I took this photo over New Year while visiting Horyu-ji with my family. How did you spend the New Year’s holidays?
We have two classes left, Jan. 7th and Jan. 14th, then a final exam.
Here is the lesson plan for Jan. 7th:
In groups, you will check your answers to the Study Questions for chapters, 13, 14 and 15 (Study Guide pages 39-44).
I will call you up individually.
Show me your answers to Study Questions for chapters 10-12 (Study Guide pages 35-38).
Show me the notes you took on your classmates’ presentations, Dec. 17th and 24th (if you still have them; you can show me next week, too)
Homework:
Answer the “Story Structure” questions in the Study Guide, page 45
Translate your presentations into English
Character study, or
How we treat other people, or
Curiosity.
Another classic English children’s story from the ealry 20th century or before.
Make sure you have correctly written the bibliographical data for the children’s story you read. You will need this in the exam (Jan. 21st). Here are two examples. Yours should be exactly like this:
Thank you to all of you who presented today and last week. All these stories are classics of English-speaking culture.
Homework: Finish reading “The Magician’s Nephew” and answer the Study Guide questions for chapters 13, 14 and 15.
The Nativity
The story of the birth of Jesus Christ is called “the Nativity”. The Nativity story appears in only two of the four Gospels – in Matthew and in Luke.
The postcard above shows the Three Wise Men (also called the Magi) following the big star to the town of Bethlehem where Jesus was born in a stable because there was no room at the inn.
The table below (from Wikipedia) shows the main events in the Nativity story
Today is a make-up class instead of Nov. 5th. Thank you to those students who attended today. I hope you enjoyed the class.
We read a short essay on children’s writing by C.S. Lewis.
We listened to a couple of Christmas songs, one sung by Madonna.
This song was first recorded by Eartha Kitt:
Which version do you think is better? Which one do you prefer?
The second song we listened to today is “Baby It’s Cold Outside”, a classic duet written by Frank Loesser in 1944. He premiered the song with his wife. Here it is sung by Diane Reeves and Lou Rawls.
What book did you choose from the list? (Many students chose “Robinson Crusoe”. I wonder why? Maybe it is a textbook in some other class…;0)
Reading and translating chapter 8. Today, I used a slightly different technique. I asked questions about the text. These were not just comprehension questions, but questions designed to help students become more familiar with English by hearing many repetitions of the same words and phrases. What did you think of this? Send me an email or leave a comment here on the blog.
Answering the study guide questions for chapters 8-9.
Some comments or questions raised about the presentations:
Why does the Christian church say magic is bad?
Digory is a protagonist, but doesn’t he also do some things which cause problems for himself and the other protagonists?
Why is Aslan “kind”? What does he value?
Why do Polly and Digory and Uncle Andrew change?
Because they recognize that there is a higher power than themselves.
For Digory, that is first his mother, then Aslan (Aslan and Aslan’s wish is more important than Digory’s mother; Digory accepts this).
For Polly, she also realizes that Aslan and what he represents is more important than her own desires or fears.
Uncle Andrew does not understand what Aslan is but he realizes that Aslan’s power is much greater than his own and that he cannot compete against it. He is devastated by the unforeseen consequences of his actions and his interest in magic. He gives it up and becomes a more humble person.
Queen Jadis understands what Aslan is, but she rejects him. She never changes. She chooses power rather than accept Aslan’s superiority, even though it means death not life.
The Golden Rule is “Do as you would be done by”: do to others as you would have them do to you. This is aChristian precept, but it is also found in many other cultures and religions. That is why it is called the “Golden” rule. It is a moral principle.
Aslan uses magic. So what is the difference between Aslan’s magic and the magic of Jadis and Uncle Andrew?
Values. C.S. Lewis understood that values are very important. Science without clear moral values can become a terrible evil.
Two important values expressed in C.S. Lewis’ books are
recognition of and love (respect) for life
recognition of and love (respect) for God, the Creator of all things.
Study Guide, Chapters 6-7, questions 1-5. We checked the answers to these questions.
Homework. For November 26th.
Read chapters 8 and 9.
Answer the study guide questions for chapters 8 and 9.
A row of town houses in London. Digory and Polly may have lived in one of these. Can you imagine the tunnel under the roof, connecting all the houses in a row?
Perhaps Digory’s penknife looked like this. He used his penknife to cut a mark in the grass so that they could remember which pool to take to go home.
<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/timmenzies/263806788/” title=”The wood between the worlds. by timmenzies, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm1.static.flickr.com/79/263806788_394cf6dd3a.jpg” width=”500″ height=”375″ alt=”The wood between the worlds.” /></a>
Answer question 9, Study Guide page 14. Write your answer as a comment on this blog (in either Japanese or English). Deadline is Wednesday October 20th, 6 p.m.
Read chapters 3, 4, 5. If you do not read these chapters, you will be unable to take part in the class discussion next week.
Study Guide p. 22: read questions 12-14 and read the Bible passages (in Japanese).
In today’s class, we:
checked the homework (Study Guide p. 8),
had a vocab quiz on the words on page 9,
translated the passages on page. 11,
filled in the table about Uncle Andrew on page 12,
Update: Homework 2, 2. Everyone, please just write a summary of what the Bible says about magic. Do not write your opinion.
皆さん、聖書には魔法に対しての考え方の要約だけを書いて下さい。魔法に対して、又は聖書に対してのあなたの意見を書かないでください。
Receive your copy of the Study Guide for this semester’s text.
Deadline for all online assignments (blog comments, emailed reports, etc) is by Wednesday, 18:00.
Today’s class:
Read pages 8-13 of the study guide, and translated the questions into Japanese.
Homework 2 (for next week, session #3, October 15th): read “The Magician’s Nephew“, chapters 1 and 2.
Read the Book of Genesis in the Bible, chapters 1, 2 and 3. This tells the story of the creation of our world.
(Study Guide, page 8, question #2) Read the passages from the Bible and answer the question in Japanese in one paragraph, and write your answer on the class blog as a comment. Deadline: Wednesday, October 13th, 18:00.
(Study Guide) Look up the words on page 9. Test next week.
(Study Guide) p. 11-12. Translate the quotations 1-5 into Japanese.
(Study Guide) p. 13. Translate the questions 1-6 and answer the questions 3-6 (write your answers directly on the Study Guide).