The Book-Of-The-Semester Project 2007 - 2008

1. Working with Quotations: Interpreting and Responding

“[T]he day one decides to take the reins of one’s own life into one’s own hands,  to captain one’s own ship, that’s the day the dance around the edges starts to slow down, bringing that person to a place where gnawing questions will no longer lie still.  To a place where one just can’t help wondering why so (220) often in life an obvious solution to a problem gets twisted and pulled into a knot of frustration, with no regard for logic or reason.  To a place where one finds oneself more and more at a loss to explain why logic and reason themselves so often go down in defeat at the hands of energies that are negative, hostile, destructive, and cruel” (219 – 220).

Explain what Poitier says happens when we are finally ready “to captain [our] own ship.”  Does everything come together then, or are we beset with additional mysteries about life?  Refer to his explanation as you consider your own life.  Show how what he says either makes sense or does not make sense to you.

2. Reporting on Research Projects

“[I]t may be that I’m always ‘at home.’  Thanks to the more fundamental legacy my parents gave me, I’m always at home because I’m the same person no matter where I am.  I’m the same person at some Hollywood dinner that I was when I was being hassled by the cops in Miami or sleeping in a pay toilet in New York.  It’s that consistent definition of self, I’m sure, that allowed me to get through the rough times, when others were more than happy to try to define me according to their own prejudices” (172).

What is your definition of “home,” and how has this definition assured the creation of your “definition of self?”

3. Expressing Agreement or Disagreement

For Poitier, “hopes and dreams are necessary tools to the survival instinct” (227).  Do you agree or disagree?  What does your survival depend on?  Does it depend on your resources of hope and dreams or on other forces?