Work through the sources that I have gathered for you and gather your own quality sources. We will be working on a paper to articulate your thoughts on the novel. We will read most of it in class. Take notes, gather sources and take your own notes or annotate, and be prepared to discuss the meaning of the book and its relevance today.
Because it isn't the books themselves that matter as much as it is what you see in them. It is how they weave together human experience and offer you a glimpse of another life-- allowing you to question, argue, and determine meaning for yourself.
Ray Bradbury: "Number one, as I said, quality of the information.
Number two, leisure to digest it.
And number three: the right to carry out actions based on what we learn from the inter-action of the first two."
National Book Award Winner for Young People's Literature, Newbery Honor Book, Printz Honor Book. Matteo Alacrán was not born; he was harvested. His DNA came from El Patrón, lord of a country called Opium--a strip of poppy fields lying between the United States and what was once called Mexico. Matt's first cell split and divided inside a petri dish. Then he was placed in the womb of a cow, where he continued the miraculous journey from embryo to fetus to baby. He is a boy now, but most consider him a monster--except for El Patrón. El Patrón loves Matt as he loves himself, because Matt is himself As Matt struggles to understand his existence, he is threatened by a sinister cast of characters, including El Patrón's power-hungry family, and he is surrounded by a dangerous army of bodyguards. Escape is the only chance matt has to survive. But escape from the Alacrán Estate is no guarantee of freedom, because matt is marked by his difference in ways he doesn't even suspect (Simon and Schuster). |