STRGAZIN

**Prompt #5 (April 3): Truth in __Of Mice and Men__**
====Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men explores themes of dreams, loneliness, equality and relationships that parallel many of the other texts we have read this year. Which theme do you think is most important? What is the "truth" about that theme revealed in the novel?====

I believe that the loneliness theme it the most important in this story. While dreams was wnother big theme, loneliness is the most important because it controls the dreams. In the beginning of the stroy Lennie and George have a dream that they believe in. They know that many others have the same dream, yet they believe that only they can make it come true because they have each other and thats what sets them apart from everyone else. When Candy joins in on the dream they believe even more "This thing they had never really believed in was coming true" (p60) because there is another person there. However at the end of the story when George realizes he is going to have to kill Lennie, George says, "I think I knowed we'd never do her" (p94). When George loses Lennie he becomes lonely like all the other men and gives up on his dreams. He dicides that he will continue with what he's been doing and live month by month, working for his $50 then going to town and blowing it.

**Prompt #4 (March 30): Truth in __Great Expectations__**
====Think about the different ways Dickens uses the idea of "expectations" in his novel. What is the truth about our expectations, either those we have for ourselves, those others have for us, or those we have for other people?==== ====The truth about expectations is that great expectations do not equal happiness. Throughout the story all the people with money are unhappy and it is only once Pip returns home at and settles down at the end that he finds happiness. Pip is fairly content at the beginning of the story until he meets Estella. He then craves to move up in class and believes that he will never be happy until he does. When he recives his great expectations, he first feels bad about leaving Joe but then becomes so excited that he forgets all about him and is happy for a short while. However, as soon as he gets to London he decides that it is overrated and from there on he questions his happiness with these new expectations. He is torn from his old family anf friends and both Biddy and Estella while in London and eventually ends up sick and about to be arrested for his dept.====

**Prompt #3 (January 6): Truth in __To Kill a Mockingbird__**
====Reflect on our reading from __To Kill a Mockingbird__. We looked at issues of education, growing up, justice, fairness, and others. In our writing, we looked for connections between our personal experiences and those of the characters in the novels. What "truths" can be found in this book that relate to our world today?====

I believe that **Prompt #2 (11/19) What is a truth that can be seen in the Lord of the Flies?**
====The Lord of the Flies talked alot about "the beast" which represents the fear in each and everyone of us. The boys each have there own idea of what it is and it's to complex of a feeling for them to understand so they pin it on a physical "beast". Human fear is the anticipation of the bad thing/s that we think/know will happen next. You can only fear the future, the unknown. While people sometimes say that they fear their past, the thing that they are really afraid of is the effect that thier previous actions could have on their future. The boys have a lot that they don't knw about in their future and alot of fears.====

**Prompt #1 (October 6): What is the “truth” of mythology?**
The general term “mythology” encompasses the stories that a culture creates to understand the truth of the world they live in and their place within it. From a personal standpoint, it is about understanding who we are and where we fit in our world experience. What is the "truth" of mythology as we have studied it? What truth have you learned from our investigations? What personal truths have been revealed to you?

Mythology has a way of digging and the truth of human nature. It takes bits and pieces of our nature that we might not always notice and teaches us about it and how it affects us. They take subtle things that happen in everyday life and focus them on a specific event or character, forcing you to think about yourself and your life and how true these things really are while you’re reading. For example, in __The Odyssey__ the Sirenes sing beautiful songs to men and tempt them in to dangerous waters. This demonstrates how easily people are tempted by things and how even if we know that they are bad for us sometimes we cannot resist. We all have a little vanity in us, but the story of Narcissus makes you stop and think about how vain people really are. And there are definitely some Echos in this world who I know have read the myth and then finally stopped and realized how annoying it is when someone always has to have the last word. When people wrote myths, they were finding their own way to animate the truth of human nature both good and bad, and even today there's a little bit of each of the characters they created inside each and every one of us.