Class Minutes for Tuesday November 16th

1. Prayer

2. Who Survives?
We answered a three part question: In a disaster situation, who lives, who dies, and why?

3. Survival Simulation
Based on a Northern Canadian winter plane crash scenario, we had to rank items as most to least useful individually and as a group before comparing our work to the answers provided by a survival specialist. It turned out that the best plan was not to go for help, but to remain as a group near the crash site and wait to be rescued.  Many people felt more prepared after discussing their options with a group, while a few felt like they were best on their own.

4. Word Families
We looked at the origins of the word survivor, which comes from two Latin words meaning over and live. We then discussed the meaning of other words with the same root.

5. Other Texts
There were four texts which all centered around the idea of survival.

• Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales: we used a word cloud to predict what this text would be about. Then we read key points revealing, among other things, that empathy, purpose, calm, and focus will help a person to survive. 
• "Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions" by John Donne: this is the classic text in which the "no man is an island" metaphor comes from. It also contains the metaphor of being chapters of a common book. 
• "All I Really Need to Know I Learned In Kindergarten" by Robert Fulgham: "hold hands and stick together"
• "No Man is an Island" by Craig and Marc Kielburger

6. Homework: choose two of the texts and write a compare and contrast thesis statement on the topic of survival.