Thursday, April 23, 2009

Lit Circle #1 p. 4

Book leaders:
In the comments section below this blog, write your book title and a summary of your discussion.

6 comments:

Jacob WR said...

I Robot Group One

-What was the significance of the relation ship between Robby and the little girl.
-robots can still be presived as human by eight year olds despite their physical traits.
-what is humanity?
-The largest part of the human psyche is emotions, and this is therefore the largest difference between humans and robots.
-do robots acknowledge religion and other wide spread human ideas?
-Asimov's passionate disregard for religion (mostly christians)
-ciriculum is based on system, but whole book challenges the systems and morality.
-Asimov shows various levels of humanity (scientists and children) which helps students understand humanity.
-we could e robot or we could be human, but what is the difference?
-Spreading or forcing human like ideas upon the robots.
-people are constantly afraid of, yet trying to control technology, Internet
-Bronson is obsessed with the three laws. (because they are 'important')
-Nicole likes to debate every point with Bronson. They are debating about debating.
-Is the book lacking humanity?
-Are humans reliant on something they can't control.
-I phone is brought up a lot here.
-There is no sentiment in Jacob's laptop that i am writing on, but he feels as though it does because it has the flying spaghetti monster, woodstock nation, and the beatles stickers on it. These things make him relate and become attached to the laptop.
-Can a robot really break one of the three laws?
-Does humanity have the same laws that are controlling us?
-Human nature is not all the same because of these laws, this is where diversity comes from.
-Could a utopia be created if all the laws were followed?
-Jacob thinks the Soviet Union is a utopia, and has a really bad russian accent.
-humans believe that we were created by a higher being, and his laws were portrayed within us, we also created a lower being and implied our laws within them.(The three laws)
-Jacob: GOD HATES US! NEENER NEENER NEENER. Thank you.

CourtneyA said...

Little Brother Group 2

We talked about the first part of the book today, but it was kind of hard to have a good discussion, because not everyone in our group had gotten their book so they had not read through chapter four.

We talked about what the game the four characters play could mean. Could it be foreshadowing something they will do to overcome the government?

We also talked about who is on the cover. There are four people on th e team but only three people on the cove. Which boy is missing?

Another subject was why did the government take the kids as hostages? Did they have any real reason to suspect them?

Also who was the woman who interviewed Marcus? Why was she in charge?

-Courtney

shannenr said...

1984-group two

our dicussion today was over the first five chapters of part one. nobody but me really got their reading done, so I pretty much just told everyone what happened and they skimmed along in the book...

-when I told them about the children, it was mentioned how strange and dangerouse they seemed, we all were surprised at how loyal the kids were the Party and Big Brother(loyal enough to turn in their parents if they suspected them of thoughtcrimes...)The thought police, to whom the parents were turned in to, came up as well and they seemed to become the bad guys of the story(scary and dangerous).

-when Big Brother came up, we talked about how he symbolized the government.

-It was also mentioned how the conformidy(so natural,no one thougt to challenge it) was a way to eliminate individuality.

-Big Broter controlled nearly every aspect of life for the citizens of London. with newspeak, word after word became meaningless and thoughts become almost impossible to express. The soul of Big Brother is defined by the party's three slogans; which are propaganda and we took them to mean the government owns you.

-The fact that there were no laws but still punishment is crule and unfair to our group. the seemingly large number of people "vaporized" was a little shocking as well.
-the group thought of the two minutes of hate as a brain washing form of Big Brothers propaganda.
-the act of writting a diary. this we all quickly agreed apon-we all knew it was "illegal" because when they were written, the writers thought freely and expressed themselves...

-we also all agreed that though he did not know whom to or why Winston was writting a diary, but it was a signifacant part of the story.

-all the controll and basic brainwashing of the people has a significant purpose as well ((keep people oblivious keep the people obedient).
-the main consequence of all the controll was the loss of depth within relationships. The people didn't think for themselves anymore, and they don't feel strong emotions besides fear and hate because of it, they've become Big Brother's zombies.

-when Winston's job came up, we discuced how undermining his work was. He rewrote articles in news papers and magazines so that Big Brother was always right, all the time. It undermines the whole reason for news in the first place, since its just rewritten and history is practically made up...


Shannen Ryan

Alex K said...

1984 Group 1

During the discussion today our group talked about the first six chapters of the book up to page 69.
-We first talked about the setting regarding how well it was portrayed and that the only buildings in the entire city were run down except for the ministry pyramids.
-We looked at the connections in this book such as the never ending war to something like the U.S.S.R. seeing as it was written in the time of the cold war, and from an American perspective it did seem to be never ending.
-We discussed the change between the generations regarding the parson kids and how they were rebelling by their actions and how they could turn in any body to the thought police for a crime.
-Also mentioned, was the counter intuitiveness of the war in relation to the victory of a battle then cutting rations instead of raising them.
- the mention of Big Brother came into play and we brought up first how it appeared the he and the party had total control or are at least reaching for it. They exercised this control through technologies such as the telescreen, or used the thought police to detain any free thinkers. This lead to Winston’s thoughts about how bad BB is and then the journal writings.
-We examined the ignorance of the community and the fact that they believe everything that they hear or see and forget everything else of importance.
-We then talked about the way that BB changed the past in order to influence the future. In particular, the way that the gov’t. can vaporize pr totally remove people.
-Some recurring themes that we noticed were How people are constantly being watched and how turning each other in was encouraged.

Mollyo said...

Little Brother Group 1.

~ What are the survival traits for a teenager at the time of this book?

~If face-recognition cameras were unconstitutional but having a tracker in library books to see where the people are is, what exaclty does their constitution imply?

~Is the game, Harajuku Fun Madness a symbol for anything in this book at this time?

~How did Marcus gain all the information about hacking into things of their lives are so censored?

~How people in this book seem very violent, much like Fahrenheit 451, except a different type of violent. This type of violent isn't caused by technology, but by being brainwashed by the government.

~Does Marcus regret saving Darryl?

~What happened to Darryl? Is he still alive/okay?

~Who were the people that took Marcus and his friends? Could they possibly be the terrorists? Do they have something to hide?

~ How has the media influenced the minds of people? For example; Marcus thought all terrorists were Arabs with long gray beards because thats what he has always seen on the news.

~What does it mean when Marcuz says, "The truth is that i had everything ti hide, and nothing?"

~Was Marcus's dignity taken first, or his privacy?

-Molly O'Donnell

emmaw said...

Anthem/I Am The Cheese- discussing 1st half of Anthem
-difference between society in Anthem vs today
No individualism
All about the community- communism to an extreme
Almost no modern technologies, glass and candles, Romanesque clothing styles
All humans are brought to be equal in almost every way.
Many laws and forms of government to control every aspect.

What caused the world to have all its technology erased, and be brought back to primitive ways?

What aspects of their lives are in some way controlled by the government?

What laws are there in place to make all men equal?

What is the "forbidden word" and its significance?

How does using the subject 'we' instead if 'if' effect the tone of the book, and say about the main characters thoughts?

The lack of intimate relationships that everyone has, none with parents, 'mates' not allowed to have friends. Everyone is 'bothers and sisters'