7Lightning – The Giver

Last week we found out about exactly what “release” means in Jonas’s community. The term “release” is something that we call a euphemism. A euphemism is an unoffensive, agreeable  word used in place of an offensive or harsh word. (Ex: In Jonas’s community, “release” is essentially a euphemism for murder.)

This week, your job–as a team– is to brainstorm a list of other euphemisms (from the language in the novel or from the language in our own world). Please make sure you mention both the euphemism and the word or phrase that it replaces. You may have to do some research for this one!

Try to avoid repeating euphemisms that your fellow students have already mentioned. Good luck! : )

In your Study Guide, you were asked to briefly discuss the ideas of “sameness” and “unpredictability”. Think about both terms and what they mean to you. What do you feel are the positive and negative points for each one? Would you rather live in a world determined by sameness or by unpredictability–or maybe a little bit of both?

Last week, an “Assignment” was chosen for you, and you had no say in what it was. So, here is your chance to have a choice.

Now that you’ve spent some time Career Cruising with Mrs. Doyle and have probably spent quite a bit of time daydreaming about your “future job”, you should be a little more prepared to answer the following questions: What kind of career(s) might you like to pursue after you’ve graduated from school? What about this job appeals to you? Why do you think this job would suit you?

~~Fun fact! I didn’t decide I wanted to be a teacher until I was in 10th grade. When I was a seventh grader, my heart was set on being a singer/actress. : )

Rules, rules, rules! Jonas’s community certainly seems to have quite a few rules, but so does our society.

Think about the rules that OUR SOCIETY  has, both positive (meaning it is beneficial or you agree with the rule and are glad that we have it) and negative (meaning it is not beneficial or you don’t like it or don’t agree with it).

IN YOUR COMMENT: CHOOSE ONE positive rule and ONE negative rule from OUR SOCIETY and explain your feelings about them both in more detail. Why do you like the one rule? Why do you dislike the other? How would you make changes to the one that you view as a negative rule? Feel free to comment on the ideas of your fellow students.

Remember! This is a homework assignment for English class, so I’d expect to see grammatically correct sentences rather than texting lingo.

Based on your understanding of the word “utopia” and our brief discussion of the novel in class, take a few moments to make a prediction about the novel and submit it as a comment to this post. Feel free to make comments about the predictions of other students–that’s the purpose of the blog!

Welcome to the 7Lightning blog for The Giver!

Over the next 6 weeks or so, we will be using this blog as a tool to engage in conversations about the novel, The Giver, in a setting other than the English classroom.

Rules: Use your brain, be creative, and challenge yourself and your peers!