Kris !

Hey!!

I just want to let you know I appreciate you :]
You and Jeff were amazing Bridge Instructors.
I am looking forward to Columbia College Chicago!!!!!!!
I am also looking forward to the email about my writing patterns.
You helped me perfect my em dash usage & that is AWESOMEE!

HOPE ALL WENT WELL WITH YOUR SURGERY :]

-Sierra

Hey Kris!!

First of all I want to say thank you for your time and I appreciate your help. I know you were getting tired of telling me to stop moving so quickly through my essays but finally I did it lol. I think I did my best on my final paper and I would like to know your thoughts on it as soon as you finish reading it. Although I didn't want to participate in the Bridge Program, I am glad I did because it was very helpful for me and my writing. You and Jeff are awesome teachers and my classmates were cool too. This was a great opportunity for me to make friends and break out of my shyness before officially starting school. I can't wait for your class to start in a couple weeks; I'm honestly very excited and anxious and I promise I will be the best student/writer I can be. I hope everything went well with your surgery and you are doing fine. See you soon.

*Jaymee*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v-5SaFTm2bcac&feature=player_embedded#!

Kristen Orser!

Hey Kris,

I think I can speak for everyone and tell you that we all missed you today and hope the best for you. Hope you are feeling well. I want to thank you for all of the help, insight, advice, and fun you brought to the class. I am very thankful that you were my teacher and hope to stay in touch. It has been such a short time, but I have learned so much about writing, my peers, and myself. Thanks again Kris for everything, I am kinda gone miss our discussions and workshops. Hope to see you on campus! Enjoy whatever time you have off and feel betttttterrrrrrrr (:
-Abby

Kristen Orser

Hey Kris i just wanted to say bye and it was nice meeting you. you were a really great teacher and really funny too. i know i didnt say much in class, but these last four weeks been really fun with you.i just want to thank you for helping me become a better writer. i hope you like my final paper; hopefully you will pass me :), but if you dont it ok, your still awesome in my book. Also, i hope your surgery went ok.

Kris Orser

Hope that everything went well with you today. Sorry you couldn't be there for the final class. The presentations were fantastic. Thank you for taking time with me and showing me how to grow as a writer.

Critique of presentations

The presentations today were very informative. It gave me insight into my classmates that I wasn't aware of. I like the way the project were demonstrated, especially Abby's. She openned up to the class in a way that made her vunerable, but it gave me a better understanding of her personality. I think they all were able to share things with us that they wouldn't have normally and it was interesting.

Clarence

Hey does everyone feel like we got pretty close as alcass? I feel like i am definately closer to my english class than i am to my math class.

take our quiz folks

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/bridge2010survey

FINAL PROJECT NOTES

Your visual or instantiation of the essay is due at the time of your presentation. I suggest practicing a speech where you emphasize HOW this is IN DIALOGUE with your essay (is it contradicting? taking the essay somewhere new? addressing a topic the essay failed to or struggled to address? is it showing us a new way of looking at your topic?). Please discuss how the content is being attended to by the medium (painting, sculpture, audio, video, etc.) and how the content helped you develop the shape and structure of the piece.

You are discussing form (medium, materials, and shape) to see how it is an extension of content.

Discuss, also, your process of making. How did one perception lead to another perception? How did you shape your energies, passions, and ideas?

Once you've established an understanding of the finished product (by discussing form and process), use your piece to BEGIN A CONVERSATION with your peers. Considering asking your peers questions or making the piece interactive in some way.

Have fun with this presentation and try to aim towards (including Q&A) about a 10 minute presentation. That's a lot of time, but your work should generate a conversation, critique, and exciting points. Some of you may want handouts or material that keep the conversation going.

YOUR FINAL ESSAYS ARE ALL DUE 8/26. Because I am missing class that day, email me your essays as an attachment by 12 pm that day. No exceptions regarding the time. If you have your essay earlier, awesome! Hand it in to me.

PRESENTATION DATES:

8/25: Abby, Jaymee, Kyrin, JayVon, Adilla, Tequira.
8/26: Brittany, Clarence and Sierra, Domenic, Christian, Charlie, and Mike.

