1. Warming up by graphing the Cal's and Aron's (d)evolvement
For each character, try the following:
- Find a description of this character as a young child, a description of this character as an older child, and a description of this character as a teenager.
- Read these three passages for each character closely, examining Steinbeck's diction.
- What has aspects of this character's personality have changed over time? Why have these aspects changed / what prompted these changes?
- What has aspects of this character have remained unchanged? Why haven't these parts of the character changed?
- Consider some of the timeless dualities at war in both characters (good vs. evil, nature vs. nurture, white vs. black, love vs. hate, fate vs, free will, sight vs. blindness, empathetic vs. selfish, etc).
- Put one side of the duality at the top of the Y axis, and the other duality at the bottom of Y axis.
- Use the X axis for the time from the characters were born until now.
- Graph both character's development/deterioration/fluctuations on the same piece of graph paper. Be sure to annotate your graph with key words and phrases from the passages you examined.
2. Enjoying a Socratic on East of Eden, Chapters 31-43
3. Wrapping up (out loud)
HW:
1. For MONDAY: Read Chapters 44 through 49; create a reading ticket for Monday's Socratic. We have just two discussions left!!! In your final reading tickets, start putting all the pieces together. What larger patterns have emerged, and what do they mean?
2. For TUESDAY: Finish your sonnet metacognitive if you did not finish in class or were absent.
1. For MONDAY: Read Chapters 44 through 49; create a reading ticket for Monday's Socratic. We have just two discussions left!!! In your final reading tickets, start putting all the pieces together. What larger patterns have emerged, and what do they mean?
2. For TUESDAY: Finish your sonnet metacognitive if you did not finish in class or were absent.
Socratic Scribe Notes-
ReplyDeleteSejal: What’s the significance of first letters of names? Why did Cathy go C to K
Tia: I noticed that Samuel named the twins right after Lee said that if a child has a nickname then it wasn’t changed right. I don’t know exactly what it means, but I noticed a difference between name switches and letter switches.
Walker: First A was dropped because they couldn’t live up to the name, but Aron was still living up to his life to an extent
Matthew: C->S sound...unambiguously evil
Maggie: Do people change their names or do names change the people? Maybe changing the name changes the cast that you fit in
Madison: Aron dropped the A because he doesn’t fit the cast of his name where Aaron didn’t make it to the promised land.
Sarah: Biblical reference with how Christ changes disciple names to fit who he needs them to be
Leclaire: pg 461 when Cal goes to visit Kate and she accidently calls him Charles…”my name is Caleb” and then mentions how he got to the promised land. Why does Kate call Cal Charles and then why does he reply with his full name?
Ryan: Charles is haunting Kate and Cal looks a lot like Charles...so maybe Charles was using Cal to haunt her
Sel: quote about how Kate sees Charles in Cal
Maggie: Both Charles and Cal see right through Kate’s facade
Faith: Cal realizes in this chapter that he doesn’t have to be evil...he has the choice. He stares evil in the face through Kate and doesn’t understand, but can fully recognize it.
Piper: Cal notices that Aron looks more like Kate than he himself does...significance?
Tia: Aron has some kind of hidden Cathy on the inside that only comes out when he’s angry
Tia: Cal realizes that Aron isn’t necessarily a good person
Kayla: Choose good and bad...born on a path but it is still a choice
Anna: Can see both of the boys for who they are...references graph about Aron revealing empathetic vs selfish tendencies
Faith: Is Aron the one who really needs to be saved? How does this connect to the Bible?
Kayla: Lee was able to stop Cal from beating up Aron. Cal has the potential to be like Kate, but he chooses not to be...Aron isn’t aware of the choice yet
Walker: Cal’s original salvation was by himself...he saved himself from being cruel in the way that Kate is.
Leclair: Biblical analysis - Cal traded in his innocence for knowledge
Madison: you have to experience evil before you can fully choose good. Aron hasn’t experienced evil really, he has it in him, but he can’t fight against it because he hasn’t experienced any trials
Tia: Abra and Aron getting married and being so sure of it from a young age kind of represents stability in his life and how he is stuck in his ways, the same way that Kathy is stuck as well
Sejal: Cal got out of the garden by gaining info about his mom, and he is trapping Aron in the garden by not giving him the truth
Faith: Aron is in denial...he is searching for purity, but he hasn’t lost his innocence yet
Ryan: Aron feels dirty...he feels things instead of seeing things, and he can sense that there is impurity
Lindsey: Aron’s impurity is because of laziness...same with Joe Hamilton...they don’t want to do the thing that everybody else has done
ReplyDeletePiper: He is running away from the places that he feels dirty in
Sagel: With Abra and Aron’s fight, Aron ran off which connects to what Piper said
Tia: I saw a lot of Adam in Aron when they were talking about the money and trusting their father. Aron believes that his father would never lie, and Cal doubts that...interesting parallel
Tia: pg 474 Kate describes a whole in the wall kind of room that she created...makes her seem snake like...Aron is retreating back to a sense of security that he feels with the ‘absolutes’ in his life...how is this similar to how Kate retreats back into her room
Emeline: Cal is very brave and he swings at something because he wants it and almost falls...Aron has a fear of falling, so he will never get the reward. Kathy and Aron have secluded themselves because they are unwilling to jump, Cal doesn’t have a long way to fall, so he isn’t afraid to swing…
Drake: Chapter 34: Three types of men. 1=rich man who stepped on people 2=powerful and like Satan 3=more poor but he tried to do good things...talks about what happens when each of them die...only mournful for the third guy. So like Emeline said, being like the 1 and 2 guy (Aron and Kathy) isn’t as beneficial as being like Cal who is the 3rd man
Sejal: I disagree about how Cathy is the snake. She is retreating because she is weak and afraid. Cal got the last word with them which shows that she is now prey like and not able to win.
