English 51

1. English 51 Monday, February 11, 2013

2. Free-write • Imagine you had $100, but you couldn’t keep it. You have to give it away to a person or charity. Who would you give it to? What would you want them to do with it?

3. Agenda for the day • Group Presentation: Ch 4-5 • Reading discussion: Ender’s Game chapters 1-5 • Vocabulary and reading quiz • Introduction to chapter 3: “Learning by Sorting it Out”

4. Ender’s Game Chapters 4-5

5. Group Presentation

6. Your Questions, Thoughts, Responses?

7. Movie Casting Colonel Graff Ender Wiggin Movie is scheduled to be released Nov. 1, 2013

8. What do you think it means for Ender that the administration plans to isolate him from his peers at Battle School? Why do you think they want to do this?

9. “He imagined the ship dangling upside down on the undersurface of the Earth, the giant fingers of gravity holding them firmly in place. But we will slip away, he thought. We are going to fall off this planet. “He did not know it’s significance at the time. Later, though, he would remember that it was even before he left Earth that he first thought of it as a planet, like any other, not particularly his own.” –pg 29

10. Ender begins by comparing his situation to that of television shows, drawing on those experiences to tell him what to expect. • Is this a reasonable thing for a child to do? Can you recall a time doing the same thing, where you anticipate a situation’s outcome based on something you’d seen, read, or head before?

11. What do you know about Napoleon? Alexander? Julius Caesar? • Why is it significant that Graff presents these as figures to emulate when talking to Ender? What is the quality that the adults are looking for?

12. What do you think about the exchange between Graff and the other individual at the beginning of chapter 5? Do you think their plan has merit, or are they just going to turn Ender into a psychological mess?

13. Do you think Ender seriously regrets leaving home to go to Battle School or is he just homesick from being away from home for the first time ever?

14. Ender seems to think logically about his relationship with Bernard and the way the bully has gathered followers. • Is it unreasonable for him to consider that the kids around him remember that Bernard started it? • How old are these kids?

15. What do you think about Ender’s way of breaking Bernard’s domination of the launch group?

16. Quiz

17. Texts and Contexts Chapter 3: Learning by Sorting it Out

18. Making Inferences • In most of our daily actions, we govern ourselves as though our lives were surrounded by certainties—truths we can count on absolutely.

19. Mary • Mary sets her electric clock for 6 am, certain that its alarm will go off at that time. She is certain that she will be able to take a shower when she gets up and that the food she has bought will still be there for her to eat at breakfast time. She is certain that her car will start, and she is certain that when she arrives at work, her job will be waiting for her. Her only concern is that sometimes the traffic is so bad, because of accidents or stalls, that the time it normally takes her to get to work may not be sufficient. Usually, however, it is.

20. Probability • It is probably true that Mary’s morning will go according to plan, but no certainties. • High probability: • Low probability: • The closer something becomes to being certain the higher or lower its probability • Ex. If a math teacher has scheduled 6 quizzes and the first 5 were given as scheduled, there is high probability that the 6th will be given as scheduled • Conversely, there is low probabilitythat it will be cancelled.

21. Exercise • With your neighbor, do the exercise at the bottom of page 84.

22. Short Writing Activity • Do the exercise at the bottom of page 85. • After you rate the statements, answer the question in italics on a separate sheet of paper to turn in.

23. Inferences and Guesses • An inference is a conclusion drawn from evidence • A guess is a decision based on inadequate eveidence.

24. Good and Bad Inferences • Good = legitimate or reasonable • Based on adequate evidence or at least a well-consideredjudgment of the evidence • Bad = illegitimate or unreasonable • Usually overgeneralized from too little evidence

25. Why is it Important? • We often use inferences to help us classify information. • That is, we sort things into categories to be able to make sense of them.

26. Exercise • Please do the exercise on page 87-88 with a partner.

27. Classifying to Discover • Classification is a system for organizing things or ideas into groups according to their similarities to make them more manageable or understandable.

28. The homework from this chapter will be focusing on model essays of classification, and will be asking you do some work along the same lines. • Please note: do NOT do the essay assignments at the end of each reading. We will be working on one essay per chapter.

29. Homework • Please read pg 92-99 in Texts and Contexts. Do the pre-reading and post-reading activities, but DO NOT do the essay assignment. • Bring a magazine of your choice to class on Wednesday.