Please feel free to ask questions and workshop like crazy today.

Best,
Kris

Rehabilitation - Aug 19, 2010

Do you think that prisons are designed to rehabilitate (make them better citizens ) inmates?

How do you Feel?

How does everyone feel about the kids from true notebooks being incarecerated. Do you believe that they were just simply a product of their environment or is it totally their fault that they are locked up?

Mike's Question 8/17

I've been thinking and thinking but I'm still stuck on what to write this paper on. What are some ideas that you have about what to write the paper on?

make sense?

if two negatives make a positive why cant two wrongs make a right?

reading images, making bridges

"We are surrounded by worn-out images, and we deserve new ones." - Werner Herzog

"Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long." - Walker Evans


Talk to me about the differences between these two images. Deconstruct the images so that you analyze the importance of the context, the differences, and the values associated with these images. This is good practice for finding points of juxtaposition for your final.

watch!

This video really demonstrates "playing with language" in a way that associates "like" idea. See how the language and the words move the images into the images into the images?

This is akin to what we'd like to see as the visual instantiation of your final essay. This "works with" the ideas of language we are seeking.

Talk to me about this video. What do you like? How is this "like" an essay? Can we call this a visual essay? Does this help any of you approach some concrete paper subject?


This is another AWESOME video for a larger project. See how the author takes the "symbol" of a tumbleweed and applies it in a new way? This is what we are looking for--something that is textual and visual, something that opens up a new space for thinking, something that sustains an idea into all of the things it can connect with and to. (click on the image to watch the video and learn about the project)

GROUND ZERO

Ground zero is technically defines as the space of land bvetween the streets Liberty, Church, West, and Barclay. Making the mosque technically ON ground zero.

So it isn't down the block. It is definatwely ON it.

Mosque Planned Near Ground Zero

O8|16|2O1O :)

- bloq question:

Thinking about all you have expierenced thus far in the Bridge Program - what have you learned? What are your thoughts about how you are doing? are you excited to successfully pass? if so - why are you so excited? Just marinate on your thoughts about Bridge and express yourself...

" Guilty by association"
How does this phrase relate to your novel?

Blog Question

What are thoughts or opinion about the controversy on building a Mosque on Ground Zero? and how does this apply to your text?

blog questions over the weekend

Try to respond fully to Jaymee and JayVon. Jaymee asked a great question that hasn't gotten too many responses yet; you could use evidence from your writing exercises to help you address relationships to the characters.

Those of us who are posting up videos need to deconstruct the videos and help us see what is being revealed by the text you've given us.

I am curious about how the Illuminati relates to the texts. DO YOU SEE BELIEF STRUCTURES IN YOUR TEXTS? HOW ARE THEY CHARACTERIZED? DO YOU SEE ISSUES OF CELEBRITY, CONSUMPITION, AND MARKETING IN THE BOOKS? Please make clear connections to your texts and remember to TALK TO YOUR PEERS ON THE BLOG.

freemason

ILLUMINATI OVERLOAD !

Question!!

If you have noticed a connection between you and a character, in either of the books, who is it and what draws you to the character?

8/12 Blog Question

How do you guys feel about the constant stories of your favorite artist being involved in illuminati?

8/10 blog session

Geert Wilders made a short political film called Fitna; it exposes his view of the religion of Islam. It's only seventeen minutes in lenght, but it attempts to demonstrate that the Qur'an motivates its followers to hate, encourage terrorism, antisemitism, violence aganset women and sugjugation of infidels.

In response to the movie, many people in the Netherlands (where the movie focused its attention to--Muslims in the Netherlands--and where Wilders is from) created online videos. The attempt was to "block" people from watching Wilders film, which was distributed online. When you would search for Fitna or Wilders, you would find these "apology" videos from the people of Netherlands instead of the film itself.

Here is their intention statement: Why? Well we can't stop Wilders. He has a right to freedom of expression and he is smart enough to stay within the boundaries of Dutch law. Actually, we do not want to stop his movie because we cherish our freedom of expression. Even stupid populist politicians have fundamental rights. Especially they!

