For Weds (8:30)

Hello all,

Today, we started the class with a little exercise about themes and planning for a new society. Our roles in planning this new society illustrate our views of our strengths and weaknesses. Building on this discussion, we shifted to exploring the "refusal of the call" and the "meeting with the mentor" stages of Vogler's journey.

We had a round-table discussion that focused on exploring the various stages. Sharon and Sarah discussed and debated the element of danger in the journey, as some journeys do not really have "that level of risk." Matt explored the various ways that heroes do not accept their journey and that this reflects on the type of story "told." We explored the notion of the mentor, with Ryan and Matt bringing up examples of the mentor in "Mr. Meow-gi" and "Splinter." Mentors were defined as items or people who teach you and lead you to awareness. We then shifted to discussing how mentors relate to the writing process. We focused on exploring the mentor, not as a person but as a part of the writing process. Matt mentioned that prompts or assignment guidelines function as mentors for you when you are writing, and David also pointed out that the requirements of the audience operate to "guide" the writer as he or she is crafting their text. Sharon mentioned that texts, like the Hacker and the MLA style book, also create a didactic that will focus you on your path to writing a text.

We shifted, following this discussion, to working on the computers and conducting some free writing to get ourselves ready for writing and research. We did some blind freewriting. We first:
1. listed themes and ideas in our project one
2. Listed questions about those themes and ideas
3. Attempted to answer some of the questions
4. provided a basic history, explanation, or definition from one of our answers.
5. Listed and explored who would support/believe vs. who would condemn/attack an area that we were exploring.
6. Listed and described ways that some of the elements for above appear in culture, history, or our environment.

This exercise encourages you to think and to explore ideas before focusing to intently on one area. Freewriting is the ultimate tool if you just don't know what to do! If you are blocked, or your ideas are simply too tangled up to put down in a list, freewriting is for you. If you have an idea in the back of your head but just can't quite pin it down, this is the technique that will pull that idea out. Freewriting is also a method for developing a small hint of an idea into a fully grown one. Freewriting is a little like fishing - you cast out with your pen, and then you let the ideas swim to you... but they won't come if you don't start fishing for them!

As we begin our research-based project, please use this exercise to help you generate some areas for inquiry. I would like you to bring 3-5 questions to class on weds. that you may use to initiate your project two research.

For Weds:

Read: Book II Kafka

Write: Conduct more free writes or start generating three to five questions for research

Do: Keep thinking about questions that you would like to answer by doing research.

Take care,

Kat