Things Fall Apart - Themes / Topics and Social Media

Things Fall Apart - Day 4

Today our focus will be on exploring the themes in the book up to this point by using social media. OK, so it will kind of be like using social media as we will be making our own versions of Tweets, Instagram posts, Snapchat stories, and Vines.  We'll first name some of the themes we've seen in the first six chapters. Then, you'll have the next 20 minutes to create as many different uses of social media as you can, and can leave the classroom if you'd like. You'll send those back to me, I'll compile them, and tomorrow we will see what we've created!

• send your posts / tweets / vines / photos to me: nrigler@dist113.org

Things Fall Apart - Day 3 - Rituals and Traditions

We started today by discussing and defining "rituals." We named them as a set pattern of actions or thoughts, that might include specific objects. Examples include things like lighting candles and saying prayers as part of a religious ceremony, or even shooting foul shots in basketball the exact same way each time.

We looked at the Kola nut ceremony on pages 5-7 in detail, naming the different actions and discussing their potential significance.

Then, individually, you completed this piece for writing for the next 25-30 minutes:

• Things Fall Apart - writing for chapters 1-4

Things Fall Apart - Day 2

Today we started class by looking at a list of proverbs. What it a proverb? It's a short saying, some people call it a "quote," that speaks of something as a truth. It often feels like a piece of advice. So, for example, one might say "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen" or "Two wrongs don't make a right."  Check out the list of proverbs on the handout and see how many you know - there is a missing word from each one - ask me for the answers (or just Google it!)

• List of proverbs

Also on the handout are pairs of opposing proverbs - how can two statements both suggest a truth and be opposites of each other? For example, how can it be true that "Clothes make the man" but we should also remind ourselves "Don't judge a book by its cover"?

We had a conversation about the list of proverbs - since they are American proverbs, what do they tell us about being an American?

We used a similar question as we turned our attention to the novel - what do the proverbs in the opening chapter tell us about the Ibo? We are told they use proverbs in their daily language quite a bit, and that "proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten" (7).

Lastly small groups explored these issues to determine what they mean for the Ibo, and then shared their findings:

• Strength and achievement
• Religion and spirituality
• Justice
• Social rank
• Father / son relationships
• family
• Rituals and traiditons

Things Fall Apart - Day 1

Today I showed the opening 20 minutes of The Gods Must Be Crazy as an introduction to our new book, Things Fall Apart.

I gave out paper copies of the calendar and also posted them on the blog, under the new Things Fall Apart tab.

The God of Small Things - Final days and computer lab time

For our final discussions of the novel I gave you a list of potential questions and themes to explore. Here is a link to it:

• The God of Small Things - questions and themes

We will have time in the G104 computer lab for the rest of the week to complete your essay / project. They are due to turnitin.com by 11:59 p.m. Monday night.

Please don't forget to buy a copy of our next book, Things Fall Apart. The bookstore has copies, and so does Half Price Books!