Saturday, June 7, 2014

The Kite Runner Socratic Seminar Reflection #2

      The final seminar of the year influenced the way I understood the title of the story.  While doing the preparation for the seminar, I realized that the kite in the story symbolized both Amir’s happiness and his guilt because Amir enjoys flying kites as a boy, yet the kite running tournament is also what leads to Hassan’s rape.  One thing that was said which I hadn’t though of in depth was that Amir’s choice to save Sohrab was a way to redeem himself of not saving Hassan when he was a boy.  I though this statement was true because it seems as if Amir is reliving his childhood when he goes back to visit Afghanistan, but that he wishes to do it correctly.
      The statement made by one of my peers that I agree with the most is that Baba follows his own code when it comes to morality.  I wholeheartedly agreed with this statement because there is a scene in the book where Baba discredits Muslim beliefs and instead teaches Amir that theft is the only sin.  The statement made by one of my peers that I agree with the least is that Baba did not become more tolerant of Amir when they moved to California.  I disagreed with this statement because there are instances in the book where Baba brags about Amir’s writing, showing that he is becoming more lenient towards Amir’s dream.
      Some things that worked well for the seminar were the use of emotional appeals.  Because The Kite Runner is such an emotional book to begin with, the analysis of the text went even further into the relationships and feelings of the characters.  There was use of other rhetorical appeals in the seminar, but emotional appeals were by far the most prominent, and rightfully so.  The strong arguments appealing to emotion displayed the growth of the class discussion as a whole.

      Although the use of emotional appeals was strong, the seminar’s flow was terrible.  There were often long pauses in the conversation in which every person waited for somebody else to speak up.  The half time ended up taking place after about ten minutes because there was such poor cohesion in the conversation.  In my opinion, these long pauses were very odd because it seemed like every person has completed their preparation.  The poor flow of the conversation was an opportunity to learn when and how to speak up, and how to maintain an interesting topic.    

Sunday, June 1, 2014

The Kite Runner Socratic Seminar Reflection #1

      The seminar influenced the way I thought about Amir’s relationship with Baba and Hassan.  While completing preparation for the seminar, I realized that Amir’s relationships with Baba and Hassan were almost opposite because while Amir tries hard to please Baba but maintains a distant relationship, he is very close with Hassan but tries not to give him too much credit.  One thing that was said which I hadn’t thought of in depth was how Assef might not actually be a good son of Baba’s despite their friendliness displayed in the book.  This might be true because Assef’s tendency to manipulate others and prove himself superior might clash with Baba’s manliness and duty as leader and protector.
      The statement made by one of my peers that I agree with the most is that Amir is not a very likeable character due to his bullying of Hassan.  I found this statement to be true because in the story, Amir is constantly doing little things to prove himself superior to Hassan, like giving him the wrong definitions of words, or making fun of him.  Although there were small points that I may have disagreed with, I generally agreed with every statement made in the seminar, maybe because the story evoked the same emotional responses from my peers.  If I had the opportunity to add anything to the seminar, I would have mentioned that Amir’s belief that he should be superior to Hassan because Hassan is his servant.
      Surprisingly, some things that worked really well for the seminar were the use of emotional appeals.  On the surface, The Kite Runner is a story of social conflict, political turmoil, and new life in the USA.  However, beneath the surface, there is an entire dimension having to do with the relationships between Amir and Hassan, notably, Amir’s torturous guilt of never confessing the rape.  These emotional relationships in the books made up the majority of the conversation during the seminar, and therefore, the use of emotional appeals was a success for the first time.

      Some things that needed improvement in the seminar were the separation of people for the groups and lack of preparation.  The groups were split up by chance, and therefore, the first group ended up having many more people than the second one.  This was a problem because it changed the amount of speaking time people had in each group.  Another improvement that could be made was the lack of preparation.  Many people were very well prepared, but there were others who had clearly not studied the subject material beforehand.  This made it very difficult to include everyone I the seminar.