Unit 1
Title: Flowers for Algernon
Suggested Time: 5-7 days (45 minutes per day)
Common Core ELA Standards: RL.8.1, RL.8.2, RL.8.3; W8.1, W8.4, W8.9; SL8.1; L.8.1, L.8.2
[Additional Tasks: RI8.8, RI8.9]
Teacher Instructions
Preparing for Teaching 1. Read the Big Ideas and Key Understandings and the Synopsis. Please do not read this to the students. This is a description for teachers about the big ideas and key understanding that students should take away after completing this task.
Big Ideas and Key Understandings: * Students should work through the idea that different levels of intelligence, emotional and intellectual, lead to different types of interactions with people and society. * Students should evaluate
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Strauss] said that not everybody with an eye-q of 68 had that thing [motivation].” The doctor’s mention of apathy and being uncooperative are directly related to motivation. They need a patient that has motivation because they are going to complete many tests on the subject and they are going to monitor intellectual growth, thus they need someone who is willing to try. (Some readers may also feel that Charlie is too sensitive and should not participate in the study. This is acceptable so long as text evidence is used to support the answer.) | What do we learn about Charlie through his own analysis of Robinson Crusoe? | Based upon the quotes, “He’s all alone and has no friends,” “marooned on a desert island,” and “I hope he gets a friend and not be lonely,” Charlie is coming to understand what loneliness is. Some students may also see the direct comparison between Charlie and Robinson Crusoe. Also, his ability to think about someone else and their place in the world shows an increased emotional intelligence. | On p. 43, what does Charlie mean when he says “I felt naked”? | Other lines surrounding the line “I felt naked” show Charlie’s embarrassment. These lines include: “I wanted to hide myself, and I ran out into the street and I threw-up,” and “Charlie is blushing.” The “nakedness” is a reference to the Garden of Eden and the casting out of Adam and Eve from Paradise after they have eaten from the Tree of Knowledge (this mention
Charlie like Miss D were not helpless and Charlie had his own job and went to night school, but he was never able to do overly complicated things and was made fun of may times by what he thought were his friends. Like Miss D charlie was given the chance to undergo a experimental surgery to increase his intelligence to be like his peers he went through with it and just like Miss D he stared with no noticeable effects though a couple of weeks of learning charlie slowly became more and more like his friends but instead of stopping there he went further and further were there seemed to be no bounds. He became a genius in I.Q but was still naive about some things he was fired from his old job but started working for the clinic that gave him his Intelligence. He was doing great and was expanding his reach but eventually he stopped learning so much and progress slowed to a stop, and began to fall backwards like a ball throw in the air falls back down. Charlie desperately wanted to stay smart and like Miss D
Irony happens in a lot of places in the stories Flowers for Algernon and The Necklace. Irony happens in The Necklace when Mathilde loses her friends Necklace she bought a 36 thousand franc necklace. Meanwhile, the necklace that she actually lost was only worth about 500 francs. In The Necklace, the irony is shown when “Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took her hands. “Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was at the very most five hundred francs!..” (Maupassant, 5). It is ironic that she spent ten years paying for something that was worth less than the necklace that she bought to replace the false necklace with. There is also irony in Flowers for Algernon when Charlie is unhappy due to the operation that
“Flower for Algernon” and Charly, one is a story and the other is a movie. Both of the authors, Daniel Keyes and Stirling Silliphant had to change different parts of the story line in order for it to work. In both, Charly Gordan is the protagonist. He is 38 years old and lives in Boston at the time. At this time, Charly was not highly intelligent. After doctors performed an experimental surgery on him, he became more sophisticated and smarter. At work, his so-called “friend” bullied Charly. The only reason Charly “friends” take him out is to make fun of him for an amusement. Charly would have never found out what they laughing about if he had not gotten the surgery. Therefore, when Charly was out of a job, Silliphant perspective was that the boss fires Charly. However, Keyes perspective was that he is persuaded that he should quit his job. In both cases, he was unemployed. While Charly was unemployed, he has different feelings about people and things. When the bust boy dropped the tray with glasses in the movie and in the story, everyone in the diner laughs at the poor boy. Charly has seen himself in the boy who has dropped the dishes.
Originally published in 1959 as a science fiction short story for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the novel Flowers for Algernon by an American writer Daniel Keyes is more relevant today than at that time. With more than five million copies in print, this book with its great depth of meaning is still considered to be the most acclaimed author‘s work.
This quote depicts the protagonist of the story, Charlie, basically summarizing his life as illustrated in the book. Charlie is a troubled teenager who is friends with other troubled teenagers. All he really wanted was to navigate through his teenage life; yet his past as well as his present is riddled with conflicts that is seemingly created by others who are like him in a vicious cycle. This quote represents his character in the book because that is the question he seeks throughout the book. At the end of the book, he found the answer: he suffered from a traumatic sexual past with his aunt, and he suppressed
Flowers for Algernon is about a man named Charlie who is mentally slow and not smart. Charlie had an operation to make him smart. What the doctors did was unethical.
