Reading and Writing Assignments for 2nd class of" The Giver" March 3, 2016

In Lois Lowry's The Giver, rules are really important and people: they must share their dream and their feeling every day, that makes Chief Elders know every things about those people in community. They make rules, and they monitor them. If someone who exceed the rules, they will be release.

If I live in this world, I don’t know how I will feel. Because people in the community will take pills, that make people never feel love, never feel emotion and they never see color. If I also take the pills, I don’t know anything about the outside, maybe I will be happy (this is why those people in community will be happy: they don’t anything about the outside). Also, they don’t have any weather, they don’t have snow, and they don’t have rain. They don’t have the change weather because it will make the emblements grow badly. The community is a Utopia, they don’t have war, and they don’t have any people who fight for benefit. Elders control everything.

Wow! You know about Utopias. I am impressed. Yes, exactly  The Giver illustrates what can go wrong with a "perfect" world, where everyone lives by the same rules.  I can tell you now You would not be happy living in the community, unless of course you took the pills. You are too much of an independent spirit to be happy in the community Lowry describes.

Later on today, I will send you some additional comments. But this is very well done, and you really understand the key issue that lies at the heart of the novel, or one of the key issues: There can never be one Utopia that pleases everyone.

    In Lois Lowry's The Giver, rules are really important and people there have to do everything under the rules. They do not have their own secrets because they have to tell the others all of their feelings so in fact they do not have their feelings. And the Chief Elders monitor them so they must follow those stupid rules all the time.

    If I live in the community, I would be crazy. I just can't bear it. People in that world do not have colors, music, love or emotion. But as Cindy says, if I was born in the world, I would be very happy because I do not know what is outside like. But the life in that perfect world is full of void because I can't build new things or change things there. I don't want a perfect world, imperfect world is more intact.

This is wonderfully well written. And I love the passion behind it in lines like "If I live in the community, I would be crazy."  (You used the word "would" perfectly to express a state of affairs that might or might not happen)  I like too how you quoted Cindy. It's gracefully done and fits what you say exactly.

I  also  really like that last line, although you'll have to explain to me what you mean by "intact." I'm not quite sure. What I am sure about is that I love this piece of writing. It shows your growing command of written English along with your desire to live life on your own original terms (I knew you would hate following all those rules). I'm with you. Give me an imperfect world over a perfect one any time. 

Here is Alice's writing on The Giver

Writing Assignment

In this community, everyone lives with no pain, no sadness, they can’t even control what they are going to do next. For me, there are only less personal freedom in that community, because the people there can only talk meaninglessly and eat, sleep, they cannot do what they want to because they doesn’t know what to do next.

If I you let me to live in this community, of course I am unwillingness to do this. Firstly, it’s a community that looks special and perfect, because there is nothing you need to worry or think about, and it let the people there became with no emotion, no color, and no love. It really is terrible for me to live there, and I believe that nobody would want to live there either.

But I really want to know what happened next.

Alice

Alice, you are very right about no one in the community being able to decide what they will do next. That is all decided for them. Ugh!

I like how you used parallelism* in this sentence: " it let the people there became with no emotion, no color, and no love." Parallelism means that you give words equal in importance the same form i.e. all verbs, all nouns, all sentences etc. in order to make them stand out.  You've used this writer's tool very nicely here.

While I know you would never and could never live there, I'm not so sure that some people don't like having everything organized for them so they don't have to think.  Let's hope everyone would feel as you do.

I will send you some additional comments via e-mail. 

Here is Oscar's response:

I think people in the community do not obtain any freedom. First, no one can make arrangements about their timetables personally, because the community is running melodically, everyone was like an element of this big machine, so it is necessary for the government to make its citizen's schedules publicly in order to fit the strange system of the society.

And also, there are many useless rules which constrict people's authorities deeply, for example, children can ride bikes only when they pass nine, and people cannot take an apple home, I think these regulars are pretty ridiculous, but it is not doubtful that they has successfully taken people's freedom.

Third, people do not have the rights to select their own jobs, people in the committee choose everyone's assignments by observing their daily performances, I think it is the most stupid decision, because people even do not have the rights of choosing things they want to do as their jobs, and still have to be pleased of other people's "brilliant choice", I think people in the community are living lives of slaveries.

I am not willing to live this kind of society for good, because I am a person who wants the pursue to freedom very much, I will never bear that I cannot choose a suitable job by myself, because I will not have the passion anymore if the government let somebody else to choose my job for me.
In addition, I also do not want to live in a society that people in it have to be released because of some unnecessary mistakes. That is implausible! If a government use this punishment frequently to govern its people, it means this government is going to be failed!

I like the comparison to the community running like a machine. I like, too, how you quote from the book to support what you say. That is excellent.  Nice choice of  verb in the last paragraph, where you say " I will never bear,,,," It conveys how passionate you are about  your freedom to choose your own path.

I will send you a couple of additional comments via e-mail.

  In Lois Lowry’s “The Giver”, the main character, Jonas, lived in a community that was different from us. The community had a lot of solemn rules. If you didn’t obey the rules, you’d get punish, and even get the gravest one, released. People in this community weren’t very free; the community planned almost everything. People can’t even choose their job in their own. The committee was always watching the members of the community. They knew everything about you. They want to control all the members.

  I’d not be happy in this kind of community. I didn’t like the feeling that the committee knew everything about me. And the system of giving a birth and keeping a child was inappropriate. The new children were from the Birthmothers. How could people birth a child for work? And when you “receive” your son or daughter, you didn’t even know who was he or she from? You weren’t his or her real parent. That was really a strange system. The community planned, and also, controlled everything. They had started to plan your future since you were born. They gave you a job according to their observation. This community worked like a jail. They gave children some special clothes and items to differentiated them. And they gave everyone a number. That was just like the method the jail used. If I had to live in this community, I’d get crazy very soon!

Great work Alfonso!  Good to see that you use the book to back up what you think. I like, too, your use of the word "solemn" to describe the rules and your comparison of the community to a jail. Very well done.

I will send you some additional comments via e-mail.