9/27/19 Terrance Chung PD 7

9/27/19 Terrance Chung PD 7 

Aim: How can we create and define the value of ancient mythology in contemporary society?

Team name changes 

Ms Fusaro reads poem ( landscape of the fall of Icarus) and asks us to annotate and

discuss 

Auden and Williams (author of poems) 

Stylistically difference, style change meanings, sentiments do they echo to the painting 

Any relevance to the original story of Icarus? 

Who is the monster in the poem? 

Auden: ignoring 

William: ignorance prefix -unsignificant 

unaware when in our own universe 

Monster: people ignorance or ignoring 

Greek philosophy: Don’t fly so close to the sun. 

Contemporary western philosophy: reach for the stars. 

Greek advocates for balance. Know your limits. Being humble. 

Connect monster in the road to Icarus 

Are people bad people for living for themselves.

Today, we discussed how ancient mythology is valued in contemporary western society. Ms.

Fusaro discussed the poems by W H. Auden and William Carlos Williams. Both of these

poems were inspired by the painting (The landscape of the fall of Icarus).  We then

discussed the meaning and stylistic differences between the authors and what they want

regarding the story of Icarus. Auden’s meaning in regards to the story of Icarus was the act

of “ignoring” whereas Williams meaning was “ignorance”. Auden’s interpretation showed how

people choose to ignore their surroundings, carrying on their daily lives even while Icarus

was drowning in the corner of their town. Williams’s interpretation of the town was that even if there

were people that noticed Icarus falling from the sky, it wasn’t in anyone’s personal interest to

react to it or help him. The Shepard carried on with his day, the farmer continued to till the

land, ships continued to sail as if nothing happened, all while Icarus was drowning. The moral

of the poem was that life continues going on even if something happens to someone else, helping and going out of your way for someone is not in human nature. We then connected the poems and painting to The Road by Cormac McCarthy. We discussed how the monster in the poems and the novel were ultimately the same and for the same reason. Are people considered bad people for not worrying about other people? This question is recurring throughout The Road and heavily focused on in the poems. Another topic we discussed in class today were Greek philosophies vs contemporary western philosophies. Greek philosophies focuses mostly on balance of life. This is prevalent in the story of Icarus as he loses his life because he didn’t know his own limits and wasn’t being humble.

9/26/19 Thomas Doyle Period 2

Lesson started by reading the story of Daedalus and Icarus. We concluded that lessons of moderation and hubris could be taken from this. Hamartia is a tragic flaw. In the picture shown we observed a man drowning in a seemingly fine scene. The class begun to debate if he was drowning or swimming. The words “Zeus was like yeet” Senan cracked it by realizing it was the landscape of the fall of Icarus. Not just a flaw but rather a tragic flaw, as it will inevitably lead to your downfall. Everyone is expendable. It was noted how Icarus perceived himself as a higher being as he was physically higher than the rest of the world, and he fell i

9/26/19 Daniel Knutsen Period 8

9/26/19

Daniel Knutsen, PD 8

Modern Mythology 2020

Blogger #9

Aim: How can we create and define the value of ancient mythology in contemporary society?

Do Now: read the story of daedalus and icarus- what lessons are being clearly elucidated by this story

The story portrays the idea of hamartia, or tragic flaw, that everybody has in them. In particular, Hubris. Hubris is the trait of excessive pride, and according to the Greeks, it is the biggest flaw, and the root of all other flaws. For example, it can lead to envy, vanity, etc. 

-The idea is that everybody has hamartia. Mortals, Gods, Goddesses, etc. 

-More often than not, the flaw is Hubris.

Second activity:

-We studied  painting. The painting was of a landscape, with a man plowing a field, and a shepherd gazing into the sky. After further observation we noticed what appeared to be a person, seemingly drowning. We discovered that this was a depiction of Icarus, drowning in the sea after he flew too close to the sun. 

