Hey Crossroads 11, hope you are all having a lovely and restful break. Since by now I know you must be a little bored, here is a little work to keep you interested. You're welcome....

Write a 5 paragraph essay in response to one of the following questions.  Your essay must be typed, double space, with Times New Roman 12 point font.  High level vocabulary is always encouraged. DO NOT USE FORBIDDEN PHRASES. DO NOT USE FORBIDDEN PHRASES.  DO NOT USE.... you get the picture.

Your first paragraph should have your introduction and thesis statement.  The following 3 paragraphs should be three arguments that support your thesis.  Each paragraph should have at least one correctly cited quote from the novel. The final paragraph is a conclusion and should sum up what you have argued and make some larger connection to the world.  As always, feel free to call or email if you have any questions.

Choose one of the following prompts to respond to...OR you can make up your own equally stimulating question.  If you choose to make up your own, please email me for approval.

• Given Christopher's dislike of being touched, can he experience his parents' love for him, or can he only understand it logically as a fact, because they tell him they love him? Is there any evidence in the novel that he experiences a sense of attachment to other people?
• One of the primary disadvantages of the autistic is that they can't project or intuit what other people might be feeling or thinking --- as illustrated in the scene where Christopher has to guess what his mother might think would be in the Smarties tube [pp. 115–16]. When does this deficit become most clear in the novel? Does Christopher seem to suffer from his mental and emotional isolation, or does he seem to enjoy it?
• Christopher's parents, with their affairs, their arguments, and their passionate rages, are clearly in the grip of emotions they themselves can't fully understand or control. How, in comparison to Christopher's inability to understand the passions that drive other people, is his family situation particularly ironic?
• Mark Haddon has said of The Curious Incident, "It's not just a book about disability. Obviously, on some level it is, but on another level . . . it's a book about books, about what you can do with words and what it means to communicate with someone in a book. Here's a character whom if you met him in real life you'd never, ever get inside his head. Yet something magical happens when you write a novel about him. You slip inside his head, and it seems like the most natural thing in the world" [http://www.powells.com/authors/haddon.html ]. Is a large part of the achievement of this novel precisely this --- that Haddon has created a door into a kind of mind his readers would not have access to in real life?
• Christopher's journey to London highlights the difficulties he has being on his own, and the real disadvantages of his condition in terms of being in the world. What does his trip to London teach the reader about Christopher, his life or his condition?