We can compete for attention however. And we can produce disinformation. So we are going to make Movies called “Fitna” in which we apologise for Geert Wilders embarrassing behaviour. We will make so many of them that it will be hard to find the movie by Wilders without finding lots of movies apologising for it.

Just to let the world (and ourselves) know that allowing confused people to speak does not mean that we agree with what they say. Sorry.







1. What does Fitna mean in Arabic? Why is this meaning important to know before understanding the issue?
2. What do you think about this initiative?
3. How is this movie different from an episode of South Park making fun of a religious group (which they do all the time)?
4. Is there anything to be said for the idea that Wilders is "investigating" Islam, has a right to free speech, or as views that should be put out there and discussed?
5. Theo van Gough is another Dutch film-maker who made a movie that was critical of Islam, he was murdered and there were notes left on his body, by the murderers, threatening Western countries. His murder caused Wilders to say, "The Netherlands has been too tolerant to intolerant people for too long. We should not import a retarded political Islamic society to our country." How does this story change your perspective of Wilder's story? Does it?
6. These are points of conversation, your role is to consider these events, apply them to our texts, and think about what your texts show you about TOLERANCE, DIVERSITY, PUNISHMENT, FREEDOM, and OTHER ISSUES--there are a ton--THAT THIS BRINGS UP. Does your book show you anything that you think our country should "apologize" for?

What are your thoughts on Lollapalooza?

WHAT DO YOU GUY THINK ABOUT THE WAR AND HOW THEY DON'T HAVE THE FUNDS TO GET THE SOLDIERS OUT OF THERE?

Second Chances

Do you think people deserve second chances? If so why do you think that, what circumstances make it acceptable? How do second chances relate to our books? In True Notebooks, without knowing the crimes committed, do you believe they deserve second chances just from reading how they express themselves?

Sunnis vs. Shi'ites

The Islamic religion has always been split up in two different type of Muslims. One being called the Sunnis and the other being called the Shi’ites. The difference between the two goes far back to the death of the prophet Muhammad, and the issue of who would take leadership position for the Muslims.

The conflict is more then just hatred and is more of a political dominance. The war between the two has caused many issues to where some of the actions that were done to one another went too far.

The picture I have chosen is the cover of a time magazine, it illustrates the world wide recognition the Shi’ites and Sunnis were calling towards each other.

I can remember being really young watching CNN and not really understanding what was really going on, I never knew the division between the two was that serious. This effects the American Islamic population as well because I see this everyday in my community, to the point where certain areas are divided just like if I were to live in another Middle Eastern country.

This reminds me of Persepolis being that when I saw this I was as young as Marjane except I wasn’t living the life that she was. This is a direct depiction of her life in this novel but the political aspect is more of the topic rather than this particular issue, which I’m sure was an issue.

BLOG ASSESSMENT

The blog, and your general writing, should be a bit more sustained. Well I think MOST of you presented really great comparisons to an issue/experience/event and the texts, most of the comparisions were not fully fleshed out or developed. You should be TYPING THE WHOLE BLOG SESSION. If we need to, we will make the blog session totally quiet so that you aren't distracted by peers, music, etc. Let's not have to resort to this, okay?

I suggest you open up a microsoft word document and type your response in there so you can better estimate the length. I suggest you clarify your terms and ideas more fully so that we can all start responding to each other's comments and having a really academic conversation on the blog.

Clarence's question was posted and it is a good question! Domenic started to respond to it, but he could (and you all will) go a little deeper to consider the consequences of inaccessibility and the cultural codes we are teaching our younger generations by not thinking about accessibility in our city planning and/or as a priority.

Please respond to his question and please see my responses to your blog posts.

LIFE IN DEARBORN

Where I am from there is a tremendous amount of islamic people. Probably something close to 50% of the city. In every class we have the teacher and the arabic translator. I couldnt find the article about this because it was years ago. But I think that this is a really good example of cultures being tolerant with one another. In PERSEPOLIS it is a constant change of culture. Islamic, Communism, Democracy, War, etc. The culture changes SO many times throughout the story. And not only that but they fight with one antoher and people are getting killed. But where I am from we have found a medium. There are deffinately racial issues in Dearborn, deffinately. But we aren't killing eachother, our governament make an effort to accomodate these foreigners.