-The painting was intended to depict the fall of Icarus. Despite this we noticed that Icarus himself was painted very small, and was covered by the shadows of other things in the painting, like the cliff shown in it. He is not only small, but not one person shown in the painting appears to be paying attention to the demise of Icarus. 

-The symbolism found in the painting was quite interesting. The shadows, and Icarus being painted so small, we reasoned, was to show that despite how much pride he had, he was really just small and insignificant, like all people. Everyone has a purpose, but in the grand scheme we are all small and insignificant. We decided that this was showing a message in humility, that no matter how big and important we think we may be, life still goes on without us. 

We learned about this tragic flaw idea today for a reason. The idea of a tragic flaw, especially something like hubris, is very easily relatable to the real world. This made it a great topic to discuss. It shared with us the lesson that we all need to be humble. Everyone sees themself as important in one way or another, and nobody wants to think that they are as insignificant as everyone else in the world. It's a seemingly pessimistic idea, but it gives you a very realistic view of the world, which made it such a good thing to learn. Hopefully we will all use this lesson, and the information we learned today to be much more modest in our lives, and to never think too highly of ourselves. 

9/26/19 Katherine Cheung PD 7

9/26/19 Katherine Cheung PD 7
Aim: How can we create and define the values of ancient mythology in contemporary society?

Do Now: Read the story of Daedalus and Icarus (pages 193-195) What lessons are being

clearly elucidated by this story?

Billy believed that the lesson being taught was that he let the idea of freedom get to his head.

Alan said that this story was what created the saying of “flying too close to the sun”

Steven said that the point of the story was the story was the tell people to know your limits

and not get ahead of yourself. 

Hamartia means the tragic flaw, it was believed that everyone has one, including their gods.

Hubris is excessive pride. It was viewed as the worst flaw you could have as the ancient

Greeks believed it was the root of every other flaw. 

Hubris itself is a part of hamartia.

Painting Discussion ( Landscape with the Fall of Icarus) 

Yaying said that it shows Icarus drowning in the bottom right corner of the painting.

Steven added on by saying that even though there was a drowning Icarus, people went

about their day as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. There’s bright colors being used

and the man plowing the field seems as if he is the main focus.

Shannon pointed out that there was a man looking up so he most likely saw Icarus fall.

What was the artist say with the painting?

William said that Icarus was insignificant to everyone else as no one really cared that he

was drowning and that it was his own fault and no one else should be held responsible.

Cornelia thought that this shows a message about humanity and the indifference to the

suffering around them. Diego then added on by saying Icarus was very hubris and thought

everyone cared about him and the fact that he was flying when in reality, no one did. 

The lesson being taught was about humility as you can also see Daedalus depicted as a tiny

dot flying in the background while Icarus went trying to fly to the sun. 

Today, I learned a little more about Greek mythology, Daedalus, and the story of Icarus.

It teaches to stay humble and to not overestimate yourself. I believe the main objective of

the story was to slightly scare the ancient Greeks into remaining humble and not be hubris.

I also learned about new paintings and poems related to the mythology which also shows more

types of their history and provides the audience with a greater point of view to how the

people might have been feeling at the time. 

I learnt this as we are a gods, monsters, and the apocalypse class so Greek mythology

will greatly play a part in the class. Along with that I believe it is important to learn about

other cultures and religions and have a general understanding of it. 

I will use what I learned in the future in quite a few ways  as I now understand more about

Greek mythology and different people and parts within it. This could be useful if you were to

ever take a class on it in the future, go to Greece, or even just happen to have a casual

conversation about it. This knowledge allows you to have a greater span of information

which is never a bad thing. 

9/26/19 Paulina Mastryukov PD1

9/26/19 Modern Mythology 2020 Paulina Mastryukov 

Aim: How can we create and define the value of ancient mythology in contemporary society?

Do Now: Read the story of Daedalus and Icarus(pgs 193-195). What lessons are being clearly elucidated by this story?

