Monday, September 28, 2015

Dipping Your Toes in the Fishbowl: September 28, 2015

Focus: How can asking good questions deepen our understanding of characters and conflicts?

If you have not yet signed up for your fishbowl dates, please do so now.

1. Warming up with an overview of fishbowl (and your reflections on fishbowls past)

2. Reviewing Level 1 and Level 2 questions and forming sample fishbowl questions

Sample Level 1 and 2 Questions:

  • What happened to Amir's mother?
  • How does the way Amir's mother died impact Amir's relationship with his father?  
  • What was happening politically in Afghanistan in the 1970s?
  • How does the political unrest of Afghanistan mirror the inner turmoil of Amir's family?

To prepare for our sample fishbowl today, please prepare FIVE questions with your assigned partner on Chapters 4-8 (look to your journals and sticky notes for help).  At least FOUR of them should be Level 2 questions, but feel free to ask a Level 1 question about anything that's confusing you.

Wondering what to do on the outer circle?  Click HERE to see a sample fishbowl blog.

3. Trying out fishbowl discussion in ten minute intervals so that you get to try out at least two of the roles

4. Debriefing what worked well and what didn't work so well in today's practice fishbowl

HW:
1. Read Chapters 9 and 10 for tomorrow; fishbowl leaders need to prepare their syllabus and print hard copies of it for each leader and for me. Discussers should be ready to discuss.

2. Our vocabulary quiz over Chapters 1-6 will take place this Friday.

3. Independent reading.

45 comments:

  1. Where are you, outer circle? This is where you post questions and comments. :)

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  2. On page 41 near the bottom, "I looked in his crazy eyes and saw that he meant it. He really meant to hurt me." Could this be foreshadowing? Does Assef plan on harming Amir directly or does he plan to play psychological games with him?

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    1. That's a good way to think about it, with the psychological side of it. I would never have thought about that.

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    2. I think Assef is going to refrain from physically hurting Amir because of Amir's social status. He has no problem hurting Hassan because he is a Hazara, but Assef will just bully Amir with words, leaving no physical evidence of harm.

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    3. I think that he is playing psychological games with him because in a way he is hurting him by destroying the relationship that he has with Hassan. All of the stress that Assef is putting on Amir is enough harm.

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    4. I think that Assef plans to hurt Amir directly considering he has been hurting people directly throughout the entire story. But there is also the factor of Amir and the way he lives, while Hassan is a Hazara and is from a "lesser" way of life, it would be harder for Assef to hurt Amir directly.

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  3. Question: Why does Baba not help Amir and Hassan with their friendship?

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    1. I don't think that Baba realizes the severity of the problem between Amir and Hassan

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    2. I agree with Sam, but I also think the way people interact socially in that area is a lot different than here in America. Baba seems like a pretty serious guy, so he probably doesn't really care about their friendship that much because he seems like someone who wouldn't think of that as a big deal.

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  4. I don't think Amir wants to physically hurt Hassan. He is frustrated with himself and doesn't know what to do. He is taking out his anger on Hassan which is unfair but his intentions aren't as bad as his actions.

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  5. Why did Amir go from passively ignoring Hassan to the unwarranted hostility that he has displayed now?

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  6. On page 75, Assef keeps on bullying Hassan and why didn't Amir help Hassan fight Assef? Is he afraid of Assef?

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  7. Why is Amir so unappreciative to all the presents he got for his birthday?

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    1. I think he is so unappreciative because he just wants to rekindle with Hassan and be friends again and doesn't want to think about anything else.

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    2. It says somewhere in the book that Amir knows that the only reason he got all those gifts and that the party was thrown is because he won the tournament. He probably feels like the gifts were a symbol of Baba's superficial love for Amir.

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  8. Why is there such a large difference between the wealthy and the poor?

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  10. Do you think Hassan has healed mentally at all based on what happened in the ally way?

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  11. I think Amir is changing because he is in shock, so it might be his way of handling things but probably not the best way. Responding to Garrets question.

