No More Harkness!! 12/21

Today marked the day that the harkness was finally over. This was not a harkness day but we still continued to talk about the book and all the tragedy in the last two chapters. Some of the topics we talked about were when Nick went to talk to Wolfsheim and asked if he would be attending Gatsby funeral and Wolfsheim says how he will not come because of what seems to be his fear of being recognized for who he really is. another example we went over in class was how there were only two people that came to his funeral, Nick and Gatsby's dad. This almost makes you a tear come to your eye because he is holding a photo of Jay when he was young and keeps calling him Jimmy. This is a very tragic moment because of how high a status gatsby had and now he is dead.

Final Chapters of Great Gatsby 12/20

Today was a sad day. Today was the day that we find out about the murdering of Jay Gatsby. That is right Geroge Wilson killed Gatsby and then killed himself. George went to Gatsby's house because he wanted to avenge his wife, in reality, he should've killed Daisy but because of Tom telling him that Gatsby was the one who was driving at the time of the car accident even though he knew Daisy was driving.  This to me came out of nowhere because we are so used to happy endings that this through us off. My group came to the conclusion that Gatsby's death and Georges death are both on toms hands.

Harkness discussion 12/19

Today in class we had a very nice discussion about chapter 7 in the novel The Great Gatsby. During this discussion, my group mainly focused on the fact that Myrtle had died due to a car incident and how Gatsby confessed his love to Daisey and he didn't want to be with him. This chapter showed a lot of different characteristics of our characters and how they would act under pressure. We have never seen something this major happens in the book up until this point. When we came together to a class we had a great conversation about how gruesome the murder was and even managed to squeeze some good jokes and pun in there as well. As we reviewed everything about this chapter one of the points we covered but I feel wasn't acknowledged enough for its significance. After Myrtle was murdered a black man came up to the cops and said he had seen the car that did it and helped describe what color and what it looked like. Because this book is told from toms perspective and it is set in the 1920's we know racism is a big thing, but the way tom talks about said black gentleman, he doesn't see him as "funny" or "laughable" he sees him as an equal that helped a small role but played a big part in this chapter because he is the first person to step up and talk about this major event. This chapter has some romantic and modern aspects an example where you can see both is when Gatsby says he will take the blame for daisy for the murder. This is romantic because he is willing to throw away everything for her. This also shows modernism because as a man in this time they are supposed to step up and take responsibility for women, which we discussed would be easy for him because he has a lot of connections will big people so he most likely will be okay after all of this ends.

Harkness Day

Today, 12/18, our class divided into our Harkness groups to discuss chapter 7 of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. For anyone who hasn't read chapter 7, Tom suspects that something is going on between Gatsby and Daisy. Tom makes a scene at a get together with Nick, Jordan, and Gatsby. He tells everyone, especially Daisy, that he has had someone investigate Gatsby. We find out that Gatsby and his partner, Wolfsheime, had owned multiple drug-stores in which they sold alcohol illegally since this was during the prohibition. Daisy then declared her love for Gatsby and they ran off and sped away in Gatsby's car. Tom, Nick, and Jordan then followed them but get stopped by an accident on the road that had just occurred. It turned out that Daisy was driving Gatsby's car and had accidentally hit and killed Myrtle, who was running away from her husband since he was forcing her to move out west because he suspected Myrtle was seeing someone. The chapter question for chapter 7 is; Lots of characters suffer in this chapter; how does that suffering vary by social class? My group discussed how Mr. Wilson is suffering because he needs to move out west to try and get away from whoever is trying to steal her wife, but he doesn't have any money to do that. His life later, was killed. Tom is suffering because his two love interests are leaving him and he doesn't like feeling weak.

Discussing in groups about a book that we are all reading together helps get out any confusion that anyone has. It is also interesting to combine different ideas that each of us have when we read and we get a chance to discuss it. Putting out and considering everyone's ideas can broaden how we read books because we can the look for certain details that we could have missed in the past.

12/13/17

Today in class, we had a recap on what we did yesterday. To sum up yesterday, we read three passages from chapter 6 of The Great Gatsby together as a class and jot down some notes on what we noticed and what stood out to us. Today in class, we summed up all the notes we took together as a class on each passage. For example, the class talked about how Gatsby felt about his real family(that he was ashamed and embarrassed by them), and also different theories as to why Dan Cody took the young Jay Gatsby under his wing and what that could mean. After we finished our discussion on the three different passages from chapter 6, Mr. River's had our groups choose four topics from all the passages combined. These topics could be as simple as just one word or it could be an entire sentence. For example my group's topics were originally; wealth, lying, Daisy, and Cody. We then later turned the into whole sentences like for example; Wealth and how Gatsby earned it. After we wrote down our four topics, we took any two topics and put them together to make a claim. After we wrote down our own topics and claims, we had to write down different topics and claims on other groups' papers that were not already taken yet.

