A Complicated Kindness
1. Hamlet assignments returned, A Complicated Kindness responses returned.
2. Read Chapters 9 and 10.
3. Assignment: Critical Summary of Chapters 9 and 10 (example given in class). Due tomorrow.
*Day to make up missed Hamlet Quizzes: Wednesday at lunch/after school*
**If you want to improve your Hamlet essay mark, complete Hamlet questions 1, 2 and 4 (due Wednesday)**
**If you want to improve your Hamlet question mark, write a Hamlet essay using the following prompt:
Uncertainty and deception are found throughout Hamlet. Identify at least three examples of uncertainty
and/or deception, and explain their significance. How do they underscore Shakespeare’s
intentions in writing Hamlet? (due Wednesday).
--If you have questions about criteria, email me/arrange an appointment.--
Sample - A Complicated Kindness - Critical Summary:
Nomi Nickel is in her last year of high school, a time when most teenagers look forward to new beginnings. In order to graduate, Nomi must complete one more high school assignment – to write a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. As part of this educational task, Nomi must write a story ending that fits her uniquely personal situation. Nomi’s problem is that she cannot foresee an appropriate ending to her present circumstances, but Mr. Quiring tells her she will know it when it confronts her. Nomi seems to have trouble with endings because her limited experience with endings has been negative: primarily, her mother and sister leaving, ending her concept of a happy family. Secondly, her religion has very hard and fast rules about behaviour and death; one's ending in the Mennonite community is one of two choices - a life of suffering in exchange for a Heavenly reward, or a life of sin which results in Hell.
Nomi has little to look forward to, because she has had no proper endings in her seventeen-year-old life. Her sister, Tash, left home with her boyfriend, Ian, followed shortly after by Trudie, Nomi’s
mother. Neither one said a suitable goodbye. Nomi lives with her father, Ray, a teacher with his own abandonment issues. Although Ray is a teacher, he has nothing to teach Nomi; he is depleted of all emotional and life-skill reserves, and perhaps he never had them in the first place. As a result, Nomi is left much to her own devices. She spends her time with her boyfriend, Travis, her seriously ill friend Lids, or alone, contemplating her past, present, and future. Nomi believes that all she can look forward to after graduation is working in the town’s chicken slaughterhouse, as do many of the town’s residents.
Toews’ novel describes a community where skills and emotions are held in strict check by the community’s cultural and religious values, ethics, and practices. Nomi is Toews’ conduit into the fictional Mennonite community of East Village, and through Nomi, Toews asks tough questions and explores seemingly impossible choices.While the community that forms Nomi’s world is a Mennonite community,Toews’ story can be read and recognized in communities elsewhere.
Concepts introduced in the first 46 pages:
1. The strict nature of the Mennonite community and the ever-present danger of excommunication (shunning).
2. Nomi and Ray have been abandoned by Tash and Trudie and are left to stumble about, disillusioned by their religion and their broken family.
3. The Mouth (who has a sinful past of his own and strives to make up for it by establishing a very regimented and joyless community).
4. The notion of "a complicated kindness" - a tacit sense of pity and selfish care that people give to each other as long as it does not ruin their own reputations; the idea that people cannot love and forgive each other freely in this community. Trudie leaving Ray as a personal sacrifice so that he does not have to live with the shame of a 'sinful' wife.
5. Nomi's seek of escape via drugs, alcohol, rebellious boyfriend is juxtaposed with her inability to leave the community and Ray, her concern for friend Lydia.
6. Nomi's foundation of religion that causes her guilt that she is unable to recognize as a reason for her stagnancy.
Questions for the first 46 pages:1. The title of this novel is deceptively simple. It deals with the straightforward
concept of kindness yet presents it as “complicated” and complex.
Consider the different possible meanings for the idea of a “complicated
kindness” and discuss them in light of the quote containing these words.
2. Nomi measures everything in her life as to whether it is complicated or
uncomplicated.
Consider if this helps Nomi to cope better or if it further complicates her
emotional well-being.
3. Nomi views her friend Lids (Lydia) as disarmingly pleasant and objective,
a person who speaks candidly about her feelings and thoughts and
who is unlike the other teenagers Nomi knows. Nomi is equally blunt, yet
she feels that she and Lydia have nothing in common.
Is Nomi correct? Consider their similarities and differences in the context
of their separate lives and their individual pain.
4. Nomi is the novel’s only narrator, and it is through her eyes that we see
the other characters and the townspeople. However, we learn about Nomi
both through her own words and thoughts and by how she reflects herself
in her conversations with others.
Do we get an accurate picture of Nomi and the other characters? Would
the addition of other narrators add to or detract from the complex picture
of Nomi’s life and environment?
Psychology 11
Module 6
1. Catch-up/Review day.
*Complete Section 1-4 paragraphs for your SnapShot project -- homework check tomorrow!!*
2. Tomorrow: Module 6 Quiz (closed book).
3. Missing assignments need to be in by Friday. Day to make up missed quizzes: Wednesday at lunch/after school.
4. Suggestions/prompts for Section 4 paragraph:
A. What are the milestones associated with emerging adulthood/adulthood in this culture? Do your/older friends'/older siblings' experiences differ?
B. Elaborate on the crises dealt within these phases (Erikson). Examples: yours, older friends'/siblings', parents, grandparents.
3. Your opinion on achieving happiness as according to Gilovich & Medvec (p. 111).
4. Marriage, love, divorce (p. 108-109). 5. Your experience (or others') with death and dying.
English 10E
To Kill a Mockingbird
1. Chapter 22 homework check.
2. Read Chapter 23.
3. Complete questions.
4. Film
* Tomorrow: Chapter 22-23 Quiz.
