Unsa Imran #7-17 Wednesday, February 27

Aim: How is Animal Farm by George Orwell a satirical allegory?
Do Now: Whole Class Discussion-Why was it so difficult to decide on what should be human rights? What makes your choices "rights" as opposed to "privileges"?

-       The government has a huge impact on humans right

-       Each person has their own experiences and way of thinking so it's impossible for everyone to agree fully on what should be human rights. There are also many different ways of perceiving things and being affected by them.

-       It would be easy to decide on rights if this was an ideal world, but since it's not, there isn't a realistically perfect way to decide on what should be human rights and if it is the right choice or not.

-       Each person should have the right to make a choice because it is how you speak your mind. You can still make choices, even when you aren't given the privilege to make them, and that makes it a human right because you can choose to do whatever you want to do. 

Satire: A literary composition in which human foolishness/wicked behavior are held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule. In a satire, the writer attacks a serious issue by presenting it in a ridiculous light, or otherwise poking fun at it.

*Examples of Satire- The Daily Show, The Onion, Scary Movie, South Park, Songs by Weird Al Yankovich
Animal Farm is mostly about the former Soviet Union in particular, about their socialist experiment. This satire could be used to expose certain things (ex. about the government & how the people are treated).

Allegory: Literary work in which characters, events, objects, and ideas have secondary or symbolic meanings. All the things in this book are a symbol of what happened in the Bolshevik revolution. Can be read on more than one level.

*Examples of Allegory- The Crucible, The Divine Comedy, Aesop's Fables, Lord of the Flies, The Wizard of Oz.

Animal Farm

• About the Soviet Union
• The Tsar’s government was overthrown and replaced by the Bolshevik leadership,
• When Lenin died, Trotsky and Stalin fought for power and eventually Stalin won.
• Stalin wanted to move the Soviet Union into the modern industrial age.
• The government took land to create farms.
• The Five Year Plan was created using military tactics.
• About 20 million people were killed on rigged trials.

Aim: How can we symbolically analyze the character “Old Major?”

Do Now: Pair Share-How is Old Major characterized?

• Old Major represents Lenin.
• He plays the role of a grandfather because he is very old and wise.

1. What are the rules that Old Major lays out for animals? Which of these rules are most distinct? What do they foreshadow?

- Rule: Everyone is equal. This foreshadows that there will be people who struggle to gain power in the farm.

-Rule: Two-legged creatures are enemies and no matter how many victories they gain, the animals should not act like them. This is a pretty strict rule and it foreshadows that maybe one of the animals will try to break this rule

2. With respect to the song “Beasts of England,” consider: Who is included in the song? What is the purpose of singing? Why does Orwell explain who learns the lyrics first?

- Included in the song: The "tyrant man" who will lose this throne to the animals.

- Purpose of singing: Since Old Major is about to die, he wanted to leave his fellow animals with some wisdom: that all men are evil and the animals have to take them down.

3. What is the overall meaning of Old Major’s dream?

- There will at some point be a world in which the animals will live without the tyranny of men. They will finally be free and happy.

1. Read the info about Karl Marx. What connections can be drawn between Old Major and Marx?

- Both were oppressed by the higher power

- Both were highly respected because of their knowledge/power

            - Both offered potential ways of fixing major problems. 

Elias Karounos 2/25/2019

Aim: How is Animal Farm by George Orwell a satirical allegory?

Do Now- List 5 Human Rights
For the Do Now we had to list 5 human rights in order of importance and pick new groups with people who agreed with us. Most people in the class agreed with most of each other's ideas. Everyone liked the idea of Freedom of Expression as well as many other things, but when it came to freedom of life there was some debate about whether criminals should have that freedom.

Today in class we collected our old books Macbeth and gave out new books Animal Farm by George Orwell on top of that we had a large discussion that lasted till the end of class about what rights we should have. Everyone agreed with most of them exept for the debate on Life, Childcare, and equality which we nevactuallyaly decided a conclusion because the bell rang

Ronald Huang / Blogger #16 / Feburary 8th, 2019

Today we are going to finish acting out the last three scenes of Macbeth. 

Group 4: Act 5, Scene 4

     Overall, group 4 did a good job. The way that all of the lines were enunciated correcty, and they acted everything out that they were supposed to correctly. The issue or criticism that I would give would be that they did not look at the audience much, and stared at the scripts, and there was a lot of talk among themselves that are not part of the act. 

Group 5: Act 5, Scene 5

     Group 5 did many things many things right. The one way things were said were on point. Everything was on time, and everything was very smooth. Since there was only 5 roles, Stanley filled the role of the narrator. The only thing that could be worked on a little bit would be the expressions used to enunciate the lines. Overall, this was a very good performance. 

