From the 1933 film version of The Invisible Man, which is quite different from the novel. We will watch the film, regardless of your individual reading choices.
Essential Questions
In education, the sort of question you’ll find below is often called essential. The Greeks called these discussions dialectics. In brief, they are the reason we read and think and write: to answer questions that matter. Or, at least, to start to answer them.
You have a foundation now, and you’ve been using it to read and write. You know what is expected in a learning environment like this one1. You also have a reading process that guides us through literature and more:
As you did with your first assigned, full-length novel, you are required to read enough of the next book to hit John Holt’s threshold, which will allow you to choose what to read. Before we get to the assigned book, remember that anything you read in here must
- teach you something about how you read;
- serve as “a tool to help us live and die with a little more wisdom, goodness, and sanity,” using most or all of the ideas under that aegis; and
- be well-written enough to teach you how to write.
The Invisible Man, by H.G. Wells
Your assigned novel is The Invisible Man, by H.G. Wells. This is a short, strange story that uses science fiction to grapple with issues of morality and society. It also has an excellent film adaptation that uses the idea of an invisible man to tell a much different story.
You can read the novel here:
More on why reading online helps later. First, you need to answer the essential questions that go with this novel:
- To what extent do you trust that what you see is what is really happening?
- To what extent do you trust your memories of the past?
- Would you want to be ignorant and happy, or have knowledge and be miserable? Why?
- To what extent and in what ways does power corrupt?
- What does it look like to be truly alone?
- To what extent is human nature self-destructive?
- How should we deal with individuals who threaten a community?
Define terms, seek examples, and, above all, talk to each other. Ask clarifying questions below in the comments. Use the makerspace to anchor your in-class conversations and then continue those conversations in writing. Share your observations and insights as often and widely as you can.
Note: As always, the formal assignment will be posted to Google Classroom, alongside copies of the novel and links to the other resources you need.
We will also add to these questions as we continue, shifting the language and focus as necessary. As you read and write, new questions will occur to you. This is Piet Hein’s idea: “Art is solving problems that cannot be formulated before they have been solved. The shaping of the question is part of the answer.”
Throughout all of this, work in writing as often as possible. Sketch out ideas, take notes, write metacognitive responses — whatever it takes to generate understanding and GAP evidence, since those are one and the same in this course. Look to Google Classroom for formal assignments, as always, and advocate for yourself when you feel lost.
Choosing to Read
Again, we are using John Holt’s litmus test for reading to choose what to read:
I would like you to read a lot of books this year, but I want you to read them only for pleasure. I am not going to ask you questions to find out whether you understand the books or not. If you understand enough of a book to enjoy it and want to go on reading it, that’s enough for me…
I don’t want you to feel that just because you start a book, you have to finish it. Give an author thirty or forty pages or so to get his story going. Then if you don’t like the characters and don’t care what happens to them, close the book, put it away, and get another. I don’t care whether the books are easy or hard, short or long, as long as you enjoy them.
This time, you will use the protocol for choosing a work of literary merit after about nine chapters of The Invisible Man. At that point, if you want to start a different novel, you will be encouraged to choose one of the following:
- The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
These are shorter novels chosen as much for their length as the quality of the stories. They are also the same sort of science-fiction novel as The Invisible Man. If you want to choose a new novel other than these two, we’ll look first at Victorian science-fiction literature. Then we’ll look at more modern novels that cover the same concepts. So you’ll have choice within a predetermined framework.
We have a few copies of The Invisible Man on our bookshelf, almost a full class set of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but no hard copies of The Time Machine. That’s okay: You should attempt to read these novels online when possible.
Reading Online
Here again is The Invisible Man:
The most compelling reason to use this online version is that we can also use Snap&Read to translate the text, Co:Writer to take notes, and an open browser tab to look up character and plot summaries. Your Chromebook (or other device) becomes a powerful tool for navigating an interesting but difficult text.
We will review Snap&Read and Co:Writer as we start this novel. If you have questions, ask them below.
Which is an atelier model, by the way — a specific kind of makerspace that centralizes creativity and expertise through the ripple effect of teaching others. That’s worth mentioning in a footnote. ↩