Day 1

Questions for "The Bet"

The Bet by Anton Chekov

1.     I have to ask you to answer the question asked at the start of this story: Who is the more humane?

2.     Why, do you think, the lawyer takes the bet? 

3.     What do you think about the choices of literature the prisoner makes? Moving from the “light reading” to “classics” – would you make the same choices?

4.     Why, do you think, the prisoner switches from six hundred books in a year to just the one the next year? Why do that?

5.     The prisoner writes that he has experienced all kinds of things through reading. Is reading about something the same as actually experiencing it? Why might you say that?

6.     OK, I have to ask – would you take this bet? Why or why not?

We alsl listened to this poem

And then we read the story The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson...

Still later on in the day, we got the Poetry Unit as well ...

I know it's a lot to be handed out on the first day ... but at least we started the course on two feet and running!