In class, we learned how to take out singular topics as a sum up from our notes that we took on each passage. We were then able to write more complex topics out of just one word that stood out to us. Then, we were able to make claims by putting not jut one, but two different ideas together. We were able to continue doing this until there were no topics left to discuss.

12/12/17

Today in class we walked in and Mr. Rivers wrote on the board to take out a pen or pencil and put everything else away including our laptops. Then he explained why we had to do that, which was because we were going to read passages from the Great Gatsby and then analysis things from the text on a big sheet of paper with our groups. He then told us to get our books out and we began to read. Mr.Rivers read about a page and then for a minute or two we independently wrote our thoughts on that passage. After that we went around the group to see what others wrote and we added onto their responses. Then we went back to our seat and discussed it out loud before picking someone to tell Mr.Rivers what our group thought was most interesting about the passage. We did this for about 3 passages and then time ran out.

Harkness Day 12-11-17

So today in class we had another harkness day. For people not keeping up with the reading, we are on chapter six and chapter seven harkness is on Friday. So basically, throughout this chapter we learn more and more about Gatsby(or James Gatz I should say). We learn his origins and his rise to what we know him and Nick knows him now. But James Gatz was originally a from a poor farming family. But this all changed when he met a rich man named Dan Cody. And this is where James Gatz becomes Jay Gatsby. So he basically follows him around on his yacht for five years when he meets his demise by a women named Ella Kaye supposedly killed him. I say supposedly because my group discussed the possibility that Jay may have been lying and just blamed it on her because throughout the book we hear rumors that Jay killed a man and it also says Dan Cody is killed a week after Ella Kaye's visit. But beside's the point, you might want to read to get up to date with where the class is. But the main thing that will be discussed in this blog post is the idea of compartmentalizing. This means putting things in an area or a certain order that makes the most sense. And the human mind does this subconsciously or unaware that you are doing it. I want to talk about this because the chapter question asks about why is the stories of Jay Gatsby in the order it is in. And the answer is because of compartmentalizing. We have established already that Fitzgerald wanted to make Nick's story as similar to an actual person writing a story about the past and compartmentalizing is a huge part of that. That's why at certain points certain info gets added. Because in Nicks mind that how he remembers something, by putting it near a similar memory to help keep both clear.

This phenomenon can be found primarily in school work and any memorization skills. Keeping everything in a math part of your memories will help you remember stuff on math. And this has been proving by watching a persons brain light up like a tree while telling a story because so many memories are being drawn from so many areas it causes the brain to work in multiple areas where those specific memories are stored. If there wasn't compartmentalizing in the  brain our memories would be more of a mess than they are. Because a human cannot remember everything but by putting labels on them they can be easier to pull from. Whats even cooler is the brain does this sub-consciously, like a stated before. So Your brain just makes little cubbies to store things. To me, that seems pretty nifty.

Full class Harkness Dec. 8

On Dec. 8th in class we had a full class Harkness discussion on chapters 1-5. For the majority of the period the class discussed Gatsby's wealth. Many questions were asked about Gatsby's wealth, such as how did he acquired such wealth, and how much wealth does Gatsby have? In the beginning of the discussion the classed discussed the Gatsby's obsession with Daisy. The class focused a large portion of the discussion on Gatsby's wealth. To add more evidence to this discussion I found some quotes about Jay Gatsbys wealth. "There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens, men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and he champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his motor-boats slid the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam." (Fitzgerald). The quote above shares Gatsby's incredible party which was supported through his enormous amount of wealth."On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before. (3.1)" (Fitzerald). Both of the quotes shares insight into Gatsby's amount of wealth. The quote that I found in chapter three add evidence to the discussion on Friday. The period was shorter on Friday, so there wasn't a lot of material that we went over. The discussion was shorter and only had a couple key points, which were about Gatsby's wealth.

Discussion on Modernism, Romanticism, and Rationalism

Today in class the discussion were actually pretty entertaining. I'm not sure you guys meant to have the class taken up by something so easy to discuss and all we did was just choose sides. However, our class had really intimate and intelligent conversations about what each romantics, rationalists, and modernists thought about when it came to how weather changed mood at times. Just like I thought everyone choose rationalist to disagree with that sentiment that weather changes mood because they believe in science and weather has nothing to do with mood. Also they didn't have the concept of the human brain at the time too, so their thoughts were purely educationally biased. With romantics however, people did change their views, some stayed in the middle while most went to the 'agree' side. I was one of the ones who stayed in the middle for romantics. I believe this because despite them believing in mystical things, and how nature is amazing and their love for it, romantics view things as black and white. If you were feeling one way, your mood won't just do a turn around change because of the weather. The same thing happened with modernists. They unlike the other two had the concept and knowledge of the human brain. This made the idea of perception come about. Depending on the perception of a character or a person the weather could effect how someone is feeling. For instance, if a community is going through a drought that was brutal, if it were to downpour that community's spirits would be uplifted at the sight of rain. Also modernists view things with both feelings + science. They see the science when it comes to certain things but like to question the uncertainty which would be, "What if weather had an effect on someone's mood?" Also in class we figured out that weather does effect mood according to Catherine's parents who are therapists, it's called seasonal disorder which is a brain disorder.
     This class let us know why know why the Great Gatsby is such an American novel. It switches between all these views from Nick's perspective. The coming of age through romanticism, rationalism, and the finally modernism shows how we've progressed with American literature. Using this lesson, we can all say that we got a better understanding on how to answer that class question for our harkness discussions. This class was also useful into seeing the amount of POVs there are when it comes to a single topic and that people are still fighting and arguing about it today.

