AlexKHobbit

Back To Student Pages Back To Homepage = THE HOBBIT = The Hobbit Discussion Questions   Question March 2, 2011

 A good story contains conflicts to keep the reader reading. Chose one conflict in The Hobbit, and explain how Tolkien uses it to move the story forward. Don't forget to cite page number when appropriate.

Hobbit Question 2  March 4, 2011  In your own words, describe what happens next to Bilbo and the dwarves in the forest

Hobbit Question 3 March 20, 2011

When Gandolf first visits Bilbo, looking for someone to share in an adventure, Bilbo tells Gandalf that hobbits are

"...plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can't think what anybody sees in them "(7).

The dwarves are not quite sure that Bilbo will be able to handle the adventures at all, and Bilbo himself wonders how he found himself at The Green Dragon Inn, riding a pony away from Hobbiton. But now, Bilbo has become the unspoken leader of the party. Without Bilbo, the dwarves would never have made it to Lonely Mountain.

Is an adventure something that happens to us or how we react to what happens? Often in life, adventures are not as obvious as killing giant spiders or escaping from an Elven king's dungeon. Sometimes adventures are made out of ordinary days and ordinary events, with ordinary people who become the heroes. You may not even realize you've been in an adventure until after it's over!

Think about the times you have learned a new skill, moved, changed schools, competed in sports, welcomed a new pet, discovered a new friend, performed in front of an audience, or had a terrifying fall. These events are adventures in process. Have you grown or changed from your experience with any of these situations, as Bilbo grew and changed  because of his adventure with the dwarves? Recall a time when something happened to cause you to grow and change in a positive way. Respond on your wiki page.

March 3, 2011 I think The Hobbit is a character verse nature because Bilbo has to survive against nature to survive. He has to dodge what the world throws at him. When the goblins got him and he got stuck in a dark cave with Gollum, he had to prevent himself from being killed by having a riddle contest. When he won, Gollum cheated and didn't show him the way out when he promised he would if Bilbo won. Bilbo ran and fell but Gollum ran right by him. He also used his surroundings, the magic ring, to get past the goblin guards. Soon he will have to kill a dragon to get back what the dwarves rightfully own. When you say The Hobbit is a character vs. nature, it seems you don't understand that there are many, many conflicts within a novel. Since Gollum is a character, this would be character vs character conflict - not nature. I hope this clears things up a bit for you. ~Mrs. Best

Taylor Miklaszewski March 4 Reading 5

Hey Alex. I like the event you have chose to explain. I think you did a good job at telling this conflict. Maybe you should also add the detail of when Gollum ran right past him because of the ring in that sentence. Also when you said Bilbo has to survive against nature, do you mean against the outside world or the goblins, Gollum, and the trolls? You could add some detail in that sentence. I do agree about the conflict that you stated and it does make a reader want to keep reading. The ending sentence makes me want to read to find out how they will get their belongs back.

March 4, 2011 When the dwarves, Bilbo, and Gandalf are in the forest, they walk into a barren part of the forest where they can see the moon. While they are there, they hear howling. They think it's a wolf howling at the moon, but soon more and more wolves come and start to chase them. The group, the dwraves, Bilbo, and Gandalf, hop into trees. Bilbo is too small and not able to get into a tree so one of the Dwraves hop out of the tree and let Bilbo climb on his back to go on. The brave dwrave then almost gets rip to shreds but makes it in just in time. Soon, a fire starts and burns all the wolves. ~Sorry, Alex, this is not what happened. I sure hope you are reading carefully. I would love to read with you at lunch if you wanted. ~Mrs. Best

Thomas DeGuire Reading-8 March 4, 2011 I think that you made a good choice on which conflict you chose. My conflict was when Bilbo and Gollum met, but I like this one too. When I read this part of the book, I could not put it down until I had finished the entire chapter because I could not wait to see what happened next. The only thing that I think you might want to do is add a little bit more information about the fire, like how it started or where it came from. Other than the part about the fire you did a fantastic job and used great detail. Also, you gave us a good outline of the scene without it being too long or too short. Keep up the good work!

When I was younger, my parents didn't let me do much. I always shared a room, always go to bed at eight o' clock, and never able to go outside after dinner. Our neighborhood in Michigan was horrible. It was like a mini Detroit. We had kids smoking, robbing, and even drinking. My parents didn't want me to be like that. She wanted me to be raised like I lived somewhere nice. We we're hoping on moving soon but we couldn't sell our house. We lived our house for eleven years. There were many bad memories around it but many great things inside it. My parents built a fence around our backyard and put a swing set back there so we were able to go in the backyard. My mom didn't like us in the front. She put a lock on the fence so no one could gen in or out unless you were tall enough to undo it. I soon was able to unlock it but I never needed to. Then one day my mom told us she was pregnant and we were going to have another baby brother; Ben. When he was born in 2005, my mom put a lot of responsibility on me. After that we got a dog which put a lot more responsibility on me. My parents soon thought i was mature enough to be rewarded more time before bed; nine o' clock. I was in sixth grade going to bed at nine on weekends. Eight on school nights. Then my dad came home from work and told us we were moving to Wisconsin but that is a different story. When we moved there, I got a lot more responsibilities. But the community I lived in was really nice. It wasn't like my old one with three bedrooms for six people. I met kids and they were just like me. When I went to school though, things were different, I had kids with cellphones and iPods. I had no idea what an iPod was at the time. They all had north face fleece jackets which were about two hundred bucks. That was pretty expensive. No one had north faces in Michigan and rarely would you find a kid with a cellphone. I didn't have any of these things told my mom and she felt what I was going through. She gave me more privileges and let me stay up later and have things most kids have. Except she made me go through tests. I baby-sat and jobs. She saw I was mature enough so she got me an iPod touch. She still made me do those jobs though but it was worth it. I feel more responsible because I went through this. I felt a little older that year. ~This is a great connection to our book, but you need to actually state the connections here with what Bilbo discovers about himself. Also, when you are done with a response like this, you need to take a few minutes to read it aloud to yourself (softly) so you can catch your errors. ~Mrs. Best


 * //<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 160%;">Hobbit Question 4 March 29, 2011 //**

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">If Thorin could have lived, do you think he would have regretted his greed? What do you think Tolkien is trying to teach us about material wealth by Thorin's death? In your response, site textual evidence to support your response. Use page numbers too.

If Thorin could of lived after the battle, I think that he would of regretted his greed. He would or realized that his greed caused Fili and Kili to death. I would hope he would forgive giving Bard the Arkenstone. Thorin is a brave, smart, friendly dwarve. He would of lost his greed because it wasn't him. Bilbo regretted giving the the Arkenstone to Bard because the result was three of his close friends died in action. Tolkien is trying to us that sometimes money changes who we are and how we look at things. Jesus said that it's harder for a rich man to go to heaven then he is for a camel to go through an eye of a needle. That's how much it changes us. Bard said to Thorin "A just question. But you are not dead, and we are not robbers. Moreover the wealthy man may have pity beyond right on the needy that befriended them when they were in want. And still my other claims remain unanswered" (287). Thorin was then being greedy and would not donate money and hogged it al. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">~The book TELLS us that he forgives Bilbo for giving the Arkenstone away. ??? This response was should have been based on what happens when Thorin died. ~Mrs. Best