Cundiff 2012
+English I
Philosophy and Golding: Approaching literature through ideas
Purpose: While reading Lord of the Flies, students will explore various excerpts from world
philosophy in order to understand this text’s role in in western intellectual history.
Step 1: The reading and annotating
Weeks 1-3: As you read Golding’s Lord of the Flies, you will also read the below philosophy
excerpts, carefully annotating within your copy of Golding. You will also answer one of the
questions at the end of the philosophy reading in the 11-sentence format nightly. These need to
be typed and brought to class daily.
Government:
Chapter 1 AND Lao-Tzu’s “Thoughts from the Tao-te Ching”
Chapter 2 AND Niccolo Machiavelli’s “The Qualities of the Prince”
Chapter 3 AND Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “The Origin of Civil Society”
Chapter 4 AND Thomas Jefferson’s The Declaration of Independence
Justice:
Chapter 5 AND Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience”
Chapter 6 AND John Rawls’ excerpts from A Theory of Justice
Chapter 7 AND Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail”
The Mind:
Chapter 8 AND Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”
Chapter 9 AND Carl Jung’s “The Personal and the Collective Unconscious”
Ethics, Morality, and Nature:
Chapter 10 AND Aristotle’s “Aim of Man”
Chapter 11 AND Charles Darwin’s “Natural Selection”
Chapter 12 AND Frederich Nietzsche’s “Morality as Anti-Nature”
Note: Critical reading involves most of the following processes:
 Prereading: developing a sense of what the piece is about and what its general purposes
seem to be
 Annotating: marking the passages within a text that seem important enough to return to
later. Annotations establish a dialogue between you and the author
 Questioning: raising issues that you feel need to be taken into consideration. These may
be issues that you believe the author has treated either well or poorly and that you feel are
important
 Reviewing: rereading your annotations and underlining in order to grasp the entire
“picture” of what you’ve just read.
Cundiff 2012
Step 2: Nightly writing, 11 sentence model
1. Topic sentence: restate the prompt/address the question
2. Claim/set up: tell the reader what to think, produce an argument
3. Proof/evidence: quote from the text, correctly cited (author’s last name #).
4. Warrant/analysis: explain how the quote connects to the claim in the topic sentence
5. Claim
6. Evidence
7. Warrant
8. Claim
9. Evidence
10. Warrant
11. Clincher: draws development to a close
Step 3: Discussion and writing
At the end of our unit after you have finished the text you will choose one of the philosophers
that you feel best represents your perspective. Then you will craft an essay with an argument
uniting Golding and the philosopher addressing one of the below prompts (or self-chosen—see
Ms. Cundiff for approval).
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Examine the role of the state in the life of the individual. Should the state ever restrict
our lives if it means the safety of the group? Should the individual’s wants be suppressed
so that the state may flourish?
How should authority function?
As members of a society we have an impression of what civil behavior includes. How
does this vary from culture to culture? What constructs hold our civility together? Why
is this necessary in order to function?
How is our personae defined by the structural components of civilization and civility?
How might a ruler secure power for himself and stability in his domain?
Should one’s equality and freedom come before the law?
Should a group of people have the right to dissolve their bonds with a tyrannical
leadership?
How does one go about disobeying unjust laws imposed by a state?
How do we judge what is just and unjust?
To what extent should the state protect against discrimination?
To what extent should justice be concerned with the least powerful members of the
society of group concerned?
Is perception reality?
Do we as a culture have a collective desire to transcend the individual and “become” the
group to which we belong?
Explore how species adapt to their natural environments
How is it possible to be moral without denying our own human nature?
Cundiff 2012
Essay:
 Craft an argument that addresses the novel through the position of one of the
philosophers whose readings we discussed in class
 Defend your position by locating 3 quote from the novel and 3 quotes from the
philosophy reading
 Treat the quotes and form 2 body paragraphs that support your argument
 Complete the essay with an intro and conclusion as well as a Works Cited page (citing
Golding and A World of Ideas.)