10/11/19 Joshua Ng PD5

10/11/19

Blogger #18

Joshua Ng Period 5

Aim: How can we analyze the structure of irony in "Lord of the Flies" and it's significance to the work as a whole?

Do Now: Think-Pair-Share: In our culture, we tend to value and appreciate rational thought. 

-How does this apply to Piggy's reaction to Simon's death in chapter 10?

-How is relying on rationality ironic in this circumstance?

After the groups discussed these questions within themselves, multiple answers were shared.

-For the first question, one group explained that since human nature prefers rationality, Piggy naturally was trying to convince himself and Ralph that they weren't directly involved in Simon's murder.

- For the second question, there were two answers that caught my attention. One group answered by saying that this scene is ironic because once the group had purposely murdered Simon, any form or sense of rationality on that island was now lost. Another group's response was that throughout the book, Piggy had been the only one questioning the logic of others and their rationality, but none of the other kids listened to him. However, now when there’s a situation where humanity is questioned and past events shouldn’t be rationalized, Piggy ironically for the first time dismisses their actions.

The class then learns the definition of irony and also learns about the different types of irony and are given examples for each of them. For example, an example of cosmic irony is if fate ends up making a brother marry a long lost sister whom he didn't wasn't to even see in the first place. Even though this example was questionable it still got the point across.

Lastly, the class watches a music video for the song, "Ironic", by Alanis Morissette. The song fully consists of situations or events that will be deemed ironic to the listener, such as "An old man turned ninety-eight. He won the lottery and died the next day." This is an example of the song's irony, as anyone who wins the lottery and dies the day after is really unfortunate and ironic. The class is then asked to dissect the lyrics of the whole song and discover what was ironic about the lyric line. If one of the events in the lyrics were to not be fully ironic, then the students were asked what could be changed in order to make that line ironic.

Reflection: Today the class learned about the types of irony and it's usage in multiple examples. The students were also able to understand instances of irony and how they overall affect the writing text or situation. We as students should know how to comprehend and use irony, as this knowledge is necessary for thorough readings, such as the book "Lord of the Flies", as this book has many instances of irony that are essential for the readers to fully understand the text. The class is going to use their new knowledge about irony and use it in their own writing pieces and to apprehend the remaining of the Lord of the Flies book. In the book, there is irony throughout the story, especially now as the kids are ironically doing or saying things that they ironically would never even think of before they became savages.