The video above is a 30-second summary of the George Orwell story Shooting an Elephant.
The online assignment was a discussion forum. The directions are below.
Read and annotate Orwell's Shooting an Elephant (pp. 148 - 155). Choose ONE of the following to respond to and reply to at least two of your peers. Your post and replies should be submitted by 11:55 p.m. on Wednesday, February 3. Review the discussion forum rubric in the COURSE DOCUMENTS folder before posting your answer.
This assignment is worth 25 points.
1. In Paragraph 3, Orwell says that the elephant incident gave him a better understanding of "the real motives for which despotic governments act." What do you think he means? before you answer, reread Paragraph 7 carefully.
2. Was Orwell justified in shooting the elephant? Argue that Orwell was justified or not justified and support your claim with your reasons. Here are some points you might consider: the legality of Orwell's act, the elephant's temperment, the crowd's presence, the aftermath of the elephant's death, the death itself.
3. Orwell's essay concerns, in part, the tendency to conceal indecision and confusion behind a facade of authority. Focusing on one or two groups of people (parents, teachers, doctors, politicians, etc) argue that people in authority sometimes pretend to know what they're doing so that subordinates won't suspect their insecurity or incompetence. Part of your argument should focus on the consequences of such behavior.
Most students chose to answer the second question about whether the narrator was justified in shooting the elephant or not.
Valeria did an outstanding job responding to the 2nd question and replying to her peers.
Discussion Forum 3 by Valeria Alarcon (vaalarco) at 2/3/2010 9:40 PM
2. Was Orwell justified in shooting the elephant? Argue that Orwell was justified or not justified and support your claim with your reasons. Here are some points you might consider: the legality of Orwell's act, the elephant's temperment, the crowd's presence, the aftermath of the elephant's death, the death itself.
-In my opinion, Orwell was definitely not justified in shooting the poor elephant. Legally it is easy for one to understand his doing, because the government made it clear that it would be legal to kill an elephant if it has gone mad and it's owner isn't there to control it. Stating this, I truly feel that if Orwell was on his own and without the huge excited crowd, he would have not shot the elephant and would have waited for the owner to return, which is what he should have done. The elephant did go mad when he was destroying a lot of things in the town, but once Orwell got to the elephant, the elephant seemed calmed down and harmless. Therefore, since the elephant wasn't going mad anymore, there was no need to shoot the elephant. They could have gotten someone to get a tranquilizer and inject the elephant with it. The crowd's presence was what forced Orwell to shoot it, but he should have just walked away to not hear all the riot. He would have not felt guilty after the elephant's death. When he found out that it took the elephant thirty minutes to die and all the Burbans were eating his flesh, he began to feel extremely guilty and bad about himself. Yes, the elephant did things to destroy the town, but they should have not shot it. It was beginning to calm down and seem harmless. Therefore, it was wrong for him to shoot him, because he was the one harming the elephant when he could have been in peace and in control once his owner came to get him.
Re: Discussion Forum 4
by Valeria Alarcon at 2/3/2010 10:11 PM
You are right about how he did not have the good reasons to kill the elephant. If he didn't think it was necessary and he felt that it was calming down and being harmless, then there was no reason to shoot it. But, I do not agree that it should have been killed at all. I understand that it destroyed many things and killed an innocent person, but what the right thing they could have done was to inject it with a tranquilizer. Overall, you've made good statements about your opinion.
Re: Ben Brokaw Discussion Forum 3
by Valeria Alarcon at 2/3/2010 10:46 PM
Ben, I don't think you wrote enough to argue about your opinion. The only thing I can agree with you about is that owner should have taken better care of it. He should have tried calling up a friend or family member to help save his elephant though I strongly disagree that it was a correct action at all to kill the elephant. The animal was probably nervous and frightened with everything he saw going on and did not know what to do. Killing is never a right thing to do. They should have injected it with a tranquilizer and left it until it's owner came to control him. You should have written a little more to convince me more. Even though I did not agree with you, you did do a good job in defending him.
Most of the students are catching on to the sandwich critique for evaluating their peers' arguments. I am very please with the progress my Creative Composers are making in learning to make that transition from snorklers of their reading and writing world to scuba divers. Go Creative Composers.
I like the assignment about the story "Shooting An Elephant". I think it makes the readers really think about morals and peer pressure. I do not agree that the author shot the elephant just to save himself from embarrassment. I read a lot of peoples reply's to other people's posts and there was very good points made that makes this topic controversial. There a lot of good reasons the author should not have shot the elephant, but also he did save people from getting injured or even killed.
ReplyDeleteJennifer Anderson
Life isn't so black and white, huh??
ReplyDeleteI really liked this assignment. I thought this debate was widely spread out through the class. This assignment really shows how peer pressure can really affect you. I very much do not agree with what the author did to the elephant. The elephant did not mean to do what he did surely.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to have to disagree with Jenifer. The elephant was no harm to the people, as the man saw, it was simply an animal who was misplaced, and then feared by the people. I find it awfully convenient that we, students of FGCU, are reading a story like this, because the same type thing happens here at our school quite frequently.
ReplyDeleteIf there is an alligator, minding his own business and wanting no trouble, but simply wandered out of his usual place of habitat, what do we do? Kill it.
If there is a large animal, lets say a cyote, and it is running around the outskirts of the campus, and no one "feels safe" to be in the same proximity of the animal, it is law enforcements job to do what? Kill it.
None of these policies make any sense seeing as how they are only here with us, because we choose to move and invade upon their land. We are the ones who should be shot, not them.
What I also found strikingly similar, was the fact that after talking to one of the univeristy police officers, He told me that, if he doesn't recieve the command to shoot from enough officers, and enough kids, he will do everything in his power to do it; but realizes that sometimes you have to do things like that "Just to keep your job, and the respect of the student body". Isn't that ironic; because if I don't say so myself, that sounds quite a bit like this young man in this story.
Think about it guys, think about it.
Kas made a great point because I never really think about how we invade on them. You also need to take into consideration that those elephants have their land too though and the people didn't inhabitat right in the same area as they did. Really good point though, Kas. However, I felt that he did do the right thing to shoot the elephant because it had already killed an innocent human being and destroyed many things and just because it "seemed" to be calming down, no one knew for sure what it was capable of doing next. I agree with most of the class' response on how he did NOT kill him for the right reasons though.
ReplyDelete