We had such a good class today. We had the best of intentions in terms of finishing Witness, but our intense and frequent discussions got in the way of this goal. I do feel like we accomplished a whole lot of reading this period. We started on page 111 and stopped (just shy of the ending) on page 154. We covered a lot of text!
One of our discussions centered on the KKK practice of vigilante justice. Vigilante justice occurs when a group of people take "justice" into their own hands. For example, in Witness, the KKK decides that Johnny Reeves should be punished for molesting a "school girl". They choose to ban him from meetings, to brand his back with KKK, and to drive him out of the community. So, instead of bringing Reeves to justice, they hurt him as they see fit.
Our discussion centered around our feelings about having known and convicted child molesters living and working in our communities. Some of you expressed a desire to use vigilante justice on such people, while others of you thought that these people need help and maybe even second chances. This was a powerful discussion in that we did not all agree but were still able to express our opinions and thoughts in a mature and respectable manner. Issues such as this one are definitely not easy to talk about!
Next week we'll finish Witness, have a vocabulary review, and a vocabulary test. We will also work toward completing our final project over Witness.
