscribe to Penthouse and collect heavy metal CDs. Friends were freaked out to receive ads for infant formula soon after they gave birth. How did the company know? Is the hospital selling your baby already?

But this worry is an example of the egocentric fallacy: the belief that because people know something about you, they care.

One wonderful, terrible thing about modern capitalism is that companies don't care. You are not a person. You are a wallet. Privacy advocates like to say, "it didn't used to be this way." They hark back to a time-it generally sounds like l9th-century rural America-when stores didn't record your every purchase and doctors didn't report your ailments to a monolithic insurance company. You could abandon a bad life in one state, reinvent yourself 50 miles away, and no one needed to know. Nothing went down on your permanent record, because there was no permanent record.

This nostalgia imagines a past that never existed. Small-town America never guarded anyone's privacy. In small towns, as anyone who lives in one can attest, people can be nosy and punish nonconformity viciously.

The right to privacy is not mentioned in the Constitution, and was not even conceived until 1890. Censuses in the 18th and 19th centuries demanded answers to intrusive questions, such as one compelling Americans to reveal any history of insanity in the family.

Nostalgists also fail to recognize that technology is creating a golden age for what they actually care about: real privacy. This is nothing that Amazon.com cares about. Nothing that Total Information Awareness can track down. Nothing that needs to be protected by encryption.

The opposite of privacy is not invasion of privacy: It is openness. Real privacy is what allows us to share hopes, dreams, fantasies, fears, and makes us feel we can safely expose our faults and quirks and still be loved. Privacy is the space between us and our dearest-where everything is known and does not matter.
There has never been a better time for real privacy. The Internet allows people who have peculiar interests, social awkwardness or debilitating health problems to create communities that never could have existed before. Online, they can find other folk, who want to re-enact the Battle of Bull Run or sunbathe nude or whatever your bag is, baby.

By surrendering some privacy, that is, by revealing our humanity with all its peculiarity in chat rooms or on e-mail or in newsgroups, we gain much greater privacy: an intimacy with others, a sense of belonging; to be less private sometimes is to have more privacy. To be less private is to be more ourselves.

Current Events

1984 Current Events Assignment

1984 deals with many of the important political and social issues of George Orwell’s time. Many of these same issues apply today. Over the next two weeks, you will become aware of how these same concerns affect your life today.

Your assignment is to find current events that relate to 1984. You will need to bring in TWO current evens throughout the course of this unit. All current events will be due on _______________________. You may only bring in one current event per day. if you forget until the last day, you can still only turn in one.

Each current event must include an article from a recent newspaper or magazine. Articles from the Internet are allowed, but may not be more than one month old. You also need to write one paragraph summarizing the article and one paragraph explaining how this article applies to 1984.

Possible topics include government regulation, right of privacy, totalitarianism, socialism, government control versus private property, freedom, and revolution.

1984 Study Guide and Vocabulary

1984 Study Guide
Book One

Chapter 1-2
1. Describe Victory Gardens where Winston lives.

2. What appears to be wrong with Winston’s society?

3. What are the three slogans and four ministries of the Inner Party?

4. How does the Two Minute Hate work and what is its significance?

5. What happens between Winston and O’Brien?

6. What are the “Thought Police” and what is their function?

7. Who are the Parsons and what do they represent?

8. What is Winston’s dream about O’Brien?

Chapters 3-4
1. What is Winston’s dream about his mother? How does he feel about himself in that dream?

2. What is his dream about the “Golden Country”?

3. What does he remember about the big events of the past? Bombs? Past wars?


4. Explain the Party slogan, “Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.”


5. Describe Winston’s job. How does he control the past?

6. What special literature, music and entertainment is produced for the proletariat (proles)?

7. What is the significance of Comrade Ogilvy?

Chapters 5-7
1. What is the problem with obtaining razor blades?

2. What is revealed about Inner Party philosophy in the discussion between Winston and Syme?
3. Parsons brags about his children for doing what?

4. What is the significance of the telescreen announcement and what are Winston’s feelings about the present time after he hears the announcement?

5. What is the purpose of marriage in the State?

6. How does Winston view the proles and how are they controlled?

7. What is the story of Aaronson, Jones and Rutherford and why is this story meaningful for Winston?

Chapter 8
1. What is life like in the proles’ end of London?

2. What does Winston discover at Mr. Charrington’s shop?

3. What does Winston think about when he sees the dark-haired girl outside Mr. Charrington’s shop?

4. Why does Winston wonder about church bells ringing in London?

Book Two
Chapter 1
1. How does Winston react to the note from Julia before he reads it? What is his reaction after he reads it?

