Organizing Songs

When you are writing an essay, the number of paragraphs depends upon what you are trying to say.

Imagine you are organizing the months of the year, for example. If you are organizing by the seasons or number of syllables, you would have four categories, but if you are organizing by number of days, you would have three.

Let's think about this by organizing songs:

1) Write down your three favorite songs.
2) Get the three favorite songs of everyone in your row and add them to your list.
3) As a group, come up with three different ways to organize your songs. Be creative!

How to Evaluate Sources: The Death of Christopher McCandless, aka Alexander Supertramp

To get a general idea about who Christopher McCandless (aka Alexander Supertramp) was, look at the Wikipedia entry. 

There are a lot of different questions that could be asked about Christopher McCandless: 

Was his death an act of suicide or an accident?
What was his exact cause of death? 
How did his upbringing influence him?
How did his reading influence him? 
Was he “crazy”?
How did his death influence others? 

All of the following could be used for sources, but it depends on which direction you decide to go in for the paper. 

There is a movie called Into the Wild, directed by Sean Penn, which is based on the book by Jon Krakauer, which was originally written as an article for Outside. 

There is also a documentary about Chris’s life called Call of the Wild in which the filmmaker, Ron Lamothe, follows in Chris’s footsteps and interviews many of the people from Chris’s life. He found a lot of things wrong with Penn’s movie and Krakauer’s assessments, which are detailed in part of his website. 

Another book is in the works, due out the end of this year, called Back to the Wild. Here is the author's website. 

Other sources: 

“The Cult of Chris McCandless”

Chris’s S.O.S. note

“Mother Nature’s Restless Sons”

An interview with a man who met Chris on the road. 

"Come to Alaska, but please don't go 'Wild'"

Excerpts from Chris’s own writing in his college newspaper: 

“10 True Facts about Chris McCandless, or Alaska scores another point for natural selection”

“Into the Wild: The False Being Within”

In which situations might these different sources be useful? What might make you not want to use them? Think about what you have learned about different kinds of sources.

"In the Eyes of the Beholder: The Comparative Cruelty of Cockfights and Happy Meals"

In your notebooks, please respond to one of the quotations in the epigraph at the beginning of the chapter:

"The people who set one animal against another haven't got the guts to be bullies themselves. They're just secondhand cowards."
-Cleveland Amory

"Cockfighting is the most humane, perhaps the only humane, sport there is."
-Captain L. Fitz-Bernard

Brainstorm Possible Topics

After you have come up with three possible topics, take 15 minutes to research each of these topics. Because you are trying to figure out which of these topics interests you most, you don't need to worry about the quality of the information you are finding right now. Right now, you are just trying to find out general information so you can choose which of these three topics you will end up researching for your final paper.

At the end of class, we will regroup and discuss what you have found and how to proceed.

Rough Schedule:
8-8:15am: Research Topic #1
8:15-8:30am: Research Topic #2
8:30-8:45am: Research Topic #3
8:45-9am: Regroup and Discuss as a Class

"Extra Crunch With Lunch"

Our reading for Thursday, "Extra Crunch With Lunch," discusses entomophagy, or the eating of insects.

Question #1

To what does the term “harvest day” refer? Why does Kingsolver think the term “harvesting” is appropriate? What is her problem with the word “killing” in this context?

Question #2

What are some examples of how animals are affected by a human vegetarian diet?