The story of Icarus and Daedalus goes that Daedalus, the architect of the Minotaur’s Labyrinth, showed Ariadne how Theseus could escape it; for the latter, the King of Minos improved Daedalus and his son Icarus in the Labyrinth. The two escaped by flying away on wings they constructed themselves. Daedalus warned his son to fly at middle course over the sea. However, Icarus upon experiencing the sensation of flight, it went to his head. Ignoring his father’s words, he flew too close to the sun, causing his wings to burn and for him to fall into the sea. With a heavy heart, Daedalus made it safely to Sicily. The lessons that were elucidated here is 1) to not have too much arrogance, and 2) to listen to the warnings of your elders.

Big Motifs in Greek Mythology

• Hamartia: tragic flaw
• Hubris: Excessive pride(pride can exist in many forms: vanity, stubbornness, etc.)

After the Do Now discussion, we looked at what was apparently a very old painting. In the painting, a man in the foreground is tilling the land by the cliff with a horse, below him being a Shepherd with his flock, and what appears to be a fisherman by the water. On the water itself, are several boats, the one closest having enormous sails. In the distance there being a large coastal City. We discussed what we all thought, some of the class saying that a man was drowning from falling off the ship, to commenting on the odd-shaped Stone in the water, to thinking that the figures in the foreground are boat passengers disembarking.

Turned out this painting is called “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” by Peter Bruegel the Elder. We then discussed with this in mind how we interpreted the painting. The most important thing that everybody said is, whether through some Divine influence or not, how all the people in the painting are completely blase to the drowning Icarus. In the end, we came to the conclusion that the moral the painting was trying to express is how if you let your arrogance take control of your actions and destroy you, you will pay the price dearly, with nobody paying you mind.

Group Work: Poems about Icarus

With our groups, we read and annotated the poems of Auden and Williams. While we did not get around to discussing them, the questions for them are as follows:

• Stylistically, how do they differ? Do the styles change the meaning?
• What sentiments do they echo in respect to Breugel’s painting?
• Do they resonate any relevance to the original story of Icarus?

• Who is the monster in the poems and is there only one?

What did I learn? I learned that even centuries or millennia after their first mention/publication, Greek mythology, and ancient myths in general, still hold valuable lessons in the modern world.
Why did I learn it? I learned this because Ms. Fusaro had heavily emphasized during discussion how the lessons elucidated by the myths connect to a broader picture.
How will I use what I learned? I will use what I have learned to keep a more open mind about Greek mythology and the lessons they teach so I will be able to excel in this unit.  

9/26/19 Julie K PD5

9/26/19

Julie Kutuzoff period 5

Aim: how does the reaction of the boys to the “beast in the water” mimic the loss of control in their society?

Notes:

We took a pop quiz on chapters 3-5.

We talked about how people have a crowd mentality when it comes to following rules. We talked about how abnormal it would be if someone came into the room and just started yelling.  Chaos starts with one person. That is how it relates to the quote. The quote from the top is from piggy ch 5. Piggy is the only one being rational. Jack has no problem fear mongering because it lets him maintain power.


Introduction to group island project:
See LOTF island Group project google doc on classroom.

• Draw/make a visual representation of how you think the island looks.
• Main objective is to use creative imagery, setting and mood.
• Write a 300-500 word travel guide or story about the island.
• The writing pieces are individual but everyone has be in alignment for how you write it. 

Check the syllabus for due dates and more details. 

