First and fourth periods worked on a famous hypothetical scenario today in preparation for the first writing assignment for Lord of the Flies:

You are adrift on a private yacht in the South Pacific. As a consequence of a fire of unknown origin, much of the yacht and its contents have been destroyed. The yacht is now slowly sinking. Your location is unclear because of the destruction of critical navigational equipment and because you and the crew were distracted trying to bring the fire under control. Your best estimate is that you are approximately one thousand miles south-southwest of the nearest land. Below is a list of fifteen items that are intact and undamaged after the fire. In addition to these articles, you have a serviceable, rubber life raft with oars large enough to carry yourself, the crew, and all the items listed below. The total contents of all survivors’ pockets are a package of cigarettes, several books of matches, and five one-dollar bills. Your task is to rank the fifteen items below in terms of their importance to your survival. Place the number 1 by the most important item, the number 2 by the second most important, and so on through number 15, the least important.

Students used this handout to rank the items individually, in groups, and finally as a class (the first five items only) before hearing an “expert opinion.”

Finally, we looked briefly at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which we will be using in our first Lord of the Flies writing assignment.

Second and seventh periods finished up the antecedent work. Next text, we’ll be using the antecedents to break apart sentences to make them more digestible.

Homework

• English I Honors: 
  • read chapters three and four of Lord of the Flies by Tuesday;
  • begin working on the first writing assignment for Lord of the Flies. (This will likely be due Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.)