Group 6: Act 5, Scene 6

     Group 6 was able to memorize their lines, which was a nice addition and they had very cool props. Everything had a lot of expression in it. Everything was very timely. One of the best performances that have come up in this act. One thing that could be worked on would be that they should not pause inbetween the lines as much. Overall though, this was an awesome performance. 

Nicholas Hong #7-15 February 7th

Group 1: Act 5 scene 1:

One thing that stood out to me for group 1's performance was how they had Lady Macbeth walking back and forth in the middle of the room away from the other people performing. This was a great representation of Lady Macbeth's aimless sleepwalking and ramblings as she seemed completely oblivious to the other characters as she did in the scene.

Group 2: Act 5 scene 2:

Overall group 2 excelled in two areas, line delivery, and hand gestures. Both of these combined did a very good job of expressing the tone of the characters. Another small detail I liked was the use of towel caped and paper helmets which showed who was playing what role at a quick glance. The only issue there was with the performance was a little bit of trouble following the lines and coming in on time

Group 3: Act 5 Scene 3:

The way that Elias played Macbeth in this scene with his line delivery, hand gestures, and general mannerisms did an amazing job at portraying Macbeth's laid back and apathetic tone in this scene. One way they could have improved this was with better communication of the lines as there were moments where people stepped over each other's lines.

Sarah Hanglow #7-14 January 30th

Sarah Hanglow 
1/30/19

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

20Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

25That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Analysis:

• (Lines 1-2) Doesn’t see as another opportunity just something that goes by slowly and is meaningless.  Life is just receptive and boring.
• (Lines 3-4) It’s going really slowly until you die.  People who think life is good are fools because every day up until now has had no real meaning.
• (Line 5-6) Your life is insignificant all life is means nothing. It just ends very fast and anti climatic.  He feels empty from the loss of Lady Macbeth. Self justifying because all murders mean nothing feels better about self.
• (Line 6-7) You spend your time going through yourself your life and no one cares about it after your gone. No matter what you do throughout your life none of it matter in the end. 
• (Line 8-9) No matter what you do it all comes down to being nothing in the end.  Basically saying that it there is no afterlife which people didn’t like because it went against the teachings of the church and therefore the ideals of the government.

Discussion:

  1. What different things does Macbeth metaphorically compare life to? Why?

He compares “a walking shadow” and “a poor player”. Since these both symbolize meaninglessness.

  2. How does Macbeth feel about the future?

He feels that the future is bleak and there is nothing to live for.

  3. How does this soliloquy prove that Macbeth is a round dynamic character?

In the beginning of the play he was very much in love with his wife.  Now he can't even be bother to care about her death.

  4. Consider the timing and placement of the speech-right after Lady Macbeth's reported death- what is the significance of its placement? Why?

The placement of this speech is significant because it comes right after Lady Macbeth's death.  He is giving a speech about how meaningless life is and he feels this way because any life without her seems bleak.  

**Fair is foul and foul is fair:

-Everything is wrong in the beginning with Lady being ruthless and Macbeth wasnt in

-In the end all goes back to the way it should b with men ruthless and women sad

Thami Hamzane #7-13 January 18th

Aim: When Juxtaposed (compared) against Macbeth how does the characterization of Macduff and themes of the play illuminate the societal pressures placed on Both Genders

               To start off today's lesson we read aloud act IV in the front of  the room, at this point in the play "Shady Ross" meets up with Macduff and Malcolm in England, who at the moment are planning to retake Scotland (this alludes to the Witches warning from earlier to "Beware Macduff"). After trying to initially hide the facts from Macduff, Ross reveals the to him informing him of how his wife and children were all savagely murdered at the hands of Macbeth. After our read aloud we viewed the same scenes we just read in the movie form with Roman Polanski's 1971 adaptation of Macbeth. I especially appreciate being able to see the movie because when you have a bunch of high school kids who aren't very familiar with how these characters talk to each other a lot of the emotion is lost.


Important lines:

"It cant be called our mother but our graves" -Ross

"Dispute it like a man" -Malcolm
                          ↓
"I shall do so, but I must also feel it as a man" -Macduff

Afterwards we broke off into "Stations" where we did one of the following:

A link to our classes flip grid is provided below:

https://flipgrid.com/dd0c774c

-Thami H.

Jacob Gurevich #7-12 January 17th

Think about all the pressures associated with being the opposite of the gender you identify with. Discuss societal issues, cultural concerns, and professional responsibilities.

People discussed the societal problems and stereotypes concerning gender roles. They raised concerns about women not getting the same opportunities and men having to play the strong brave leader.

We read Act 4 scene 2 of Macbeth

We see another use of birds in symbolism.

Russ is a very controversial character because we don’t know what side he is on.

We talk about how rambunctious and satirical the son of lady macduff is.

Macduff and Malcom have a long conversation where Macduff is testing Malcom to see if he’s truly on his side.
We discussed how Macduffs whole family was killed and how the unusual line of “ He killed me mom” was practical because it was needed to inform the stage crew what’s going on