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Classroom Discussions and Experiences
Unit Cover Sheet:
Introduction
Piecemeal is a great word. It means collected or created a piece at a time to make a unique whole. I came across the word in a military sense as piecemeal armor describes a solider protecting himself/herself as best as they could afford. Often after a fight a solider would scavenge the fallen for an upgrade for better protection. After several battles the soldier is left with the best pieces of armor that they could collect given their opportunities.
We do this every day when it comes to knowledge and skills. We can only pick up what we encounter.
I've never been a fan of hero worship. The study of humanity always comes with the knowledge that every single human being has huge flaws. If you engage in hero worship, odds are you are focusing on one attribute they possess that you admire. Because of their flaws, it is hard to worship an entire person. If you want to call Martin Luther King Jr. a hero for his work in race equality, you have to take in his doctoral thesis plagiarism. If you want to call Mohandas Gandhi a hero for his work in passive resistance protests, you have to take in his racism against black Africans and his weirdness with enemas and sleeping in the same bed as teenage girls to test his chastity. If you want to admire Henry Ford for his use of the assembly line, you have to accept his hate of Jewish people. Most of the people classically held up as heroes have flaws and have made huge mistakes.
It is far better to hero worship the individual trait or skill.
The single best hero for an individual is the concept of the individual's future self. In the future, we always see ourselves as an improved version of our existing selves. We do not envision our future selves as having increased or added flaws. This idealized future self makes for the best hero worship.
On the way we can take on the best characteristics that we encounter and add them into the vision of our future self.
Assignment
Students are expected to create their own hero from the pieces of several people both real and fictional. Each student must include three paragraphs with twenty aspects, qualities, skills, or personality traits. Students must clearly communicate them to the reader through simile and metaphor. Due to the quantity expected, the challenge will be to avoid sounding like you're rattling off a list. How do you make each quality stand out and be important in a crowd of other qualities?
Students are expected to have one paragraph filled five with clichés used playfully.
What Traits Do I Want?
Pick the five best traits from members of your family, close friends, and people you know personally (e.g. work on cars like grandpa, learn to fish like your uncle, learn to cook like your aunt, learn to manage people like your mother).
Pick the five best traits from physically strong people, sports stars, and athletes (e.g. run like Usain Bolt, box like Muhammad Ali, tumble like Gabby Douglas, endurance like Serena Williams, swim like Michael Phelps).
Pick the five best traits from emotionally strong people (e.g. quality marriage/relationship, caring, trust, generosity, ability to control anger, patience, confidence, ability to inspire).
Pick the five best traits from artists and famous people (e.g. rap like Tupac, sing like Beyoncé, dance like Derek Hough, make people laugh like Kevin Hart, lead a movement like Martin Luther King Jr.
Pick the five best traits from Fictional Characters (e.g. investigate like Sherlock Holmes, enjoy summers like Phineas and Ferb, stand up for what is right like Wonder Woman).
Sentence Complexity
This allows us to create statements with similes and metaphors. I want to have incredible kindness like my grandmother. I want to be able to write like my English teacher. I want to have a disarming smile like my best friend. I want to be able to run the 100m dash as fast as Usain Bolt. I want to sing soulfully like B.B. King.
Now that you have a list, you can feel the "listiness" if that were all in one paragraph. We are now going to have to add sentence complexity to keep things interesting.
Presentation: List Improvement
Presentation: Sentence Complexity
Handout: Syntax Analysis Worksheet
De-Listifying the List of Traits
Pick five of the traits that have people who are really important. Add appositives to the sentence by adding comma-separated extra information about the person. This will add complex sentences and reduce the amount of simple sentences.
From my mother, a woman who worked two jobs all her life just to feed us, I want endurance and the ability to work hard.
Pick five of the traits that have traits and skills that are especially important to you. Upgrade the sentence to a full level two answer with one or two extra sentences of supporting information. This will add specific details and make the overall feel less "listy."
I want to be able to take care of a planet and rescue people like Superman. The idea that an outsider takes the time to care about people that never were his own with a morality that is greater than your average human has always been inspiring to me.
Combine several of the remaining traits by similar category using a comma series. This will add compound sentences and reduce the amount of simple sentences. Do this to the list items not important enough to get the elaboration treatment.
It is important to be strong emotionally. I want the fearlessness of my little brother, the patience of my grandfather, and the generosity of my best friend Marcus.
Say a few of your desired traits with figurative language instead of literal language.
Original: My uncle can play basketball really well, and I want to be able to do that too.
Simile: I want to play basketball like a beast the way my uncle can play.
Metaphor: I want to be a beast on the basketball court like my uncle.
Clichés
Presentation: Literal
Presentation: Figurative
Presentation: Interpret
Clichés are figurative uses of language that require a conscious rejection of the literal meaning. This creates opportunity for word play.
Sample: I am going to be a person who doesn't judge a book by its cover. I will be the early bird that catches the worm. I won't be the person with their head in the clouds. I will think outside of the box, and inside of the box. I will be one with the box. I would kill three birds with one stone, but that's mean and my future self is kind to animals. I will look gift horses in the mouth, rock the boat, and build Rome in a day if I feel like it. I will refuse to give 110% and will instead increase what 100% means. My future self will knock your socks off.
Website: Cliché Finder - S. Morgan Friedman - Use the Ten Random Clichés if you don't have a search idea.
Who? Did What? Really?
(still need to finish and polish this)
Abraham Lincoln
Not Exactly for Equality - “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in races favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.” -- Abraham Lincoln, Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858
Martin Luther King Jr.
Plagiarism - http://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/11/us/boston-u-panel-finds-plagiarism-by-dr-king.html - "A committee of scholars appointed by Boston University concluded today that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. plagiarized passages in his dissertation for a doctoral degree at the university..."
Henry Ford
Mohandas Gandhi
Racism - Was Mahatma Gandhi A Racist? - Soutik Biswas - BBC News - September 17, 2015
Slept Next to Underage Girls to test his Chastity
Dr. Dre
Violence Against Women - http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/06/06/1991-apple-executive-andre-young-brutally-attacked-defenseless-woman-la-nightclub (Profanity)
Steve Jobs
As a billionaire he ignored his daughter and the mother of his daughter and let his child grow up with a single mother's resources
Dr. Seuss
Also known as Theodore Geisel, he had an affair with a woman while his wife had cancer. His wife killed herself over it. He married the mistress 9 months later.
Chris Gardner
The guy Will Smith played in The Pursuit of Happyness. He cheated on his wife with a dental student and got her pregnant. He then started dating the dental student, and reportedly beat her. He was even taken in by police because of a domestic abuse charge.
Steve Harvey
On his third marriage, was unfaithful to his first two, and yet people still seek his relationship advice.
L. Frank Baum
Anti-Native American - "The proud spirit of the original owners of these vast prairies inherited through centuries of fierce and bloody wars for their possession, lingered last in the bosom of Sitting Bull. With his fall the nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are." - https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2010/10/27/130862391/l-frank-baum-advocated-extermination-of-native-americans
http://www.ranker.com/list/writers-and-artists-who-were-bad-people/cosmicboxer
http://www.ranker.com/list/bad-things-omitted-from-biopics/evan-lambert
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