Friday 3/1

Journal:  Analyze Mersault's thoughts after he shoots the Arab:

"I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach where I'd been happy. Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness. ”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

1.  Discuss Journal

2.  Senior Project Oral Presentation Approaches
--Powerpoint/ Prezi

--Eye Contact, Organization:  Answer Essential Question:  **Research

3.  Quiz:  Ch. 4-6

4.  Begin Reading Part 2.  

Thursday 2/28

Journal:  Respond to the quote below:

“I've never really had much of an imagination. But still I would try to picture the exact moment when the beating of my heart would no longer be going on inside my head.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger
 
1.  Discuss Journal

2.  With a partner, Read Ch. 6 which concludes part 1 of the novel.  In your notebook, record details
that describe the sun and heat in ch. 6.  **Discuss how the sun/heat affect Mersault and consider what this description might convey about Camus' existential world.  
**15 mins:  Share.

3.  Analyze Mersault's actions on the beach.  Attempt to account for his actions.  

**Discuss:  Is he to blame?  (Small Group)  

***Quiz on Friday  Ch. 4-6

4.  Begin reading Part 2

Wednesday 2/27

Journal:  Respond the the quote below:

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger
 
1.  Discuss Journal

2.  With a partner, Read Ch. 6 which concludes part 1 of the novel.  In your notebook, record details
that describe the sun and heat in ch. 6.  **Discuss how the sun/heat affect Mersault and consider what this description might convey about Camus' existential world.  
**15 mins:  Share.

3.  Analyze Mersault's actions on the beach.  Attempt to account for his actions.  

**Discuss:  Is he to blame?  (Small Group)  

***Quiz on Friday  Ch. 4-6

Tuesday 2/26

Journal:  Compare and contrast your view of the world with Mersault's.  Do you share any similar beliefs?  Major differences?  Explain.

1.  Discuss Journal

2.  Activity:  Assume the first person point of view of Mersault, write a short letter to a friend explaining
how you are feeling these days and what your plans for the future are.  *10 mins:  Share.

3.  With a partner, Read Ch. 6 which concludes part 1 of the novel.  In your notebook, record details
that describe the sun and heat in ch. 6.  **Discuss how the sun/heat affect Mersault and consider what this description might convey about Camus' existential world.  
**15 mins:  Share.

4.  Analyze Mersault's actions on the beach.  Attempt to account for his actions.  

**Discuss:  Is he to blame?  

Monday 2/25

Journal:

In chapter 5 (pg 41) Mersault turns down a job opportunity and expresses to his boss: "People never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another..."

**Consider this response and explain if you agree or not.

1.  Review/ Collect Senior Papers

2.  Discuss Journal

3.  Pg 41 Mersault relates that he had to give up his studies and learned very quickly that "nothing
really mattered."

Activity:  With a partner, analyze the significance of this passage.  Theorize what may have caused Mersault to give up his studies and "lose his ambition"   *10 mins:  Share.

4.  Complete reading Ch. 5

Activity:  Assume the first person point of view of Mersault, write a short letter to a friend explaining
how you are feeling these days and what your plans for the future are.  *10 mins:  Share.

Friday 2/21

Journal:  Respond to the quote below:

“If something is going to happen to me, I want to be there.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

1.  Discuss Journal

2.  Examine Salamano's remorse in Ch. 4 regarding his dog.

3. Ch. 5  (Read pgs 40-41)

Consider Mersault's boss's offer: "You're young, and it seems to me it's the kind of life that would appeal to you."

What is Mersault's response?
Does this make sense?
What does this reveal about his character?  The existential world?

4.  Continue reading Ch. 5.  **With a partner, analyze images of light and dark. 
  

Thursday 2/21

Journal:  In chapter 4, after Salamano loses his dog, he becomes very upset and confides to Mersault:
"But they'll take him away from me, don't you see.  If only somebody would take him in..." 

