English 8 students began reading and examining in earnest The Diary of Anne Frank. We’ll be reading it in class for the first act, changing to literature circles and presentations for the second act.

English I Honors students worked on “The Allegory of the Cave” as a method of seeing how allegories work on multiple levels at the same time. We began with this claymation version of the allegory:

Afterward, we had a brief Socratic seminar on the allegory:

1. To what extent do you find Socrates’s point about the human tendency to confuse “shadows” with “reality” relevant today?
2. What could be the elements that prevent people from seeing the truth, or regarding “shadow” as the “truth”?
3. In society today or in your own life, what sorts of things shackle the mind?

We’ll be reading Lord of the Flies on both the allegorical level and the simple narrative level, applying this week’s article of the week as an interpretative lens, asking the question “How could an unscrupulous leader use a knowledge of Maslow’s hierarchy to maintain control over a population?” of the novel.

Homework

• English 8 Studies: none.
• English I Honors: 
  • complete the three practice EOC tests (due May 3):
    • Anna Karenina
    • Olaudah Equiano
    • Everlasting Sorrow
  • complete N.3 exercises and N4 practice on IXL (due May 3);
  • complete the article of the week;
  • read chapters 1-3 of Lord of the Flies by Monday.