Reflection:

Today I learned about the power dynamics present in lord of the flies, for instance how Jack uses the fear of the “beast in the water”, to his advantage and stay in power. It’s also a reminder of the harsh reality of their situation, with them being young immature boys unable to cope with or comprehend what is happening. It makes it that much more difficult to organize the boys for the sake of survival, and the only one who is mature and rational, Piggy, is ignored. Other characters are also at varying levels of maturity. For instance, Ralph does his best to make sure the group is not sent into panic and chaos after news of the beast. He tries his best at the role of leadership he is thrust into, keeping the peace and maintains survival while balancing it with keeping power and popularity. We learnt it because maturity is a critical theme throughout lord of the flies. Additionally, it foreshadows future disasters to their society that root from these issues. Further in the text it will be applicable as an early example of how the immaturity of the boys makes them easily scared and gullible and how that sparks chaos and disorder, which disrupts balance of power.

9/25/19 Huda Jafri Period 5

9/25/19
Huda Jafri
Period 5
Sophomores 2020

Aim: How does Golding use descriptive language to create setting and convey meaning?

Today, our lesson began with us creating a journal entry about what our favorite room is. I wrote about my cousins living room, where I have a lot of memories from when I was younger. The class recorded their answers on padlet, and, looking at the other responses, I noticed that most of them were personal to whoever wrote it. Everyone wrote about a room that was nostalgic for them, and barely anyone wrote over 2 or 3 sentences. 

After we discussed our answers as a class, Ms. Fusaro showed us her response to the prompt. She said her favorite room was the lab. Her response was filled with description and detail, unlike ours. It allowed the reader to visualize the scenario, and it showed how much the lab meant to her. One line that specifically stood out to me was “All these ingredients do is sit and wait until I perform my magic, my chemistry.” The use of first person and the repetition of “my” makes the reader feel a personal connection to the lab, even though we’ve never even seen it. This shows the power of description in writing. 

Next, we had to revise our journal entry. We added more detail to make the reader feel like they could visualize our favorite room, like Ms Fusaro did. Compared to our previous drafts, these were much more structured and creative, and overall sounded better. 

As we were wrapping this activity up, we learned about mood. Mood is “the atmosphere that pervades a literary work with the intention of evoking a certain emotion or feeling from the audience.” In simpler terms, mood is what the reader feels. This is often confused with tone, which is what the author is saying. Mood is important in literary works because it makes the reader more emotionally attached to the book they are reading, which makes it easier to relate to the characters. 

Our final activity of the day was to read page 12 of “Lord of The Flies” and jot down words that stand out to you, and explain what the mood is. 

One phrase that stood out to me is where the water is described as “clear to the bottom and bright”. As someone in my class mentioned, this almost makes the island seem like a beautiful vacation spot, creating a positive mood. However, in other parts of the section, the mood seems very negative. This includes the part where it says the palm trees “reached perhaps twenty feet, they fell and dried.” This is a very obvious shift from the previous happy mood in the story To continue with the quote about the palm trees, it was mentioned in class that this could be foreshadowing the future of the boys on the island. Right before the bell rang, an excellent point was made by my classmate. She said that, as readers, we should be able to see the foreshadowing happening, however, the characters in the book don’t notice it because of their young age. 

What I learned today is useful because it will help me develop my skills as a writer. Anyone can write down a few sentences about what their favorite room is, but getting the reader to visualize it to the point where they personally connect with it takes skill. To continue, learning about mood can help me convey emotions better in writing pieces. By using setting, theme, diction, and tone, I can make the reader feel a certain way. Also, by identifying it, I can understand how the author wants me to feel. Hence, by learning these new techniques, I can better myself, both as a reader, and as a writer. 

9/24/19 Nouraldeen Ibrahim A very maturing lesson PD5

9/24/19

Sophomores 2020

Nouraldeen Ibrahim

Period 5

Blogger #10

Aim: How does the exposition of Lord of the Fliesset up the novel to question how society structures transition from childhood to adulthood?

