I also shared a few Tolkien insults, my favorite is:
"The land must groan under their hated feet."
We talked about how The Two Towers has a resurrection/ awakening theme. Gandolf goes through a kind of resurrection, The Ents are awakened to fight, Theodon is released from his captive spell and Frodo awakens Smeagol to compete with Gollum. The second book in a series like this is all about awakening armies and preparing to fight. Catching Fire from The Hunger Games is a good example of this.
I asked if anyone noticed a motif that Tolkien gave to Gollum that is also foreshadowing. I should have also hinted that this happens at the end of Two Towers, not the end of the series. No one noticed, or wasn't there in the reading yet, so I asked them to watch for it. A few days later, I noticed that Smeagol is given a different motif, and the combined personalities have another one.
Tolkien uses a lot of opposites in his series.
ents/trolls
orcs/elves
Gollum/Bilbo-Frodo
Birthday presents of the ring- Deagol to Smeagol/ Bilbo to Frodo
Boromir/Faramir
orc draft/ent draft
Galadriel/Shelob
I forgot to mention Old Man Willow/ Treebeard and the most obvious one of the 9 Fellowship/9 Ringwraiths
There are also opposites in the themes of the series.
Light/dark
pride/humility
fear/courage
fate/choice
death/immortality
This week we are going to an archery range! If you have a bow and arrow, please send it with your student. We will be leaving at the beginning of lunch and returning in time for 4th hour so please have a lunch ready. The sooner we get out the door, the more time the students will have on the range.
They have another week to finish The Two Towers as we will discuss it the following week. If they have finished Two Towers, get started on Return of the King. We will start discussing it on Dec 8th.
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