Tyr’s Day, February 5: The Orient

  • EQ: What assessments and ideas await in Unit Two?
  • Welcome! Gather paper, pen/pencil, wits!
  • Overview: Unit Two
  • Unit Cover Sheet: “The Literatureof ‘The Orient’”
  • Assignments: Unit Two
  • Lecture/Presentation: “The Orient”
  • CLOZE: “The Orient”
  • Freewrite

ELACC12RI3: Analyze and explain how individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop

ELACC12W6: Use technology to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing

ELACC12W9: Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis

ELACC12W10: Write routinely over extended and shorter time frames

ELACC12SL1: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions

ELACC12L4: Determine/clarify meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases

ELACC12L6: Acquire and use general academic and domain-specific words and phrases

WorldLitComp Assignments, Spring 2013

Unit Two: The Literature of “The Orient”

4 Tests returned; Remediation

5 Introduction to Unit Two: “The Orient”

6 Film

7 GHSWT Practice Essay #1 Returned; Remediation;

8 Lecture/Presentation: The Hindu Worldview

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11 The Ramayana

12 The Ramayana

13 The Bhagavad-Gita

14 The Bhagavad-Gita

15 Group Project: Cuneiform Me! – clay tablets inscribed and submitted for firing

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18 Lecture/Presentation: The Buddhist Worldview

19 Jataka

20 Jataka

21 Preparation for GHSWT Essay #2: dharma and karma

22 GHSWT Essay #2: dharma and karma

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25 GHSWT Essay #2 returned; remediation; Lecture/Presentation: China

26 The Analects of Confucius

27 Sun Tzu, The Art of War

28 Gōngfu

1 Film: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

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4 Notebook, Reading Journal due

5 Unit Review: Literature of “The Orient”

6 Unit Test: Literature of “The Orient”

7 Film: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

8 Teacher Work Day – Student Holiday

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10 – 18 Spring Break

What is “The Orient”?

Remember that, early in the semester, we said we’d study only literature and ideas from the Northeastern Quadrasphere, also called Eurasia. This of course combines two continents:

Europe: “Occident”Asia: “Orient”

Medieval Europeans drew a sharp distinction between what they considered to be the “civilized” West and the “pagan” East:

  • “Occidental” = Latinfor “Western”: Europe, the Americas
  • “Oriental” = Latin for “Eastern”
  • “Middle East” – Arabia, Palestine, Persia
  • Mesopotamia (Gilgamesh)
  • Arabic and Islamic Literatures
  • “India” – India, Pakistan, Afghanistan
  • “Far East” – China, Japan, Korea, etc.

Indo-European languages spread from Mesopotamia 5000 years ago – north and west to Europe, east to India.

For this reason, many words in the languages of Europe, the Middle East, and India sound similar:

Indo-Euro / Greek / English / Hindi / Spanish / German
pitar / pater / father / pita / padre / Vater
matar / mater / mother / mata / madre / Mutter
kiris / ceres / cereal / siri / cereales / Korn
gau / bova / cow / gai / vaca / Kuh
sarpa / herpet / serpent / shabdkosh / serpeinte
star / aster / star / sitara / estrella / Stern

But Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and other Asian languages are NOT Indo-European. They come from an entirely different language root.

Can you guess why?

Why? Indo-Europeans couldn’t fly.

Here is what the HimalayanMountain Range looks like from space.

In 1953 Edmund Hillary and Tenzig Norgay become the first human beings to climb Mount Everest – and they needed bottled oxygen.

CLOZE: Introduction to Literature of “The Orient”

  1. On what date will we write GHSWT Practice Essay #2?
  2. On what date are Notebooks and Reading Journals due this Unit?
  3. On what date is the Test over Unit Two?
  4. The term “Occidental” means ______, and refers to the countries and cultures in the continents of ______and ______.
  5. The term “Oriental” means ______, and refers to the countries and cultures in the continent of ______.
  6. The ______- ______languages that spread from Mesopotamia ______years ago created may different modern languages.
  7. List THREE words that are similar across languages because of their Indo-European root:
  8. The English word ______means the same as the ______word ______.
  9. The English word ______means the same as the ______word ______.
  10. The English word ______means the same as the ______word ______.
  11. Chinese is not an Indo-European language because it comes from a different what?
  12. Why did Indo-European not get to China, Japan, and other countries of the “Far East”?

We will be concerned first with the literature of India. To prepare, please Freewrite:

Imagine that someone is treating you very badly – bullying or beating you, for example. Think about a very specific thing that person is doing to you, and a very specific thing you’d like to have happen to that person. Then, FREEWRITE EACH:

  • 30 words: What do you WISH would happen to that person as a result of her/his actions?
  • 30 words: What do you think will ACTUALLY happen to that person as a result of her/his actions?
  • 30 words: Do these match – i.e., does what you think should happen really happen? Why or why not?

TURN IN TODAY:

  • CLOZE: Literature of “The Orient”
  • FREEWRITE: Bad karma