Class Minutes for Thursday November 18th

1. Prayer

2. Re-visit survival question from last class and add/revise answer.

The students commented that they revised their answers to reflect our need to work together. Other new survival qualities included focus, empathy, a sense of purpose, and emotional strength. A common idea drawn from the readings was that community or "sticking together" was important to succeed.

3. Context of Lord of the Flies
LOTF was written by William Golding after the second world war. Before the war, Golding was a school teacher. Being a part of WWII caused Golding to revise his ideas on humanity. LOTF centers around Golding's idea that all humans have evil in them and in the absence of authority and law, we descend into chaos and savagery. Furthermore, LOTF takes it's basic idea from an earlier novel entitled Coral Island. In Coral Island  a group of boys is stranded on a tropical island and they prosper. They are great friends, they fight pirates, and they convert the aboriginal people to Christianity. Golding argues that LOTF is a more-realistic portrayal of what would result from a group of boys being stranded on an uninhabited island.

4. Reading Chapter One

• Page 1 and 2 : "fair" is used 9 times. "Fair" literally means that Ralph has light coloured hair. However, the sense of "justice" is also being linked to Ralph.
• Ralph as "Adam": the scene is set in a natural paradise, Ralph surveys all that he can see, there is a mention of fruit, but interestingly, Ralph brings his "snake clasp belt" with him, instead of meeting the snake in the garden. 
• Ralph starts out in a typical English school-boy's uniform. This uniform is a symbol of civility and order. Minutes later, he has stripped off all his clothes and is enjoying the freedom of the island. Ralph's stripping of his clothes represents a stripping away of civility and order. 
• Several times Ralph is mentioned in connection with light: golden, glimmering, sunlight, fair
• Good/Bad words: We charted the words with positive and negative connotations.
• Good: enchantment, incredible, glittering, dazzling, golden, effloresence, God, brilliance
• Bad: apprehension, coarse, uncompromising, thrust, shrieked, pain, devil, reluctantly, scar, witch-like cry

5. Homework: finish reading chapter 1 and write 10-15 questions that you have about the chapter.  Block 1-2 must also hand in both c/c thesis statements on Monday.

6. Electronic editions: The electronic copies of LOTF can be found as a pdf and as an application.