I didn't have an article but take a look at the picture. I see people like this ever single day, all day, anywhere I go. I lived in the city before and after the Arabic/Islamic population arrived. Things most certaintly changed, but I wouldn't nessicarily say it was for better or for worse. Just change.

Inglewood/True Notebooks

Over a month ago, there was a shooting a block away from where we lived. Someone had shot at a police officer. Helicopters hovered over our neighborhood, big guys with rifles came around. We couldn't leave our house for a couple hours. It felt really, really scary and we had to hide in our house. The police came and asked my dad questions, if we knew of anybody or had seen anything. It felt we were under siege.

In True Notebooks, the characters are all in there because they committed crimes. Just like them, we were stuck somewhere and couldn't leave. However, these guys were actually convicted of the crimes, where we were almost victims. We were being held wrongly, like we were being held in lockdown.

Christian Dior made a racist advertisment because the white women showed pride, while the Asian women sat back in the shadows. They were being held back just because they are Asian, just like True Notebooks characters are all getting punished for just a few people's mistakes, and how everybody on our block was punished because of a few people's mistakes.

Assumptions of people are not always true because you can't just hear one side of the story. The authorities just think we're bad because we live in a certain area of the world. We were treated just like the characters in True Notebooks and the Asian women in Dior's ad, people treating us as inferior because of a generalization.

I think that the characters in True Notebooks are finally aware of their emotions.
The characters have been swimming in their thoughts and are thinking about their past. They have always been worried about being tough rather than knowing they are capable of great ideas.

I'm drawing from Prop. 8 being struck down, which had prevented same-sex marriage in the state of California, to compare to Persepolis. Both are events of cultural revolution where the conservative right are keeping fast to antique ideals that are too restricting and persecuting to be carried out in a modern society. This refers to "the other" where the fear of the unknown leads to generalizing. Satrapi alike has been victim of this, seen as "that Iranian girl." Another connection is the struggle for identity within culture, in which both the ban and Satrapi pertain to. Overall, they both go back to the root of wanting to confirm their liberation against oppressive forces to follow personal pursuits.

Freedom Writers and True Notebooks

The movie Freedom Writers relates to True Notebooks with the topics of race and racial profiling. In the beginning of the movie all of the students were sitting in groups with their own races. None of them wanted to interact with another race and they stayed seperated until the movie progresses and they start interacting. In True Notebooksthe groups have mixed races. Usually in a prison setting everyone sticks with their own and they don't interact with others unless there is a fight or something serious. In the writing group everyone is cool with each other, but this is only in the writing group. When they aren't in class they dont interact and can't because of the different groups that they belong to.

Talib Kweli - Hostile Gospel Pt. 1 [Deliver Us] (Video)

When we see ads on television we usually see "pretty" and skinny women, mostly using sex appeal to sell a product. From our lecture yesterday, we realize that when we associate successful, "popular", or "perfect" with a so called hot girl. What I mean by this is that we subconsciously stereotype people. With ads, we are conditions and brainwashed into think beautiful is only defined as certain way. Also in many other ads subliminal messages may be presented. In True Notebooks we see how we stereotyped the writers beforehand; we assumed they were uneducated or did not have the ability to write well. We quickly see how truly smart these men are. This raises a gender issue as well, we also do not expect women to be prisoners or be in jail. There are no women in True Notebooks. Kris told me that we like learning about outsiders because "its fun", this is why people by things that use sex in their ads or product or even their message because it is fun and interesting to us.

Here are some pictures of subliminal messages in advertisements, and examples representing how "sex sells".

response

Propostion 8 is about gays and lesbians wanting to have the right to marry. but many people dont feel that they should have the right to marry, because of religious reasons. so many gays have been campaigning to get the right to marry. i feel they should have right to do whatever they want because everybody should have equal rights. I can connect this to the book Persepolis, because the main character and her family is fighting a for their rights too. The characters in the story are seperated from other "Classes", and cant share the same right, because of reglious reasons. Just how gays cant share the same rights as striaght people because of their own beliefs. I can also connect in the book many people were killed for fighting for their rights, just how many gays were hurt and killed for fighting for their rights.