2. How do they manage to meet?

3. Describe the “parade” in victory Square. Why does the Inner Party provide the spectacle for the proles? For the Outer Party members?

Chapter 2
1. Why is Winston ill at ease once he is alone with Julia?

2. What does Julia bring with her that she has obtained on the black market?

3. What familiar sign does Winston find?

4. What is the significance of the thrush music?

Chapter 3
1. What is Julia’s job? Describe her background.

2. What is her attitude toward the Inner Party?

3. Describe Winston’s marriage.

Chapter 4
1. How does Winston react to the singing prole woman?



2. What pleasure of the senses are mentioned in this chapter? What is Orwell’s point in mentioning them?


3. What is Winston’s reaction to the rats? What is Julia’s reaction?

4. Winston sees the coral paperweight as a symbol of what?

Chapter 5-6
1. Who has vanished?

2. Describe the preparations for Hate Week. In what ways does the Inner Party excel in building spirit?


3. Explain the differences between Winston and Julia.

4. What finally convinces Winston that O’Brien is a member of the Brotherhood?

Chapter 7
1. What does Winston remember about his family and his relationship with his mother?

2. What does Winston realize about love and loyalty as a result of his dream?

3. What is the difference between confessional and betrayal?

Chapter 8-9 (through page 151)
1. Contrast the living quarters and style of the Inner Party members with those of the Outer Party members and proles.


2. How does O’Brien test Julia and Winston?

3. What information does O’Brien give them about the Brotherhood?
4. How will O’Brien get The Book to Winston?

5. What are ways in which the Inner Party builds spirit during Hate Week?

Book Three
Chapter 1
1. Where is Winston?

2. Which of Winston’s acquaintances is in the same place and why?

3. What happens between the starving man and the chinless man?

4. What effect do the words, “Room 101” have on the skull-faced man?

5. Who is O’Brien and what do he and Charrington have in common?

Chapter 2
1. Describe Winston’s treatment.

2. O’Brien explains how the Inner Party avoids the mistakes of past totalitarian governments. State in your own words what O’Brien means.




3. What effect does the (painless) shock treatment have on Winston?

4. What questions does Winston ask O’Brien and what are the responses?

Chapter 3
1. According to O’Brien, what are the three stages in Winston’s re-integration, and which stage is he about to enter?

2. Who wrote Goldstein’s book? Is what the book says true?

3. Why does the Inner Party seek power?

4. Explain the slogan, “Freedom is Slavery.”

5. Why does Winston feel he is morally superior to O’Brien, and how does O’Brien prove that Winston is wrong?

6. What good thing can Winston say about himself at the end of this chapter?

7. How does Winston feel about O’Brien? Why?

8. What final question does Winston ask O’Brien?

Chapter 4-5
1. How has Winston’s environment changed? What does he do with his time? How does he show his obedience to the Inner Party?

2. How does Winston show he is not entirely true to Big Brother? Explain his feelings about big Brother.

3. What happens in Room 101 and how does this “cure” Winston?

Chapter 6
1. What is the setting for this chapter?

2. What is Winston’s job?

3. How did the meeting with Julia go?

4. Cite evidence that proves Winston is a different person? Include page numbers.



5. Explain what is happening in the last two paragraphs of the book.
















Vocabulary

Look up each word in the dictionary. Write the correct definition for the way the word is used in the sentence. Write the proper part of speech. Write the word correctly in a sentence.

1. Sanguine (6)

2. Eddies (6)

3. Strident (10)

4. Nebulous (12)

5. Senile (14)

6. Clandestinely (15)

7. Lucid (16)

8. Entrails (18)

9. Statuesque (134)

10. Fecundity (154)

11. Spurious (159)

12. Inimical (163)

13. Equilibrium (166)

14. Irreconcilable (166)

15. Adherents (167)

16. Parasitical (167)

17. Fraternity (167)

18. Truncheons (189)

19. Lethargy (190)
20. Desultorily (191)

21. Servile (192)

22. Sententiously (192)

23. Insidious (192)

24. Doleful (193)

25. Emaciation (194)

26. Rotund (199)

27. Wantonness (209)

Mandala Oral Presentation

As part of the Mandala Book Report, you will present your mandala to the class. You will be graded on the following:
Did I give the title and author’s name?
Did I explain what connection the mandala has to the book?
Did I share one concrete detail?
Did I tell one rhetorical technique used in the book?
Did I tell one thing I learned about myself after reading this book?
How did I like the book?
Did I connect with the audience?
How did I sound?

