Another Socratic Seminar

Today, in class, we had a socratic seminar, and it was about as fun watching it as it sounds.

Anyway the topic was the first section in a book called Montana 1948, which is about a family in Mercer County, Montana during the post-WWII era. The book isn't exactly an action thriller, but at the same time it is far from boring. Just to give some back round on the book so whoever decides to read this will know what I'm talking about. Montana 1948 is told as a recollection from a boy named David Hayden, who's father Wesley was the town sheriff and uncle is a very respected war hero and currently a doctor. So, because of these positions and titles of respect the reader can conclude that both men are very important to the community. As many people said during the socratic seminar this book began slow as mostly an introduction to introduce the reader to all the characters, then after all these introductions were made the book's plot rapidly increased. This increase in pace features a very controversial people of that time period, Native Americans. Mercer County is not far from an indian reservation, which winds up playing a huge role as the book progresses, as stated by everyone in the seminar. First its only relevance was that the Hayden family housekeeper, Marie Little Soldier was from that reservation. However, as the book progressed it began to play a more important role, it was mentioned that Uncle Frank spent a lot of time on that reservation, not for helping the indians, but for a reason that was agreed to be extremely controversial by everyone for a very obvious reason, Uncle Frank was using his profession as a doctor to take advantage of the teenage indian girls on the reservation, or in other words he was raping them while he "examined" them. That was where the first section of the book ended, but although I read ahead I don't want to explain any more about it for the risk of giving something away that someone hasn't read. This book is definitely worth reading and although most people had similar views on the topic during the seminar, I have the feeling that as the book progresses our opinions will become more diverse because the book will become much more controversial than it already is, then it will make being in the next seminar a lot more eventful than attempting to watch it.