Survey Comp Lit
Socratic Seminar Final
Preparation Worksheet
Due by the beginning of class on the day of your final.
The Game of School
Nobody's Fault: Crimeless Victims of a System That Hurts Learning
I see no despicable plot, no conspiracy by educators to deny children their right to learn. The problem is
not that those who work within schools and colleges regularly force us to abandon our own learning goals and
submit to their indoctrination. It's just that too many of us-students and teachers alike-agree to substitute lesser,
symbolic goals for greater and truer ones. When we allow ourselves (or get convinced) to gear ourselves up so
as to complete school tasks that have little meaning for us aside from the value of getting them done and over
with, we lose touch with our own learning spirit. We become alienated from the natural learning desires and
inquisitiveness within us. We tend to become compliant rather than creative, docile instead of courageous,
inwardly passive instead of assertively engaged, cynical at a time in life when we should be idealistic. We
become game players by reflex, and learners only on occasion.
My argument with the Game of School is not an argument against school, much less against the teaching
profession. Teachers, schools, and school systems are themselves often the victims of this self-same game,
played out according to the rules set down by those who have power over us. My hope is to bring this
phenomenon to the attention of educators and learners at all levels; it is most destructive where least
acknowledged. Those caught in the Game soon lose awareness of it; it begins to seem like the only way of
doing business.
Although we all play to one degree or another, the Game affects each of us quite differently. And though
it can result in a significant or even a tragic loss of our own power as learners, it is a loss that is recoverable at
every stage of life . It is never too late to learn, never too late to recover one's own learning power and initiative
from the habits and practices that subdue and subvert that power. Learning on our own (or with chosen
colleagues) or developing our own goals for the learning we do in school becomes an empowering act of
discovering the truth; and it is the truth that makes us free.
Robert L. Fried. The Game of School: Why We All Play It, How It Hurts Kids,and What It Will Take to
Change It (pp. 15-16). Kindle Edition.
Choose a quote from the above passage.
Write one question in response to the quote you chose.
Choose a question from another member of your table group.
Write a response to the question you chose.
The House on Mango Street
Marin
Marin’s boyfriend is in Puerto Rico. She shows us his letters and makes us promise not to tell anybody
they’re getting married when she goes back to P.R. She says he didn’t get a job yet, but she’s saving the money
she gets from selling Avon and taking care of her cousins.
Marin says that if she stays here next year, she’s going to get a real job downtown because that’s where
the best jobs are, since you always get to look beautiful and get to wear nice clothes and can meet someone in
the subway who might marry you and take you to live in a big house far away.
But next year Louie’s parents are going to send her back to her mother with a letter saying she’s too
much trouble, and that is too bad because I like Marin. She is older and knows lots of things. She is the one who
told us how Davey the Baby’s sister got pregnant and what cream is best for taking off moustache hair and if
you count the white flecks on your fingernails you can know how many boys are thinking of you and lots of
other things I can’t remember now.
We never see Marin until her aunt comes home from work, and even then she can only stay out in front.
She is there every night with the radio. When the light in her aunt’s room goes out, Marin lights a cigarette and
it doesn’t matter if it’s cold out or if the radio doesn’t work or if we’ve got nothing to say to each other. What
matters, Marin says, is for the boys to see us and for us to see them. And since Marin’s skirts are shorter and
since her eyes are pretty, and since Marin is already older than us in many ways, the boys who do pass by say
stupid things like I am in love with those two green apples you call eyes, give them to me why don’t you. And
Marin just looks at them without even blinking and is not afraid.
Marin, under the streetlight, dancing by herself, is singing the same song somewhere. I know. Is waiting
for a car to stop, a star to fall, someone to change her life.
Cisneros, Sandra (2013-04-30). The House on Mango Street (p. 27). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
Kindle Edition.
Choose a quote from the above passage.
Write one question in response to the quote you chose.
Choose a question from another member of your table group.
Write a response to the question you chose.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Atticus was quietly building up before the jury a picture of the Ewell’ home life. The jury learned the following
things: the relief check was far from enough to feed the family, and there was a strong suspicion that Papa drank
it up anyway- he sometimes went off into the swamp for a day and came home sick; the weather was seldom
cold enough to require shoes, but when it was, you could make dandy ones from strips of old tires; the family
hauled its water in buckets from a spring that ran at one end of the dump, they kept the surrounding area free of
trash- and it was everyone for himself as far as keeping clean went; the younger children had perpetual colds
and chronic ground-itch; there was a lady that came round sometimes and asked Mayella why she didn’t stay in
school- Papa needed them at home.
As Tom Robinson gave his testimony, it came to me that Mayella Ewell must have been the loneliest person in
the world. She was even lonelier than Boo Radley, who had not been out of the house in 25 years. When asked
if she had any friends, she seemed to not know what he meant, then she thought he was making fun of her. She
was as sad, I thought, as what Jem called a mixed child; white people wouldn’t have anything to do with her
because she lived among pigs. Negroes wouldn’t have anything to do with her because she was white. She
couldn’t live like Mr. Dolphus Raymond, who preferred the company of Negroes, because she didn’t own a
riverbank and she wasn’t from a fine old family. Nobody said, “that’s just their way,” about the Ewells.
Maycomb gave them Christmas baskets, welfare money and the back of its hand. Tom Robinson was probably
the only person who was ever decent to her. But she said he took advantage of her, and when she stood up she
looked at him as if he were dirt beneath her feet.
Choose a quote from the above passage.
Write one question in response to the quote you chose.
Choose a question from another member of your table group.
Write a response to the question you chose.
Romeo & Juliet
Romeo & Juliet (Act 1, Scene 3)
Romeo & Juliet (Act 3, Scene 5)
LADY CAPULET
Marry, that 'marry' is the very theme
I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,
How stands your disposition to be married?