True Notebooks in Rolling Meadows?

A recent report was put in the daily herald that Rolling Meadows (the town I live in) was given 35,400 dollars just to help stop gang related acts. How this is an issue is because I went to school with half the kids like are involved in this violence. This is a carzy thought to think of because in the book "True Notebooks" thats how most of these kids started off at. Some of the kids that i went to school with are kids that i have known for years. I knew them when they werent even thinking about doing anything like that. Most of the kids that I went to school with that were in gangs were the nicest and smartest kids i have ever met and its sad that they choose to live the life of crime instead of making somthing of their lives.

TRUE NOTEBOOKS/NFL PLAYER

This is plaxico Buress, he was arrested for allegedly shooting himself in the leg. This relates to "true notebooks" due to the fact that he and the boys in the book are currently in jail. Though both are in jail they are taking the steps to bacome better people. They have alot of passion to become better but are put into a catergory of being bad people because of the wrong decisions they made.

Boycotting for what?

Most of us know about the three month oil spill into the gulf. While it is the largest oil spills, people are attacking BP and hurting the owners of the independent stores. There's even a "like" page on facebook that "Boycott BP" has over 650,00 "fans".

This relates to True Notebooks a lot because people get a stereotype that everyone in prison, or a juvenille hall , are bad people. And just because of the stereotype that is fed to people, they think that they don't need help, and that they're never going to change. In True Notebooks you get to see another side of the men that are incarcerated. They're trying to learn, and they pray everyday that they can get out and start a new life. They're not benefitting from the negative thoughts that people perceive. Like the BP issue, the people that boycott BP have no idea that what they're doing isn't "helping" the way they think it is. I think that if people were to try and educate themselves more about issues the world faced, then the other end wouldn't be suffering for nonsense reasons.

-- buildinq the connection with the book True Notebooks and the movie Freedow Writers

The book "True Notebooks" has really allowed me to see whats life like in a place I have never been--a Juvenile Detention Center. When I read the book, the movie Freedom Writers pops up in my head. I think that the idea and the climax of each are very simular.
In the book, the author is a writing teacher to urban students in jail.
In the movie, the teacher is a writing teacher to urban students that go to a an urban school and some of them have been in jail. Both the author and the teacher in the movie, have allowed the students to tap into their emotions and indentify their challenges and past times.

Clarence's Question for 8/5

Newly introduced to a densely populated urban setting, do you feel that appropriate accomodations are being met to assist people with physical or mental challenges? If not, how could it be made better?

Scavenger Hunt (of sorts)

for class 8/5:

I want you to, during the blog session, find a current event that relates to your text and work to explain the text's relationship to your news clipping.

The goal here is to move us outside of the classroom and start seeing how/if our classroom conversations join with other conversations. We are gathering a larger conversation, we are joining with our communities.

The event need not be a "global" occurance, but could be something happening in your neighborhood, at your church, or somewhere local. Since we are part of many communities, it will be interesting to see us relate our reading to local/regional issues and global issues. How we relate to the text and the issue will tell us more about our membership in those many communities.




For example, Christian Dior's new campaign (pictured here) reminds me of both texts. In the campaign, there are Asian women who all look identical, are shorter than the singular white model, and seem "plain and complicit." This reminds me of
James Smalls' essay, "Slavery is a Woman," where Smalls breaks down Jean-Marc Nattier's "Mademoiselle de Clermont at Her Bath Attended by Slaves". Smalls comments that "black women are shown in their expected roles as servants and exoticized complements to the white mistress. [...] The portrait constitutes a visual record of white woman's construction and affirmation of self through the racial and cultural Other. [...]" Is Dior doing the same thing? Reaffirming the postcolonial perspective that Asian women are subordinate? Do the rows of Asian women stereotype Asians as submissive? Indistinguishable from each other? And opressed? What do we do with a fashion advertisement that has so much cultural resonance?



