Hey guys!
After watching the lunchtime traffic for Book Fair and concessions, I am going to request a postponement of our meeting until Monday; it's just too crazy up here for Book Club time. Since I'm putting it off for a full week and some change, are you guys okay with adding on further reading? Let's go to Part Eight, p. 403. That's an additional 53 pages, which should be very manageable (and maybe give some of you time to catch up... KENNETH).
Some questions to ponder and discuss here between now and Monday are below. FYI-- these only go to our original page goal; I will post some for Part Seven after I read that far!
1. Zusak really starts piling on the figurative language and literary devices in this section. What stands out to you? Metaphors, similes, personifcation, foreshadowing, irony, etc... And that's just in the first few pages of our reading! What are some of your favorite pieces of writing (not just examples of the above)? Explain.
2. Max dreams of boxing Adolf Hitler, of fighting to the death, and he trains daily by doing pushups. Why would someone hiding in a basement barely staying alive train for a fight that will never happen? What does all of this represent?
3. What is the seventh side of the die (p. 244-255)? Are there seven sides on a normal die? What does this represent? This section is pretty difficult; what did you think of it?
4. There are a lot of references in the "Death's Diary" sections to actual historical events that you guys may or may not have knowledge of. No one has really asked any questions yet... Do you have any about these sections-- or anything else for that matter?
5. The last line of our page goals is as follows: "They were French, they were Jews, and they were you." What do you think Zusak was saying to the reader? How did this line change the way you were thinking about the book, or how did it make you feel?
Let's talk!
:)
Mrs. P
19 comments:
Cool First Post!!!!! YEAY!!!! Anyways HI guys, how are you? well i have to amitt that i havent been able to read much since i too have been very busy with homework, schoolwork, WEB, Book fair, Master chior, and the book club. But i will hopfully be able to get to the page goal. Well ill be posting my responses later in the week so see ya!!!! 8)
I'm about twenty pages behind the previous goal, so I won't answer yet. By the way, get Mr. Thibault up here! And any other teachers who had joined~we haven't heard from some of them yet. ^ ^
Monday is fine for me...although Nathan lied and told me Friday, the dirty rat. -__- I'll post answers later...and probably print them out like Rachael did last time.
Analie
Hey Analie-
In Nathan's defense, earlier today I had said Friday; after watching the lunchtime shenanigans, I changed it to Monday. :)
Hey!
So, I'll post real soon (like an hour or so.) I should really be doing homework right now so I'll put off answering questions so I have some motivation. (I know, it's bad. I have to encourage myself.)
-Rachael
Pffft, well he's still not out of trouble for going through my flashdrive...
Interestingly, I actually thought that Rudy would die in this section, but I'm glad he didn't. ;)
Analie
Yeah, me too. SO GLAD!!!
Okay, the questions are hard this week so I'm going to print them out and think about them for a while...otherwise they won't be deep.
The seventh side of the die.....hmmmm???? Makes you think.
When you roll two dice together at the same time the most common sum of the two die will be seven. Also, when you add up opposite sides on a die, they will add up to seven as well.
As for Max's dreams of boxing Hitler, I think many during this time may have had the same dreams. Max has a different view point I think. Hitler is the man who has crushed his life and forced him into hiding. I think that he uses his dreams as a way of defeating Hitler in his mind. A way of saying, you may have knocked me down, but you haven't knocked me out.
Oh, if only he would get his chance...
hi everyone fyi i almost always check the blog but i dont usually comment, but what i have to say is i probadly won't get to the page goal :( but i will try my best
I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted. I’ve not had much time to read for pleasure lately and am a bit behind.
I love how the author is starting to tie lot of things together in part four, like who Max is and how he’s “related” to Hans and why Hans never was allowed to join (nor did he want to join) the Nazi party.
I was wondering earlier in the book how so many people who were not Jewish could sit idly by and watch their neighbors being taken away. The narrator begins to answer this question for me on page 180 when he says, “Like many of the Jews believed, (Hans) didn’t think the hatred could last. . . “ I’m sure many people were afraid to stand up to Hitler but believed that somebody else would soon or that those following him would change.
This section leaves me with many questions. Right now I’m wondering how many Germans actually joined the Nazi party simply to feel safe. How many felt the way Hans did but joined anyway so as not to lose business, be thought of as Jewish sympathizers, etc?
I'll keep reading and post more soon.
