Plato/Hobbes Reading Strategies Homework – Due Tuesday 9/4/07 for Eta and Theta Blocks. Due Friday 9/5/07 for Epsilon and Zeta Blocks.
Please answer the following questions thoughtfully as it will help me gauge your perspective on the readings we will have for class and determine future readings for the class.
1.What difficulties do you think you will face in reading the excerpts from both Plato’s The Republic and Hobbes’ Leviathan?
2.What are some reading strategies that you know that would help you overcome these difficulties?
3.Make a list of the words that you did not recognize. Look up the definitions in a dictionary and write the definitions out in your own words.
4.Write 5-7 sentences summarizing the readings from both Plato and Hobbes (don’t worry about being right or wrong, take a guess, these readings are on the difficult side).
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Blog #2 - Poor Sailor/The Giving Tree
In no less than one-page (250 words), write about the similarities and differences in the worlds of The Giving Tree and “The Poor Sailor”.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Blog #1 - Doing the Right Thing and Aesop's Fables
Please answer each question in 3-5 thoughtful sentences. I am not asking you to write an essay, but the more thoughtful your writing, the more interesting the class becomes.
1. In the fable, “The Fisherman Who Beat the Water”, what do you think motivated him to cast the nets and dam the river?
2. Aesop states that the moral to this fable is, “It is like this in a city-state; the demagogues thrive by throwing the state into discord”. What does the word demagogue mean (look it up in a dictionary if you have to)? And in your own words, describe what you think this means. What does this moral say about human beings?
3. Refer back to the article we read, “Is doing the right thing hard-wired?” and look at the scenarios of the runaway trolley and the healthy person who would have to be killed in order save five others. How would the Fisherman have responded to both questions? Explain your answer thoughtfully.
4. In the fable, “The Fox and the Woodcutter”, describe in your own words the human behavior(s) Aesop is exemplifying.
5. Has a situation similar to the one depicted in “The Fox and the Woodcutter” ever happened to you? Please explain and focus on your emotional response to the situation you describe.
6. The article “Is doing the right thing hard-wired?” explains that the rarest form of cooperation is reciprocity. How was this fable an example of this idea?
1. In the fable, “The Fisherman Who Beat the Water”, what do you think motivated him to cast the nets and dam the river?
2. Aesop states that the moral to this fable is, “It is like this in a city-state; the demagogues thrive by throwing the state into discord”. What does the word demagogue mean (look it up in a dictionary if you have to)? And in your own words, describe what you think this means. What does this moral say about human beings?
3. Refer back to the article we read, “Is doing the right thing hard-wired?” and look at the scenarios of the runaway trolley and the healthy person who would have to be killed in order save five others. How would the Fisherman have responded to both questions? Explain your answer thoughtfully.
4. In the fable, “The Fox and the Woodcutter”, describe in your own words the human behavior(s) Aesop is exemplifying.
5. Has a situation similar to the one depicted in “The Fox and the Woodcutter” ever happened to you? Please explain and focus on your emotional response to the situation you describe.
6. The article “Is doing the right thing hard-wired?” explains that the rarest form of cooperation is reciprocity. How was this fable an example of this idea?
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