Journal 11

After all semester long of watching others lead discussion in class, it is finally my turn to do it. I missed the first day we got to sign up for discussions and book talks so I was left with days at the end of the semester. Now with all my classes having stuff due these final couple weeks, I really wish I could have gone earlier in the semester, but oh well. I did however enjoy my book, Uglies, more than most of the others we have read this semester. There are a number of strong themes that can lead to a good discussion. The book's themes are governmental conspiracies, attractiveness in society, and technology being used to control the population. Mileka and I want our pre reading exercise to focus on the idea of being attractive in today's society. We created a questionnaire that asks the class to describe what their idea of the perfect physical person would be. This activity and the discussion about it will lead into us talking about what it means to be attractive in today's society. Are attractive people better off than non attractive people? We will first discuss these questions and other questions that may arise in separate groups, boys and girls. This will hopefully allow the class to speak openly with people of their own sex and what society dictates about their bodies. We will then bring the whole class together and ask them to share with each other what they discussed in their groups. If they do not want to share with the whole class, then that is perfectly fine. It will be interesting to see how the two sex's discussions differed from one another. The class will be asked to keep this theme o0f attractiveness in our society in mind when they are reading the novel. Hopefully this will make them consider what it means to be attractive today and if our society does anything similar to what the society in the book does. I think everything will go well but we shall see.