Theme-Power, Responsibility, & Cultural Understanding

Definition of Power & Definition of Power & ResponsibilityResponsibility

• Pow-er –noun 1. ability to do or act; capability of doing or accomplishing something.

• Re-spon-si-bil-i-ty -noun 1. the state or fact of being responsible (accountable)

Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/

Culture:Culture:

The system of shared The system of shared beliefs, values, beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the and artifacts that the members of society use members of society use to cope with their world to cope with their world and with one another, and with one another, and that are and that are transmitted from transmitted from generation to generation to generation through generation through learning (p7).learning (p7).

Source:http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/courses/122/module1/culture.html

The Selection Process

Review the selections I have provided in class under the theme of “Power, Responsibility and Cultural Understanding.”

Write in order the novels you would like to read in order of preference (1-10)

Hand this list into Ms. Stofflet (me) prior to our next class.

When the groups are selected I will try my best to accommodate everyone but understand that there are only so many of each novel so it may be difficult.

Review the selections I have provided in class under the theme of “Power, Responsibility and Cultural Understanding.”

Write in order the novels you would like to read in order of preference (1-10)

Hand this list into Ms. Stofflet (me) prior to our next class.

When the groups are selected I will try my best to accommodate everyone but understand that there are only so many of each novel so it may be difficult.

Once the groups have been selected, I will review the Lit. Circle process.

Once the groups have been selected, I will review the Lit. Circle process.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie

Dai Sijie’s Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is a book that neatly conforms to the phrase ‘poetry in motion’. Set in the times of the Chinese cultural revolution, when every educated youth was sent to the villages to get “re-educated” by the peasants, this book unfolds magically and just as youthfully as its protagonists.

• http://www.dhimantparekh.com/1159/balzac-little-chinese-seamstress-review/

A Fine Balanceby Rohinton Mistry

Pages: 809

Genre(s): Literature, Historical Fiction, India

Synopsis from Goodreads: “This magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India. The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers–a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village–will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.”

• Source:http://shhhmommysblogging.com/2012/04/10/book-review-a-fine-balance/

Inherit the Windby Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee

In the blistering hot summer of 1925, two nationally-known legal minds, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, battled in a tiny courtroom in Dayton, Tennessee, and, for a time, captured the attention of the world. The issue? A state law that forbid the teaching of evolution and a local teacher's violation of that law. The official name of this encounter was Tennessee vs. John Thomas Scopes, but it became known the world over as the Scopes "Monkey Trial."

Thirty years later, in 1955, playwrights Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee published their dramatized version of the events of the summer of 1925. Inherit the Wind then, is far more than the story of twelve exciting days in a Tennessee courtroom; it is a narrative of a nation and its people as they struggle to come to grips with the forces of change.

Source:http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/Invisible-Man.id-28.html

A Tale of Two CitiesBy Charles Dickens

Against the backdrop of the French Revolution, Dickens unfolds a masterpiece of drama, adventure, and courage featuring Charles Darnay, a man falsely accused of treason. He bears an uncanny resemblance to the dissolute, yet noble Sydney Carton. Brilliantly plotted, the novel culminates in a daring prison escape in the shadow of the guillotine.

• Source:http://www.amazon.com/Tale-Cities-Dover-Thrift-Editions/dp/0486406512

Harp of Burma by Michio Takeyama

Harp of Burma is the story of a company of Japanese soldiers who are losing a desperate campaign against British forces in the jungles of Burma during World War II. In the midst of overwhelming challenges they discover the power of music to make even the toughest situations tolerable, and though they face inevitable defeat, singing the songs of their homeland revives their will to live.

• source: http://www.amazon.com/Burma-Tuttle-Classics-Michio-Takeyama/dp/0804802327

Cry, the Beloved Countryby Alan Paton

Cry, the Beloved Country is Alan Paton's novel of social protest of pre-apartheid South Africa. Stephen Kumalo departs for Johannesburg to search for his son Absalom, who murders Arthur Jarvis, a white man who opposes racial injustice.

After his son Arthur's death, James Jarvis re-examines his own views on inequality and tries to correct some wrongdoings. The novel shows how people — and a nation — caught between the past and the future can hope for justice and reconciliation.

• Source:http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/Cry-the-Beloved-Country.id-70.html

A Lesson Before Dyingby Ernest J. Gaines

Ernest J. Gaines's A Lesson Before Dying tells the story of Jefferson, a young black man wrongfully accused of robbing and murdering a white man and sentenced to death.

During the trial, Jefferson internalizes his attorney's argument that he is too dim to have planned such a robbery.

His godmother, Miss Emma, enlists Grant Wiggins to teach Jefferson how to be a man and to die with dignity, and over the next few months, both men find the self-respect each had lost.

• http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/A-Lesson-Before-Dying.id-63.html