Last 3 weeks summary

Happy Hunger Games and may the odds be ever in your favor!  

Week 6-  February 26

We had a great discussion.  Once of the questions that we spent a lot of time on was, "How does Panem resemble the US today?"  

A question that no one could really answer was,  "When is violence entertainment, and when is it just violence?"  I don't know what to think of the lack of discussion on that one.  Perhaps, you could discuss it as a family. 

I posed a rhetorical question, "What would you do all day without having to spend all your time on survival?"


Week 7-8  March 5 and 12

I had to leave town unexpectedly for a family emergency, so I moved up the movie day.  I had intended this 1 1/2 hr movie to take up one class time and all of lunch, but it got a late start so we finished it the following week.  The movie is a documentary called the Singing Revolution and is about how the Baltic States, particularly, Estonia, took back it's independence from the USSR in the late 80's and early 90's.     
We will discuss it next week and start discussing Catching Fire. 

Catching Up

Week 1 
The first class we went over the syllabus ( as mentioned in the last post ) and requirements to get the literature award(s).  I also summarized Theseus and the Minotaur, as that myth heavily influenced The Hunger Games series.  I handed out study questions and tried to inspire them to make annotations and take special notes on 3 of the characters. I asked them to look up the meaning of the main characters names, promising that their minds would be blown. 

Week 2
We watched several interviews with Suzanne Collins.  As a girl she loved reading mythology, and the story of Theseus especially haunted her.  She was horrified that a conquering king would remind them that he was in control by feeding them to the minotaur.  Killing children as punishment makes a significant impact. We also read Oliver DeMill'es paper about Hunger Games being a new freedom classic and talked about it.

Week 3 and 4
The first book, The Hunger Games was hopefully read or reread by this class.  We discussed the meaning of the names, talked about how the Capital keeps control and the use of propaganda.  I tried to inspire them again to annotate and take notes on the characters by sharing some of the things I wrote down.  I kept track of every reference to how the Capital kept control and the first signs of rebellion.  I looked for themes and symbols like references to birds.  I showed them my notes on the characters, so I could watch how characters and relationships evolve.  I asked if they noticed how strange it was for Suzanne Collins to mention that Katniss's birthday is May 8th  (take note of 1933 and 1945 and that the astrological sign is a bull.  Yup. Get it?)  and what the deal was with the moth.  There wasn't a ton of discussion on week 4. 

Week 5
We had some great discussions this week.  I asked how does Panem resemble America today.  We talked more about the symbolism and if Cinna was the one who used Katniss to start a rebellion.  I handed out study questions for Catching Fire and encouraged them to continue to take character notes and make annotations. 

Feb 26- This week we will do the literary analysis, map the plot, hero cycle and assign archetypes.  

Catching Fire should be read or reread by March 5.  

Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor!

Last week we reviewed the class syllabus.  Scholars will need to read or reread the books for this class.  I gave a list of study questions and things to look up to consider as they read.  They also can take character notes and watch for the plot outline.  The first book needs to be read by Feb 5.  Catching Fire by the first class in March, and Mockingjay by the first class in April. 

Hi everyone! 
This is my first post, so hoping that everything works.  :) 

Your scholars will need to bring a binder the first day of class.  It can be a shared binder with another class if desired.  1 in should be good. 

Utopia will need to be read by the second class, Sept 18th.  Remember to encourage/remind/inspire your scholar to annotate, annotate, annotate! 

Setup Test

Testing Set up