Thursday, April 9th

LEARNING GOALS

• Consider if we have an ethical obligation to innovate
  
• Analyze Barry Lopez's essay on "The Rediscovery of North America"
  

ANNOUNCEMENTS
1. Have you turned in Activities 1-4?
2. Have you turned in your Happiness and Meaning art piece?

3. Honors Book Club: 

• Cat's Cradle seminar will continue for ALL honors students Tuesday, 7th period.  Please come prepared with specific questions about the novel AND a few quotes/passages you'd like to analyze or work through as a group.  Project proposal will be due THURSDAY 4/16
  
• Do you have a copy of Half the Sky?  Begin reading that asap.

Starter/Journal #8: Observation!
•The foundation of writing is observation. Take ten minutes to observe yourself and what’s happening in your life right now, and write down what you see.  Be curious, gentle, and willing to laugh.  Allow yourself to daydream and go on tangents.  Negative or positive direction is fine. Feel free to explore a particular story. Questions to consider:
–Where are you right now?
–How do you feel? How does your body feel?
–What kind of a day/week have you had?
–What is preoccupying you?
–Did something interesting or unusual happen to you this week?
–What did it make you think about?
–What are some of the small things you’ve noticed recently?
–What are you super excited about?
–Who is someone who has brightened your day/week/month?
–What are you struggling with?
–Did a reaction or a way you behaved recently surprise you?


Agenda
1.  Mutation and Innovation Powerpoint 

2. Read and annotate "Rediscovery of America" (Need to make up if absent!)
GOAL:  Understand Barry Lopez's critique of American society and the consequences Columbus's incursion on modern society AND solutions Lopez proposes to transform this acquisitive paradigm.

Discussion Questions:

•  Why does Lopez begin this essay by depicting the atrocities of Columbus and early Spanish explorers in the "New World"? (p 10)

• On page 11, what does Lopez mean when he says of the Spanish conquest that it was an "incursion of will"?
• Why would acknowledging interdependence with the land and other people be a good thing according to Lopez AND do you agree? (12, paragraph 1)
• In what ways does this essay compare with Aldo Leopold's "Land Ethic"?
• What does Lopez claim was the true wealth that America offered? (12-13)
• How should we come to really know a land? How does this relate to Leopold's ideas? (13-14)
• What is the original definition of "querencia" and how does Lopez apply it to our modern world? (14)
• How could a search for querencia be "both a response to a threat and a desire to find out who we are"? (14) Think about how a connection to a place influences your identity. Why is understanding this important for our own personal sense of well being?
• Why does Lopez say that the environmental crisis is a "culture crisis" (15)
• How does Lopez distinguish between two types  or definitions of independence? (15)
• Why does Lopez suggest we might face a crisis of character if we don't act AND what is his solution at the end of the essay? (16)