Romantic/Rational/Modern Discussion 12/7/17

Today's class was really awesome, it was probably one of my favorites of this year, because today we had a discussion that took up most of the period and was really educational. The discussion was about how the weather in the Great Gatsby reflected the emotions of the characters in the chapter specifically how Gatsby and Daisy interacted with each other and whenever tension grew or it was awkward the rain would pick up, and when they got to know each other the rain started to stop. We intentionally planned for more than just the discussion but everybody had something to say and was so invested in the discussion that it ended up going on for such a long time, but was very productive. What we did was convert the room into a sort of "graph", one end of the room stood for romantic ideals, the other rational ideals, and the middle for modern ideals. We gave evidence as to why this weather was romantic or rational or modern, and we went into great detail by giving examples from the chapter and comparing it to the mindset of a romanticist or a rationalist. How this helps us learn something is that it helps us get an idea of the perception of each type of person, you could even say perception was the main idea of the whole thing, for example a rationalist would literally use science to explain the weather and ignore emotions, while rationalists will make a comparison between the two and say emotions had a part in the weather. It wasn't that you could only choose between the three, it was a metaphorical graph so you go in between the romantic section and the modernist section, you just had to give your thoughts and explain the reason why you chose to stand there. Tomorrow will look more into it by having a class harkness, before we have our next chapter harkness on Monday.

12-4-17

So today in class we began to learn about paragraphs. I know, so exciting. We began by looking at an image of a paragraph with words in it. And when I mean word, I mean the word "word" written in for words. This was put in so we could identify the different parts of words. We learned about the claim; the the topic that was being argued. This is put at the beginning of the sentence to introduce the reader to what they are going to read about and to have something to connect the evidence to. Evidence is next which was alluded to in the previous sentence, which is quite simply: facts, quotes, and anything that is hard and definite. After learning about evidence we learned about what the difference is between a claim and evidence. Put simply, evidence is something that cant be argued because it is a fact, so it cannot be a claim. Now we did touch a little on analysis, by saying it comes after the evidence and is used to connect it back to the claim. After the analysis there is a concluding sentence which is meant to offer the thesis with the points made in the analysis of the conclusion. We also touched on how to add specificity to a claim. We did this by asking the five W's and the H to add specificity, similar to what we did with our theses previously in the year.
This is relate able to everyday because we are finally learning something most teachers prior have neglected to teach us. To actually write a paragraph. And with this knowledge we will apply it to practically everything. Almost any job out there in this world will require writing and if this is news to you then...I'm sorry.  But, having knowledge on how to write an acceptable paragraph will be useful in writing, labs in chemistry, DBQs in history, cops have to do it, bankers have to do it, historians have to do it, even mathematicians have to write paragraphs! So my point is, if its not clear enough, is that if you want to do anything in life, you need to be able to write a paragraph.
(For those who were confused about the word thing, I added a demonstration below)
                                   Words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words.

11/30/17

     Today in class we went through our usual opening and did our usual good morning. We talked about perception and bias. We talked about how Nick's bias is sometimes subconscious, which is where Fitzgerald can pit the gaps that we see in his passage. We talked about how Nick feels about black people and we discussed how Nick thought about them. He uses words like Buck, and Negro which shows that Nick doesn't view them in a good way. The same way about Jewish people. He points out stereotypical attributes about the Jewish man Wolfshiem in the book by criticizing his nose, eyes, etc. This lead to finding out Nick's background which is WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant). They're at the top of the USA, only one president wasn't a WASP. He can discriminate against anything that isn't him. In the book Fitzgerald misspelled words like connection and Oxford, saying connegtion and oggsford to show that Nick is making fun of the accent of the Jewish male. He uses language to create barriers between him and 'others'.
     This thing called bias is apparent in almost everything we read. Some historians have bias, and people who have had and made documents in the past have also had bias. Their perception on things is different then how we have seen it in the U.S. Also we as individuals view and see things differently then the person next to us, so we see difference in stories and these gaps in truth that we tend to see when multiple people tell stories about the same thing hence a framing narrative. One person will tell a story to another and that person will tell the same story but add how the story was told to him changing it slightly. An example of this was when you guys went silent for about 5 min. Everyone was permitted to write the truth however, there was different truths and gaps between each story. However the same thing everyone mentioned was the unusual silence that enveloped the classroom.