In the lessons on Tuesday, March 16th we were handling imaginative worlds. First we had to think about how a perfect world would be to us. We should imagine what we could see, hear, taste, smell and touch in our ideal world. Furthermore, we compared our worlds with the ones of our class mates. We recognized a lot of similarities, e.g. most of us thought about being at the beach, lying underneath a palm tree. But there were some differences, too. For example in what kind of food we would like to taste. Later we started to work on the book. So we compared 'our ideal world' to the one of Christopher. The task was to make a list of what they have in common and what is different. To me it was a bit surprising that I found even more than one similarity because this boy is the complete opposite of me. We have in common that in our perfect world we would be totally free and could do whatever we wanted and go were ever we wanted, even though our plans how to become that free are quite different (he wants nearly all people to die).Further, we checked out what Christopher's fantasy world can show us about his character. We found out that he does not really likes social contacts because he wants to be nearly alone in his world. Then we got a worksheet about the thoughts of Christopher's mother while she was talking to Christopher. We had to add what we think she could have thought in this moment. Last but not least we made two circles of intimacy – our one and Christopher's. It shows which persons have the most intimate relationship to us / Christopher. Here you can see an example of how it could look like:
(Father I – his father before Christopher finds out that he killed Wellington and lied about his mother / Father II – his father after Christopher finds out that he killed Wellington and lied about his mother)
(by Moritz)
On the last lesson on Friday we began with the statement “Everything is going to be all right. I promise”. So we thought about it and looked it up in our books to find the context. It was Christopher´s mother who said it to her son after she had an argument with Christopher´s father in her flat in London. The topic was that Father wanted his son back but Christopher wanted to live with his mother.
We took this situation as origin for a role-play: the hearing between Ed Boone and Judy Boone about the custody of Christopher. So we built six groups each for one character and worked out a statement of two minutes to say our position about what the best thing would be for Christopher.
The mediator started the hearing and gave an overview about the confused situation in which Christopher and his parents are. After that he handed over to the lawyer of Christopher´s father. He said that Mr. Boone could handle with Christopher alone, because he cooked his meals, cleaned his clothes, looked after him, took him to the doctor and went to school if Christopher was in trouble. On the other side Christopher´s mother left him, because she was be a very hot-tempered person and had hit him if the situation was too much for her. Therefore, she would not able to take care of him. Then the lawyer of Christopher´s mother gave his view on it. He wanted that Judy Boon gets the sole custody for Christopher because it was the wish of Christopher to live with his mother. Moreover, his father hit him after writing the book. That showed that he was unable to take care of Christopher he said. Next Siobhan a teacher of Christopher told her opinion. At first Christopher´s father did a good work handling Christopher, but Christopher is in a deep shock because he is scared about the killed dog and he would be frightened that his father could kill him. But Christopher´s father supported him in everything and so she would suggest that the father got custody. Then Mr. Jeavons the school psychologist went on. He said that it is important to know that Christopher had the Asperger's Syndrome. So he should live with his mother because he is frightened of his father. Christopher could not trust or believe in his father anymore because he could not understand the emotions and feelings of his father. Therefore, he does not know why his father has not shown him the letters and could not understand why father told lies like that mother was dead. But there was the option to trust his father again. Then he should live with both parents together. And at last a social worker said that he would like to have custody for the mother because it was Christopher´s wish. Even if the father was the better option because he had more experience, it was Christopher’s wish so he had to decide where he wanted to live. After that the jury gave short statements - one said he would prefer the sole custody for the mother another said the shared custody, so Christopher could learn to trust his father again. In the following voting eight jury members decided for a sole custody for the mother. Only two preferred a sole custody for the father and one went a shared custody.
Then the lesson ended.
(by Martin S.)
Task: Write about the character of Mother. What kind of person is she to you? What can you tell about her relationship to Christopher? Support your opinion with references to the text. Only use evidence from the letters.
