Geopoliticus Child Seminar Prep!

To Start:
You will have ten minutes to write, so I expect a more robust response (i.e. longer).

1. List three details of this cartoon. What do they symbolize?
2. What is the main message of this cartoon?
3. Which world would you rather live in? Why?

In Class:
We're preparing for a Socratic seminar tomorrow, on Salvador Dali's 1943 painting, Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of a New Man. 

In 1943 Catalonian-Spanish painter Salvador Dali was living in up-and-coming New York, having fled the destruction of once-powerful Europe wrought by WWII. Dali was trying to represent that era's major paradigm shift, a change in the way he and others understood the world.

Dali was raised Catholic, and he responded to the chaos of the era by looking to backwards to the imagery of the church and the Italian Renaissance. While he was working on this painting, Dali jotted down this list of words to represent the change he was trying to capture: “Parachute, paranaissance, protection, cupola, placenta, Catholicism, egg, earthly distortion, biological ellipse.”

Work with your group of four. Do not get out your computers until after everyone has their annotations, and you've discussed what you think the painting means as a group.

Here's what you need to bring to seminar to be prepared:

• On a piece of tracing paper:
  • Trace the major elements of the painting.
  • Make at least ten annotations. Annotations can be theories, questions, themes, connections or deep thoughts.
• In a printed document, with a perfect heading and your new number:
  • Write one TEA paragraph about what you think the the painting means.
  • Use symbols from the painting as your evidence. 

To Close:
Write down three questions you'd like to discuss during seminar. Be thoughtful!

For Homework:
Finish your seminar prep. You cannot earn full credit for the seminar if you do not come to the seminar on time, with your annotations and paragraph ​printed out.