Transcript Tuesdays with Morrie Background

Tuesdays with Morrie
Background Terms & Definitions
“The prospect of a short life made me
want to do more. I realized life was
good, and there was a great deal I
wanted to do.”- Stephen Hawking
Background
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Tuesdays with Morrie is a true story about
the relationship between Morrie Schwartz
and his former student Mitch Albom. As
Morrie is on his death-bed, suffering from
Lou Gehrig’s disease, Mitch and Morrie
discuss aspects of life, including aging,
death, relationships, marriage, and most
importantly love. The book chronicles the
time that Morrie and Mitch spent with one
another before Morrie’s death.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
(ALS)
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Also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease

Lou Gehrig was a hall-of-fame baseball
player, for the New York Yankees, who was
diagnosed with ALS in the 1930s.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
(ALS)

What is ALS?

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Damages the motor neurons (cells that control
muscle movement) in the brain and spinal cord
Upper motor neurons send messages from the brain
to the spinal cord and lower motor neurons send
messages from the spinal cord to the muscles. If you
want to make a fist, your brain sends signals through
the upper motor neurons to the area in your spinal
cord that controls your hand muscles. Then the lower
motor neurons in your spinal cord signal your hand to
move and make a fist.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
(ALS)

What is ALS?

ALS causes these motor neurons in the brain
and spinal cord to shrink and disappear, so
that the muscles no longer receive signals to
move. As a result, the muscles become
smaller and weaker. Gradually the body
becomes paralyzed, which means that the
muscles no longer work.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
(ALS)

What is ALS?

People with ALS, even in the advanced
stages, can still see, hear, smell, and feel
touch. The nerves that carry feelings of hot,
cold, pain, pressure, or even being tickled are
not affected by ALS. The parts of the brain
that allow us to think, remember, and learn
are also not affected by the disease.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
(ALS)

What is ALS?
Mostly strikes adults between 40-70
 2 out of 100,000 people get ALS each year
 5-10% are hereditary, called familial ALS
 Non-hereditary is called sporadic ALS

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
(ALS)

How is ALS diagnosed?

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Although it is different from person to person, but in
more than half of people with ALS start with muscle
weakness, especially in the arms and legs.
Other early signs are tripping or falling a lot, dropping
things, having difficulty speaking, and cramping or
twitching of the muscles.
As the disease gets worse over time, eating
swallowing, and even breathing become difficult.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
(ALS)

How is ALS treated?
There is no way to prevent or cure ALS.
 There are medicines that simply control the
symptoms like muscle cramping and difficulty
swallowing. Some drugs can slow the
development of the disease.
 Physical Therapy, Nurse, & Counselor
 Special Equipment- power wheelchair or
ventilator (helps someone breathe)

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
(ALS)

Life with ALS
50% live at least 3 years after diagnosed
 20% live 5 or more years after diagnosed
 10% live 10 or more years after diagnosed.
 Physically difficult but does NOT affect the
mind.
 Communication can be difficult because ALS
affects the person’s breathing and muscles
needed for speech and arm movement.

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
(ALS)

Life with ALS

Stephen Hawking
 Lived
with ALS for about 40 years
 Diagnosed at the age of 21
 Famous Physicist, who furthered our
understanding of the universe
 wrote A Brief History of Time
 Wheelchair bound for 20+ years.
 Only able to move a few fingers and uses a voice
synthesizer and special computer to speak and
write.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
(ALS)

Life with ALS
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“[ALS] has not prevented me from having a
very attractive family, and being successful in
my work… I have been lucky that my
condition has progressed more slowly than is
often. But it shows that one need not lose
hope.” Stephen Hawking
Aphorism
Definition: a short statement, sometimes
humorous, that attempts to state a general
principle about human behavior.
 Example: “Three people may keep a
secret if two of them are dead.”- Ben
Franklin.
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Schedule- April 11-15
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Monday- Background Info & Start Reading
Tuesday- Discuss pages 1-31
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Wednesday- Discuss pages 32-54
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The Classroom, Taking Attendance, The First Tuesday: We Talk
About the World
Thursday- Discuss pages 55-72
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The Curriculum, The Syllabus, The Student, The Audiovisual,
The Orientation
The Second Tuesday: We talk about Feeling Sorry for Yourself,
The Third Tuesday: We Talk About Regrets, The Audiovisual:
Part Two
Friday- WPME Session 24 Quiz & Discuss pages 73-89
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The Professor, The Fourth Tuesday: We Talk About Death
Schedule- April 18-22
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Monday- Discuss pages 90-122
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Tuesday- Discuss pages 123-141
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The Tenth Tuesday: We Talk About Marriage, The Eleventh
Tuesday: We Talk About Our Culture
Thursday- Discuss pages 160-170
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The Eighth Tuesday: We Talk About Money, The Ninth Tuesday:
We Talk About How Love Goes On
Wednesday- Discuss pages 142-159
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The Fifth Tuesday: We Talk About Family, The Sixth Tuesday:
We Talk About Emotions, The Professor: Part Two, The Seventh
Tuesday: We Talk About the Fear of Aging
The Audiovisual: Part Three, The Twelfth Tuesday: We Talk
About Forgiveness
Friday- WPME Stems Only Test
Schedule- April 25-29
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Monday- Discuss pages 171-199
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The Thirteenth Tuesday: We talk About the
Perfect Day, The Fourteenth Tuesday: We
Say Good-Bye, Graduation, Conclusion,
Afterward
Tuesday- WPME Words Only Test
 Wednesday- Review
 Thursday- Review
 Friday- Tuesdays with Morrie Test
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Alliteration
Definition: the repetition of consonant or
vowel sounds at the beginning of words.
 Example: Big Brass Band ( A Day No Pigs
Would Die)
 Example: More Mischief and Merriment