Mandala Book Report

Mandala Book Report

A mandala is defined by Wordnetweb as “any of various geometric designs (usually circular) symbolizing the universe; used chiefly in Hinduism and Buddhism as an aid to meditation.” We will use a mandala to show what you learned from your outside reading book.

Academic Intentions:
1. Express your intelligence in a new way.
2. Develop your creative thinking skills.
3. Prove that you read the book.
4. Look below the page to see what the author’s intentions are.
5. Look above the page at yourself.
6. Take a risk – think organically.


Assignment:
Choose a shape or object that represents your book.
•In the innermost ring or part, choose three quotes (concrete details) that illustrate important ideas (themes) and events that occur in the book.
•Within the second circle, write five things that the book teaches you about rhetoric (the art of persuasion: ethos, pathos, logos), literary devices and how it adds to the overall experience of the book. The second circle writings are commentary.
•The third, and final, circle will include eight things that you learned about yourself as you read this book.

If you have questions, please feel free to contact Mrs. Larson at Karen.Larson@canyonsdistrict.org.

Due date: The mandala needs to be completed on Tuesday, January 17. Presentations will be the 17, 18, and 19th. Late work will not be accepted.

Pride and Prejudice Quiz for Chapters 1-9

Follow the UTIPS link to take the test for the first section of reading. The password is "Lizzy." The test will be available until Tuesday, January 17.

Letter to Mrs. Bennet

Letter to Mrs. Bennet
Write a letter to Mrs. Bennet regarding her parenting style. Based on your reading of Pride and Prejudice, argue whether or not Mrs. Bennet is a good mother.
•Begin with a question: “is Mrs. Bennet a good mother?”
•Find all the evidence you can that indicates whether or not Mrs. Bennet is a
good mother.
•Next explain how each piece of evidence supports your claim. Each explanation will be a generally accepted rule, which may begin with a phrase such as, “As a rule . . .”
•Explain why your evidence supports your argument. In your letter, you will write to convince your audience that your analysis makes the most sense. You need to include three points, and a counter-argument and refutation for each point.

Using a three-column format, arrange your table this way:
First column: Evidence from the text
2nd column: Rule or Claim “As a rule . . .”
3rd column: Conclusion

Use the information you have compiled in your chart, and write a letter to Mrs. Bennet arguing that she is/is not a good parent.

Marriage Quickwrite

Brainstorm a full page on the following question:

If your parents or guardians were to choose a perfect spouse for you, what kind of person would they choose? What qualities will you consider important in a partner? Jot down similarities and differences between your generation’s attitudes toward love and marriage and those of the generation before you.

Questions for "Marriage is a Private Affair"

Name____________________________Date___________________Period______________
“Marriage is a Private Affair”
1. Why doesn’t Nnaemeka want to write to his father about his marriage plans?

2. What characteristics does Okeke require in a wife for his son?

3. How do the villagers react to the news of Nnaemeka’s behavior?

4. What does Okeke do with his son’s wedding picture?

5. What request does Nene make of Okeke?

6. What is the irony of the story’s title?

7. This story bursts with conflicts among people and ideas. What are at least two of these conflicts? Does the story resolve them? If so, how?

8. How would you describe Okeke’s character? Use details from the story to support your answer.

9. What do you think happened to the herbalist, and why would Achebe include that anecdote?

10. What might the rain at the end of the story symbolize?
11. The story’s subject is a marriage that occurs against a parent’s wishes, but what is the story’s theme?

"Marriage is a Private Affair" by Chinua Achebe

Marriage Is a Private Affair
Chinua Achebe


“Have you written to your dad yet?” asked Nene1 one afternoon as she sat with Nnaemeka in her room at 16 Kasanga Street, Lagos.

“ No. I’ve been thinking about it. I think it’s better to tell him when I get home on leave!”

“But why? Your leave is such a long way off yet—six whole weeks. He should be let into our happiness now.”

Nnaemeka was silent for a while, and then began very slowly as if he groped for his words: “I wish I were sure it would be happiness to him.”

“Of course it must,” replied Nene, a little surprised. “Why shouldn’t it?”

“You have lived in Lagos all your life, and you know very little about people in remote parts of the country.”

“That’s what you always say. But I don’t believe anybody will be so unlike other people that they will be unhappy when their sons are engaged to marry.”

