OK, so we keep hearing about Ender, Ender, the genius Ender. He also has a name. His real name is...(drum roll)...Andrew Wiggin. His family calls him "Ender," so that is his nickname. It is a very cool nickname to have if you are going to battle school. Ender will END you if you play against him. Or if you try to bully him, apparently...
One of the themes we find in the story is about bullying and how a young person deals with this strange form of aggression. It seems like young Ender, who is 6 when the story begins, is too smart for his own good, and attracts unwanted attention from his not-so-smart and oh-so-big classmates. And they have very big friends. Those friends could be smarter, too.
Anyway, as it turns out, Ender has experience dealing with problems like this because his older brother, Peter, likes to play games with him at home. Games that are not really fun. Peter gets to be the soldier, and Ender gets to be the insect that gets crushed, and smushed, and stepped on, and anything that Peter likes. Sometimes it is good to have sister Valentine around to break things up so Peter does not get too excited about his games.
Ender, or Andrew, does know how to make good relationships, and he has a great one with his sister Valentine, for example. He does start to make friends at battle school. Alai becomes a friend and so do others. He also figures out a way to stop the bullies from bothering him. I am not sure it is a way we would recommend - fighting back - HARD - and doing it in a smart way, but in the book this seems to work.
In real life, or at school, if someone bullies you, I recommend you report it right away to your teacher or your parent, and do not fight back or hurt someone. I think we need to mention that now. The book is a story, but in real life you must avoid getting hurt.
OK, now that I have said that clearly, I want to go on to a couple of other things. We do have an active reading schedule for Ender's Game, and here is what is coming up:
Week 3 (9/12-9/14) Ender’s Game Unit 7 – Salamander p. 66-96
Week 4 (9/19-9/23) Ender’s Game Unit 8 – Rat p. 97-119
Week 5 (9/26-9/30) Ender’s Game Unit 9 – Locke and Demosthenes p. 120-153
Week 6 (10/3-10/7) Ender’s Game Unit 10 – Dragon p. 154-172
Week 7 (10/17-10/21) Exam Week - no reading scheduled (Mon. 10/10 off)
Week 8 (10/17-10/21) Ender’s Game Unit 11 – Veni Vidi Vici p. 173-199
Here are the textbook readings scheduled for the final exam in Week 7, which is everything we did - the first one was during summer school so will not have many questions:
The Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry p. 52-61
The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe p. 82-87
Rules of the Game by Amy Tan p. 230-242
The Drummer Boy of Shiloh by Ray Bradbury p. 328-335 CANCELLED
Civil War Journal by Louisa May Alcott p. 339-342 CANCELLED
Hallucination by Isaac Asimov p. 344-365
The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs p. 372-384
OK, now I want to let you know that you will need to leave a comment on another student's blog in our 803 class. So sign in to your blogger account first. Then go look at another person's blog post. And then were it says "no comments" or "1 comment" depending on what has been written so far under that post, click on it, and then if you are signed in blogger will allow you to leave a comment there. Say something positive and thoughtful, perhaps 1 to 3 sentences.
Another thing is that I would like you to respond to some questions I post below. Update your post or make another post on your blog to answer these questions below.
1) Compare what you have seen or read in the Ender's Game book to whatever you have seen in the movie. Can you say a few differences in a scene or in the whole thing? What are some things the movie can do that the book cannot easily do? Or what are some things the book does better, in your opinion?
You will probably update this question later, after you have read more of the book and seen more of the movie, so consider this to be part 1 of your answer.
2) Oh - all right. I want to ask you a harder question, so let's get to it. There are number of THEMES in Ender's Game that keep coming up. So we may as well get you thinking about them now. Again, you can post about this here and come back later and update it, but first, there are online lists of the themes, like at Spark Notes and Shmoop, but I like the second one at Shmoop better. Notice the hyperlink I put there the second time I wrote "Shmoop" - can teach you how to do it in the computer lab Tuesday. Anyway, let's pay attention to two of those themes:
A) Manipulation - Why do adults always seem to lie to Ender in the story? Do you think adults always do this in real life? Is lying to people, especially younger people, a helpful thing?
B) Competition - What is the purpose of organizing the young people into "armies" and having them fight each other in groups at battle school? Do you think competition against classmates is helpful?
3) And a fun question about the upcoming holiday:
Favorite food for Mid-Autumn Festival:
1) sweet moon cakes
2) moon cakes with an egg inside
3) sun cakes or other other sweet
things
4) zong zi (sticky rice wrapped in
bamboo)
5) Big Mac
6) bar-be-qued chicken
7) bar-be-qued corn
8) hot dogs
9)
I'm on a diet so don't ask me!Enjoy your Mid-Autumn Festival!
