Question 7 Daughter & 7 Sons

HOMEWORK: Finish reading until page 28 on your own, then answer the following the questions.


1.What impacts of Quran on Arabic literature can you sought out in this book. Think of the beginning/ start of the book?
2. How is Islam influenced by this text. Give 3 instances/moments where this happens.

3. Why is Fatimah crying? What ill-fate is the narrator talking about?

4. Burhan is talking to herself, after having a short conversation with her father. She says, " It wouldn't have been  a mistake three hundred years before, or two hundred years before, or even hundred years before". What is she referring to here? What was the short conversation father and daughter had?

Vocabulary Words for p. 1-28

1.      Loom:  a hand-operated or power-driven apparatus for weaving fabrics

2.      Halted: stopped

3.      Paltry: utterly worthless; insultingly small

4.      Melancholy: a gloomy state of mind, especially when habitual orprolonged; depression.

5.      Iwan: a vaulted portal opening onto a courtyard: 

6.      Asperity: harshness or sharpness of tone, temper, or manner; severity.

7.      Elixir: a powder mixture used in trying to make someone better—in the story to cast away evil or bad thoughts.

8.      Mortar: a container of hard material, having a bowl-shaped cavity     in which substances are reduced to powder

Citation/ reference

Below is the son of citation cite
http://citationmachine.net/index2.php?reqstyleid=1&newstyle=1&stylebox=1

Here is the powerpoint link for MLA

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/15/

Ch 14 Questions: My Name is Asher Lev

Ch 14 Questions

1. How was Asher welcomed by the Ladover community, on his visit? Explain, giving examples from the chapter.

2. Why was he reluctant to show his uncle the paintings?

3. What happened during the visit from his Mythic ancestors?

4. Why did Anne call Asher, what news did she have for Asher? How did he take it? Does his reaction show the collective or individualistic side of him?

BLOG: Excerpt From Chaim Potok

Directions :

Please begin first by reading this piece by Chaim Potok, on his reason for writing My Name is Asher Lev, Then respond on the question below.

Everybody grows up inside a particular, almost invariably small world. Everybody, without exception. Very early in our lives we learn the "banking system" of that world: family, small town, neighborhood, church, community. At the same time, ideas begin to come to us from outside this small particular world. These ideas are often alien to those values we are being taught in our particular world. We learn to behave and act in a certain way from our fathers, mothers, grandmothers, aunts and uncles. We learn if we behave incorrectly, certain things follow from that incorrect behavior. We turn on the television set and someone is behaving incorrectly. Nothing happens as a result. It's a joke. It's a laugh. It's accepted. When we experience this sort of thing in an ongoing way, we develop a certain method of handling this constant clash of values.

What I'm trying to explore in my books is one kind of such confrontation of ideas. Of cultures in tension with one another. A kind of tension that I experienced as I grew up and made my way into this world. All of us have one kind or another of ongoing culture confrontation almost every day of our lives. We don't think about it often because by the time we're out of our teens we learn to handle these confrontations almost in the same way as we walk and breathe. It's a kind of choreography that we develop without thinking about it too much. Then along comes the novelist and looks at it, opening it up so that we can more or less see what it is we are really doing without thinking about it. The novelist forces us, if we read the novels, to look at what it is we are doing and urges us to think about it, to see if something can be learned or understood about ourselves and our species by observing this confrontation.

One of the things we are taught very early is that each of us is a unique creature. We need that sense of uniqueness to take us through the travail of existence. We are taught that we count as individuals, that the group we belong to is a unique group, and that this group counts in the spectrum of the broader community in which all of us live. That uniqueness is then challenged by ideas that inevitably impinge upon us from other kinds of uniqueness.

When individuals are brought up in the heart of such a community or culture, they learn and commit themselves to its values. They usually understand the problems inside that community and are willing to cope with those problems. They see the world through the systems of values of that unique community. At the same time however, they experience important ideas or values that come to them from the general world outside their community. These ideas come to them from the core, the heart of that general world. When a person finds his or her own inherited values to be in conflict with those of the general culture, he or she experiences what I have come to call "core-core culture confrontation." All of my books are an attempt to explore the dimensions of this kind of confrontation.

One thing absolutely fundamental to an appreciation of the core of one's community is a sense of identity with its core, a sense of the uniqueness of that community. 