JULIET
It is an honour that I dream not of.
Nurse
An honour! were not I thine only nurse,
I would say thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.
LADY CAPULET
Well, think of marriage now; younger than you,
Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,
Are made already mothers: by my count,
I was your mother much upon these years
That you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:
The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.
Nurse
A man, young lady! lady, such a man
As all the world--why, he's a man of wax.
LADY CAPULET
Verona's summer hath not such a flower.
Nurse
Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.
LADY CAPULET
What say you? can you love the gentleman?
This night you shall behold him at our feast;
Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,
And find delight writ there with beauty's pen;
Examine every married lineament,
And see how one another lends content
And what obscured in this fair volume lies
Find written in the margent of his eyes.
This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
To beautify him, only lacks a cover:
The fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride
For fair without the fair within to hide:
That book in many's eyes doth share the glory,
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;
So shall you share all that he doth possess,
By having him, making yourself no less.
Nurse
No less! nay, bigger; women grow by men.
CAPULET
God's bread! it makes me mad:
Day, night, hour, tide, time, work, play,
Alone, in company, still my care hath been
To have her match'd: and having now provided
A gentleman of noble parentage,
Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,
Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,
Proportion'd as one's thought would wish a man;
And then to have a wretched puling fool,
A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,
To answer 'I'll not wed; I cannot love,
I am too young; I pray you, pardon me.'
But, as you will not wed, I'll pardon you:
Graze where you will you shall not house with
me:
Look to't, think on't, I do not use to jest.
Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise:
An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;
And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in
the streets,
For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,
Nor what is mine shall never do thee good:
Trust to't, bethink you; I'll not be forsworn.
Choose a quote from the above passage.
Write one question in response to the quote you
chose.
Choose a question from another member of your
table group.
Write a response to the question you chose.
Of Mice and Men
Her face grew angry. “Wha’s the matter with me?” she cried. “Ain’t I got a right to talk to nobody? Whatta they
think I am, anyways? You’re a nice guy. I don’t know why I can’t talk to you. I ain’t doin’ no harm to you.”
“Well, George says you’ll get us in a mess.”
“Aw, nuts!” she said. “What kinda harm am I doin’ to you? Seems like they ain’t none of them cares
how I gotta live. I tell you I ain’t used to livin’ like this. I coulda made somethin’ of myself.” She said darkly,
“Maybe I will yet.” And then her words tumbled out in a passion of communication, as though she hurried
before her listener could be taken away. “I lived right in Salinas,” she said. “Come there when I was a kid. Well,
a show come through, an’ I met one of the actors. He says I could go with that show. But my ol’ lady wouldn’
let me. She says because I was on’y fifteen. But the guy says I coulda. If I’d went, I wouldn’t be livin’ like this,
you bet.”
Lennie stroked the pup back and forth. “We gonna have a little place— an’ rabbits,” he explained.
She went on with her story quickly, before she should be interrupted. “ ’Nother time I met a guy, an’ he
was in pitchers. Went out to the Riverside Dance Palace with him. He says he was gonna put me in the movies.
Says I was a natural. Soon’s he got back to Hollywood he was gonna write to me about it.” She looked closely
at Lennie to see whether she was impressing him. “I never got that letter,” she said. “I always thought my ol’
lady stole it. Well, I wasn’t gonna stay no place where I couldn’t get nowhere or make something of myself, an’
where they stole your letters. I ast her if she stole it, too, an’ she says no. So I married Curley. Met him out to
the Riverside Dance Palace that same night.” She demanded, “You listenin’?”
“Me? Sure.”
“Well, I ain’t told this to nobody before. Maybe I ought’n to. I don’ like Curley. He ain’t a nice fella.”
And because she had confided in him, she moved closer to Lennie and sat beside him. “Coulda been in the
movies, an’ had nice clothes— all them nice clothes like they wear. An’ I coulda sat in them big hotels, an’ had
pitchers took of me. When they had them previews I coulda went to them, an’ spoke in the radio, an’ it
wouldn’ta cost me a cent because I was in the pitcher. An’ all them nice clothes like they wear. Because this
guy says I was a natural.” She looked up at Lennie, and she made a small grand gesture with her arm and hand
to show that she could act. The fingers trailed after her leading wrist, and her little finger stuck out grandly from
the rest.
Steinbeck, John (1993-09-01). Of Mice and Men (pp. 88-89). Penguin Books. Kindle Edition.
Choose a quote from the above passage.
Write one question in response to the quote you chose.
Choose a question from another member of your table group.
Write a response to the question you chose.
"The Story of An Hour"
Kate Chopin (1894)
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as
possible the news of her husband's death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her
husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when
intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He
had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less
careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its
significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief
had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a
physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring
life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of
a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the
eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the
other in the west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up
into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now
there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It
was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was
too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds,
the scents, the color that filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to
possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands
would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said
it over and over under the breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it
went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and
relaxed every inch of her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception
enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind,
tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead.
But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely.
And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no
powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to
impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a
crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved
mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest
impulse of her being!
"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. "Louise,
open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake
open the door."
"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days
that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had
thought with a shudder that life might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes,
and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they
descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travelstained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and
did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion
to screen him from the view of his wife.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.
Choose a quote from the above passage.
Write one question in response to the quote you chose.
Choose a question from another member of your table group.
Write a response to the question you chose.
Socratic Seminar Notes
What patterns or common themes do you notice in
the works we have read this year?
What broader questions beyond the text do these
passages encourage you to ask?
Identify anything you don’t understand in these
passages or found confusing.
Create three guiding questions for a Socratic Seminar.