Will discussed his reading and comprehension homework questions during the first part of our class. He did a fine job on his homework and has a good understanding of the text. We had a long discussion about the parenting skills of the parents. Will shared that he wasn’t sure whether the mother truly cared about her children, or if she was just too concerned about herself to properly care for her children. A central theme of the book is the idea of neglect verses the teaching of self-sufficiency. The children are forced to fend for themselves and the mother justifies this as teaching them self-sufficiency even though the parents themselves are not self-sufficient and cannot and do not provide for their own children. After the discussion, Will continued his work in media literacy. He reread the article about “fake news” and took a short quiz. We had a very interesting conversation about the role of “fake news” in today’s media. For homework, Will is going to read and annotate pages 245-271 in “The Glass Castle”.