Transcript One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Discussion Director
O Writer’s Notebook (Emailed Night Before)
O Discussion Points:
O What’s going on?
O Bromden – History? Perspective?
O The Ward – Schedule
O Shock Shop
O Day Room (Chronics/Acutes)
O “efficiency” – “wires” and “beams” (31)
O McMurphy’s Arrival & History – Inciting Incident
O Cards; Laugh
O Foreshadowing conflict (41)
O ONE PROBLEM WITH THIS ALL
Literary Luminary
O Passages:
O page 10 – Big Nurse (COLOR)/SIZE
O page 13 – flashback – “it’s the truth…”
O Page 16 – McMurphy – laugh
O Page 27 – McMurphy’s hand
O Page 41 – “…the Big Nurse gets real put out if anything
keeps her outfit from running smooth.”
Concept Connector
O Connections:
O New Person at School (Admission)
O Stuck in a fog
O Telling on others (honor code)
O Research:
O Umqua tribe – tribe in Southern Oregon
O The Dalles
Artistic Adventurer
Self-Created:
Poem
Found
Character Coordinator
O Bromden – Chief Broom
O Cagey, Perception, History with Father in Flashbacks
O History: (24) – father chief, mother not, (29) – electronics in college/Army;
high school football trip to CA – 38-39
O Three Orderlies/Aides
– black, dwarf (30 – mom raped), two others
(Williams), hate (31)
O Big Nurse – Ratched
– been there longest, History (29) –
how she gets staff
– “wet hands” (14), laugh (37)
R. P. McMurphy – laugh, cowboy imagery (16), gambling, work
O PR Guy
O
farm, redhead, psychopath, “manipulator” (Ratched) (29)
O Nurses – Miss Flinn (27)
O Dr. (29) “little man with a big wide forehead and wide jowly cheeks…”
Character Coordinator
O Acutes:
O Cheswick – (17) staring at cards
O Billy Bibbit – (22) stutter
O Martini – (19) “discovering things under the tables and chairs”
O Harding – (23) – hands, sexy wife
O Maxwell Taber - (29) manipulator, (34) – asking about pills, rape?,
EST, (40) adjusted to society, changing his “wife, his two little girls…,
the neighbor he goes bowling with”
O Chronics – Walkers, Wheelers, Vegetables
O Ellis – (19) started as Acute, Shock Shop, nailed with pee
O Ruckly – (20) failure, riled up by wife
O Colonel Matterson – wife brought him (21)
O Old Pete (25)
O Big George – (25) “water freak,” “unsanitary hand”
Your Job
O BEFORE BOOK CLUB:
O Read the pages
O TYPE your Pre-Group Role Assignment (Notes)
O WN
O DURING BOOK CLUB:
O Share your Role Assignment (Notes) & WN
O Take Notes on Daily Notes Sheet
O Highlights of Discussion
O AFTER BOOK CLUB:
O Add any additional notes
O Post-Group Journal (Reflection) & Participation Grade
O Discussion Director: Attendance Evaluation