Please answer all of the following questions thoughtfully in complete sentences on loose-leaf. Make reference to the book WITH PAGE NUMBERS as often as possible.

1. In an earlier chapter, the protagonist was given a large quantity of rum before a raid and here he notes that an invading German smelled of ether. Why do you think the author mentions these minute details? What effect do they have?
2. Do you agree with what Broadbent did to “help” Renaud? Was it the right thing to do? Would you have done the same thing (or wished that you could?)
3. Why was Clark shot? (explain not just what happened in the moment, but also what might have been building up to this event.)
4. What happens between the protagonist and Fry at the end of the chapter? Why does the protagonist react the way that he does? Do you agree with his treatment of Fry?

Vocabulary

Entrails – exposed intestines or guts

Cadavers – dead bodies

Accoutrements – military equipment, knives, shovels, etc.

Prostrate – to lie flat on your back

Generals Die In Bed Chapter 8: London

Please answer all of the following questions thoughtfully in complete sentences on loose-leaf. Make reference to the book WITH PAGE NUMBERS as often as possible.

First, make sure you know what IRONY means (see here: www.misterjrobson.com/irony)

Look at the quotes below and EXPLAIN the IRONY of each quote when you compare the viewpoints of the speakers to that of the protagonist (who has actually participated in war.) What is ironic about each quote?

1. “Oh, it’s a lovely war” (89)

2. “You silly boy, I thought you had really murdered someone” (95)

3. “…but the best thing about the war, to my way of thinking, is that it has brought out the most heroic qualities in the common people…” (96)

Vocabulary
Macadam – a road of broken stone
Tommies – nicknames for British soldiers
Courtesan – prostitute
Gainsay – deny
Curate – Anglican churchman

Ever hear this one?

Well, it turns out that Alanis actually didn’t know what Irony was when she wrote the darn thing! Most of the situations in the song are just plain annoying – coincidence, at most – and not really ironic.

Some folks have tried to “fix” the song, like this:

There are actually a few kinds of irony.

Verbal Irony:

And, what poor Alanis probably had in mind, Situational Irony:

So in short, Irony can be seen as the OPPOSITE of EXPECTATION.

Examples:
A tall (or really big) person named Tiny!
A fire station burning down
A teacher who needs a student to explain Irony

and the list goes on!

Please answer all of the following questions thoughtfully in complete sentences on loose-leaf. Make reference to the book WITH PAGE NUMBERS as often as possible.

1. What is meant when the soldiers say that “Generals Die in Bed?”

2. Why do you think the soldiers spend their money so freely?

3. How do the soldiers treat the German prisoners passing by? Was this the reaction you expected? Why/why not?

Vocabulary

Queue – A line up of people

Beseech – Plead or beg

Emaciated – skinny or wasting away from starvation

OK, it’s time to admit that I’ve secretly been toying with you. All of this talk about opinions and using facts to back them up has just been a bit of a sly leadup to a very important topic, but one that students, for some reason, tend to be afraid of: writing essays.

If that word scares you, it’s just because nobody has taught you the secret to how easy writing essays can be. Once you know the secret formula to writing a strong essay, AND YOU FOLLOW IT, you’ll see that writing them is actually quite easy, and you’ll have no problem getting great marks.

The hardest part is coming up with the right topic, but lucky for you, you may have already done this without knowing it. We’re going to write an argumentative essay, which is an extension of the written piece that I had you do previously. Feel free to use that topic (and a lot of what you’ve already written) for your essay!

Once you know what you’re going to write, you need to come up with a THESIS SENTENCE. This is ONE sentence that acts as a summary of your entire argument.

I started with a simple statement: Pizza may be the perfect meal choice for just about everyone.

It’s an opinion statement that is easy for someone to argue with. So from there, I needed to come up with some facts that would help back my point up. Opinions are weak because they can be argued with and someone who disagrees can still be right, but facts, well, you can’t really argue with facts. Combine some strong facts with a strong opinion and you’ve got a recipe for success.

WHY is pizza the perfect meal choice? Well, I had 4 thoughts originally:

• Versatile
• Popular
• Cheap
• 4 food groups – full meal

Your essay needs to have THREE strong facts that can be explained in detail to help prove your point, so I took the 3 that I thought were the strongest and easiest to explain, and came up with a sentence for each, combining my original statement with a fact that helps prove the point:

1. Pizza is such a great meal choice because it is very versatile, since it can be made with such a wide variety of toppings.
2. The popularity of pizza makes it a perfect meal choice.
3. Pizza presents a rare opportunity to have one dish that contains all four food groups.

You’ll need to write AT LEAST 3 sentences explaining each point, so make sure that there are things that you can say about each.

Once you’ve got those figured out, and you’re sure that you can expand each point with AT LEAST 3 other sentences, you need to go back and revise your THESIS to include those points.

