10/28/15

Terms for today:

Theme

Utopia/Dystopia

Interesting question

• An open-ended question that smart people can legitimately disagree about.

NOT: What does Billy Ray Cyrus think of Miley’s new twerking routine?

INSTEAD: Should parents accept twerking an acceptable form of teenage rebellion?

Or

Is teenage rebellion natural?

or

Is it racist for young rich white women to twerk badly?

Interesting question

• An open-ended question that smart people can legitimately disagree about.

An interesting question

• It’s not a yes or no question.

• It’s not a question of fact.

• There can be multiple interesting answers to the question

Why do writers make up narratives and stories?

Theme

• An author’s answer to an interesting question

• Smart people can have different opinions about it

• Other authors can write new stories about it

Some questions that might be raised by a text:

• What is human nature?

• Are people mostly good, or mostly evil?

• What’s more important in life—love or money?

• What is the cause of injustice in society?