Is Beauty In The Eye Of The Beholder?

Keeping in mind your discussion from the classroom, watch this video.


Does it affirm your opinion about beauty? Has it changed your mind at all? Discuss the video and questions with your partner.


Now think of something (a song, a place, a person, etc.) that you find beautiful. Go to your own blog and write a post about your "beautiful thing". Write about what you find beautiful about this thing, and include a prediction about whether or not you think others will find your thing beautiful.


Your homework is to comment on at least one other person's blog post. Mention whether or not you agree that their thing is beautiful, and why you do or don't agree.


Here are some things I find beautiful to help get you started.

Paul Gauguin - Mohana no Atua

Frank Ocean - Thinking About You

William Shakespeare - Sonnet #130

          My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

          Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

          If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

          If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

          I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,

          But no such roses see I in her cheeks; 

          And in some perfumes is there more delight

          Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

          I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

          That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

          I grant I never saw a goddess go;

          My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

               And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

               As any she belied with false compare.

Quebec Protests

Students in Quebec have been protesting proposed provincial tuition hikes since November, and they have recently been receiving a lot of media attention. Check out this timeline of the protests. Read the summary of each article, as well as the entire article from November 10, 2011, and answer the following questions with your partner:

1. Are the proposed tuition hikes fair? Why or why not?

2. Does it seem as if the protests are having any effect?

3. Have there ever been similar protests in your own country? If so, tell your partner what you know about them. If not, why do you think that is?

Now watch the videos below.

Michael Moore on Student Debt: "The Boot On Your Neck"