The Machine Stops Day 5

Big Idea: Ideology, utopia, and imagination

Nuance Academy: Absolute phrase.

After today I should be able to: summarize the background to E.M. Forrester's short story and identify a theme you want to track.

Reading: You should have two books read by October 1st.

Agenda:

1. Collect homework from Friday.
2. Write 10 sentences with an absolute phrase at the beginning.
1. An absolute phrase modifies the entire sentence, adds descriptive context, and is set off by commas within a sentence. It's a handy grammatical structure to make sentences more vivid and detailed.
1. His head full of ideas, Mr. White carefully planned each stage of the essay.
3. Adjective ("Her eyes bright with excitement, she opened her present.")
4. Noun ("The sun high in the sky, we sought shade.")
5. 
   
   
3.  Today we will continue reading the short story, "The Machine Stops."
1. Read for 15 minutes. Practice your notice and note strategies.
1. Epiphany
1. A character or group of characters suddenly understands something.
2. For example, "In an instant I knew..."
3. Question: How might the realization that...change...?
2. Tough Question
1. When the characters ask a question that either they or you don't know the answer to.
1. This questions makes we wonder if...
3. Contrasts and Contradictions
1. A character thinks and behaves in a way that we don't expect.
2. An element of a setting is something we would not expect.
3. Question: Why did...How can this help us understand or predict...?
4. Patterns
1. A word is repeated again and again
2. An idea is repeated again and again (but with different words, i.e. war, battle, fighting, etc.)
3. An image is repeated several times
4. An action keeps happening
5. Really, anything that gets repeated throughout the book can possibly be a pattern.
6. Question: Why is the author continually bringing up...?
1. You must also put a question mark next to parts of the text that confused you.
2. Complete a one-pager about the beginning of the short story.
1. Draw a diagram of the room that Vashti lives in.
2. Generate a list of five adjectives that describe Vashti and Kuno. Circle the one that best describes each character. Come up with a symbol for each character.
3. Create a list of things in the short story that are like something that exists today. For example, The Machine is like the internet. Which thing on your list are you most surprised that Forrester was able to predict?
4. Draw a picture that represents one of the problems people face in the world of the short story.
3. How to track my ideas that I chose. The idea is an example of a pattern.

Homework:

1. Work on your vocabulary list #3. It is due by Sunday at 9PM.
2. Read your independent reading book.