While the photograph is alluring and the work might not be intentionally racist, the work is--in fact--racist. At least, it bring up issues of racism. And I'm reminded of how we portray prisoners--as people who all look alike--and how True Notebooks is really working towards offering individual identity through writing. If we gave a pen to all of these Asian women in the photograph and asked them how they feel being "lumped together in conformity," would that give them freedom? Marjane plays with this in her illustrations--she illustrates everyone to look the same or at least similiar. How are her illustrations and her intentions different from the Dior ad?

You Can Answer This

Why do people get in trouble everyday? Why do some other get rewarded?

Language Portraits

self portraits galore!

Tequira, Adilla, Abby, Domenic, Brittany, and Clarence.

If your self portrait is not up, let Jeff or myself know.

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT AND DISCUSS SELF PORTRAITS

In class, we talked about Lacan, Frued, and Hegel's (among others) concept of the Other. Here is a brief refresher of this "academic" term and theory--it will help with your reading and our reading discussion to apply this to your texts and to see how it is encouraging or deviating from the process of Othering.

The Other

The Other is an individual who is perceived by the group as not belonging, as being different in some fundamental way.

Othering is a way of defining and securing one’s own positive identity through the stigmatization of an "other." Whatever the markers of social differentiation that shape the meaning of "us" and "them," whether they are racial, geographic, ethnic, economic or ideological, there is always the danger that they will become the basis for a self-affirmation that depends upon the denigration of the other group. When a group claims to be "chosen by God," the danger multiplies, not only for the "unchosen" other who may be subjected to violence, but for the chosen group itself that is at risk of being undermined.

Otherness takes many forms. The Other may be someone who is of...
a different race (White vs. non-White),
a different nationality (Anglo Saxon vs. Italian),
a different religion (Protestant vs. Catholic or Christian vs. Jew),
a different social class (aristocrat vs. serf),
a different political ideology (capitalism vs. communism),
a different sexual orientation (heterosexual vs. homosexual),
a different origin (native born vs. immigrant).

When social, ethical, cultural, or literary critics use the term "The Other" they are thinking about the social and/or psychological ways in which one group excludes or marginalizes another group. By declaring someone "Other," persons tend to stress what makes them dissimilar from or opposite of another, and this carries over into the way they represent others, especially through stereotypical images. It also extends to political decisions and cultural practices. In the recent past of the United States, Anglo-Americans made African-Americans into cultural Others through the use of minstrel shows in blackface, popular figures like Sambo and Aunt Jemima, and separatist policies like the Jim Crow laws. Similar practices can be traced in practically (if not) every culture in the globe. The recent genocidal wars in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia , as do the continued struggles in Ireland and Israel , remind us that Othering is an instrument of terror that results in multi-generational hatred and violence.

How does everyone feel about the immigration issue in the southwest?

My Self-portrait by JayVon Collier

EMMY AWARD WINNER

Mike

christian chears

mpc 2000xl (kyrin)

My Self Portrait

Beauty hides
The pain inside
From lonely nights
And tears I've cried
Nobody knows
What's really on my mind

Self-portrait

A self-portrait by nature is an introspective experience, allowing the creator to examine, form, view, and experience oneself. It’s a mechanism of developing and explaining personal character to an audience, but more importantly, to the author. The composition of self-portrait has little or no restrictions, allowing creative freedom to release one’s work. Another essential is the symbolism, which mirrors the composition in that’s it’s open-ended and capable of being non-literal. In response to these personal definitions I’ve titled my self-portrait, “Pursuit.”

The portrait’s materials in the making of included standard computer paper, a pencil, and a black Sharpie. The process implemented was the traditional methods of connect the dots, in where I numbered my image and then began to draw with pencil, later darkening it with a black Sharpie. Visually it displays shoeprints stepping and walking from the left to right end of the paper in a non-linear way helping to suggest my personality. This piece echoes to me in a manner that creates a basic external image of myself that lets me chew over my traits, and picking up things I wouldn’t otherwise without the aid of the image. This being said, I’m happy with the work and the success of its goal to explain and imply me as a whole.

