The Winsome Scholar

Here’s the plan we worked out in class today. Tuesday will give us a chance to take more time in discussing the articles on Monday, or provide me with more time to explain concepts and such. All of this is subject to change with prior notice.

Here’s a copy of the “Formatting Your Paper” handout I mentioned in class. If you notice anything that is misleading or incorrect, let me know.

Just a reminder based on what we discussed in class today:

You have until tomorrow to get in those long-overdue assignments and such.

Quick answer to that one.

So, we discussed allusions in class today. I was happy to see the broad range that you guys came up with. Maybe we ought to come up with a way to catalogue them all? We’ll talk about that tomorrow.

If you didn’t have anything to contribute, don’t worry too much. There will be plenty of time to make up the points, but do keep your eyes open. One of the goals for this semester is for us to see how deeply these stories have impacted everything that came after. Use your journals, and if you can grab a picture or bring in a file or web address, that would be great.

We’ll be discussing the end of Book V tomorrow. Make sure your journals are up to date!

I passed out a number of articles in class today, most pertaining to religion in schools. If you snagged one, read over it. Our goal in this section is to gain a solid understanding of this issue. By the end, we should all have a solid understanding of the nuances of this issue, the rationale behind many sides of the argument, and a much clearer view of our own opinions. Simply, in a few weeks we all should be able to hold an intelligent conversation about religion’s place in the public school system.

As with all of our discussions, we are not striving for consensus¹, nor are we looking to establish a two-sided, pro/con debate; this is a complex issue²³, and I expect each of you to do enough research so you can thoughtfully contribute to our discussions. This means some independent study: confine your article analyses⁴ to this subject, talk with family members, religious leaders, teachers, and such about their thoughts, read up on important court cases⁵⁶, etc.

We will continue our discussion of rhetorical devices, logical arguments and fallacies, and appeals throughout this session.

If you come across any resources, please post them below or print them out. Bring all information to class; share the wealth!

1. Remember “groupthink” from psychology? If not, ask your teacher. [↩]
2. Overview from ReligiousTolerance.org [↩]
3. Overview from Pew Forum [↩]
4. Here’s a non-argumentative article about headscarves in Belgium schools. While our focus will be on the American system, this is a very recent addition to the debate. [↩]
5. Scopes Trial [↩]
6. Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District [↩]

You can catch up on your reading here.

Our main goal with this play is to gain a better understanding of Shakespearean language, snag a few allusions, and take an in-depth look into the motivations of each character. The first two are happy side-effects of the last. There are two questions we should keep in mind as we watch:

1. At what point does Hamlet’s sanity become questionable?

2. Why doesn’t Hamlet kill Claudius right away?

Of course, as with all questions worth asking, our initial attempts will raise more questions than answers, and will become more complex as we look deeper into the story. This is a good thing.

We’ll have a quick quiz tomorrow over the action so far. This will do several things for us:

• Help me see how you are understanding the story as individuals.
• Help you organize your thoughts about the play so far (you may use your notes; this quiz could be a good resource for you when you begin writing—a very rough draft of sorts).
• Help me check on how your writing is progressing. (Hint: it will not be fill-in-the-blank.)
• Help you decide whether the in-class discussions are sufficient for you to understand the play. You may decide to track down a copy to study from on your own (we have a few in the classroom, or you can use the link at the top of this post) if you have trouble answering the questions.