SOPHOMORES I will be projecting a total of 17 slides for the duration of the class today. I would like you to read the slide, then take a few minutes to THINK, REFLECT, then CONNECT to each one. I am giving you permission to feel however you want. THINK about how it may relate to you or to an experience you may have had. REFLECT upon how the words you are reading make you feel. Are you laughing? Are you mad? Do you agree on some level? Are you thinking of a time when…or do these words conjure up a story that relates in some way? Whatever it is, WRITE IT DOWN. The outcome, or the words you write, is the way in which you CONNECTED to the slides. This will be different for each one of you, and that’s the beauty of this. I can’t tell you how to feel, or what is right or wrong--the responses from an activity such as this are so authentically “you,” that I can’t really give you too much specific direction. You are free to search your brains, and latch on to whatever pops up. NOTE: I am asking you to please read, write, then share. Remain silent until we are ready to discuss. Please raise your hands to share your connections, and listen to what your peers have to say. I understand that you have a lot to say, but one at a time is the most respectful way to approach this.

“I’m the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It’s awful. If I’m on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I’m going, I’m liable to say I’m going to the opera. It’s terrible.”

“If there’s one thing I hate, it’s the movies. Don’t even mention them to me.”

“The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has – I’m not even kidding.”

“I don’t care if it’s a sad good- by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving. If you don’t, you feel even worse.”

“I’m not too crazy about sick people, anyway.”

“I don’t much like to see old guys in their pajamas and bathrobes anyway. Their bumpy old chests are always showing. And their legs. Old guys’ legs, at beaches and places, always look so white and unhairy.”

“People never notice anything.”

“Grand. There’s a word I really hate. It’s a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.”

“That’s something that drives me crazy. When people say something twice that way, after you admit it the first time.”

“You can’t stop a teacher when they want to do something. They just do it.”

“I’d never yell ‘Good luck!’ at anybody. It sounds terrible, when you think about it.”

“That’s something else that’s a royal pain. I mean if you’re good at writing compositions and somebody starts talking about commas.”

“All I need’s an audience. I’m an exhibitionist.”

“He hated it when you called him a moron. All morons hate it when you call them a moron.”

“Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad.”

“But you can’t always tell – with somebody’s mother, I mean. Mothers are all slightly insane.”

“What I like best is a book that’s at least funny once in a while. I read a lot of classical books… and I like them, and I read a lot of war books and mysteries and all, but they don’t really knock me out too much. What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.”

Your homework tonight is to expand on ONE of your reactions. Elaborate, flesh out your immediate reaction. In class tomorrow you will have an opportunity to share your response with a partner. What questions do you have??