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Kelly ‘Butterfly’ Sackley

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To better prepare student for a changing world by making sure they graduate with the flexible skills they need to be leaders in our communities and better able to deal with a state and country that are more culturally diverse
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To learn to make real-life ethical choices
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To practice replacing fear and greed with love, tolerance, compassion, and the sympathetic imagination
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To practice tolerance for diversity of personality types and races/ethnic groups

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Racism and judging by appearance

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Amy
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Importance of empowerment and being heard
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Claudia is powerless because she’s a child and a minority
Not powerless to determine own definition of beauty
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Everybody is beautiful in his or her own way
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Andrew
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Emotional response: depression, worthlessness, hopelessness
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Characters are resigned to their situations
Children can be empathetic listeners
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Bevin
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There is a common standard of beauty
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Being thin is a big deal
Thinks infatuation with Barbies when she was little skewed her views of beauty
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Brooks
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Feels guilty; like he is part of the cause of the problem
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Racist values play a large role in identification of beauty for women
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Pecola accepts it, Claudia does not
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Eric
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Grace
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Nature turned on the town
Retrospective look at her impact
Made him reevaluate life
Sister cut her hair off when she was little because of jealously
Has “skinny white girl guilt”
Study shows that African American kids still choose the white doll
• Ian
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Pathos most important rhetorical device
Didn’t read emotional lit in high school
All kids should read stuff like this because it changes opinions
• Janie
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Self-conscious as a kid because she had freckles and gapped teeth
Made her able to empathize with Pecola
Feels guilty that Pecola prayed for blue eyes because nobody should feel inadequate because of their appearance
• Carson
• Feels guilty for having blue eyes
• Shame and fear that caused the feeling of ugliness in the characters
• Morrison makes situation real

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Megan
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Relates the topic to the AMAZING poetry slam some of us went to on Tuesday, and everyone should go to next week 
Beauty shouldn’t refer to color or physical attributes
Self-respect will lessen the effects of society’s ridiculous view on beauty
Paige
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There’s more important things than beauty
Standard of beauty in society is not realistic
Our culture rejects so many different types of beauty and that’s sad, but beauty shouldn’t matter so much
Priya
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Rachel
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Pecola’s vs. Claudia’s feelings toward little white girl dolls
Beauty is such a skewed concept
Worked for Girls Empowerment Network (super cool!)
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Tatum
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Understood racism through Toni Morrison’s writing in a way she hadn’t before
Will never fully understand how racism feels because has never been a target of it
Compared to Shirley Temple as a kid
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Every person in the world succumbs in some way to society’s wishes
Pecola vs. Claudia’s ideas of beauty
Need to eliminate racism within ourselves by accepting and appreciating our own beauty
Tori
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Toni Morrison’s writing allows you to really experience racism and its effects
The metaphors she uses break stereotypes by connecting the readers to the people
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Professor Bump
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Need to redefine beauty
Mothers respond more to pretty babies, babies respond better to pretty mothers
• Attractiveness is a stronger predictor of evaluations and behavioral attributes than ethnicity
Kendall
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Whites used vague “Thing” to claim they were superior to blacks
Eventually black people began to believe they actually were inferior
Blacks began to build identity around this role which many of them accepted like Pecola
Kian
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Every being has a purpose
Physical bodies are temporary, spirit is constant
Plastic surgery and materialism represent yearning for some deeper experience

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Was there ever a time when you perceived that you were being judged because of your appearance?
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Do you feel that you gained new insight into the effects of racism?
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Do you feel you are able to relate better to victims of discrimination after reading?
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How did the part about Claudia and her baby doll make you feel about her and about white people in general?
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Who do you think is the most sympathetic character and why?
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How do you feel about the way society sees beauty today?
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How do you think the ‘Dick and Jane’ story relates to the The Bluest Eye?
Why do you think it sped up?

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How would you explain Pecola’s low self-esteem?
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What role does social class play in the novel?
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What does the foreshadowing suggest will happen as the novel progresses to you?
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What all does Shirley Temple represent to Pecola? To
Claudia?
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What do you think Toni Morrison’s view of beauty is as opposed to society’s view?

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