Journal Entry # 1 Free Will

Journals: Marking Period 3 50 Points Directions: 1. Make sure your Journals are complete, clearly labeled, and in the bin by 4/8 to receive credit! 2. Please indicate 2 journal entries you would like me to read using ***.

*****Your journals will be graded on completion (Each should be 200-300 words in length) as well as the development of your responses with respect to depth, thoroughness, and insight.

“You sound to me as though you don’t believe in Free Will.” Tralfamadorian: “’Only on earth, is there any talk of free will’” (86). 1. What is your opinion of the notion that ‘free will’ is an illusion? 2. In what senses do you feel in control of your thoughts, feelings, actions, life circumstances, and fate? 3. In what ways do you not?

Journal Entry # 2 Slaughterhouse-Five (Chapter 5) Respond to one or more of the following:

1. Explain the similarity between the format of Vonnegut's novel and the description of Tralfamadorian novels (88)? 2. 7 sexes on earth/ How earthlings view time (113-15). What do you make of this? 3. What evidence is there that the Tralfamadorians are real? What evidence is there that they are made up by Billy Pilgrim? 4. Howard W. Campbell Jr. and Americans and Poverty (129-30). What do you think of Campbell Jr.’s perspective. Are poor Americans urged to hate themselves? 5. What do you think of the Novels of Kilgore Trout? 6. The Gospel from Outer Space “Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected. So it goes.”(108-9) 7. What do you think of Eliot Rosewater? His interactions with Billy’s Mom? (102) 8. His quote: “'I think you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren't going to want to go on living.‘” (101)

MP3 Journal # 3: War and Absurdity Billy’s ridiculous get-up! Cinderella Boots (145)! 1. In Dresden, a pedestrian (a surgeon) is offended by Billy’s ludicrous costume (151-152). “’I take it you find war a very comical thing.’”

Do you think Billy finds war funny?

Do you think Vonnegut does?

 Read the article “Why Life is Absurd” and respond to it.

 Where do you get your meaning from in life?

 Do you think this will change in your life in any way?

 Why or why not? Journal #4 Slaughterhouse-Five Chapters 9 and 10

Let’s read this letter from Kurt Vonnegut to a school board that burned Slaughterhouse-Five Write a thorough response/reaction to this novel and this letter.

Why do you think Vonnegut is such a beloved and celebrated author?

Does Slaughterhouse-Five succeed in “beg[ging] [us] people [to]be kinder and more responsible than [we] often are”?

How and why? Or How not and why not?

Journal #5 Ishmael Pre-reading Journal Entry

If an intelligent alien creature was visiting Earth for the first time, what would they see?

What would they think of human beings (how we act, live, and relate to our world, other life forms, and each other)?

What would they be impressed and not so impressed with?

How old is our species, Homo sapiens?

When you think of indigenous or native peoples, what thoughts come to mind about their cultures and lifestyles? (Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians, Pygmy peoples of central Africa)?

Journal # 6 Ishmael Chapters 6-7

Ishmael compares our civilization to early human attempts at flight before humans knew the laws of Aerodynamics. Hence, Ishmael asserts, current Western style civilization is doomed to crash.

Do you agree with Ishmael’s analogy? Why or why not?

What do you think will become of our civilization? Are we on a sustainable course