1. John Francis Ted Talk: Environmental Responsibility
What is your reaction to John Francis and the way he chose to live his life? Explain what you think about the effectiveness of this speech as a whole.
2. Discuss Dillard Excerpt
Describe your initial response to the Dillard excerpt. Be specific. How did it make you feel? What does it make you think about? How would you have felt had you been watching the events from a distance?
Look over your annotations of the text. You’re each going to get a question to specifically focus on and share out about. Then, we will discuss the piece as a whole in the end.
- Find images that suggest beauty. Explain the incongruity of finding beauty in a moth.
- Who was Polyphemus? Explain the allusion to him in the moth’s name? Where else does this come up in the text?
- What does Dillard’s comparison of the moth to a bear in paragraph 3 (lines 22-30) suggest and how does it suggest that?
- Find the sequence of causes and effects that lead to the irreconcilable change in the moth. Paraphrase these events.
- Since Dillard tells about the activities of children and a teacher, what do such subjects suggest about unintended consequences?
- Explain the significance of the repetition in the last sentence.
- Dillard relates a childhood event through adult eyes. What does this point of view suggest and how so?
- Explain the similarities of this seemingly small event in the larger context of human interaction with the natural world.
HW: Choose ONE of the following and write an essay that answers the prompt, and bring a printed copy to class on Monday.
Argument--Write your own description of a similar chain of events focused on another aspect of human interaction with the natural world. Arrange your essay using the Dillard excerpt as a guide. Include specific details, images, and incongruities.
Analysis--Write an essay in which you analyze how Dillard’s rhetorical strategies convey her attitude regarding innocence and interference with natural cycles.
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