Lesson Details

The Root of Evil?

2014-2015

Principles of English 1, fall 2014

Date

Oct. 16, 2014

Additional Info
1. Thursday Grammar: capitalization and punctuation

the southside baptist church sponsored a festival my mother bought some french pastries there


2. Grading Vocab Exercises
Please hand in your vocab exercises. They will be randomly redistributed for grading. Please put your name on the bottom of the paper you receive.

3. Please respond to the following questions:

  • Can a person be born “good” or “evil”, or does a person learn to be good or evil? EXPLAIN.

  • Can a person be all good? Or all evil? EXPLAIN.

  • Give an example of a good person you’ve read or heard about. What is it that makes this person good?

  • Give an example of an evil person you’ve read or heard about. What is it that makes this person evil?

  • Why might someone choose evil over good?


4. We will watch two videos. One will deal with an experiment done by Stanley Milgram, and the other deals with the Stanford Prison Experiment. Please answer the questions on your handout as you watch.

5. As a class, respond to the following questions:
  • Although it may be impossible, try to put yourself in the shoes of the people in these experiments. How far do you think you would go? (Keep in mind that these were all "good" people who would never have dreamed previously of doing the things they did.)
  • Would a person in a position of authority telling you to continue be enough to make you continue? 
  • Would being put in a position where you were given an infinite amount of power make you do things you would not normally do? 
  • Moving beyond the literal, what other "prisons" do we perceive or create in our lives? Consider the following: a marriage wherein one person becomes the guard and the other becomes the prisoner, the prison of shyness wherein someone feels trapped inside him- or herself, and types of neurosis wherein one aspect of you tells you that you are inadequate or bad or ugly or fat...

6. In light of these two videos, go back to your responses from the beginning of class. Have your thoughts about good and evil changed at all? If you're familiar with the military scandal in Abu Ghraib (which we will briefly talk about), how does that fit in with (or complicate) your ideas?

7. All writing is communication. A piece of writing can be seen as the liaison between the author and you, and it is your job to try to figure out what the author is telling you. Golding wrote this novel for a specific reason, and it was not just to write a story about some boys on a deserted island. Keep these videos and experiments in mind as you read. Also keep in mind what had just happened in the world when Golding wrote this novel (WWII). As we read this novel, and eventually analyze it in a formal essay, look for signs that the author is trying to "speak" to you and make note of these parts. 

8. Note taking!!