Sunday, December 5, 2010

"The Pedestrian" Socratic Circle

"The Pedestrian" is a classic Ray Bradbury short story. As you read it you will find that it fits perfectly with our MP2 theme of The Individual and Society. Be sure to read and annotate the story fully using the RICE method.
Don't forget to think of the story and all of your responses in terms of the place of the individual in society. What kind of society does the old man live in? What are their values? How can you tell? Does this mirror our society in any way? Be sure to make connections between this story and other texts, the real world etc...think of different themes relating to individuality and society etc.
You should use this post as a place to start getting your ideas out and thinking through what you want to talk about in Thursday's circle.

10 comments:

dave said...

I don't understand why his house has all the light on. I can tell that were supposed to infer something although I'm not sure what. Another question I have is, why id Leonard make the choice to get in the car if no one was there to make him.

Maren said...

I know that this is after the circle, but I really think that this was a good story to dicuss. There were some grey areas that were great to talk about in the circle-like what was said above about the house-and overall I thought that our class's discussion covered a lot and was really good.

Kace said...

I don't understand how I missed all the technolgy in this story. I read it twice and I totally glanced over that... I can't believe it..

jess c. said...

i didnt think the story had anything to do with technology i just thought it was based off of being lazy and hard working weather the tech. was helping or something else.

lily said...

The society that the old man lives, thinks that everyone should be the same. But in the story the people that were considered normal, watched tv everyday, and no one ever walks at night. Though, in our world today, we watch tv every night as well and you will never see anyone ever walking out in the streets at night now a days. Our world is very similar to the one that the old man lived in.

Leann M said...

It was all confusing with the car talking and Mr. Lenard Mead getting into trouble for walking outside that late. Well it does make sense that the police and everyone would think he was up to something.

srichard said...

I realy think that this story is about someone, instead of feeling alone, actually, physicly being alone.

zSchulz said...

I thought that this story was very confusing.I did not understand why when the robot car with no one in it, told Leanord to get in, and he did? Why did he not just walk away, nothing would have been done? The tecnology that was used in this story is the police car. This is because the car is fully operated by a robot.

Anonymous said...

I also thought that the story was confusing, because I skipped over the fact that there were people in the society, and they were just couch potatoes. Something that even after having the discussion I’m not sure about is, why did he just get in the car if no one was really forcing him? He has put up a fight not following the crowd for 10 years and now he gave up. Why would he do that?

Nicole Y. said...

Someone asked, "why did he just get in the car if no one was really forcing him?" and that was one of the main questions in my head..
but I was thinking about that whole story, maybe the level of effort put into everything that this society does has hit an all time low. Maybe everyday Mr. Mead was giving up more and more, and eventually he would stop putting in effort to rebel. This is like how over time the whole society stops putting in effort to live a full life of enjoyment. And also, how the police car doesn't even have to try to make Mr. Mead get into the car.