Bell-Ringer: Do you agree or disagree with this statement: It is important to have grandparents and/or other extended family besides your parents and brothers and sisters. Explain your answer.
Reading Minutes:
A1 The Maze Runner by James Dasher
A2 The Maze Runner by James Dasher
A3 The Name of This Book is Secret -- Pseudonymous Bosh
A4 A Coming Evil (740L) by Vivian Vande Velde -- a mix of historical fiction and fantasy
Smiles to Go by Jerry Spinelli
SSR late presentations
The Giver
A1 to chapter 17, page 137, paragraph 6
A2 to chapter 17, page 134, paragraph 2
A3 to chapter18
A4 to chapter17, page 135, to paragraph 4.
The Giver -- Distopian Fiction
Summary so far -- to Chapter 15
Jonas lives in a community where everything runs "perfectly." When children become twelves, they receive their job assignment for the rest of their working life. Jonas is apprehensive about his job assignment because he has no idea what it will be. When it comes time for the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas is skipped. He is not assigned -- he has been selected. Jonas has become the new Receiver of Memory for his community. He is told that he has qualities that make him fit for this duty. One of these is the ability to "see beyond."
His selection makes him different and makes it harder for him to spend time with or talk with his friends. He is also unable to share his new experiences with his family. Jonas has a mother and father and a younger sister named Lily. Husbands and wives are assigned to each other and no family is allowed to have more than two children. His father, who works as a Nurturer for New Children (babies), has brought home a New Child named Gabriel who needs extra care. The alternative was for Gabriel to be "released," something that also happens to the very old and to community members who have broken the rules of the community three times. Those who are released are no longer allowed to be members of the community. Gabriel may still be released if he does not learn to sleep through the night.
Jonas knows he has the "seeing beyond" ability because a couple of times he has seen a flash of something he can't explain. In his training as Receiver, he finds out that what he is seeing is color, which has been eliminated from their community because many generations before, the community had decided to go to Sameness. Jonas is trained by the Old Receiver who he now calls The Giver. The job of the Receiver of Memory is to receive and hold memories of the world -- the history and experiences of the past -- so that he can provide the wisdom that comes from those memories.
A Receiver is needed because the rest of the people in the community do not have these memories. They do not remember or learn about the past. They know only their own individual pasts. Books (except a dictionary, a book of the rules, and a listing of government and other job departments) are not available to the community. Only the Receiver has access to other books.
Jonas begins to receive the memories from the Giver when the Giver places his hands on Jonas' back, and transfers a memory at a time to him, including memories of hills and snow and sunshine and color which were given up when the people went to sameness. He also receives memories of pain and war and death. When Jonas receives the memories, it is as if he is really experiencing them. He is there in the memory, seeing and hearing and feeling. Experiences of intense pain leave him hurting even after he comes out of the memory. Pleasant experiences also carry over, and he is beginning to see color in his everyday life.
Jonas begins to feel frustrated that he can't share the memories with others. So many of them are beautiful. He briefly attempts to transfer a memory to a friend, and then to his father and sister, but it doesn't work. One night when the new child Gabriel is restless, Jonas puts his hand on Gabe's back and automatically transfers a peaceful memory to this child who, like Jonas and the Giver, has pale eyes -- very rare in their community.
The Giver tells Jonas that ten years earlier a New Receiver had been selected and had failed. The memories she had received were released back into the community and "It was chaos. . . They really suffered for awhile. . . . . it certainly made them aware of how they needed a Receiver to contain all the pain. And knowledge."
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Don't forget that you have a spelling test on January 6.
Vocabulary/Spelling #7 Test on January 6
Prefix to study: il- which means not
1. illegal
2. illiterate
3. illegible
4. illogical
1. illegal -- leg = law So, illegal means not conforming to the law
2. illiterate -- literatus, literally mean. "furnished with letters." So, if you are illiterate, you are NOT furnished with letters.
3. illegible -- leg ( ere ) to read + -ibilis -ible = capable of. So, illegible means NOT capable of being read.
4. illogical -- log = word, speech, thought, reason So, illogical means NOT conforming to reason.
conform = to fit together
Learn the underlined definitions for extra credit
