WHAT IS INDIAN Partition? Now that we are putting Achilles and Homer's Iliad to rest, we are moving into Yann Martel's novel Life of Pi. This week we will begin exploring some of the historic background to the novel's main character Piscene Patel (Pi for short) as a metaphor for post-partition Indian experience.

MONDAY

Watching part of a documentary on Christian celebration of Easter and the Holy Week. Collecting, grading, and returning student's annotations of Homer's Iliad.
No homework.

TUESDAY

No class because of ACT testing for juniors; seniors have their seminar day.
I have collected your annotations of Homer's epic poem. Have I seen yours? Essays due tomorrow.

WEDNESDAY

Collecting essays on Homer's Iliad. We will begin watching the Ben Kingsley documentary on world religions, this one on Christianity.
Finish the documentary and take notes. I will collect the notes. Have your copy of the next novel for class tomorrow.

THURSDAY

We will have a very short overview of Partition via the BBC and will begin reading chapter 30 from a Spielvogel textbook on the history of India post WWII as background to our reading of Martel's novel.
Finish reading the chapter from the history textbook. Make sure you bring the novel to class tomorrow.

FRIDAY

Reading through the first 8 or so chapters of the novel together. While annotating, keep looking for Pi's answer to this question: What is true?
Read through and including chapter 18 of Yann Martel's The Life of Pi.