Judy Boone is the mother of Christopher John Francis Boone and lives with Roger Shears in London. Although she loves her son very much, she left him because of her affair with Mr. Shears but the biggest reason for moving to London without him was that she thought it’s the best for Christopher. Judy Boone is a very hot-tempered person, who gets angry very quickly, shouts very often and also hit Christopher sometimes. That’s also why she didn’t stay with Christopher anymore; she said she “couldn’t take it anymore”. Because of getting angry so often she had a lot of discussions with her husband, so she felt lonely and looked for help in Roger Shear’s arms and so it’s happened that they fell in love with each other. Christopher’s Mom and Dad are very different on the emotional layer. On the one hand Ed Boone is very patient and doesn’t shout often, on the other side Judy Boone gets angry very quickly. So this relationship didn’t work anymore. And when Judy saw how harmonic Christopher and Ed got on together she felt very sad about the feeling that they don’t need her. So she left her son, although it “breakes her heart”. She was just overwhelmed by the situation because living with an autistic child is not easy because of their exesses. She gets kind of depressive and so she thought it’d better for her son when she left. In the letters you see how hard the situation is for her. Phrases like “I think about you all the time” or “I still love you” show that Judy Boone can’t live with her son anymore but she also tries to explain to him why she left. She says frequently that she is sorry for everything. She is very honest because she told his son her true situation - That she couldn’t handle the situation and was tired of Christopher’s illness. Her love for her son is also expressed in questions like “Do you remember…?”, there you can see that she likes to think about the “old good times” together. She wants her son to live in her life, so she told him much about her life, although they are divided by a very long distance. In my opinion she took the right decision once she shows her endless joy about Christopher’s visit to London and leaving Roger for living with Christopher. In the end you can say about Judy that she is a very hot-tempered person who loves her son very much and wants only the best for him, but she is also a emotional woman who needs her own life with love and a privacy.
(by Sarah L.)
5th March 2010
In our English lessons on Thursday and Friday we went on talking about our murder mystery novel. On Thursday we started with the topic body language because Christopher as a teenager with Asperger Syndrome tries to understand it but he can´t do it very well.
There are many forms of body language, for example you can move your arms and hands in a special way to say something or you speak louder or faster. You can also get a clue about how somebody is feeling when you look at how his skin colour changes.
We also found out on Thursday that Christopher is sometimes very superstitious, although he thinks very rational and believes only what scientists can prove. So, for fun we did a little test to see whether we are superstitious or not. The outputs were very different.
In our Friday lesson we got acquainted with dramatic irony. What this is? You can find dramatic irony, when the reader of a book knows something about what´s happening in the plot, about which the character has no knowledge. In “The Curios Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” we can find this when Christopher´s mother is said to be dead but he doesn´t visit the funeral or has any evidence for her death. The effect is that we know more than Christopher and want to see how he will get the information that his mother is still alive.
So far for that week, now we are curious about what we´ll do next lesson.
(by Robert)
After her death Christopher has his own way of thinking where his mother is now. Explain what you think of his ideas and compare them to your own beliefs. Do you find them disgusting? Comforting? Weird? Factual? How do his ideas fit with what you know about his way of thinking?
Christopher as a special kind of human has a very factual view of life and death and life after death. Actually, he does not believe in life after death for the reason that he cannot imagine that there is something like heaven or hell or even a soul. He rather thinks of humans as biochemical complexes whose lives are over when their brains stop working. The only way people could exist further is - in Christopher's opinion - as dust and molecules we get in our lungs every time we breathe. This point of view must be sort of disgusting for some people. I also can just partly agree with his perception. Our bodies might be divided into tiny pieces after we are dead and we will become part of the environment but I believe in souls. I have no idea what could happen to them; either there is a heaven or reincarnation or anything else. No one can tell because no one has ever returned from death until now. Moreover, it is unromantic to think that we are just bodies with no content or deeper sense. It is hard to accept that our thoughts and emotions will end with our death so we try to make up a world beyond life. And that might be the reason why most of the people feel uncomfortable when they are confronted with Christopher's way of thinking.
(by Ly)
As we know Christopher can only understand things which he can explain to himself with science (physics, maths, etc.). So when he was told his mother died, he had to imagine where she has gone. Mrs Forbes told him that her mother has gone to heaven but he cannot trust her because she believes in heaven and for Christopher, who is not able to explain heaven in a scientific way, it does not exist though. When her husband, the vicar called Reverend Peters, told him that heaven is not in our universe Christopher tried to explain this possibility with a black hole in fact that there is nothing in our universe like heaven. And to get dead people there he thought of shooting them on rockets into the black holes but this would be noticed by other people.
But his mother was cremated so she burnt into ash and smoke. What happened to the ash he will never know because he could not ask the crematorium due to his absent during the funeral. The smoke went through the chimney into the sky and so Christopher thought that there were molecules of his mother in the sky, “or in clouds over Africa or the Antarctic, or coming down as rain in rainforests in Brazil, or in snow somewhere.”
Christopher tried to explain heaven as a proven thing by science as in fact he cannot imagine illogical things. He does not notice that he destroys the beliefs of other people with his way of thinking and explaining. His biological view on death is in my opinion the most factual and believable explanation (because it is science) but the idea of shooting dead people with rockets into black holes is far from factual it is more disgusting and weird. However, all in all it is a typical thought of Christopher by explaining it with science.
As for me, the biological explanation fits the most because I do not believe such things as heaven but maybe some kind of circulating souls in the world.
(by Philipp)