Tia: Kathy’s slow deterioration sends a message about evil and how it doesn’t always persist with as much intensity.
Maggie: “Evil must constantly respond, while good, while virtue is eternal”
Faith: I was offended with the fact that Liza’s death was so unimportant. I grew to love her and this made me question why we don’t get to see details on the people that we love in the book and instead get great detail about the characters we dislike.
Matthew: the characters that he talks about a lot after death are the characters that make an impact on the world after they’ve died...they’re life doesn’t just end with them
Tia: Samuel is one of a kind and is continued to be referenced...my grandma is a Liza...nobody else is like Samuel or Cyrus who make such a lasting impact on the following generations.
Leclaire: Steinbeck talks about the war in chapter 42...it’s interesting to me that he interludes real world scenarios to see the effect on the characters in the world. Liza’s death was insignificant, and maybe that was because she, as a person, a black and white person, doesn’t have a place in the new generation of the world. When people die, they are either unable to be alive in that new scenario, or they are replaced.
Madison: What does the shift of WW1 do to the characters?
Lindsey: It specifically mentions the price of beans which is the first direct relationship of real world effects to the character’s lives...they are coming to the realization that they have to care
Faith: WW1 is almost like a rebirth for some characters. It clears out old ideas and people and allows for growth
Maggie: Maybe all of their lives and dreams, all the light and dark, is felding together
Jane: The terrorism of WW1 is allowing Aron and Cal to have opportunities to grow into the parts of life that they have
Drake: Do you think Cal or Aron will enlist
ReplyDeleteSteve: I don’t think so because Steinbeck is trying to separate the characters.
Leclaire: Nice to end on a prediction...Cathy has been going to the church.
Wrap Up:
Ian: I was just gonna mention Kate going to the church and how Cal sought out Kate and now Kate is now kind of seeking out Aron. Before Aron goes to the house, he has a little fight with Lee...he says he wants to get out of the place, and how he has a tendency to run away...Kate is coming into his life and he wants to get away
Lynae: “One must be rich to dress as poorly as you do, you must be very rich to dress so poorly” this is in the beginning in the book as well...interesting
Drake: “men want to be good and want to be loved”
Gabreece: Steinbeck makes these comments ^ but I’m unsure of how Kate fits in
Walker: interesting how characters are escorted out of the book
Piper: I’d like to talk more about Cal’s visit to Kate’s...would have been interesting to close read
Madison: Will and Cal’s partnership is interesting and I was wondering how the intentions of these two men are different based on monetary relationships
Faith: I forgot that Kate visited Aron and I was confused by this...was I supposed to feel remorse? The Devil knows the Bible best
Charlotte: Charles and Cal are similar but a distinction is that Charles was never liked by Cyrus and Cal is getting closer to Adam...this ties into the story of Cain and Abel and how the world would be different if Abel had lived
Elizabeth: I liked what Sagel said and how she mentioned the character development. Do you think Cal is currently good or evil?
Sagel: Why was Aron baptised in the Episcopal church?
Ryan: Look at choice vs fate
Sarah: I wanted to look more into Lee’s character
Natalie: Ignorance is bliss and how does that connect to the characters in the book
Jane: I liked Will’s characterization
Maggie: Props to Sagel’s point about being trapped in the garden of Eve
Anna: I wonder if Aron will get to see more of the darker sides
Steve: I saw Aron and Abra as Adam and Eve
Tia: Why was Abra introduced into the story...maybe to fill a void in Aron’s life
Kayla: Let’s look at Adam’s decision not to tell the kids about Kate and if it would have been better for the boys if they knew all along...would that have changed the curiosity?
Tia: Both boys kind of found new fathers...Will and Cal; Aron and Rolf
Matthew: I think Adam is very expendable
Leclare: I would like to hear about your thoughts with Adam’s attempt of trying to preserve lettuce and how that characterizes him...dramatic irony.