This self-portrait purveys its meaning from both the title and the imagery of the work, which in summary is the chase for all things new and adventure. Now while this pursuit includes establishing friends, it includes less tangible things such as knowledge, truth, wisdom, experience, success, and so forth. But the piece isn’t about end games but rather the steps to achieve those goals and the gains from working your way their. This description relates to my concepts and key character traits of independence, curiosity, and dabbling.

Crime Rates on the Rise!!!

Hey so i've notice the crime is really high in Chicago. Why do you think that is? How does that make you feel?

LECTURES

Lectures (M/W)

Below are the speakers, title of speech, and location of the lecture series. Remember to start bridging (get it? Bridge) the lecture series to the work in the classroom. We are looking for connections (connecting the squid...see, it all gathers).

8/4: Shanita Akintodne "A Journey Through Marketing" (1014 S. Michigan)

8/9: Sharon Bloyd-Pehskin "Asking Questions" (1014 S. Michigan Ave)

8/11: Stephanie Shonekan "American Popular Music: Black and White?" (600 Michigan)

8/16: Jean Petrolle "Madness, Medicine, and Literature" (600 Michigan)

8/18: Brendan Riley "Zombies and You: Why You Should Care About The Walking Dead" (600 Michigan)

8/23: David Dolak “Don’t Fear the Numbers: Using Science, Mathematics, and a Found Object to Make Music” (600 S. Michigan)

8/3

What are the mixed emotions you have, starting college?

8/2 BLOG ASSIGNMENT

The central questions asked in our class reading are: “What should you ask of your professors?” and “What should your professors ask of you?”

Please answer these questions in consideration of the author's ideas:

“Learning takes place through discovery, not when you’re told something but when you figure it out for yourself.”

“Great teachers don’t teach. They help students learn. Students teach themselves. Three of the all-time greats—Socrates, Jesus, and his Jewish contemporary the sage Hillel—share a dislike of heavyweight speeches. They spoke briefly, painting pictures, and telling tales (“parables”), and always raised more questions than they settled.”

welcome to bridge 2010

You ask me to connect the dots. You ask whether I remember the “old childhood drawings” where you connected the dots until a figure appeared. I remember connecting the dots; I remember the dragon that appeared, the angel that appeared. A winged horse once, a small wooden house. I remember sitting on the floor in a house, connecting the dots of a wooden house....I've been thinking about the dots.

Michael Palmer (from A Danish Notebook)




What if we joined the debris or loose pieces of our personal narratives, interior thinking, and questions to develop something that gathers all of our “personals” into a collective? Would this make a contemporary narrative?

The purpose of this blog will be to generate writing that exposes our individual stories, our contemporary moment (shared/collective stories), our reading interpretations / reflections, and our writing as a whole project. This project is an experiment; the goals of the experiment are to write more often and to learn from each other.

BLOG WORK: We will have a classroom conversation and handout that will itemize blog responsibilities and expectations. In the response section of this post (comments) please comment on what you want from the blog, what you don't want from the blog, and what concerns or questions you have regarding classroom blog use.

HW: For homework tonight, draw a "connect the dots" that can act as a self portrait for you. It need not be a literal self portrait but it should reveal something about you. Photograph or scan the connect the dot into the computer so you can upload it to the blog. (Please ask Jeff and I if you are having a hard time with this "technical" part of the blog).

Then, compose a one-two page essay that clarifies and examines HOW this is a self portrait.

What do you need to include? The first paragraph should approach a definition of self portrait--this should be your own interpretation of portraiture and may or may not glean from definitions elsewhere. At the end of the first paragraph, introduce your own portrait (a title might help). Then, proceed to DESCRIBE the portrait (materials used, process employed, visual appearance, personal resonance, etc.). Describe in details and employ sensory descriptions. Because DESCRIPTION SHOULD NATURALLY LEAD TO ANALYSIS, work to analyze the work for what it reveals about you, how you reflect on it, and what the work means.

You could consider other self portraits you admire and develop a lineage between your portrait and your idea of portraiture; you could discuss the difficulty of portraiture (or the value); you could reflect on portraiture in our contemporary, digital moment; and you could develop a conversation about knowing the self / discovering the self / inventing the self / etc.