1. Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment
Written By: Nathanial Hawthorne

2. Brainstorm What do you know about the Fountain of Youth? Heard of it?
Been there?
Stories of it?
Movies?
Books?
Short stories?

3. Okay, Let’s say there is a Fountain of Youth.
Fountain made of what? Stone? Gold?
How big is it? Can you fit a human in it?
What is the elixir made of? What does the elixir look like?
How do you know it’s the Fountain of Youth? Is there a plaque?

4. Okay, let’s go with it’s a liquid and you had access to it.
Would you drink it?
Would you be the first to drink it? Or would you tell your friend “You do it first”?
What if there was a limited supply?
There haven’t been any long term studies done on the Fountain of Youth’s elixir. You have no idea what its long term effect will be. Would you still drink it?

5. Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment
Gathers 4 friends and says, “My dear old friends, I am desirous of your assistance in one of those little experiments with which I amuse myself here in my study.”
Then he eloquently says the equivalent of “hey y’all, watch this” and demonstrates the power of the elixir with a 50 year-old shrived up rose.
His four friends drink the elixir.

6. Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment
So what do you think happened? Let’s take a few predictions…
And the winner is…
Oh you really didn’t think I was going to tell you, now, did you?

7. Close Reading Refresh my memory—what is close reading?
What do you do? What types of information are you looking for?
Read slower, annotate (make notes in the margins), LOOK BEYOND THE SURFACE
Imagery, details, figurative language, metaphors, comparisons.
What do you avoid doing?
Skimming
Simplifying the story

8. Symbolism What is a symbol?
Are they always on purpose or can they be accidental?
BOTH – there are the “right” answers, ones the author intended and ones you interpret.
However! There can be wrong answers.
How do you determine if something is a symbol?
How frequently does it appear? Can I argue why it’s a symbol with more than one reason?

9. Annotation
Has anyone ever annotated a short story before? If so, what did you do?
If I were to just tell you, “read and annotate this”, what does that mean you to? What would you do? What would you not do?

10. Annotation Mark it up Ask it questions.
Highlighter, underlines, margin notes, circle words, any kind of notes
Ask it questions.
“What? I have no idea what you’re talking about, dude.”
Attention diverts? Write that down. Seriously.
See the word “twilight” and the movie pops in your head? “Ugh, I hate that movie. Sparkly vampires? Really?”
“This kinda reminds me of the movie Death Becomes Her. They drank an elixir to stay young, but they had to keep putting makeup on to look human. Oh, and they tried to kill each other, but they couldn’t, because they were now immortal. Haha I should watch that again.”

11. Thursday: Homework
Close readings work best if you read the piece a few times. Think of it as a good movie…you catch something new every time you see it. Same thing with close reading. You catch something new every time you read it.
Read and annotate “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” like I showed you in class. I will check for completion.
We will continue our class close reading tomorrow