“Yes. They are most unhappy if the engagement is not arranged by them. In our case it’s worse—you are not even an Ibo.”

This was said so seriously and so bluntly that Nene could not find speech immediately. In the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the city it had always seemed to her something of a joke that a person’s tribe could determine whom he married.

At last she said, “You don’t really mean that he will object to your marrying me simply on that account? I had always thought you Ibos were kindly disposed to other people.”

“So we are. But when it comes to marriage, well, it’s not quite so simple. And this,” he added, “is not peculiar to the Ibos. If your father were alive and lived in the heart of Ibibio-land he would be exactly like my father.”

“I don’t know. But anyway, as your father is so fond of you, I’m sure he will forgive you soon enough. Come on then, be a good boy and send him a nice lovely letter . . .”

“It would not be wise to break the news to him by writing. A letter will bring it upon him with a shock. I’m quite sure about that.”

“All right, honey, suit yourself. You know your father.”

As Nnaemeka walked home that evening he turned over in his mind different ways of overcoming his father’s opposition, especially now that he had gone and found a girl for him. He had thought of showing his letter to Nene but decided on second thoughts not to, at least for the moment. He read it again when he got home and couldn’t help smiling to himself. He remembered Ugoye quite well, an Amazon of a girl who used to beat up all the boys, himself included, on the way to the stream, a complete dunce at school.

I have found a girl who will suit you admirably—Ugoye Nweke, the eldest daughter of our neighbor, Jacob Nweke. She has a proper Christian upbringing. When she stopped schooling some years ago her father (a man of sound judgment) sent her to live in the house of a pastor where she has received all the training a wife could need. Her Sunday school teacher has told me that she reads her Bible very fluently. I hope we shall begin negotiations when you come home in December.

On the second evening of his return from Lagos, Nnaemeka sat with his father under a cassia tree. This was the old man’s retreat where he went to read his Bible when the parching December sun had set and a fresh, reviving wind blew on the leaves.

“Father,” began Nnaemeka suddenly, “I have come to ask for forgiveness.”

“Forgiveness? For what, my son?” he asked in amazement.

“It’s about this marriage question.”

“Which marriage question?”

“I can’t—we must—I mean it is impossible for me to marry Nweke’s daughter.”

“Impossible? Why?” asked his father.

“I don’t love her.”

“Nobody said you did. Why should you?” he asked.

“Marriage today is different . . .”

“Look here, my son,” interrupted his father, “nothing is different. What one looks for in a wife are a good character and a Christian background.”

Nnaemeka saw there was no hope along the present line of argument.

“Moreover,” he said, “I am engaged to marry another girl who has all of Ugoye’s good qualities, and who . . .”

His father did not believe his ears. “What did you say?” he asked slowly and disconcertingly.

“She is a good Christian,” his son went on, “and a teacher in a girls’ school in Lagos.”

“Teacher, did you say? If you consider that a qualification for a good wife I should like to point out to you, Emeka, that no Christian woman should teach. St. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians says that women should keep silence.” He rose slowly from his seat and paced forward and backward. This was his pet subject, and he condemned vehemently those church leaders who encouraged women to teach in their schools. After he had spent his emotion on a long homily he at last came back to his son’s engagement, in a seemingly milder tone.

“Whose daughter is she, anyway?”

“She is Nene Atang.”

“What!” All the mildness was gone again. “Did you say Neneataga, what does that mean?”

“Nene Atang from Calabar. She is the only girl I can marry.” This was a very rash reply and Nnaemeka expected the storm to burst. But it did not. His father merely walked away into his room. This was most unexpected and perplexed Nnaemeka. His father’s silence was infinitely more menacing than a flood of threatening speech. That night the old man did not eat.

When he sent for Nnaemeka a day later he applied all possible ways of dissuasion. But the young man’s heart was hardened, and his father eventually gave him up as lost.

“I owe it to you, my son, as a duty to show you what is right and what is wrong. Whoever put this idea into your head might as well have cut your throat. It is Satan’s work.” He waved his son away.

“You will change your mind, Father, when you know Nene.”

“I shall never see her,” was the reply. From that night the father scarcely spoke to his son. He did not, however, cease hoping that he would realize how serious was the danger he was heading for. Day and night he put him in his prayers.

Nnaemeka, for his own part, was very deeply affected by his father’s grief. But he kept hoping that it would pass away. If it had occurred to him that never in the history of his people had a man married a woman who spoke a different tongue, he might have been less optimistic. “It has never been heard,” was the verdict of an old man speaking a few weeks later. In that short sentence he spoke for all of his people. This man had come with others to commiserate with Okeke when news went round about his son’s behavior. By that time the son had gone back to Lagos.

