Mr. Dark Sir,
I am a "pre-service" teacher, that is learning to be a teacher, and the 7th grade class that I am working with is just beginning Sand and Sieve in F451. Do you have any ideas that I can use to keep them spurred on? Last week I made a conncetion between F451 and SWTHC . . . and got some aha moments that spread from one side of the room to the other. It was an awesome experience for me. I mean awesome in the classical sense, not the hip contemporary sense. I look forward to spending more time with them. Thanks for any support. W/R

That's a good question. I guess you look at details and try to get the kids to mentally address them. Some things may be relevant to them, or you may be able to make them relevant.

In "the Seive and the Sand", you might look at some of the dialogue. Like when Montag and Mildred are talking and she says the books aren't real, but the "family" in the parlor (television characters, essentially) are. Hve the kids look at the question of what makes the television seem more real than a book, and in what ways could someone argue that a book is more real (remember when Faber says they have texture and pores, whereas in television, everything is like wax figures).

What is a sieve, and what is meant by the sand. You might want to get them to look at what these represent. Why does Bradbury make them the chapter head.

Montag has to decide which book(s) to keep. Which books would the kids save if they had a limited number. (They may not know that many, so you may want to bring some in and talk about what each book does, and then let them argue about which books are more important.) Would they keep religious books? Scientific books? Fiction/Literature? History? Art books? Why one kind over another? What is the value of books? How do you priotize which books would be best? What is the role of books? Entertainment? Knowledge? Humanity? God?

Mildred asks Montag: "Why Should I read? What for?" What is the value of reading over the value of watching visual media? One point I make is that reading is much more creative. In a book, the reader creates the scenes, the sounds, the voices, the clothes, etc. In film/tv, this is all done for them. Someone else decides these things for them. In reading, they do it themnselves. So they participate in the creative act with the aurhor in a way they can't participate in the creative act in film/tv.

Faber says there are three things books get us: (1) texture, truth, (2) Time to think, (3) the right to carry out actions based on what we learn. What do these mean? Do they matter?

Kind useless ramblings I suppose. I think the interest is in point out detail and meaning, and in making the ideas relevant to them. Sorry this is not more helpful!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by grasstains:
Each generation does it's hardest to distance itself from the previous one, but to what point of moral decline will we find ourselves?

We hold the youth of our society in such contempt and it increases with each generation.
Why?
What will that do to them? How will it effect them when they are running the world (and taking care of us, I might add)?

We need to stop doing that, stop being suspicious, stop locking our car doors when they pull up beside us (how that must feel, how angry it must make one, how shut out).

We need to stay in touch, care, accept and embrace even if we don't understand.

This all just struck a cord.
Great discussion.

from
Greentown
Illinois

I don't know how it is in Worden....but in Chicago, I know teachers personally who are a basket case with kids out of control in classrooms. Teachers are being attacked...and nothing really being done. Reasons range from teachers afraid of reprisals, to laws governing what can be done. My next door neighborhood kid wants to kill me no matter how much I went out to him and tried to be 'on his side and understand'.

Much...much boils down to drugs that mess the emotions and straight thinking, to out of control sex which obliterates judgment, gang affiliation (tens and tens of thousands of gang-members in Chicago and hundreds of gangs) to just out and out plain ol' nastiness.

NO! We 'can't just get along....'

Not with that negative attitude, we can't.
And not if we just try one tactic over and over again and give up when it doesn't work.
We don't have to get along with everyone - we don't have to hate, fear or hold in contempt anyone we don't get along with either.
We have crime and domestic/neighbor conflict in Worden. We are home to the county's Alternative High School, which is where all of the "problem students" go after being expelled from the other schools
(delinquents, criminals, etc). We have problems with racism (confederate flag, the KKK - very scary and sad)and generationial conflicts as well.

Maybe Worden can become Walden? Or Walden Two? All you need are Skinny people (Sorry, under the influence of utopian worlds again. It's a cycyle in my head).
Cheers, Translator

From
Greeentown
Illinois

Well.. it's like this:
You can live in a dream world and believe these idiots are growing up... or you can realize that some are so far gone nothing else will ever reach them... or you can say, I give up... start a pray vigil for some of them, and trust God will do something.

Otherwise.. find yourself exhausted, beat up etc. Fellow I know in New York works with the toughest kids on this earth. He has been beat up, stabbed, assaulted... his face has been repaired countless times, etc.
I don't see how a little negative thinking can be out of place here. It's reality.

The other reality is that God works miracles and saves some of these worthless creatures....and makes them into people with dignity...

Nard,
I hear everything you are saying about the way people are. I don't live in a dream world. These facts break my heart everyday. If I give up, though, I feed that fire and become part of the problem. If nothing else, leading by example is a positve action that, at the least, balances out the negative crap going down here.
You're a believer in Christ and his words. What would he have to say? Good Samaritan, ". . . visit me in jail," other cheek, etc. Good words, words to live by and follow even when it's really tough.

From
Greeentown
Illinois

Alright! Gotcha!

Thanks, Nard,
I gotcha too.
I think we're at least coming from the same place here - pretty cool.

From
Greentown
Illinois

So... whatta you do when you have 'crank' posters on this site? Do you reason with them.. or censor them? Or knock their post off the web... or open the troublemaker to discussion...!!?

Nard, in my opinion, there is no point in trying to talk to or reason with individuals who leave messages filled with such sickening obscenities, as was posted earlier today. Their postings should be immediately deleted. Thanks, Dandelion!

..."it is the troubled sheep we must be after, for the healthy ones need not our help..." or something to that effect (I read the bible/torah/koran a long time ago). So why not try to involve the posters in a discussion?
Cheers, Translator

A discussion requires a certain capability and willingness to engage in rational discourse. A string of sloppy, gross, abusive, profanity does not constitute a discussion.

I haven't actually seen the posts, but I still think discussion is the right way to do it...
Cheers, Translator