• Today we began the lesson by filling out a worksheet called “Acting your Age” that required us to fill out our prediction of the legal ages of certain things in NY(https://www.dropbox.com/s/e0hquhymk1m7ak6/Legal%20Ages%20-%20New%20York%20Times%20-%20Lesson%201.pdf?dl=0). We were provided an allotted time to fill out the worksheet and discuss our answers with our group members. Then the class began saying their responses and they were similar but people were confused of the specifications. For instance, for the age a person can drive a car with a license, there was different exceptions that made the answer vary and made the class speculate. Many of the ages were underestimated because me and my peers did not recognize the responsibility all of these legal activities needed.

•  What I learned from this activity is that the responsibility a person is able to handle translates to the rights he could receive. Thus, for each legal age, the responsibility needed for the action was taken into accountability and was a main reason in deciding a legal age. For example, most of the class initially thought that the legal age for renting a car was from 17-20, but we found out it was actually 25 since renting a car requires responsibility and is costly. This could be related to theLord of the Flies since the boys were put into a very rough situation and had to quickly gain more maturity to survive in this jungle.

• We were then given a New York Times Article to read named “How Old is Old Enough?” by Catherine Rampell that discusses the difficulty of finding when the actual threshold between adulthood and childhood is (https://www.dropbox.com/s/42ff11fkx00xjsj/How%20Old%20Is%20Old%20Enough_%20-%20The%20New%20York%20Times.pdf?dl=0). It also describes the difficulty of deciding whether children should be accountable for things they are not mature enough to handle. The article said, “Professor Steinberg,…,has found through laboratory experiments that young teenagers seek out risk and have trouble controlling their impulses.”(Rampell 2009)
• This video explains the reason for the current age of adulthood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iYWgGs9UYs&feature=share
• Each group then made up a theoretical situation that discusses each group members jurisdiction on the consequences that should be given to a child who commits a crime. The theoretical situation that my group imposed was if a child was to purposely severely injure his sibling who is getting the attention he longs for. We came to a consensus that the child should be penalized with the ruling of the judge and not been forgiven since their should still be a small level of responsibility at any age.

• This website describes our situation above and how parents should react to a situation like it: https://www.aamft.org/Consumer_Updates/Sibling_Violence.aspx

• We then took a look at an excerpt from Lord of the Flies that deals with Jack struggling to stab a pig because of a lack of responsibility and an initial experience of something he never had to do before. This relates to the 2 previous activities we were doing since this experience is a transition from childhood to adulthood because of the great maturity the kids will gain from this experience. Even though, Jack struggled stabbing the pig he will soon get used to it and transition from his childish state.
• 

• Finally, during the end of the period we see the summary and analysis from this topic to the Lord of the Flies. Not only does it show a theme of maturity but also gaining masculinity since this was in the time of World War II.

• All in all, I learned the different legal ages in NY and the reason for the different legal ages(level of responsibility expected at that age). We learned this to relate it to the book we are reading, Lord of the Flies, and realize that they will need to hatch from the cocoons they are in and become responsible and mature people from the difficulties they will face on this jungle. I will use what I learned by making inferences from reading the book and noticing when the boys are learning, growing, and maturing from past mistakes.  

                                                                

Sources:

• Rampell, Catherine. “How Old Is Old Enough?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 14 Nov. 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/weekinreview/15ramp.html.
•  Advanced Solutions International, Inc. Sibling Violence, https://www.aamft.org/Consumer_Updates/Sibling_Violence.aspx

9/20/19 Senan Demel Period 2

9/20/19

Senan Demel 

Period 2

Modern Mythology 2020

Aim: How can we use our knowledge of The Road to illustrate possible causes for the Apocalypse?