So my thesis became:

Pizza may be the perfect meal choice for just about everyone, because it is very versatile, very popular, and it is a very balanced meal all by itself.

That THESIS sentence goes AT THE END of the first paragraph. Don’t worry yet about what goes before it.

From there, take each of those 3 TOPIC sentences and write AT LEAST 3 sentences explaining each point. End off each of those three BODY paragraphs by restating the first, TOPIC sentence! In total, each BODY paragraph needs to be AT LEAST 5 SENTENCES LONG. The structure of each paragraph is THE SAME.

Pizza may be the perfect meal choice for just about everyone, because it is very versatile, very popular, and it is a very balanced meal all by itself. (THESIS)

The first reason why pizza is such a great meal choice is that it is very versatile, since it can be made with such a wide variety of toppings. (TOPIC SENTENCE) Everyone from meat lovers to vegans can find a combination that will suit their preferences. Varying the toppings, sauces, cheese, and even the dough can create seemingly endless combinations, so there’s always a way to make pizza new, interesting, and enjoyable for all. It’s easy to change those toppings and combinations so a pizza meal never needs to be repetitive or boring. These combinations and possibilities help make pizza a perfect meal choice for just about everyone. (TOPIC RESTATED)

The versatility of pizza is just one of the many reasons why pizza is so popular, and that popularity makes it a perfect meal choice. (TOPIC SENTENCE) As mentioned, anyone can find a combination of ingredients and toppings to suit their needs. Since pizza is such a widely appreciated meal, you can easily make it yourself using basic ingredients, and of course can find pizza restaurants just about everywhere. Because you can make it with basic ingredients and it’s fast and easy to make, pizza is very popular. This widespread popularity proves that pizza is a great meal choice. (TOPIC RESTATED)

Lastly, pizza presents a rare opportunity to have one dish that contains all four food groups, making it a perfect meal choice. (TOPIC SENTENCE) When you look at the grains in the dough, the cheese on top, vegetables in the sauce and as toppings, and meats and alternates making frequent appearances, you can see that it is quite easy to have a balanced meal representing all of the necessary food groups. Pizza is also one of those rare meals that does not require any kind of side dish, as it is filling, enjoyable, and healthy all on its own. Since pizza is baked, not fried, and it generally contains a lot of fresh ingredients, pizza tends to be rather healthy in nature. The balanced, healthy nature further proves that pizza is the perfect meal choice. (TOPIC RESTATED)

The final paragraph starts with the thesis sentence again, and serves to show that you’ve proven your point. My conclusion starts like this:

The versatility, popularity, and healthy, balanced nature of pizza all combine to make it one of the most perfect meal options available. (THESIS RESTATED)

EACH PARAGRAPH SHOULD CONTAIN AT LEAST 5 SENTENCES. You will be writing five paragraphs of AT LEAST five sentences each, so your essay will be AT LEAST 25 sentences long.  BUT, you’ll notice that the thesis sentence gets reused ONCE in the INTRODUCTION and CONCLUSION and gets revised as a TOPIC SENTENCE at the BEGINNING AND END of each BODY paragraph, so it essentially gets used EIGHT times!

Please answer all of the following questions thoughtfully in complete sentences on loose-leaf or in a Word document placed in your OneDrive folder. Make reference to the book WITH PAGE NUMBERS as often as possible.

1. Why do the soldiers fight so violently over food at the start of the chapter? Explain what they’re probably thinking/feeling.
2. Why did the protagonist volunteer for the raid? What was he thinking would come of it?
3. Explain the irony of the soldiers’ prayers on p.55 when compared to the prayers of the people back home.
4. Do you think that the protagonist acted bravely during the raid? Cite specific examples from the story to support your answer. (/2)

Vocabulary

Paresis – a late stage of syphilis, characterized by progressive dementia and paralysis

To jolly – to tease or kid someone

Today you’ll be asked to defend a position. You’re going to put forth an opinion that you hold strongly, and since you’re always right, you’ll surely be able to convince everyone that you are absolutely correct!

First, it’s important to know the difference between a fact and an opinion:

FACTS are things that can be verified.

eg: Mr. Robson is 6′ 4″ tall.

I could, if I wanted to, get out a tape measure and hold it up and check whether Mr. Robson is in fact that tall.

But here’s the thing: they don’t necessarily have to be true or correct, they just need to be verifiable. So I could say that Mr. Robson is 8 feet or 8 inches tall. Both are obviously incorrect, but since I can go check that to see whether it’s true or not, the statement is still considered a FACT, even though they aren’t true.

OPINIONS are things that a reasonable person could disagree with and still be correct, because we can’t prove them one way or another.

eg: Mr. Robson is the best teacher EVER!