Flashback
Definition: a scene that interrupts the
ongoing action in a story to show an event
that happened earlier.
 Example: In A Day No Pigs Would Die,
when Robert discusses the first time he
met the Widow Bascom & Ira Long when
he ran through her strawberry patch.
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Foreshadowing
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Definition: When the author gives the
reader clues or hints about what is
going to happen.

Example: The opening of The Scarlet Ibis
when the narrator says, “It was the clove
of seasons, summer was dead but autumn
had not yet been born, that the ibis lit in
the bleeding tree.” It foreshadows
Doodle’s death.
Imagery
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Definition: descriptive words and phrases
that re-create sensory experiences for
the reader.
Example: The quotation, “Get thee to a
nunnery,” from Hamlet implies that
Ophelia must regain her purity and
chastity and does not simply mean that
she needs to go to a convent.
Irony
Definition: A contrast between reality and
what seems to be real.
 Example: The firehouse burned down.
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Dramatic Irony
Definition: When the audience has
important information that the characters
in a story do not have.
 Example: In Romeo & Juliet when Romeo
is talking about Juliet’s lips and cheeks
being crimson, he thought she was dead
but the audience knows that she is only in
a coma.

Structural Irony
Definition: the use of a naïve hero, whose
incorrect perceptions differ from the
reader’s correct one.
 Example: Robert’s understanding of the
world in the beginning of A Day No Pigs
Would Die.
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Verbal Irony
Definition: Sarcasm. When a person says
one thing and means another.
 Example: A large man whose nickname is
“Tiny.”
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Juxtaposition
Definition: the placement of two dissimilar
items, peoples, thought, places, etc., next
to one another to emphasize the
difference or heighten the similarities.
 Example: In The Pearl, the main character
instinctively touches the valuable pearl
and his knife at the same time.

Metaphor
Definition: A comparison between two
unlike things (not using like or as)
 Example: In Incident in a Rose Garden,
death’s “eyes lit up with the pale glow of
those lanterns” and “his right hand…
held…out in greeting, a little cage of
bone.”
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Motif
Definition: A situation, incident, idea, or
image that is repeated significantly in a
literary work.
 Examples: In A Day No Pigs Would Die
the following are motifs:

Birth and reproduction
 Favors
 Religion
 Death
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Point of View
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Definition: The position or vantage point, determined by
the author, from which the story seems to come to the
reader. The three forms of point of view are First
Person, Third Person Limited, Third Person Omniscient.
Examples:
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A Day No Pigs Would Die is told in first person, through the eyes
of Robert.
In The Most Dangerous Game, the story is told Third Person
Limited, the narrator is not a character in the story and the only
character the audience & narrator knows the thought and feeling
of is Rainsford, the main character.
The Necklace is told in Third Person Omniscient, the narrator is
not a character in the story and the narrator & reader knows all
the thoughts and feelings of the characters in the story.
Repetition
Definition: a technique in which a sound,
word, phrase, or line is repeated for effect
or emphasis.
 Example: In Dreams by Langston Hughes,
the repetition of, “Hold fast to your
dreams.”
 Example: “When I was a child, I spoke as
a child, I understood as a child, I thought
as a child.”- 1 Corinthians 13:11
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Rhetoric
Definition: The art of eloquent writing,
which employs various techniques in order
to persuade one’s audience.
 Example: Congressional Speeches

Simile
Definition- a comparison between two
unlike things using the words like or as.
 Example: “Simple as beans,” or “Tasted
like soap” from A Day No Pigs Would Die
 Example: I am hungry as a horse. The
huge trees broke like twigs during the
hurricane.
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Subjective
First-person narration in which the author
is recording action from a character's point
of view.
 Example: Huckleberry Finn tells his story
from his own viewpoint, which is prejudice,
limited, and opinionated.

Symbol
Definition: An object, person, place, or
experience that means more than what it
is.
 Example: In Romeo & Juliet, the poison
symbolizes the feud and hate between the
two families poisoning Romeo & Juliet’s
love for one another.

Theme
Definition: The underlying central idea or
the generalization it communicates about
life.
 Example: The theme of A Day No Pigs
Would Die is the trials of becoming a man,
difficulty of being an outsider, freewill vs.
expectations, and acceptance of the
inevitable.
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