Lesson plan for week 2: general thoughts and notes

Patrick Mooney, TA
Eng 133TL, Prof. Huang
18 January 2012

Major topics:

  1. Today's fun facts:
    1. From fiscal year 2001-2 to fiscal year 2008-9, UC per-student funding dropped 50%. (source: http://is.gd/kimilo)
    2. Q: What would it cost the median taxpayer to restore fiscal year 2001-2002-level funding? A: less than $32 per return per year. (source: http://is.gd/vahami).
  2. Administrative Issues:
    1. English/Comp. Lit. section issues? (Comp. Lit. version not guaranteed to satisfy college writing requirement.)
    2. Crashing?
    3. Other registration/administrative issues?
  3. Questions for discussion:
    1. During Toby and Tommo's journey to the valley where the Typee live, Toby claims that it is impossible that the inhabitants of such a lovely place as we saw can be anything else but good fellows (56). After arrival, Tommo describes Fayaway as a child of nature (86). And Tommo's initial assumption about the inhabitants of the island is that they are in the state of nature (11). What kind of assumptions do these statements make about nature? About culture?
    2. Tommo's first encounter with any of the islanders has him thinking, I almost fancied they could be nothing else than so many mermaids (14), and shortly thereafter, he claims that [w]e had left both law and equity on the other side of the Cape (21). To what degree is Tommo's narrative a fair enthnographic record, and to what degree does it simply reflect his fancies?
    3. During Tommo and Toby's journey through the jungle, there are several episodes in which they "read" or interpret the signs in the rain forest, as when Tommo finds a recently discarded fruit rind and takes it for evidence of a human presence (68). How does this contrast with the difficulty of communicating with the native inhabitants of the island (as when Kory-Kory's moral reflections are a strain of unintelligible and stunning gibberish)? (103)