Thursday, October 17 - AM Advanced

Yesterday, analyzing Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” speech,” we broached the subject of philosophical questions. So for today’s class, I began with this opening discussion: What is an important philosophical question that you have spent a lot of time considering? Some answers: Why do I feel empty inside even though my life is going well? What is my purpose? Are we real? 

We then began reading chapter 7 of our text. We have now reached the 18th century, the century of dictionaries, the century when the English language started to become standardized. While reading, we practiced our learning objectives. 

We then took a break from our reading to listen to songs about Major Tom. The first one–the original–is David Bowie’s 1969 classic, “A Space Oddity,” a song that surprisingly not one student in the class had ever heard before. We then listened to Peter Schilling’s 1982 re-telling of the myth, “Major Tom.” We analyzed words and phrases, but also talked about the space race, space travel, and the Kennedy Space Center.