Week 17

It finally feels as though our spring semester is in full swing.  Last week I gave the students an overview of the plan for the rest of the year.  Once we finish reading The Tempest we'll take a break from Elizabethan English and fast-forward to the Victorian era with a fairy tale written by John Ruskin; The King of the Golden River.  Meanwhile, we'll incorporate readings from Mortimer Adler's Aristotle for Everybody into the writing portion of our class.  It is my hope that reading Aristotle's ideas in Adler's lucid style will give them further insight into the topics of invention from which the ideas we write about naturally flow.

Then, in keeping with our theme of “virtue,” we’ll jump back in time about 2200 years to listen in on Socrates’ and Meno’s discussion of the nature of virtue, courtesy of the inimitable Plato.  We’ll have plenty of character examples to consider from our earlier readings.  If time remains, we’ll take a look at Plato’s famous Allegory of the Cave.

Be sure your student made it home with all three books; Aristotle for Everybody, The King of the Golden River, and Plato's Meno.

I do want to let you know that I’ll be traveling toward the end of February to attend the CiRCE Apprenticeship retreat in North Carolina.  Therefore we won’t have class on Thursday, Feb 27^th. 

Writing assignment

·                    -   Read Part 1, chapter 1 (Philosophical Games) in Aristotle for Everybody. 

·                     - To the best of your ability, try to produce an outline similar to what Adler might have used to write this chapter.

Reading Assignment

·                    -  Read Act 4 in The Tempest following the previous instructions for notes and highlighting

·                     - Read Hebrews 12: 18-24 two or three times.  List three similarities between this passage and the story of The Tempest