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  12. I think amir has been changing because he is trying to forget what he did and saw.

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  13. To answer Garrett's question, Amir had a change in emotion, because he had to watch his closest friend get raped, at the age of 12. He kept all of this inside him, also, which caused him to just erupt, and become the hostile person he is now

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  14. I feel it might be his last resort to deal with Hassan, to try and fix it but it really just made it massively worse.

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  15. I felt like he hated Hassan later on because he keeps saying that Hassan is a servant, but he lied to some of the people because he told them that he's a friend to him.

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  16. No he hasnt because at the beginning of the book like 15 years later or whenever because he says what happened in that alleyway chancged me forever. So he has healed but no much at all

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  17. I agree with Sam, it seems like Amir is really mad at him and he is about to throw a pomegranate at hassan, but then he just lashes out at him VERBALY

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  18. I agree with ashlyn about the social classes problem and that is the reason that they aren't friends

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  19. I just think that they were born into who they are and how they act. Amir is high up in the social class and is "selfish". While Hassan is very selfless and hasn't had much given to him in his life.

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  20. Amir and Hassan don't consider themselves friends because the religious and social forces are so strong in their homeland that it can be the difference between friends and acquaintances.

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  21. I think that id Amir didn't have Baba as a father then he would be more independent and nicer because he wouldn't be so spoiled.

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  22. I think that if Amir didn't have Baba as a father, he wouldn't have had to impress everyone and his father all the time.

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  23. To answer Ashlyns question, I think for sure Amir would act differently if he didn't have Baba as a father. If his father was an actual father figure and a role model, I think Amir would be a stronger and a better person.

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  24. In retrospect, Amir considers Hassan as a kind of deal. Amir is allowed to treat Hassan in any such way, or need to feel like he's intelligent by bullying/teasing Hassan when he asks questions and in return, Amir will treat Hassan like a friend and read to him when Hassan asks.

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  25. If Amir and Hassan had traded places I think Amir wouldn't of been such a coward, and brat.

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  26. I agree with Zach about the family background and how it affects the child

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  27. What does Baba see when he looks at Amir? Does he see Amir as a killer of or does he see his wife? Baba doesn't really pay attention to Amir and is avoiding him a lot so I wonder if he avoiding Amir because he blames him for his wife's death or because it hurts him to remember her.

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  28. Adding onto your comment Lizzie, I feel like the idea of Amir's family having money and the idea the Hassan is a Hazara really sways what Amir believes about Hassan. If Hassan weren't a Hazara Amir would be his friend.This also reminds me of us as little kids. We are not yet our own person so we usually mimic what we see or hear, and in this instance Amir is showing this trait.

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  29. The social class is the roll that they are not friends. One thinking that they have more money, thinking that their family is above everyone else. If the 2 families were poor then they would have been really friends, not just kids who have grown up together because neither family would know any different and they would have more respect for each other.

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  30. How big of an impact does their father figure have on how they react to certain events?

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  31. I think hassan would've helped him if Amir went through what he did.

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  32. I think Assef has grown up the way he is because it's likely that his parents did not provide enough discipline when he was a child. I think he grew up as a spoiled kid as well as being influenced by things he witnessed as a child such as bullies in movies (or in real life), etc.

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  33. I think Hassan acts so humble and is so nice because of how he grew up. If he had grown up like Amir I think Hassan would have done the same thing that Amir did in the ally.

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  34. I think that even if Hassan and Amir had traded places it wouldn't have made a difference if Baba was still the father and Amir had been raised the same as Hassan is being raised. I think a father figure is very important in affecting your life because you always want to try to impress someone you respect and look up to. So I think that if Baba had raised Amir closer to heart in a sense it could have affected Amir in a different way.

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  35. I agree with Chris because Amir is who he is mainly because of Baba, so if Hassan was in Amir's place then he would be raised like Amir was.

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  36. I wounder what Amir would have been like without a competitive father

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  37. On page 104 Amir references a lie, What was that lie?

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