“It has never been heard,” said the old man again with a sad shake of his head.

“What did Our Lord say?” asked another gentleman. “Sons shall rise against their Fathers; it is there in the Holy Book.”

“It is the beginning of the end,” said another.

The discussion thus tending to become theological, Madubogwu, a highly practical man, brought it down once more to the ordinary level.

“Have you thought of consulting a native doctor about your son?” he asked Nnaemeka’s father.

“He isn’t sick,” was the reply.

“What is he then? The boy’s mind is diseased and only a good herbalist can bring him back to his right senses. The medicine he requires is Amalile, the same that women apply with success to recapture their husbands’ straying affection.”

“Madubogwu is right,” said another gentleman. “This thing calls for medicine.”

“I shall not call in a native doctor.” Nnaemeka’s father was known to be obstinately ahead of his more superstitious neighbors in these matters. “I will not be another Mrs. Ochuba. If my son wants to kill himself let him do it with his own hands. It is not for me to help him.”

“But it was her fault,” said Madubogwu. “She ought to have gone to an honest herbalist. She was a clever woman, nevertheless.”

“She was a wicked murderess,” said Jonathan, who rarely argued with his neighbors because, he often said, they were incapable of reasoning. “The medicine was prepared for her husband, it was his name they called in its preparation, and I am sure it would have been perfectly beneficial to him. It was wicked to put it into the herbalist’s food, and say you were only trying it out.”

Six months later, Nnaemeka was showing his young wife a short letter from his father:

It amazes me that you could be so unfeeling as to send me your wedding picture. I would have sent it back. But on further thought I decided just to cut off your wife and send it back to you because I have nothing to do with her. How I wish that I had nothing to do with you either.

When Nene read through this letter and looked at the mutilated picture her eyes filled with tears, and she began to sob.

“Don’t cry, my darling,” said her husband. “He is essentially good-natured and will one day look more kindly on our marriage.”

But years passed and that one day did not come.

For eight years, Okeke would have nothing to do with his son, Nnaemeka. Only three times (when Nnaemeka asked to come home and spend his leave) did he write to him.

“I can’t have you in my house,” he replied on one occasion. “It can be of no interest to me where or how you spend your leave—or your life, for that matter.”

The prejudice against Nnaemeka’s marriage was not confined to his little village. In Lagos, especially among his people who worked there, it showed itself in a different way. Their women, when they met at their village meeting, were not hostile to Nene. Rather, they paid her such excessive deference as to make her feel she was not one of them. But as time went on, Nene gradually broke through some of this prejudice and even began to make friends among them. Slowly and grudgingly they began to admit that she kept her home much better than most of them.

The story eventually got to the little village in the heart of the Ibo country that Nnaemeka and his young wife were a most happy couple. But his father was one of the few people in the village who knew nothing about this. He always displayed so much temper whenever his son’s name was mentioned that everyone avoided it in his presence. By a tremendous effort of will he had succeeded in pushing his son to the back of his mind. The strain had nearly killed him but he had persevered, and won.

Then one day he received a letter from Nene, and in spite of himself he began to glance through it perfunctorily until all of a sudden the expression on his face changed and he began to read more carefully.

. . . Our two sons, from the day they learnt that they have a grandfather, have insisted on being taken to him. I find it impossible to tell them that you will not see them. I implore you to allow Nnaemeka to bring them home for a short time during his leave next month. I shall remain here in Lagos . . .

The old man at once felt the resolution he had built up over so many years falling in. He was telling himself that he must not give in. He tried to steel his heart against all emotional appeals. It was a reenactment of that other struggle. He leaned against a window and looked out. The sky was overcast with heavy black clouds and a high wind began to blow, filling the air with dust and dry leaves. It was one of those rare occasions when even Nature takes a hand in a human fight. Very soon it began to rain, the first rain in the year. It came down in large sharp drops and was accompanied by the lightning and thunder which mark a change of season. Okeke was trying hard not to think of his two grandsons. But he knew he was now fighting a losing battle. He tried to hum a favorite hymn but the pattering of large raindrops on the roof broke up the tune. His mind immediately returned to the children. How could he shut his door against them? By a curious mental process he imagined them standing, sad and forsaken, under the harsh angry weather—shut out from his house.

That night he hardly slept, from remorse—and a vague fear that he might die without making it up to them.