Hour-long interview with Dr. Lederman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37kBx0WezhY

:)

Ideas for a Graphic Novel

Soooo, I am a bit late on tossing these out there, and I do apologize for it. Buuuuuut I had two ideas that we could work with:

1. Isolina mentioned using the IMSA resources and following teachers, but I propose taking it a step further and using our friend Dr Leon Lederman. I'm sure that after reading his wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_M._Lederman) you'll get a sense for his story. His father pushed him towards being educated and he wanted to be a chemist but was convinced otherwise, he was in WWII and he came back here to become one of the world's best scientists. It would be interesting and he has a very distinct sense of humor that he would add to the story I'm sure. We could do interviews with him, take apart secontions of his book. For a better sense of him, his autobiography is on the nobel prize page (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1988/lederman-autobio.html). We could do any of a few spins on his life and I'm sure he'd be more than willing to help us out.

2. Also pretaining to IMSA, after our Intel Award dealie in the past week I was wondering how IMSA really did get started. After the presentation was over people in my Film Studies class questioned why IMSA and not ISMA, and I'm sure there are many other interesting questions about our school. We could use the IMSA archives, Stephanie Pace Marshall, and Dr Lederman as direct sorces for our research. It could be cool to do a dramatic retelling of its creation and just to get the word out about our school in such an easily digested form as a comic.

-Karl O.

Graphic Novel Project Ideas

Here are some ideas for our graphic novel project. I based them on the theme of people unable to tell their own story, which I believe was the original focus of the assignment.

One is of Flight 93, the flight that was hijacked on September 11 and through which the terrorists were targeting Washington, D.C., but which was redirected by its crew and/or passengers. We could use, as primary sources, the black box recordings from the flight and any interviews given by family members. As secondary sources, we could use movies made on the subject (I know there are at least three) and any other media on the subject.

The other is a bit more historical and would take more imagination, but might be more fun. Its' subject is the conquest of the Aztec Empire by Cortes from the eyes of an Aztec. We could choose any Aztec - a citizen, the emperor (who was taken hostage by Cortes), or a nobleman - and depict the story realistically, rather than the distanced viewpoint given in most history books. It would be a tragic novel since in the end, the Aztecs were all killed or conquered by Spain.

~Angad

Proposed topic for the class graphic novel :)

Have you ever imagined that your story would be told in a graphic novel form? I sure didn't, until I was in the shower on Sunday and had a spark of brilliance.

So, without further ado, my proposed topic is that we pair up randomly with someone else in the class, or preferably pick someone that you genuinely don’t know (I know, I know, we all like being with our friends. But do you not want to learn about something hilarious or intriguing about someone mysterious in our class?)

And with that, you interview them for a story you find interesting about something that happened to them at IMSA (because of, relating to...etc.). It can be something funny, depressing, happy, distressing, mind-boggling, and/or anything else you two can think of.

It would be a nice idea in order to get to know your fellow classmates better, since we all have a story to tell. Additionally, since it's nearing the end of our high school career, even knowing someone a little bit better would make our class more cohesive and friendly as a whole.

Envision our final product as a tapestry of the teenage experience, and a reflection of what happens when we're given a little more freedom and mountains more stress.

We, as a class, could potentially also do a chapter on Dr. Hancock as well, and why we picked his graphic novels class that ties us all together.

-Julia K

Interperative questions

1.) In one instance of the story, Artie was driving with his wife and Vladek, and they decide to pick up an African American who was hitchhiking on the side of the road. Vladek, out of no where, began bad-talking the hitchhiker about his race in Polish. How do you suppose Vladek can justify to himself this reaction towards the African American. Didn't Vladek face the same kind of discrimination by being sent to the camps? Would that not have had some effect on Vladek's views on discrimination?

2.) Throughout the entire novel, when Vladek is not telling about his story, we see that Vladek is very much attached to material things. He will find wire in a trash and save it. He'll refuse to spend money unless he absolutely has to. But, early on in the story, Vladek throws away Artie's coat, which could be considered a completely wasteful act. Why would Vladek throw away a perfectly good coat, even though he has such an inclination to save things?

-Alek Poniatowski

Maus Interpretive Questions

1)

On page 57 Vladek dreams with his great Grandfather. In his dream he is told that he will leave the labor camp he is in on Parshas Truma. Many people would believe in their dream and have faith as Vladek did, and many would lose hope after time. Later on Page 59 Vladek explains how important this date is to him. He mentions that Artie was born on a Parsha day. What can you infer about Vladek's comment about Parsha Truma and Artie's birth? On Page 59 Artie closes up on Vladek's facial expressions, but not on his own. What do you think he was feeling at this moment?

2)

On the fourth page of Prisoner of the Hell Planet: A Case Story Artie says that his mother murdered him. At the end of the novel Artie ends with the word murderer. He is referring to Vladek. Why do you feel Artie put this in the novel, and why does he have such feelings towards his parents. It is ironic that these novels are in honor of his parents-the survivors who were persecuted to be murdered, and that he calls them murderers. Do you think Artie means what he says?

Maus II questions

Throughout Maus I and II Vladek and Mala are constantly complaining about each other. Vladek even goes so far as to say that "alone I can manage more easy than with Mala, believe me" (book II page 79). Yet, in the end, they end up back together. When Art asks Mala why she came back she says she doesn't know why (book II page 122). Why do Vladek and Mala stay together despite their apparent mutual dislike?

On page 74 of book II Art and Francois are talking together outside and are bothered by the pesky bugs. At the bottom of the page Art sprays the bugs and the last panel shows the bugs fall dead to the ground. This mini extermination reminds the reader of the extermination of the Jews, but what more is symbolically represented in this panel? How does Spiegelman use this sequence to relate the story to the Holocaust?