Week 6 Christian Themes in A Horse and His Boy

I am really loving this Lit Wit group, I love how they participate and seriously think about the discussion we are having.  Tell your literature buffs that they are doing a great job in this class!

For week 6, we discussed Christian themes found in The Horse and His Boy. 

This chronicle has allusions to the story of Moses.  Though they begin and end life in opposite circumstances, there are several similarities.  Both are pulled from the water as babies, and both cross a desert.  Both turn their back on the country they were raised, and are saviors to their true people.  (I couldn't remember the last two points in the discussion.  Could you kindly mention it to your student for me?)

Another biblical allusion is Bree as Doubting Thomas.  The horse is explaining what he thinks the nature of Aslan is, denying that he is lion.  Aslan appears at that moment and lovingly teaches them all. 

We had a good discussion about pride.  Rabadash never became humble, Bree was humbled, but still struggled with it even after his meeting with Aslan.  Aravis was humbled, and Hwin never needed to be humbled.  Even Shasta struggled a little with pride.  One doesn't react with sulking and resentment if one is sufficiently humble.  According to CS Lewis, this story is about "the calling and conversion of a heathen,"  so we can also assume that Shasta continued to grow and humble himself even more. 

We ended class with some "iced sherbets," like Shasta experienced for his first time in Tashbaan.  I simply put water, frozen fruit and sugar in a blender.  I used a three berry mix from Costco, but any fruit combination would work.  It was yummy! 

Next week we are discussing the hero journey, general discussion questions and then an activity. 

In two weeks we are going on a field trip!  When one is studying The Horse and His Boy, one just has to go ride horses!!  On March 24, we will drive to the Dial's house in Port Orchard at the normal time that we start class.  We will return 2 hrs later, an hour after school ends.   I'll have permission slips next week and there will be a cost of $2.00 for bridge tolls.

Week 5- Discussing A Horse and His Boy

We had a great discussion of a Horse and his boy.  Lewis used Mercury as the theme for this chronicle.  This theme is worked into the story with references to swiftness, messages, directions, communication, language, adjectives, twins, and even a reference to a hat with wings on the side.  Everyone did a great job picking out the references. 

We realized a connection with the references to Turkey - Alsan is Turkish for lion, Turkish delight, and Tashbaan in Calorman being a fictional representation of Constantinople, Turkey.  

I asked if they knew anything about the Ottoman Empire and everyone burst out laughing before I could say, "not counting Studio C."  I explained that the empire was a real thing and that it lasted for about 800 yrs and ended with WWI.  England and France divided up the Middle East in what is called the Skyes-Picot agreement.  It is this agreement that has ISIS/ISIL up in arms because they want a united empire again.  I briefly mentioned how the whole contest for land started with Arbrahm's sons, Isaac and Ishmael.

Next week we will discuss the Christian themes in the story. 
 

Week 4 The Rocks, Minerals and Gems of Narnia's Underworld

 We studied rocks, minerals, and gems in the spirit of the land of Bism in the deep underworld of Narnia.

I gave a basic lesson on how rocks are formed and categorized. We pulled out the magnifying glasses, flashlights, and rock specimens and had some fun looking at rocks, minerals and semi precious jewelry.

We are discussing The Horse and His Boy next week!  The planet associated with it is Mercury.  Look for references to messages, "swift of foot", language, and directions.  This is my favorite book of the series, so I am really excited to discuss it.  :D

Week 2 and 3

For week 2 we discussed the Christian themes in the Silver Chair and had a great discussion.  We then did a blind obstacle course in the spirit of when the children and Puddleglum fell down into the Underworld and couldn't see. 

Week 3 we reviewed what Joseph Campbell's hero journey is and mapped out the journey for Jill.  We had a little more discussion and then played cock-shies.  We took turns using people as targets for balls of various sizes and stacked cups up to hit them with marbles. Good fun. 

We will discuss The Horse and His Boy in 2 weeks!  It is my favorite chronicle, so I am pretty excited to discuss it.  :D

2nd Semester, Week 1 Silver Chair

We had such a great discussion this week!  CS Lewis used the moon and water as majors themes in the Silver Chair.  I was extremely pleased with how well the kids participated and picked out all the instances of water and luna-cy.

Lunacy was thought to be caused by the moon in the middle ages. Because the moon never stood still, as it moved across the sky and was constantly changing shape, it was associated with unstableness and madness. The "lunatics" in Silver Chair are Prince Rilian and the Head Mistress of Experiment House.  There are references to forgetfulness, and trances caused by enchantments.  Other moon references are sadness, owls, and coming back into the overland during the night.

Water can also be described as unstable because as a liquid, it doesn't hold a shape.  The moon has influence over the water on earth.  There are a ton of references to water in Sliver Chair.  Rain, damp, wet, tears, a river, mist, fog, baths, fountain, waterfall, marsh, marshwiggle, "a wet blanket," snow, lake, and puddles, to name a few of them.

We lookied at pictures of the lions in Trafalgar square, as there is a reference to them in the book.  Holy cow!  Those suckers are huge!!  We ended by drawing characters from the book.  

Next week we are going to discuss the Christian symbolism in the Silver Chair.  The students were encouraged to be thinking of one word that describes what the Silver Chair is about.  To give you an idea, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is about redemption, Prince Caspian is about restoration, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is about transformation. 

Just for a heads up, The Horse and His Boy will be discussed on Feb 25th. 

 

Week 12 and Week 13

Week 12

I thought I posted before Christmas break.  Guess I was soooo ready for the break, I mentally checkout out before I posted.  haha. 

For the last class before the break, we discussed more of Voyage of the Dawn Treader and learned a little about life at sea. Class ended with tying common knots used on board ships. 

Week 13

We spent the entire class time learning about the British Empire.

We watched a bunch of cool videos and discussed each of  them a little. 

A Great British Timeline

Rise and Fall of the British Empire

Understanding the difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England 

Brief History of the Royal Family

History of the Union Jack ( I now understand those old movies of Robin Hood that had the Kings guards dressed in white tunics with a red cross.  I always thought it had to do with the crusades.  Nope, that was the English flag then.) 

How Scotland joined Great Britain

And this last one because it was fascinating.
How many countries are there?

Week 11- Voyage of the Dawn Treader!

For Week 11, we discussed Voyage of the Dawn Treader. 

Lewis used the sun and dragons as his theme and motif for Aslan in this chronicle, as Apollo is the sun god and also known as the dragon slayer. 

I reminded them to remember that every author and screenwriter has messages that they want to say.  Often they hide this message in symbols, motifs and themes. Lewis loved to do this and had multiple layers of messages, as we have seen in this class.  It is a lot of fun to find clues and figure things out.  This class is giving them the tools to see these messages in the books they read and the movies they watch.  Sometimes the messages aren't desirable or supportive of our worldview.  This is part of being TJEd-ers, to seek out what the author is saying and decide if it's truth or not.  What each of us does with that message, is up to us.  I told how I recently watched an (unnamed) animated movie and picked up on parts of an undesirable theme.  I researched it, and found that yes, the director did intend that meaning.  I researched further and found more parts of the theme that I didn't recognize because I'm not that familiar with it. The point was, is to look for messages in everything, using these tools, and learn from it. 

If your child hasn't finished Voyage of the Dawn Treader, encourage him/her to do it.  We will be discussing Eustase's hero journey and lessons learned on each island.  When the books aren't read, discussions turn more into crowd control, than meaningful lessons.  :) 

Note:  The movie is significantly different than the book.