Bellringer/Activity 1: Make two lists...In terms of preparation and the actual discussion...

1)What are the characteristics of a bad literary discussion?
2) What are the characteristics of a good literary discussion?

Activity 2) I will facilitate a large group discussion (half the class) on chapters 1 and 2 using student inferential questions and questions from the reading guide you worked on yesterday.  The other half will observe and comment on both the questions raised and characteristics of the discussion.

Example Inferential question:

  “After he has gone back, to wherever he’s going next, I think of getting him a star named after himself, for his birthday.  I have seen an advertisement for these: you send in your money, and you get a certificate with a star map, your own marked on it.  Possibly he would find this amusing.  But I’m not sure the word birthday, for him, would still have meaning (363).”  What might Elaine mean with this cryptic comment about the word “birthday”?  Is this comment connected to his speech on the universe?  Is the “star” as a “birthday” present significant in a symbolic way, or just something a theoretical physicist might like? 

Homework: Tonight...Read chapter 3 and write an inferential discussion question.

Tomorrow...

Class discussion 

and

In your notebook...Which element of this society do you find most disturbing and why?