We had a great class today. We started by listing the major exports of the US and Sierra Leone on our maps of Africa. This affects our understanding of A Long Way Gone because we see that is a farning culture with little industry. Therefore, the export of diamonds and coffee will not add to their infastructure or strength in the world economy.
After talking about this fact, we moved on to our Poetry Friday celebration. This Friday's poem comes from a poet named Mark Strand and is titled "Keeping Things Whole". We talked about this poem at great length, including the short length of the lines, the connections between the speaker in the poem and Ishmael, and our reasons for "moving". Great discussion!
After this, we decided that we would read for a while and potentially start our movie. We did not end up having enough time to start the film, though, as we had another great discussion about religion and life and death and reincarnation and heaven and hell. It was a pretty powerful discussion and we learned a lot about the beliefs and assumptions held by the members of our class. We read to the middle of chapter eleven. We'll pick up there next class. Good work.
