Monday, March 16, 2015

The Great Gatsby fishbowl #3: chapters 5 & 6

Great questions & responses last discussion, group.  A few reminders of what I'm looking for your your work.

1.  Be sure to carefully proofread your ideas.

2.  Use the thread feature to indicate to whom you're replying.  If you're beginning a new line of thinking or questioning, use the general post feature.

3.  For each comment you make or question you ask, contextualize or support your thinking with text.  Be sure, too, that you introduce the relevance of that comment to your thinking, thoughtfully incorporating your passage into your ideas versus throwing out the quote & leaving it to your audience to infer why you're using it.  Please cite these quotes as well.

Here are a few good examples of posts from last class:

Grant asked, "On page 66 Nick says 'He reached in his pocket, and a piece of metal, slung on a ribbon, fell into my palm' while Gatsby is explaining his past accomplishments to Nick. Why do you think Gatsby came prepared with proof of his past accomplishments?"

And James commented, "I think that is a good interpretation of that quote. I think Gatsby knows that he chopped up on his description of his past like when on that same page [N]ick says, 'He hurried the phrase educated at Oxford, or swallowed it, or choked on it." So he says that to cover it up.'

And a good question from Austin: "Nick says, 'There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.' What does Nick mean? How does this connect back to the characters? And How does this represent the secrete society?"

Happy posting!

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

The Great Gatsby fishbowl #2: chapters 3 & 4

Great start with our first fishbowl, you guys.  Your questions and comments showed good critical thinking about a variety of elements from chapter 2.  You also did well proofreading your work & posting polished responses.

A couple of thought's for today's discussion:
1.  Use the "reply" button to let people know what question you're responding to.  At times, comments seemed a bit out of place.

2.  Challenge yourself to craft at least 3-5 thoughtful questions and/ or responses during our discussion time.

3.  Continue to work on incorporating textual evidence into EVERY question & response.  Here are a few of your classmates' terrific posts.  You'll notice that each uses a quote that is  clearly relevant to the question or comment, which is made clear by the way that quote is incorporated into their posts.  Use this as your model moving into today's discussion.

A great question from Cory: "On page 33 Catherine Myrtle's sister is whispering to Nick the details of Tom's and Myrtle's relationship. Tom has come up with such an elaborate lie about Daisy being Catholic so he can not divorce her. How come Tom has created this big of a lie and why did he do it?

A thoughtful reply from Niki: "I feel like he is showing her how much money he has, and she is using him for money, because in page 37, it says, 'Tom broke her nose with his open hand.' He is so abusive but she is not doing anything! I think Tom's money is a big part of it all."

And another great comment/ question from Trent: "Well I think that Tom just knows how that business goes, because he was able to say what the sex of the dog was even though the man selling the dogs didn't know. 'Is it a boy or a girl?' she asked delicately. 'That dog? That dog's a boy.' 'It's a bitch,' said Tom decisively. But along the lines of buying her love, then yes. Why else would he really buy the dog if not for that reason?"