Back from Thanksgiving

MONDAY IN CLASS
Students turned in questions 1-18, which had been classwork last Wednesday, with remaining questions to be done as homework.

In class, we looked at some Shaper-related material in the book, focusing on why Grendel reacts as he does, but I also tried to set some external contexts that are important for understanding Gardner's book.  These include who/what a "modern Shaper" might be; what shapes our collective consciousness, sense of society, etc.?  Is there anything even remotely "national," or are we a collection of followers of all sorts of "shapers"?
A second area to consider is the specific social/historical context Gardner was writing in circa 1970.  The degree of social unrest, and particularly the role of young people (yes, even high school, and certainly college!), was almost unimaginable if viewed from today's perspective.  Who are the revolutionaries and/or anarchists in the book? 

We didn't quite finish talking about Chapter 4--we'll pick up tomorrow.

FOR TOMORROW
Get started on Chapter 5.  Read to the bottom of p. 64, and then go back and read that far again.  Sure, if you want you can finish the chapter (and for Wednesday I expect that you will), but I know we won't get past the half-way point in class on Tuesday.