*Evaluate Salamano's change in attitude towards his dog.  Consider what this might further illuminate about Camus' existential world.

1.   Quiz:  Chapters 1-3

2.  Discuss Journal

3.  Pg. 39   Mersault thinks of his mother:  Why?  Significance?

4.  Read chapter 5. (Pg.41  - Mersault will now get married?  Does he care?  Explain.  )

5.  With a partner, complete reading Ch. 5

Wednesday 2/20

Journal:  Respond to the quote below:

“Since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter.”

― Albert Camus, The Stranger

Activity:  Read Inquirer editorial.  

**Write a 5 minute response.  Do you agree?

1.  Discuss journal

2.  Review Senior Project:  All parts

3.  The Stranger:  Review character traits of Raymond Sintes

**Why is Mersault so indifferent about getting involved with such an immoral character?

4.  Begin reading Ch. 4.

*Analyze contrast of light and darkness.

Friday 2/15

Journal:

At the end of chapter 3, Mersault relates:  "All I could hear was the blood pounding in my ears.  I stood there, motionless.  And in old Salamano's rooom, the dog whimpered softly." 

**Consider what Camus' use of language here conveys about the existential world.

1.  Review/ Discuss "The Myth of Sisyphus".  *Collect papers

2.  Discuss journal.

3.  Ch.  3.  Make a character chart for Raymond Sintes.

List:  Actions                        Speech


*Share.  Discuss:  Why does Mersault get involved with this character?

4.  Begin reading Ch. 4

The Myth of Sisyphus 2/13 - 2/14

Journal:  Read essay below; Work on Analysis/Reflection paper for Friday

The Myth of Sisyphus

by Albert Camus

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.

If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals. According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession of highwayman. I see no contradiction in this. Opinions differ as to the reasons why he became the futile laborer of the underworld. To begin with, he is accused of a certain levity in regard to the gods. He stole their secrets. Egina, the daughter of Esopus, was carried off by Jupiter. The father was shocked by that disappearance and complained to Sisyphus. He, who knew of the abduction, offered to tell about it on condition that Esopus would give water to the citadel of Corinth. To the celestial thunderbolts he preferred the benediction of water. He was punished for this in the underworld. Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. Pluto could not endure the sight of his deserted, silent empire. He dispatched the god of war, who liberated Death from the hands of her conqueror.

It is said that Sisyphus, being near to death, rashly wanted to test his wife's love. He ordered her to cast his unburied body into the middle of the public square. Sisyphus woke up in the underworld. And there, annoyed by an obedience so contrary to human love, he obtained from Pluto permission to return to earth in order to chastise his wife. But when he had seen again the face of this world, enjoyed water and sun, warm stones and the sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness. Recalls, signs of anger, warnings were of no avail. Many years more he lived facing the curve of the gulf, the sparkling sea, and the smiles of earth. A decree of the gods was necessary. Mercury came and seized the impudent man by the collar and, snatching him from his joys, lead him forcibly back to the underworld, where his rock was ready for him.

You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them. As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward the lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain.

It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.

If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn.

If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy. This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and the sorrow was in the beginning. When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy arises in man's heart: this is the rock's victory, this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. These are our nights of Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged. Thus, Oedipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it. But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins. Yet at the same moment, blind and desperate, he realizes that the only bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: "Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well." Sophocles' Oedipus, like Dostoevsky's Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.

One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness. "What!---by such narrow ways--?" There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd. Discovery. It happens as well that the felling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.