~Mrs. Menihan
Hey Mrs. P I had a question. I didn't get why the guys in coats came to take Rudy away or where they were taking him? It kind of confused me.
(I'm going to post something longer later)
I know you asked the question for Mrs. Pulley, but this was my thoughts on it...
I was thinking that it was the Nazi Party....maybe to recruit (sorry, I'm totally spelling that wrong) for the war? If you remember when Hans ran outside and shouted 'It's me you want!' and they told him 'You're too old', I was thinking that it had to to with the Nazi Party or just general warfare....my thoughts mainly on the latter.
Analie
Amanda and kiddos,
Fear was one of the main tools of the Nazi Party. While I cannot find any exact figures now. Know that if you spoke out against the Nazi party, then off to a concentration camp you went. Without a trial.
Through propagandha (feeding the public what you want them to hear) and censorship(blocking those things you don't want the public to hear or see), the Nazis were able to skew the viewpoint of the German citizen. They had control over the radio and newspaper and only published or broadcast Nazi approved messages. The book burnings were another way to destroy the cultures of those hated by Hitler. Any story written by a Jew, or where a Jew was a lead character, or portrayed in a good light was burned. This was a very effective means of turning people to the Nazi party.
I believe the book burnings held great significance as a symbol. Fire will cleanse and renew all that it destroys. Think of a forest fire, after the fire comes life. The burnings were a cleansing of the German spirit of all things not German. Only by purifying what the Germans were reading could they purify the race to be the Master Race Hitler was after.
p.s. when is the next meeting?
The "coat men" are the Gestapo, Kaari, and Analie-- they were the secret police division of the Nazi Party. From everything that I have read, it was pretty darn scary to see the Gestapo show up at your door! Here's some info from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestapo#History) for you to peruse:
"The Gestapo had the authority to investigate treason, espionage and sabotage cases and cases of criminal attacks on the Nazi Party and Germany. The basic Gestapo law passed by the government in 1936 gave the Gestapo carte blanche to operate without judicial oversight. The Gestapo was specifically exempted from responsibility to administrative courts, where citizens normally could sue the state to conform to laws. As early as 1935, however, a Prussian administrative court had ruled that the Gestapo's actions were not subject to judicial review. Werner Best, Himmler's right-hand man with the Gestapo, summed up this policy by saying, "As long as the police carries out the will of the leadership, it is acting legally."[4] A further law passed later in the year gave the Gestapo responsibility for setting up and administering concentration camps. In September 1939 the security and police agencies of Nazi Germany were consolidated into the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), headed by Heydrich. The Gestapo became Amt IV (Department IV) of RSHA and Müller became the Gestapo Chief, with Heydrich as his immediate superior. After Heydrich's assassination in 1942, Ernst Kaltenbrunner became head of RSHA, and Müller remained the Gestapo Chief, a position he occupied until the end of the war.
Adolf Eichmann was Müller's direct subordinate and head of Department IV, Section B4, which dealt with Jews.
The power of the Gestapo most open to misuse was called Schutzhaft – "protective custody", a euphemism for the power to imprison people without judicial proceedings. An oddity of the system was that the prisoner had to sign his own Schutzhaftbefehl, an order declaring that the person had requested imprisonment – presumably out of fear of personal harm (which, in a way, was true). In addition, thousands of political prisoners throughout Germany – and from 1941, throughout the occupied territories under the Night and Fog Decree – simply disappeared while in Gestapo custody.
During World War II, the Gestapo was expanded to around 46,000 members."
Scary stuff indeed.
"Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people."
-Heinrich Heine
A German Jewish poet, wrote this in a play in 1820. This play was later burned by the Nazis.
Happy Snow Day!!!!!!
How could I give it back to you, if I didn't know who you were?!
I searched, until there was a document with a name on it, and returned it to you the very next day...How much orderly could my conduct have been!?
Yay~Snow Day! ^ ^ Ms. Pulley/other teachers, do you know what day we will be on when we return tomorrow?
Pffftpffftpffft!!!! You didn't have to click open the file that was labled 'Letter to Mr. Mehsling'! You could have done something like.....Spelling, or Analysis Questions! Fffffff >.>
She's got a point there Nathan....
Analie, this might be too late to really help you, but tomorrow is a day A as though we did go to school today.
Are we meeting tomorrow? I'm good either way.
Thanks Kaari for asking the question about the Gestapo. I was wondering that myself. (But it took me till today to get on the blog....)
Happy Snow Day/Early Halloween!!!
-Rachael
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