Success. I gave my brief speech about respect and sensitivity when talking about rape, and told them if they wanted to address Assef possibly being homosexual that they needed to also be respectful. After that, we launched into some questions and the class just took over from there. I mainly stood back and played ref.
They seemed to figure out that what Assef did was mainly a power issue and trying to disrespect Hassan in the harshest way possible. Some students thought that maybe part of it was that Assef was trying to explore his sexuality in addition to hurting Hassan, which led the discussion to some interesting places, but still stayed within bounds. I'm intrigued as to what they'll think when they get towards the end of the book.
On the question of "Do you feel sorry for Amir?" it was interesting to get various takes from sympathy to outrage. One kid said the more he read the book the angrier he got at the protagonist. Others said that we all have mistakes in life that we wish we could take back, this is just a big mistake that he regrets.
We'll do it again next week, hopefully it goes as well. 2nd period needed more prodding, and there wasn't much debate. Sometimes it's all about room chemistry.
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