Sophie's World - study guide to go with?

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Did anyone use a study guide to go with Sophie's World, or possible a middle-school intro to philosophy?  

[Lori D.]

No personal experience, but perhaps:

Sophie's World guide ideas:
- St. John's School, R. Nighan -- free chapter notes and background info
- Holy Child School, Ms. Calvosa -- free philosopher charter and chapter discussion questions
- Sparknotes -- free chapter summaries/analysis

Middle School Intro to Philosophy:
- Philosophy for Kids (White)
- The Cartoon Introduction to Philosophy (Patton)
- Children's Book of Philosophy: An Intro to the World's Great Thinkers and Their Big Ideas (DK publishers)
- Big Ideas Explained Simply: The Philosophy Book (DK publishers)

[The Governess]

I didn’t find any particularly helpful study guides other than what Lori has already posted above...  I did pull some ideas/discussion questions from those sources and built on them:

1) Similar to the Holy Child guide, we created “fact sheets” for each philosopher that included their name, when and where they lived, what philosophical groups they belonged to (materialist, existentialist, etc.), as well as a summary of their main philosophical projects. They were a full page for each philosopher. This was immensely helpful. We sometimes added additional info from web-based sources when additional clarification was needed.

2) We wrote short plot summaries for each chapter, and specifically looked at whether or not (and how) the philosophical information Sophie learned about in the chapter influenced the plot (very often it did) (got this idea from the Holy Child material).

3) My students were older... but they each wrote 5-6 page research papers on a philosophical question that was introduced in the book that they were interested in exploring further.

4) We wrapped up with a Socratic discussion on two of the book’s larger themes (these questions also came from the Holy Child material linked in Lori’s post above and I expanded on them a bit):

Question One

Through the course of Sophie’s World, Sophie and Alberto change from “real” people to mere characters in a book.  Even after escaping the pages of the book, they exist as spirits that are barely able to interact with the “real” world.  Do Sophie and Alberto become more or less “real” as the novel progresses?  

Address the following as you prepare your answer:

·      In what ways can a fictional story be real?

·      Is spirit less real than matter? Which philosophers would agree with you?

·      This quote from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (during an interaction Harry has with Dumbledore, who has died a year earlier): 

“Tell me one last thing," said Harry. "Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?"
"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

Question Two

 More than once in Sophie’s World, the child’s perspective is mentioned as a paradigm for how philosophers should approach the world around them.  Do you feel that as we age we lose some of our ability to perceive the world around us, to wonder?  If so, how can we combat this?  

Address the following as you prepare your answer:

 ·      How are the majority of the adult characters portrayed in Sophie’s World? Are these true representations?

·      Read the excerpt of Wordsworth’s poem (in this packet).  Compare the themes in this poem with the idea of the child philosopher put forth in Sophie’s World.

The Wordsworth poem we looked at was Intimations of Immortality.

Edited June 7, 2020 by lovelearnandlive
To credit the sources I relied on

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

@Lori D. @lovelearnandlive  Sorry for the late reply, I have not been getting my notifications to threads lately!  Thank you both, these resources look excellent.