How would you feel if you were developmentally delayed do you think it would be ok for your parents to sign off for you to have a possibly life threatening surgery? In the science fiction story “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes a thirty-seven year old man named Charlie Gordon has to face this challenge. He wanted nothing more than to be smart and fit in. He had the opportunity to have an Artificial Intelligence surgery to triple his I.Q. Charlie Gordon should have had the A.I. surgery because it made him feel he had a purpose in life. After Charlie had the A.I. surgery he saw the bad things his friends did to him he felt he had a purpose and he became smart even if it wasn't permanent.
The character of Charlie (being the protagonist) is who the readers are directly linked too, as we are taken on a journey with him through his actions, feeling, ideas and perspectives. His journey also includes his maturation/ coming of age as he does not escape from his issues and problems however he faces them head on. “I have no idea where we’re going. The further we move, the keener my apprehension grows. Still, there is something emboldening about being awake when the rest of the world is sleeping. Like I know something they don’t.” The passage has shifted from the description of late-night Corrigan to the thoughts/feeling of Charlie. He has been called to a mysterious place by a peculiar figure called Jasper Jones. As they travel further and further away from Corrigan the more Charlie’s worry and doubt comes to him about where they are travelling, what they might be doing and why did Japer choose him over everyone else? The readers are unaware of why Charlie is following Jasper blindly and so is Charlie. This is a stage in the narrative where Charlie’s progression as a character starts. The mood is created here from the events that are happening and from the readers attachment to the protagonist. The thoughts of the characters are reflected as the feeling from the readers. In some ways we already understand what might happen based on different reading from
In “Flowers for Algernon,” numerous themes appear throughout Charlie Gordon’s journey. Charlie Gordon, the story’s protagonist, is considered to be used as a test subject for an original experiment that can potentially change the face of science. After many tests, Charlie undergoes an operation, as a result, a slow progression begins in his overall intelligence levels.
Bailey Allee Putman Hour 2,5 15 November 2016 Argument Paper Ethics are what is right to do, they are what is fair and solidly based. They do not depend on one's feeling or characteristics, such as religion or ethnicity. In the book Flowers for Algernon, Charlie is a low intelligence person who is offered to be the subject of an experiment that could make him smarter. Charlie doesn't know exactly what that means, just that it might make him smarter. Charlie's intelligence skyrocketed over the span of a few weeks, but then it started to go down just as fast.
His mother had taught him to not look at girls, and after the operation when he started to develop more feelings, he had a hard time talking to Alice Kinnian because he had the thought that he liked her, and that he shouldn’t. Due to the hard nature of his mother, Charlie’s emotional life was not maturing with his new-found intelligence. Emotionally, he was still a little kid. “I knew she would give herself to me, and I wanted her, but what about Charlie?” Whenever he would get near Alice, he would start to panic because he felt that there was still a part of his old self within him, keeping him from taking his relationship further with
William Golding, a novelist, playwright, and poet, once said “My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder.” This quote acknowledges that the past can have a powerful influence on a person later in life. Both Golding's quote and the theme chosen reflect on the meaning hidden inside Flowers for Algernon. People in Charlie's life, such as his coworkers and family, treat him differently than the average human being. The treatment that Charlie receives from these people in his life is negative for the most part, this means Charlie is often made fun of or looked down upon due to his intelligence. Throughout his life, Charlie has always had a difficult time developing emotional connections with women due to being punished as child for thinking about girls in general. Charlie also struggles in reconnecting with his family during his childhood as well as during his adult life because he fears that his family will not be accepting of him. In the book Flowers for Algernon, Charley learns that the past can negatively affect the future.
The story "Flowers for Algernon", by Daniel Keyes, that we read in English was about a mentally retarded person, named Charlie who had an operation to increase his intelligence, but the operation was a failure and Charlie is slow again. He wants to move now so society won’t ridicule him for being slow again. Daniel Keyes wrote this short story for good reasons. Daniel Keyes wrote "Flowers for Angernon" to show people from an outside look on how we treat mentally challenged people. When you treat people as you always do, you don’t see how mean or how cruel it really may be. It could just be your personality or the way you were brought up. By him writing a story on a mentally challenged person wanting to become smart to
Dilemmas happen everyday. Some dilemmas can be good, and some can be bad. A dilemma is a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two or more alternatives. In the story, Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes wrote a story about a 37 year old man named Charlie who has a disability, he doesn't understand thing that normal people can. He then is encouraged by his teacher to get a surgery done to become smarter. Some people think that the surgery was a good idea,or some think it was a bad idea. In my opinion, I think that Charlie made the wrong decision about the surgery. Some people think that Charlie should of have the operation to make his dream come true In my opinion, I think he shouldn't have had the surgery because, people weren't expecting him to be new, it would not be permanent, and he put his life in danger.
At the beginning of the book we see that Charlie didn’t have many friends. For instance, in page 8 Charlie states, “...So that's what I'm doing until I meet a friend here”. A couple of pages after Charlie tells us “Nothing