Perhaps that’s a bad example since clearly, Mr. Robson IS the best teacher EVER, but for the sake of argument, we’ll allow for the slim possibility that some person could think that someone else is a better teacher. Unlikely, but possible! Even though everyone knows that Mr. Robson is the best teacher ever, there’s no real way to PROVE that, and the silly, incorrect person who might consider disagreeing could possibly still be correct. (but not really!)

First, come up with a list of 5 facts and 5 opinions. Go ahead, I’ll wait…

Here’s mine:

Facts:

• the sky is blue
• Tim Horton’s is across the street from St. James Collegiate
• Mr. Rogers is principal of St. James Collegiate
• The new season of Survivor started this week
• Canada won 100 gold medals at the recent winter olympics.

Opinions:

• The Winnipeg Jets are going to win the Stanley Cup
• Ice cream is the best food on Earth
• Dogs make the best pets
• Music is the most important thing in the world
• Everything Sucks! is an awesome TV show

Opinions are interesting because people can disagree. If I like chips better than candy, but you like candy more, we can both be right and both enjoy our favourite snacks.

But sometimes, you want to try to prove to someone that your opinion is a FACT. If you support your opinion well enough with enough facts, you can often convince people that you are speaking the truth, instead of just your opinion.

DEFENDING YOUR POSITION

We’ll practice coming up with opinions, then using facts to support them so that we can convince other people that we’re correct.

First, we need a TOPIC. This is the area that we’ll explore and try to defend a position. Your choice of topics is basically limitless, but think of a topic or belief that you find interesting. If you need help, there’s a list below.

Second, we need to GATHER information. This is where we brainstorm or research ideas that will help us to refine the topic and come up with (or strengthen) our opinion on the subject.

Third,we need to EXPLORE the topic from all sides. True, you may have your opinion, but consider what someone might argue against your opinion. You want to make sure that your opinion is strong enough. The thing here is that you want to try to defend the strongest possible position, even if you don’t agree! If you think that ice cream is the best food in the world, but you think it would be easier to argue that pizza is the best, then you should go with the stronger argument!

Next, we need to FORM the opinion. Make sure that your idea is solid and you have the support you need to convince others that you are correct.

After all of that, we’ll be ready to DEFEND our position! This is the fun part, where you get to prove that you are right using carefully chosen facts.

Your task is to come up with 3 topics and come up with a list of AT LEAST 4 ways that you can prove your position.

eg: (these topics are now officially off limits, but you can do something similar)

Pizza is the best food on Earth because it is:

• Versatile
• Popular
• Cheap
• 4 food groups – full meal

Dogs make the best pets because they:

• are loyal
• are sensitive
• force you to get exercise
• are smart

Here’s a list of possible positions taken from a book I’ve got. If you need help getting started, I can give you the page from my book with one of these topics explained a bit for you:

• Should animals be used to test new products?
• Should cell phones be allowed in class?
• In disasters like the sinking of hte Titanic, who should be saved first?
• Should beaches have rules?
• Should people be allowed to go barefoot anywhere they want to?
• Should gun makers be forced to pay costs associated with gun voilence?
• Should people lose their jobs if it helps the environment?
• Should children be allowed to enter beauty pageants?
• Should student athletes have to get good grades in order to play on school teams?
• Should fur coats be against the law?
• Should boxing be banned?
• Should there be more police in schools?
• Should hunting be banned as a sport?
• Should students be paid to attend school?
• If you commit a crime, should your parents be held responsible?
• Should teen criminals be locked up in adult prisons?
• Should you change the way you dress because of what others think?
• Should music have a ratings system like movies and video games?
• Is space exploration worth the money we spend on it?
• If you find a large sum of money, is it yours to keep?
• Some malls have banned teenagers. Is this fair?
• If you see someone cheating on a test, should you tell?
• Are teen curfews a good thing?
• Is year-round school a good idea?
• Should skateboarding be banned in public places?
• Should sports teams be forced to change potentially offensive or racist names (like the Atlanta Braves, Washington Redskins, Edmonton Eskimos, etc.)
• Should schools have dress codes?
• Should students have to do volunteer work in order to graduate?
• Should doctors transplant pigs’ organs into human bodies?
• Should boys & girls have separate schools?
• and so on!

Generals Die In Bed Chapter 4: Back to the Round

Please answer all of the following questions thoughtfully in complete sentences on loose-leaf. Make reference to the book WITH PAGE NUMBERS as often as possible.

1. Imagine yourself as a soldier in the trenches. Of the things mentioned/described in the book, what do you think would be the worst aspect of life in the trenches? Explain the reasoning behind your choice and talk about how you would be affected.
2. What is the usual punishment for an enemy sniper? (explain/quote)
3. What was Brown’s big mistake? How does his squad react to what happens to him?

Vocabulary

Enfilade – when a trench is exposed to enemy fire from the side and down the entire length of the trench

Funk-hole – dugout or foxhole

Putrescence – a horrible smell