All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is a thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

Tuesday 2/12

Journal:  Offer your thoughts about this this analysis of Camus' "Myth of Sisyphus":

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest – whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories – comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer. 1

This is how Camus' essay collection The Myth of Sisyphus starts, when it was first published in 1942. The central essay is the eponymous portrait of the mythological figure of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was one of the wisest men on earth, extremely skilled in trickery and the founder of Corinth. After deceiving the gods, Zeus banished him into Tartarus, a prison-like waste land beneath the underworld. Here, Sisyphus endlessly rolls a rock up a hill, just to have it roll back to start anew. A Sisyphean task became synonymous with senseless work that man has to do nowadays. From the beginning on it is the very clear tone of the book, that the value of life is most important issue.  (Schrahe'  2011)

1.  Discuss Journal; Review 1 page analysis/reflection for Thursday.

2:  Prezi:  Abusrdism in The Stranger

3.  Activity:  With a partner:

Describe the relationship between Salamano and his dog *(List Details)

Compose a "personal theory" that attempts to explain what this relationship illustrates about Camus' existential world.  ***15 mins:  Share

4.  Complete reading Ch. 3

**Character Study:  Raymond Sintes  *See previous blogpost

Monday 2/11

Journal:

At the end of chapter 2, Mersault describes the "reddish glow" of the sky and the "passing clouds that had left a hint of rain hanging over the street, which made it look darker."  Examine Mersault's observant nature and his fascination with the physical world.

1.  Discuss Journal

2.  Prezi:  Aburdism in The Stranger

3.  Read beginning of ch. 3

Focus:  Salamano and his dog.

Activity:  With a partner, describe this relationship.  (List details)


Create your own "personal theory" about how this relationship might symbolize Camus' existential world.  (15 mins)  **Share.


4.  Read pgs. 28-33.

Questions:

Who is Raymond Sintes?
What problem does he have?
Why does Mersault get involved with him?
Is this a "healthy" friendship?

Short Story:  "Charles"  Shirley Jackson

http://mvhs.nbed.nb.ca/sites/mvhs.nbed.nb.ca/files/noteattach/teacher/3768/sh_ort_story_charles_by_shirley_jackson.pdf

Friday 2/8

Journal:

At the end of chapter 2 (pg. 24) Mersault reflects:  "It occurred to me that anyway one more Sunday
was over, that Maman was buried now, that I was going back to work, and that, really, nothing had changed." 

Analyze the significance of Mersault's reflection here.

1.  Vocabulary Quiz:  Ch. 7

2.  Discuss Journal

3.  Read Ch. 3

4. Workshop:  Senior Paper

Thursday 2/7

Journal:

After Mersault's mother died, he feels the apartment is too big:  "Now it's too big for me, and I've had to move the dining room table into my bedroom."  (pg 21)

Examine the significance of this action.  What might this reveal about his character?

1.  Vocab Ch 7 Review (flipchart)

2.  Discuss Journal

3.  Read pgs. 22-23

Activity:  List details illustrate what the narrator focuses/notices....

10 mins w/ partner:  Share.

What is he concerned with most?

Describe his thoughts and feelings?  Does he elaborate how he feels?

Why does he believe "nothing has changed"?

4.  Begin reading Ch. 3

Tuesday 2/5

Journal:  Toward the end of chapter 1 (pg.1) a nurse confides to Mersault:
"If you go slowly, you risk getting sunstroke.  But if you go too fast, you work up a sweat and then catch a chill inside the church."  Upon hearing this, Mersault realizes that she's right; and moreover, [that] "There was no way out."

**Examine the existential value of this response of this insight.

1.  Vocab:  "Choosing Right Word"

2.  Discuss Journal

3.  Profile/Collect Stranger workseet (Characterization chart)

4.  Read ch. 2  pgs 19-21

Consider this Mersault's actions.  Are they peculiar?  Explain.

Examine the "Kruschen Salts" reference. 

Monday 2/4

Journal:  Respond to Mersault's remarks below:

“I've never really had much of an imagination. But still I would try to picture the exact moment when the beating of my heart would no longer be going on inside my head.” 
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

1.  Complete work sheet for chapters 1 & 2:  The Stranger

2.  Vocabulary  :  Ch. 7   "Choosing The Right Word"

3.  Discuss Journal

4.  Review/Profile Mersault  (Characterization Chart)