Hand of God

• Making the book cover digital gave it a really good first impression, but I feel like the title should be easier to read
• I loved how they cut a piece of the cover and explained it on a separate slide
• The idea of nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia is very believable because of the Cold War
• They said that the son was the “lily of the valley” and that he represents Christ, which is something we talked about in class earlier this week
• Explaining the boy and his father’s thought process along with the quote they used for evidence was good
• I personally didn’t like the white on plain black, but it was simple which I appreciated
• Overall, a good presentation although it could have been improved

Dawn of Armageddon 

• I began the presentation explaining the various symbols depicted on the cover, such as the fire, fallen building, and the word “Armageddon”
• I used biblical references because I know that it’s common in literature, especially in relation to this type of book
• We didn’t want to be generic, but we wanted to be believable, so we thought of nanotechnology as the cause for the Apocalypse, which was totally different from the other groups

Apoptosis

• The title was an instant hook

• Very interesting discussion about the moon and its symbolism in relation to the book
• The moon splitting apart and causing multiple supervolcano eruptions and tidal waves just to add onto the nuclear waste from fighting was pretty genius
• The idea of a chain reaction spread out over time made a lot of sense to me
• Good use of quotes to provide evidence for their explanation
• I really liked the presentation overall because of their unique explanation for the apocalypse, which set it apart from the other groups

  Different perspectives and interpretations of the same events can greatly help us to understand things in ways we might not have even thought of. For example, seeing different causes of the apocalypse helped me realize the amount of depth and effort can be put into making a single book, as well as the endless possibilities available when you use your imagination instead of having a story directly told to you.

  I learned this because my classmates brought up varying ideas about what caused the apocalypse during their presentations. Each detail that they came up with meant something or had some kind of symbolism which helped give us a deeper understanding of the book.

  All of this can be used to better my own presentations and understanding of literature because I now know how to effectively propose new ideas and back them up while still being credible. Offering new perspectives to my peers is a great way to promote appreciation for literature because it enables us to think critically about what’s between the lines.

9/19/19 Helen Huang Period 8

9/19/19

Helen Huang  Period 8

Modern Mythology 2020

Blogger #7

Aim: Cover Project Presentations Day 1

Tomorrow’s Night

This title refers to the future and what comes after, a new day. The theory is that a nuclear war happened where the clash of governments with different views created a dangerous situation for the people. Radiation spreads depleting resources and the world ends up covered in ash. The scarcity of the resources lead to higher tensions between many nations. Violence increases and trust/bonds are broken. Survival is put as a higher priority than kindness due to the fact that fear can drive people to abnormal things such kill, eat other humans (even babies), and commit suicide. The boy is a symbol of compassion that goes against the fear shown in the book. On this group’s book cover there is a mushroom cloud to illustrate the darkness covering entire cities. The black background/rain without stars shows the coldness present and the hope not present. To the left a bloody skeleton symbolizing the death and to the right a mother with her baby conveying the continuity of sacrificed morals throughout the book. In the center is an image of an earth that on one side shows it as blue and green, how we see it today, and the other as a red hell like world. I found the cover to be very well thought out and made to accurately depict many aspects/details of the book.

Beginning of the End

Similar to the previous group the theory of what happened is a new world war, WW3, broke out. North Korea started the war and targeted medium to high populations. Yellowstone, Wyoming has a volcano that erupts leaving the world dark and survival hard. A second ice age is predicted due to the temperature drop from the decreased sunlight due to the clouds of ash. This is likely to be true because the father and the son find bunkers full of food and supplies which means that people were expecting/preparing for a war. After WW3, humans have no hope in their future and only thinking of the present. This results in people resorting to cannibalism to survive showing that they gave up. There are extremely limited resources as the book cover shows. It illustrates the world situation before and going into the road. I like how they connected the bunkers to people expecting a third world war.

Brimstone

The theory is that the location of the road is near Rock City Tennessee because the characters come across an advertisement sometime earlier in the novel that states “See Rock City”. There was a supervolcanic eruption that caused death and destruction ton an enormous scale. Based on the location the boy and his father were far enough to have survived the aftermath. The loss of hope along with the death of loved ones caused many to become insane and give up. This group had also given other possibilities such as a meteor strike which I like. The title deals with fire and wrath and the book has a lot of religious symbols.

This project has given us the chance to creatively experiment with the prequel to a mysterious story and was very fun!!!