This sense of identity is born out of the following elements:

(1) You learn early on in your life the stable values of your particular community. (2) You learn early on in your life that your life makes sense, that it's important, it counts. (3) You learn that human actions are meaningful. They resonate. One cannot act without in one way or another affecting. (4) You learn early on in your life that action and value ought to be in harmony. You cannot have a viable sense of self worth if you value one thing and act contrary to what it is that you value. When this happens, a dichotomy or split in the self is established. Finally it seems to me that fundamental to an awareness of the nature of a core of both a tradition and an individual in that tradition is (5) that the individual be made aware of what is right and what is wrong, as far as the community is concerned, and that the individual be able to choose between the two. These are the components that go into the making of a healthy, well-adjusted individual. With this firm sense of identity an individual finds his or her place in the core of the tradition of a commmunity and, out of it, establishes a sense of his or her particular uniqueness as an individual..

Response:

After reading the point above, students are first to respond on  what is meant to have a sense of identity within these mentioned elements. After that you will read and discuss what these points are and submit in a one page response via: Blog-  How do you see these core fundamentals playing a role in your life?  

Chapter 13 Questions My Name is Asher Lev

1. Asher's mystic ancestors reappear in Ch. 13, and from their past visits, it is clear that there is significance to their appearance. What has happened in Ch. 13 that has caused their visit?

2. Asher begins to think about all the emotional pain his mother has endured in the past. What does he do in an attempt to capture these painful emotions? Use evidence to proof your point.

3. Why does Asher begin to reminisce (dwell upon past memories) of his childhood and things that were said to him while growing up? Support your answer with details from the chapter.

Chapter 8 Guide

Chapter 8 Reading Guide

Massacre of the Innocents is an episode of infanticide by the King of Judea, Herod the Great. According to the Gospel of Matthew Herod orders the execution of all young male children in the village of Bethlehem, so as to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn King of the Jews whose birth has been announced to him by the Magi. The incident, like others in Matthew, is described as the fulfillment of a passage in the Old Testament read as prophecy, in this case a reading of Jeremiah: "Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying, A voice was heard in Ramah, Weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children."

What images are most powerful in this picture?

Pablo Picasso
Guernica: Guernica is a painting by Pablo Picasso. It was created in response to the bombing of Guernica, Basque Country, by German and Italian warplanes at the behest of the Spanish Nationalist forces, on 26 April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. The Spanish Republican government commissioned Picasso to create a large mural for the Spanish display at theParis International Exposition at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris.

Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. This work has gained a monumental status, becoming a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace. On completion Guernica was displayed around the world in a brief tour, becoming famous and widely acclaimed. This tour helped bring the Spanish Civil War to the world's attention.

What do you see in this picture?

Question

1.     Why does Kahn asking Asher to read from the bible? How does Asher feel about this?

2.     What book did Rivkeh’s  bring to Asher? What does she ask him in relation to the book?

3.     Why   does Kahn keep pushing Asher away from becoming an artist? Back up your information with details from the story.

Due Next Week: Quiz (12/5/11) & Blog Video Response: 12/7/11)

On Monday (12/5/11). You will have a quiz on Chapters 5-7. This quiz will assess the following:
1. A clear understanding on chapters 5-7 (Main points, characters introduced, conflicts if any.).
2. Vocabulary terms given for any of the chapters (5-7). Check below for Ch. 5-7 vocabulary words.
3. The 5 articles we've discussed, I am posting them all on the blog, for those of you who need to refer back to it.


For Wednesday you are to respond on the following videos; although, there are 5 clips, please note that they are very short clips:
clip 1: http://www.pbs.org/pov/hidingandseeking/video_intro.php
clip 2:http://www.pbs.org/pov/hidingandseeking/video_history.php
clip 3:http://www.pbs.org/pov/hidingandseeking/video_hasidism_ww2.php
clip 4 ( Watched in class: about Hasidic Women:
http://www.pbs.org/pov/hidingandseeking/video_hasidism_women.php)
Clip 5:http://www.pbs.org/pov/hidingandseeking/video_hasidism_others.php

After watching the following videos, please respond to these questions in your blog, due:12/7/11

1. What are 3 important facts you learned about the video?
2. How did what you watched in these videos help you better understand Asher Lev, his family and the community he lives in?
3. Provide 5 situations you read thus far in My Name is Asher Lev that are directly influenced by what you watched in these videos, of the Hasidim religion.
4. Name one thing you would like to further explore. You have must name at least one thing, as we know that these videos do not give us the full picture of the entire religion.